The fire burned low, its embers casting uneasy shadows across the camp. No one slept soundly. Every crack of branches, every whisper of wind made hands fly to weapons.
By dawn, exhaustion had stripped away civility.
"We can't keep wandering blind," Harris snapped, pacing. "We're wasting time, wasting food. If Echo's real, we should've seen signs by now. If it's not, then we're walking straight into nothing."
Caleb tightened the strap of his pack. "It's north. The broadcast was clear."
Harris scoffed. "Broadcasts don't mean a damn thing. You said it yourself—Delta played its message even after everyone there was dead."
Lena stepped forward, her voice calm but sharp. "We don't have another option. The rifts are swallowing everything behind us. If we turn back, there's nowhere left to go."
The woman—the one who had warned them about the voices—snorted. "Maybe that's the point. Maybe there isn't anywhere left to go. Maybe this is it."
Silence fell, heavy and suffocating.
The boy finally spoke, his voice trembling. "I don't want to die out here."
"You won't," Harris said firmly. "Not if we stop chasing fairy tales."
Caleb's hand drifted toward his rifle. "And what's your plan, then? Sit and wait until the rifts catch up? That's not survival—that's suicide."
The air between them grew razor-thin.
Then came the whisper.
It slithered into Lena's mind, low and venomous: He will kill you to save himself.
Her gaze snapped to Harris. His hand rested on the machete's hilt, fingers tapping restlessly. She could see it now—the moment he'd snap, the blade flashing toward Caleb, blood soaking the dirt.
Her heart pounded. Was it a vision? A warning? Or just another trick of the rifts?
The whisper grew louder. Strike first. Live.
She shook her head, pressing her palms to her temples. "No. Not real. Not real…"
But when she looked up, Harris's eyes were locked on her. Cold. Calculating.
The boy noticed it too. His voice cracked. "Harris? What are you doing?"
Harris's hand closed around the machete.
In an instant, chaos erupted. Caleb lunged, tackling Harris to the ground. The woman screamed, brandishing her blade. The boy stumbled back, eyes wide with terror.
Lena froze for a heartbeat, torn between the knife in her hand and the certainty that no matter what she did, blood would spill.
The rifts fed on this—she could feel it, the hum vibrating through the earth, the sky above warping like oil on water.
"Stop!" she screamed, but her voice was swallowed by the clash of steel and the guttural growls of men fighting for survival.
Harris's machete slashed across Caleb's arm, drawing blood. Caleb roared in pain, his rifle clattering uselessly to the ground.
The whisper returned, triumphant: Yes. Break. Tear. Hope is ash.
Lena's hand moved on instinct. She drove her knife forward—
And then everything froze.
The fire, the fight, even the sky itself hung suspended, as if time had fractured. A cold violet glow spilled into the clearing, and from it, a shape began to emerge.
The same presence she had seen in the black-glass plain.
The riftspawn had found them.