And honestly, I didn't like the odds. Not even a little bit.
Hunger in a place like Morvalis didn't feel like an inconvenience. It didn't feel like the simple, familiar ache of missing a meal or skipping breakfast in a rush. No, this was something far more insidious. It felt deliberate. Calculated. Cruel in its precision.
Like the professors had orchestrated this exact moment of deprivation, and now Morvalis itself was watching us squirm under its gaze. Measuring every twitch of discomfort, every quiet groan of protest from our bodies. Waiting to see how long it would take before the cracks began to show. Before someone broke. Before we all did.
Why warn us not to venture deeper into the forest, only to leave us with nothing to sustain ourselves for the next two days? It was either a test of obedience or a test of desperation. Maybe both. Either way, the choice they'd left us with was bleak:
