The ruins looked safer from far away.
Up close, they felt… worse.
Broken stone walls leaned against rubble, with cracked pillars buried in dirt. Symbols were carved into the rock. This place wasn't abandoned.
We gathered inside, breathing hard.
Counting.
Seventeen went in.
Thirteen made it into the ruins.
No one said their names out loud.
A girl slid down against a wall and hugged her knees. Someone else paced in tight circles, muttering to himself. The guy with the headset finally took it off and threw it on the ground.
"So…" he said, voice shaky. "This place is special… those… things they didn't chase us in."
"That doesn't mean they won't come in," someone replied.
I leaned against a pillar and closed my eyes for half a second.
The monsters had stopped at the tree line.
They were not scared.
Not tired either.
They chose not to follow.
Which meant these ruins were important.
"Hey," a quiet voice said.
I opened my eyes.
A girl stood a few feet away from me.
"You didn't use your points, you ok?" she said.
I blinked. "What?"
"I saw you," she continued. "Everyone else reacted and spent them. You didn't."
"…Yeah. Not yet."
She nodded like that answer made sense.
"I'm Mira."
"Ryen."
We shook hands.
"People who rush decisions usually die first in movies," she said. "I decided to split mine. Endurance and perception. Just enough."
"See anything useful?" I asked.
She glanced at the walls.
"A fight was in this place… it was long ago. Look at the cuts in the stone, those are weapon marks."
That made my stomach twist.
So Stage 1 wasn't a peaceful one.
A system notification flickered briefly in my vision.
AREA DISCOVERED: ANCIENT OUTPOST
STATUS: TEMPORARY SAFE ZONE
Temporary?
Of course it was.
A man nearby opened his menu and cursed.
"Why is the first stage so hard? How hard are going to be the other ones?"
No one answered him.
Because if this was Stage 1…
then that meant Stage 2 would be much harder.
And Stage 3.
And all the way up to twelve.
Someone else whispered, "Do you think anyone has ever cleared this?"
No response.
The ruins creaked.
Stone grinding against stone.
Dust fell from above.
Mira stiffened.
"…It's not empty," she said.
The system chimed, soft but unmistakable.
NOTICE:
SAFE ZONES DECAY OVER TIME.
PREPARE OR MOVE.
I closed the window.
"Alright," I said quietly. "We don't stay long."
Mira met my eyes.
"Good," she replied. "Because whatever built this place?"
"It died here," I finished.
The ruins shifted again.
Something was waking up beneath us.
End of Chapter 3.