The night still clung to the ruins like a living shroud.
Jun crouched near the edge of a broken archway, eyes narrowed, listening to the slow, rhythmic breath of the two girls asleep behind him. The air was cold, dry, and thick with silence. A silence not of peace, but of tension — the kind that wrapped around your throat and held you just tight enough to remind you you could die at any moment.
He had wanted to leave.
After all, exploring the ruins, scouting the paths, mapping out threats — that was his role. That was what he was good at. What he'd done alone his entire life on the surface.
But Lina and Maya had stopped him.
Not with force. Just with words. Just enough insistence.
"We're tired," Lina had said, her voice uncharacteristically soft. "We're not like you. We weren't built for nights without sleep."
Maya had nodded, rubbing her eyes. "If you go out alone and something happens… we won't know. We'll be blind."
He had weighed the risks. He hated waiting. But they were right — barely rested, disoriented, they wouldn't last five minutes on their own. So he had stayed, and taken the first shift.
Now, he sat alone with his thoughts.
Despite everything, he couldn't fully shake off the feeling that working in a group wasn't for him. He wasn't made for that. Trust didn't come naturally. Companionship, even less. But here, in the belly of a Vestige, with monsters lurking in the dark and time itself playing strange tricks, being alone might mean dying fast and meaningless.
He'd have to adapt.
Just as he always had.
When the first rays of pale light filtered through the fractured ceiling of the ruins, Jun stood and stretched, joints stiff from remaining still for hours. He gave the girls another hour of rest before nudging them awake.
Lina opened her eyes slowly but didn't complain. Maya, quiet as always, simply nodded and stood. They were tired, but they moved with purpose. The kind of exhaustion that you push aside when your life depends on it.
"We move in ten," Jun said.
They prepared as best they could. Their makeshift clothes of vine and cloth were uncomfortable, but functional. They had no weapons, no supplies, not even water. Only instinct and coordination would keep them alive.
And Jun's eyes.
He led.
They moved low and slow through the ruins — past broken stone corridors overrun with roots, crumbling statues of forgotten deities, and rusted machinery twisted into unrecognizable forms.
The deeper they went, the more unnatural it felt. The silence wasn't just the absence of sound — it was the absence of life. Even the air seemed to hold its breath.
Jun marked paths with faint scratches on the walls. He memorized turns, noted structural weaknesses, observed patterns in the debris. This was what he did best.
Twice, he signaled them to stop — once because of strange footprints, the second because of a faint guttural growl echoing from behind a collapsed gate.
Then they saw it.
A creature.
Towering and lean, its body rippled with muscle, its head elongated with no visible eyes. Its skin was gray and slick like polished bone. A category 3, if not more. It moved slowly, claws scraping across the stone.
They froze.
Jun didn't hesitate. He motioned for silence, then slowly guided the girls backward, retracing their steps. One wrong breath and they'd be dead.
The creature paused, its head twisting unnaturally.
Jun's heart hammered in his chest, but they made it behind a pile of collapsed stone just in time. The thing sniffed the air. Jun pressed his hand against Lina's and Maya's mouths, holding their bodies still with his own.
Long seconds passed.
Then it moved on.
When the silence returned, it was somehow heavier.
Back at their temporary shelter — a half-collapsed stone room with some roof left — the girls sat down slowly, visibly shaken.
Maya stared blankly at the floor. Lina leaned back against the wall, arms around her knees. No one spoke for a while.
Jun leaned against a support pillar, watching them.
That encounter had done something to them.
"This isn't sustainable," Maya said quietly. "We're defenseless. If one of those things sees us, we're dead."
"No kidding," Lina muttered.
Jun nodded.
"Then we make weapons."
They both looked at him.
"Out of what?" Lina asked.
"Wood. Stone. Fire," Jun said. "We find the right materials. Shape the points. Create torches. Spears. Something. Anything. Because if we don't, we're prey."
Maya stood. "That's… actually doable. There are vines strong enough to use as bindings. Some stones sharp enough to act as blades."
Jun looked toward the ruined archways that led back into the forested area they'd seen earlier.
"Let's gather. We don't fight monsters yet. We just prepare to not die the moment we're spotted."
The next hours were spent in silence and work.
Jun collected straight branches and flexible roots. Maya searched for flint-like rocks with edges. Lina stripped bark and tested weight balances. Together, they formed crude but serviceable spears — sharpened stone tips bound with green fibers and hardened in fire.
Jun built the fire carefully, choosing a spot shielded from the open air, using dry foliage he had found near collapsed wooden beams. The light was faint but warm.
He stared into the flames.
For the first time since entering the Vestige, they had made something.
Something human.
When the spears were done, Maya examined them, running her fingers over the bindings.
"They won't kill a category two," she said. "But if we strike fast, we can escape."
"Good enough for now," Jun said.
They made three.
Each took one.
As dusk began to fall again, a low rumble echoed through the ruins.
All three turned, spears instinctively raised.
From the shadows beyond a cracked temple arch, something moved.
A beast, low to the ground, large as a bull, with glowing orange veins across its limbs. Its eyes locked onto them with alien intelligence. Its breath came out in plumes of steam.
Category 1.
Jun didn't hesitate. He stepped forward.
"Don't run," he said.
His fingers tightened on the shaft of the spear.
"We hold."
Tanks for reading This novel'