We never stopped running for as long as it seemed.
Branches lashed against my face as I blundered on, lungs tearing at the cutting air. My legs were crying, each step a heavier weight than the last, but fear was efficient in keeping me upright. Long out of earshot behind us, the cries of the Dust Patrol were carried away on the wind, but we were not courageous enough to slacken our pace. Not yet.
Karis led the charge, rifle in hand, eyes wide and watchful with each turn of the forest. Liv trudged behind him, braid streaming to the pace of her steps. I trailed with Tolen, who kept casting glances over his shoulder as though he feared bullets any second were going to come pounding after him.
We eventually went over by a creek, water shallow but fast, slicing through the rocks as if it were in a hurry to be somewhere else. I ended up on my back, chest heaving, the world above spinning with slow, grey clouds.
"That," Liv gasped, hands on knees, "was way too close."
Karis remained silent for a moment. He just stood there, listening. His face was unmoving as he looked into the forest behind us. He turned then, sat down on the creek's edge, and cupped water into his mouth.
I struggled to sit up, shaking arms. "Did we lose them?
"For now," growled Karis, water streaming down his chin. "They won't track us along the rocks that quickly. But we press on. We'll make camp when it gets dark."
Tolen sat down next to me, clutching his side. "What were they doing here? This far north, at least?"
"Probably chasing someone else," Karis replied, standing tall. "Or maybe us. You can never tell with the Patrol these days."
I remembered the man they had murdered. The way his body dropped, dead, like the woods had been waiting for a breath to inhale him. My gut twisted.
Liv went down on her knees beside me and held out a strip of jerky. "Eat. You're going to pass out."
I didn't object. The meat was tough and desiccated, but it was flavor for staying alive.
Night fell quietly.
We slept inside the hollow of a dead tree. The trunk of the tree had been split open by lightning years ago, its inside burned black and empty, space sufficient for all four of us to sleep without freezing our skeletons. Karis wouldn't allow a fire — it was dangerous, he said — so we survived with passing a flask between us, the alcohol burning as it went down the throat.
Liv drew her coat around her and sat beside me, her voice low. "You said you'd seen something in the ruins. What was it?"
I hesitated. My breathing fogged before my eyes. The truth was dangerous, even here.
"I don't know," I said finally. "There was. light. Not like flame. It moved. It talked."
Tolen lifted his head. "Magic?"
The word dropped like a stone.
"No such thing," Karis growled. "Just old technology. Dying circuits and broken wires. People see what they want."
"But it wasn't ruined," I explained. "It learned things. Things about me."
Karis glared at me. "Don't find significance in destruction, kid. That's when people lose their minds."
Liv said nothing. But she did not look away.
Sleep was restless.
I had dreamed of the strange creature from the ruins. Not human. Not anything. It stood in the space between light and dark, saying something I couldn't quite hear, but somehow I knew it deep in my bones.
"Not the last," it had said. "Not yet."
I awoke before dawn, my heart pounding.
By lunchtime, we reached the edge of what once was a town. Or a trading post, even. Hard to tell now — it was all rusted over or buried. We made our way through the wreckage cautiously, watching for patrol drones or anything else. At the center, beneath the crashed tower, we hid.
That's where Karis finally pulled me out of line.
"You're hiding something from me," he said baldly.
I opened my jaw, but no sound came out.
"You don't react like a scavenger," he continued. "You didn't even blink when they murdered that man. You seemed like someone who'd seen it all before."
I swallowed. "Perhaps I have."
His jaw flexed. "Whatever you are, be truthful with us. Liv trusts you. That means I don't shoot you. But if you lie to her one more time—"
"I'm not lying," I said shortly. "I just… don't get it myself."
Karis stared at me. Then he nodded once and walked away.
We stayed two nights in the ruins. On the second night, Liv and I sat on a rusty metal lip over what was left of a plaza. She skipped a pebble into the wind.
"I've never seen him so wired," she said to me. "Usually he just glares and threatens people. But with you, it's different."
I glared at her. "Why do you even care?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe because I've felt it too."
"What?"
"That something's wrong. With the world. With us."
The silence trembled in the air, blown on the wind for a moment.
Then she said, "And I think you're connected to it."
I said nothing. I couldn't. But at the back of my mind, I knew she was right.
We saw tracks the next morning. Boot prints. Not ours.
"They skirted around the periphery," Karis said, crouched low. "Didn't go in. Scouts."
"That means the Patrol knows we're here," Liv muttered.
"We leave now," Karis declared. "Northwest ridge. There's a ravine there that we can use.".
As we filled up, I could feel something change in the air — pressure at the base of my eyes. Unsettling, but there.
Then, for a second, I saw it again: that burst of light. At the edge of the plaza. Watching.
I blinked, and it disappeared.
But I knew — something had found me.
We rushed on.
The ravine itself was steep and shallow, lined with jagged rock and thorn. Halfway over, Liv slipped and nearly fell into the lower crevice. I caught her wrist just in time, but the action set pain shooting through my arm — explosive, burning.
She looked up at me, gasping. "You okay?"
"I'm fine," I lied, clenching my teeth.
Karis glanced back. "Keep going. We're exposed here."
By the evening, we had found a small cave in the hillside. It smelled of wet earth and moldy moss, but it was hidden and safe. Tolen built a small fire, using some metal scrap to hide the light.
We huddled together, wrapping what little warmth we had.
It was when I noticed the veins on my arm — glowing faintly beneath the skin. For only a moment. Then they vanished.
No one else saw.
But I knew it was starting.
Liv sat next to me afterwards, her voice barely above a whisper. "You're changing."
I looked at her. "You saw it?"
She nodded. "I didn't know it at the time when I first noticed it. But now I recognize it."
"What does it mean?"
She stopped. "It means you're different from us."
Karis stood at the cave mouth, rifle gripped hard, watching the black horizon. Tolen was asleep close to the fire, face twitching with dreams.
I sat in silence, heart heavy, the creature's last words lingering again in my mind.
"Not the last."
Something was coming.