We moved early. No fire. No breakfast. Just packed gear and silence, like neither of us trusted daylight to mean safety anymore.
Cynthia didn't say anything when we broke camp. She didn't need to. Her coat was tied tighter than usual. Her knife was moved from her belt to her boot. She didn't glance behind her—but I could tell she was listening. Same way I was.
The forest was too quiet.
Birds were gone. No Pidgey songs. No rustle of Wurmple nests. Not even the sound of branches settling. The deeper we went, the more the world started to feel hollow—like something had carved out the noise and left the skin of the woods behind.
Cynthia walked ahead. Gible was still in his ball. Luxio stayed close behind me, silent but tense. His ears kept flicking toward the treeline, his muscles tight across the shoulders. Every few minutes, he stopped and turned.
I didn't ask what he sensed.
We didn't run. We didn't hide.
We just moved.
The trail dipped into another gorge—shallower than the last one, but lined with ancient stone that didn't look like part of the natural formation. Carved patterns. Shaped edges. Something older than a hiking path.
At the center of the gorge was a small shrine.
It wasn't elaborate. Just a raised stone dais and a half-collapsed pillar, both covered in moss and wrapped with rotted red cloth.
We stopped without needing to speak.
Cynthia's eyes narrowed. "That's not Sinnohan."
I stepped closer. "Looks like something was meant to be placed here. Or sealed in."
Luxio walked ahead and sniffed the base of the shrine. He didn't growl. He didn't whine.
He sat.
Just... sat. Eyes locked on the central dais.
"Something's here," I said.
"Something old," Cynthia answered.
I walked around the shrine once. No markings I recognized. Just a faint groove in the stone—a perfect circle, like a base for something to rest. Or be kept.
The air got colder.
"Feel that?" I asked.
Cynthia didn't answer. She was already scanning the tree line.
I stood up straight. "Whatever it is, it's not attacking."
"Yet."
I let my hand rest on Luxio's back. He didn't move.
Something tugged at my shoulder—not physically. Just... a pull. A presence. My eyes shifted on instinct to the broken shadow between two trees.
Something flickered.
Not a shape. Not a sound.
Just metal.
A glint of polished steel where there shouldn't have been any.
Cynthia saw it too. I felt her posture shift.
Still no danger.
But the pressure was building.
We stayed at the edge of the shrine until the light started to shift. Then we backed away, step by slow step.
Whatever was watching didn't follow. But it didn't vanish either.
It just... stayed. Like it belonged there. Like it was waiting for something—or someone.
Back at the edge of the gorge, I turned one last time.
The shrine sat quiet.
But I could still feel it.
That echo.
That invitation.
It wasn't ready yet.
But it would be.