A hand.
Worn out.
Scraped.
Bruised.
It reached slowly for a piece of rock.
Gripped it tight.
Pulled.
The pressure moved through muscles already past their limit.
Ha Joon climbed.
His breath heavy.
Labored.
He looked up.
The top of the trees waited.
Still far.
The wind pushed against him.
His face tightened with the grip.
Mouth fully open.
Breathing increasing with each pull.
He looked down.
Just for a moment.
Eun Byol below him.
Grinding her teeth.
Moving slow.
Her body speaking in volumes it couldn't put into words.
She looked up.
Found his worried eyes already on her.
She shot him a small smile.
He smiled back.
Both of them turned upward again.
The blue sky waited above the green array of trees.
Ha Joon felt it before he heard it.
Something powerful.
A noise that shook everything around him—the rock face, the trees, the air itself vibrating with something massive and close.
Then it stopped.
Silence.
Ha Joon held still against the rock.
Breathing.
Waiting.
Then continued climbing.
Hand over hand.
Each pull strained him.
For Eun Byol it was much worse.
Each pull pushed against the wound.
Her eyes growing pale.
Each breath like fire entering her body.
Burning from the inside.
Her hand reached.
Pulled.
Then slipped.
Her left hand caught the rock.
Barely.
Her legs hung.
Dangling.
Small pieces of earth fell away beneath her feet.
Dust flowing with the wind.
Despair.
Ha Joon looked down.
His face blurred with the distance and the fear written across it.
She pulled herself up.
Continued moving.
He moved with her.
Both of them reaching.
Climbing.
Reaching the top.
Screams.
All over the trees.
Shadows wearing armor rushed from the tree line straight toward Ha Joon.
They hit him.
Took him down with them.
Rolling fast.
Eun Byol saw it too late.
Heard it too late.
By the time she understood what was happening she was rolling with them.
Ha Joon.
The screaming shadows.
All of them tumbling down together.
BOOM.
They hit the ground.
A cloud of dust rose instantly.
Then the sound followed upward.
Reaching back up the ridge like an echo climbing.
They lay on the ground.
All of them.
The dust settling around them slowly.
Then—
The ant screamed.
The sound shook everything.
Trees.
Earth.
Air.
It had fallen with them.
Black blood painting the ground beneath it.
It got up first.
Its mouth opening.
Its body moving.
Looking at all of them scattered across the ground.
Taking inventory.
Deciding.