His heart began to hammer.
He stood up too fast, dizziness washing over him, but fear shoved it aside. He turned in the first direction that didn't look completely blocked by trees and ran.
Branches whipped against his arms and face as he stumbled through the dark. He couldn't see where he was going—only that standing still felt worse.
"Mom—!" he shouted, his voice breaking. "Someone—please!"
His foot caught on a root and he nearly fell, catching himself at the last second. He didn't stop running.
Behind him—
A low, wet sound.
Close.
He risked a glance over his shoulder.
At first, he saw nothing.
Then his eyes adjusted.
Something tall and hunched moved between the trees. Its body bent wrong, joints folding in ways they shouldn't. Its head hung low, almost dragging, as if it was sniffing the ground.
Sniffing.
His stomach dropped.
It reached the dark stain on the dirt.
His vomit.
The thing stopped.
Its head lifted slowly.
Whatever passed for eyes fixed on him.
"No," Vesperyn whispered.
The word barely made it out.
He ran harder.
Tears blurred his vision as panic flooded him, hot and overwhelming.
"Please—please—!" he sobbed, words tumbling out without thought. "Help me! Please!"
The ground seemed to tilt under his feet. His lungs burned. Every breath scraped painfully through his chest.
The sound behind him changed.
Closer.
Too close.
Something slammed into his back.
He screamed.
"Aaaaah—!"
He hit the ground hard, palms scraping against dirt and stone. Before he could push himself up, a weight crashed down on him.
Pain exploded in his arm.
Something sharp dug into his skin, piercing through muscle.
"Oh—oh God—!" he cried, choking on the words. "It hurts—please—please—!"
His fingers clawed uselessly at the ground. He couldn't feel his hand properly anymore. Everything hurt too much to think.
The creature loomed over him, breath hot and foul.
Then— he saw a light.
And it was—
It was gone.
The weight vanished. The pain faded into a dull, throbbing shock. The pressure on his arm released so suddenly he gasped.
Vesperyn lay there, shaking violently.
Slowly, he lifted his head.
Someone was standing a few steps away.
An old man.
He had red hair streaked with gray, pulled back loosely, and eyes that looked sharp even in the darkness. His posture was relaxed, almost casual, as if nothing unusual had happened at all.
Vesperyn stared at him, mouth open, tears streaming silently down his face.
The old man didn't offer a hand. He just looked at Vesperyn's bleeding arm, then at his red hair, and sighed. It was the sound of a man who had just found more work to do.
"You're making enough noise to wake every Echo in this Reach, boy," he said, his voice like grinding gravel.
"Keep screaming like that and you'll be a meal before the moon sets. Now get up. I don't give tours to corpses."
..
"Eat."
The old man held out a piece of something wrapped in cloth. It smelled faintly of smoke and fat.
Vesperyn didn't move.
He sat with his back against a tree, knees pulled in, staring at the ground as if it might open up and swallow him again. His arm still throbbed where the creature's claws had dug in.
"I'm not poisoning you," the man said flatly. "If I wanted you dead, I'd have left you there."
Vesperyn said nothing.
The old man sighed and dropped down onto a fallen log a short distance away.
Great, he thought. A traumatized child. In the middle of nowhere. At night. As if the forest wasn't already annoying enough.
He rubbed his face with one hand.
There were tracks everywhere—broken branches, torn leaves, blood. And then there was the part that didn't make sense.
No trail leading in.
No sign of arrival.
Either the boy fell from the sky, Harlen thought, or reality glitched.
Neither option made sense.
He glanced at the child again. Thin. Shaking. Trying very hard not to cry.
Wonderful.
The old man cleared his throat and stuck out his hand. "Harlen Rost."
Vesperyn hesitated. Then, slowly, he reached out and shook it.
"…Vesperyn."
Harlen raised an eyebrow.
What kind of fancy, noble nonsense is that? he thought.
At the same time, Vesperyn pulled his hand back and frowned.
Harlen, he thought. Sounds girlish.
They both pretended nothing was strange.
"So," Harlen said, gesturing vaguely at the darkness around them, "you want to tell me what a child is doing alone in the borders of pilgrim at night?"
Vesperyn swallowed.
"I wasn't here before."
Harlen waited.
"And?"
"I was… somewhere else."
"Uh-huh."
Harlen leaned back against the log, arms crossed. "Let me guess. You got lost."
"No."
"You ran away."
"No."
Vesperyn shook his head, more sharply this time. "I came through a portal."
The word hung between them.
Harlen blinked once.
Then twice.
"…A portal," he repeated.
"Yes."
Harlen stared at him for a long moment, then looked around the forest again, as if expecting to see a glowing hole politely still open.
There was nothing.
"No scorch marks," he muttered. "No residue. No distortion."
He looked back at the boy. "You don't look like a pathway user."
"I'm not."
"Then who opened it?"
Vesperyn opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
His throat tightened.
"I don't know," he said quietly.
That, at least, was true.
Harlen studied him more carefully now. Not like a threat. Not like prey.
Like a problem.
"Kid," he said finally, "portals don't just happen. And children don't fall out of them into monster territory for no reason."
Vesperyn hugged his knees tighter.
"I just want to go home."
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
Harlen's expression softened—just a little. Not enough to be comforting.
"Yeah," he said. "So do most people I find out here."
He stood up, brushing dirt from his trousers.
"Eat," he said again, more firmly this time. "You're shaking. And if you pass out, I'm not carrying you."
Vesperyn hesitated.
Then, slowly, he reached for the food.
"Come on," Harlen said, turning away. "Let's go."
Vesperyn pushed himself up, his legs stiff and unsteady. He followed a step behind, careful not to trip over roots he still couldn't properly see.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"Home," Harlen replied without looking back.
They walked in silence for a bit. The forest slowly thinned, the darkness easing just enough that Vesperyn could make out Harlen's back—broad, steady, unhurried.
Then Harlen slowed.
He glanced back, eyes lingering on Vesperyn's hair.
"That red," he said. "I've seen it before."
Vesperyn stiffened. "You have?"
Harlen didn't answer right away. He turned forward again, voice quieter than before.
"…That girl," he murmured to himself . "Inara,"