The fragile peace of the overhang was a thin veneer over a well of silent terror. Silas had organized them with brutal efficiency—a watch schedule, rationed portions of the bland, starchy fruits, strict water-gathering duties. But he could feel the cracks forming.
Mark paced like a caged animal, his eyes constantly scanning the tree line not for danger, but for something to kill, his body humming with the memory of Inheritance. Chloe performed her duties with a quiet competence, but her glances at Silas were now laced with a wary calculation. Sarah looked to him for every decision, her dependence a clinging vine. Lily was healing, but jumped at every shadow. And Leo… Leo was a ghost, his silence growing heavier each day.
Complacency is the enemy of control, Silas thought, watching them from the entrance of the cave. They are growing accustomed to safety. I need a crisis. Not to destroy them, but to remind them why they need me.
The Crucible, ever-obliging, delivered one. But not the kind any of them expected.
It was Leo. He had gone with Lily to the stream, tasked with carrying the water-skins. He never returned. Lily came back alone, her face pale. "He just… sat down," she whispered. "He won't get up. He won't speak."
They found him by the rushing water, seated on a mossy stone, staring into the current. He was catatonic, his body present but his mind utterly gone. The horror of this world had finally bypassed his fear and settled into a final, silent despair.
"This is a problem," Chloe stated, her voice grim.
Mark snorted, hefting his branch. "He's done. He's just taking up space and food." He let the implication hang in the air, the unspoken words Inheritance and kill as tangible as the mist from the stream.
Sarah gasped. "No! We can't! He's a person!"
"And a liability," Mark shot back. "In this place, that's a death sentence. For him and for us."
The group fractured before Silas's eyes. Sarah wept. Lily looked torn. Chloe's face was a mask of cold pragmatism. This was the schism he needed to seal, permanently.
"No one is killing anyone," Silas announced, his voice cutting through the argument. All eyes turned to him. "He's not a resource to be harvested; he's a tool that's broken." He met Mark's challenging glare. "And I am going to fix him."
"How?" Chloe asked, skepticism etched on her face.
"With the truth," Silas said, and walked towards Leo.
He instructed the others to return to the overhang, creating a private theater. Once alone, he sat before Leo, blocking his view of everything else. He said nothing for a full minute, letting the weight of the silence press down.
"The performance is over, Leo," Silas began, his tone conversational. "They're gone. It's just you and me now."
Leo gave no reaction.
"You think you're the first?" Silas continued, his voice hardening slightly. "To see something so horrible your mind just… snaps? You're not special. You're a cliché. The man who breaks at the first sign of real pressure."
A fine, involuntary tremor started in Leo's hands. Silas's [Low-Grade Threat Assessment] registered the shift. A flicker. Good.
"Ah, that struck a nerve, didn't it?" Silas leaned in. "This isn't about the man who was unraveled. This is about you. You've always been weak, haven't you? Always the one who hesitated."
The tremor spread, becoming a full-body shiver. A bead of cold sweat traced a path from Leo's temple. His eyes, previously vacant, darted back and forth, refusing to settle. Tears began to well, glistening with shame.
Silas's voice dropped to a venomous whisper. "Let me tell you what your silence is saying to them. It's saying, 'I am a child who cannot handle the world. Feed me, protect me, and watch me waste away because I don't have the spine to either live or die cleanly.'"
A low, broken mutter escaped Leo's lips. "Stop..."
"Mark is right, you know," Silas said, his tone shifting to brutal pragmatism. "The solution is to end you. It would make him stronger. It would feed the group. In this world, that is the kinder option. Your continued existence, in this state, is an act of profound selfishness."
Leo's teeth began to chatter. The shivering intensified into uncontrollable shakes. His breathing hitched, turning into ragged gasps. "Please... stop..." he whispered between chattering teeth, the plea thick with tears.
Silas stood up, the motion abrupt. "So, here is your choice. You can sit here, a useless lump of flesh, until I let Mark come back and turn you into a few points of strength for him. Or..."
He paused, looking down at Leo with utter contempt. Leo's face was pale and slick with sweat, mingling with the steady stream of tears. His eyes were wide, dilated pools of terror.
"...you can get up," Silas finished, his voice cold. "You can embrace the fact that you are, and always will be, a coward. But you can be a useful coward. You can work. You can carry. You can obey. You can make your entire, pathetic life about reducing the burden you place on others. That is the only form of penance available to you." He delivered the ultimatum like a judge passing sentence. "So, what is it? Will you be meat for the grinder, or will you be my pack mule?"
Leo's ragged gasps erupted into a choked, wheezing sob. The quiet mutters exploded into full-bodied, uncontrollable weeping. His body convulsed forward in a dry heave, his stomach cramping from the sheer stress as he cried, his entire frame wracked by the force of his sobs.
In a final, desperate act, Leo's hand flailed out and clamped onto Silas's ankle. His grip was weak, trembling, but frantic. He clung to the source of his torment, his face a mask of snot and tears. "PLEASE!" he wailed. "Please, stop... I'll do anything... just stop..."
For a single, unguarded moment, the mask of the weary leader vanished from Silas's face. His lip curled in a flicker of pure, undiluted disgust. The contact of Leo's clammy, trembling hand was viscerally repulsive. This wasn't a man; this was a broken mechanism, leaking fluids and noise.
[Low-Grade Threat Assessment: Subject 'Leo'.
Psychological Integrity: 0%.
Coherence: Shattered.
Compliance: Imminent.]
The data confirmed the success. There was no pity, only cold satisfaction and a profound distaste for the mess.
"Remove your hand," Silas said, his voice flat, sterile, and cuttingly quiet. "You are staining my trousers."
The sheer, ice-cold normalcy of the statement was more terrifying than any shout. Leo's hand jerked back as if electrocuted.
"I didn't ask you to beg," Silas continued, his tone returning to its controlled pragmatism. "I asked you to choose. Meat, or mule?"
Still shuddering violently, his body aching from the sobs, Leo pushed himself away from the ground with a pathetic, clumsy lurch. He could not stand straight; he swayed, hunched over, his arms wrapped around himself. "M-Mule," he whimpered, the word a wet, broken sigh of surrender.
When Silas returned to the overhang, Leo followed him like a ghost, his eyes hollow and fixed on the ground. Without a word, Leo walked to the pile of branches and began moving them, his movements robotic and precise.
The group's reaction was not joy, but a deep, primal horror. They hadn't witnessed a healing. They had seen a man return fundamentally broken and reassembled into something else. The fear they now held for Silas was absolute.
As night fell, Silas sat by the fire, the group's terrified glances a tribute to his power. He pulled up his status screen.
[Low-Grade Threat Assessment has evolved.]
[New Designation: Profane Insight.]
[Profane Insight: You perceive not just immediate threats, but the foundational flaws in a subject's psyche. You see the cracks through which influence can be poured.]
The System had acknowledged his work. The power was always his; the Crucible was just providing a sharper lens.
During his watch, his new skill picked up a flicker of light in the far distance, where no star should be. A fire. Another group?
Silas watched the alien constellations wheel overhead, the embers of a distant fire mirroring the cold new light in his own eyes.