''Soren!''
Soren slowly started to regain consciousness, stirred awake by a familiar voice. His eyelids twitched before slowly opening. The world above him blurred into view, a pale stone ceiling illuminated by the soft glow of hanging lanterns. He recognised this place, he was back at the castle. A quiet movement nearby made his eyes shift to the side. Several shapes stood around the bed and his vision slowly sharpened, the blurry figures becoming clearer until faces began to form. Lyra stood closest to the bed, her arms crossed tightly as if she had been standing there for a long time. Her usually composed expression was strained, eyes locked onto him with a mixture of relief and tension. Behind stood his remaining classmates Dorian, Anya and Noah
Alaric was there as well, leaning slightly against the wall with his arms folded, watching him in silence. The room was completely quiet. Every single one of them was staring at him. For a moment no one spoke until all of them except for Alaric started bombarding Soren with questions, all of there voices overlapping with each other making every word muffled. Then Lyra took charge and took a small step forward
"Soren," she said carefully. "Can you hear me?"
His throat felt dry, almost raw. When he tried to swallow it sent a dull pain down his neck. He didn't answer immediately. Instead his eyes moved slowly across the room, lingering on each face one by one until his eyes finally rested on Alaric
'I'm alive'
'So why did it take so long for help to find us then. Wait how did he even survive all of those monsters charging at him and make it back here to the castle in one piece'
Countless thoughts like this race throughout Soren's head until they were interrupted by his classmates
''He moved"
"He's awake"
Dorian stepped closer to the bed, leaning forward anxiously
"Soren, what happened out there?"
Anya's voice followed quickly after
"Where are the others?"
"Did the monster attack you?"
"Did everyone get separated?"
Noah began spilling out one after another
"Where's Lukas?"
"Did you see Sofia?"
"Where's Adrian?"
"Did Vera make it out?"
"Did anyone survive with you?"
Soren's gaze slowly dropped down toward the blankets covering his body. His fingers tightened slightly in the fabric and for several long seconds he didn't speak. Then finally, in a voice so quiet it barely carried across the room, he muttered
"…Dead"
The word landed heavily in the silence
No one moved
Soren's shoulders sank slightly
"They're… all dead"
The room went completely still
Dorian shook their head in disbelief
"What do you mean?"
"That can't be right…"
"Where are they?"
"Did you lose them?"
"Did they get captured?"
Soren's breathing became shakier as the memories pressed harder into his mind
"The monster…" he whispered. His eyes remained fixed downward
"We ran… we just kept running…"
Fragments of images flashed through his thoughts. Lukas stumbling. Sofia screaming. Adrian fighting for life beneath his hands
"…one by one…"
His voice cracked slightly
"They all…"
He stopped. The room felt suffocatingly quiet and Soren's hands clenched tighter into the blankets
"…everyone died"
After that, he said nothing more. No one spoke for several seconds. The weight of those words hung heavily in the air, pressing down on everyone in the room. Dorian shook their head slowly, refusing to accept it
"That… that doesn't make sense," they said quietly. "All of them?"
Noah's voice followed, filled with disbelief
"There were six of you"
"Soren we are all happy that your alive but you need to tell us what happened. What exactly happened out there?"
Lyra shot them a sharp look, but the question had already been asked. Soren's hands tightened in the blanket. He didn't answer. Anya knelt down
''Soren please tell us. Just say anything we are your friends we have to know what happened''
The silence stretched longer
Alaric, who had remained silent against the wall until now, finally pushed himself upright. His eyes had not left Soren since the moment he woke up. Then slowly, he stepped forward
"Soren," Alaric said calmly. His voice wasn't accusatory. Not yet
"Tell us exactly what happened''
"You said the monster killed them." A pause followed
"So how did you escape? What happened in there that everyone else died except for you. Tell us"
Soren swallowed. His mouth opened slightly as if to answer, but the words never came
"I… we…"
His voice faltered
"We just kept running"
Alaric's gaze sharpened slightly
"If you're too shaken to explain it," he said calmly, "then I will simply see it myself. We need to act quick if they are still alive so don't blame me for doing this"
Soren looked up slightly confusion flicking in his tired eyes and before he could ask what Alaric meant Alaric raised a hand, a faint pulse of mana gathered around his fingers whilst his eyes lit up
"Your memories will show us what happened"
The room went still
Soren's heart skipped a beat, 'Shit. Shit. Shit if they look at my memories they will find out what I did! No, no, no, no they are all going to jump to conclusions! They are not going to understand!'
The air above the centre of the room began to distort, rippling like water disturbed by a stone. Within seconds the wavering surface thickened into a glowing veil, and shadows began to move inside it
Memories
At first the images were chaotic-branches tearing past, ragged breathing, the distant crashing of something massive moving through the forest behind them. The vision lurched forward until it focused on Lukas running just ahead, panic written across his face as he glanced back
For a brief moment the memory hung there
Then Soren's leg struck out
Lukas pitched forward violently, crashing into the dirt as his hands scraped helplessly against the ground. His terrified scream echoed through the room as the image froze for a heartbeat
Then the memory vanished
Shocked faces spread across the others except for Alaric
Another fragment surfaced immediately after. Vera's lifeless body swinging from the trees, Elena ripped in half begging for help slowly crawling towards he group and then darkness filled the illusion
The cave
The cramped stone chamber formed in the air before them, illuminated only by faint streaks of light from above. Adrian stood there in the memory, weak from hunger and exhaustion, confusion slowly dawning on his face as Soren approached him
"W-What are you doing…?"
The memory moved quickly after that
Adrian tried to push Soren away when he lunged forward, but his strength was almost gone. They struggled briefly, stumbling across the cave floor until Adrian managed to bite down hard on Soren's hand. Soren recoiled with a sharp cry. The next moment he seized a jagged rock from the ground
The room watched in frozen horror as Soren brought it down
Once
The dull crack of bone echoed through the illusion
Adrian collapsed to the floor, blood spilling rapidly across the stone beneath him
But the memory did not stop
Soren struck again and again, each blow heavier than the last until Adrian's body finally stopped moving altogether. The cave floor in the memory was soaked with blood
No one in the room spoke
The illusion shifted forward once more
Soren knelt beside the body now, trembling violently as he stared at the corpse in front of him. For a long moment he didn't move, his breathing uneven, his face pale with shock at what he had done
Then hunger won
Slowly, almost mechanically, he reached down and tore into the flesh
Someone in the room gagged
Lyra stood frozen where she was, her expression pale and unreadable and the others stared at Soren as if they no longer recognized him. Soren sat rigid in the bed, his breathing uneven as the silence stretched around him. Every pair of eyes in the room was fixed on him now, but the concern that had been there before was gone
Only revulsion remained
"I… I had to," Soren said hoarsely
No one answered
His head snapped up suddenly, desperation breaking through his voice
"You saw it!" he shouted. "We were starving! We were trapped in that cave-we would have both died!"
The room remained silent
Soren's hands began to shake
"Don't look at me like that," he muttered, his voice cracking under the weight of their stares. "I did it to live… what else was I supposed to do?"
The silence was suffocating
Where there had once been relief at seeing him alive, there was now only distance-people shifting slightly away from the bed, as though the very space around him had become contaminated
Noah let out a short, disbelieving laugh
"You… killed them"
Soren's head snapped toward the voice
"I didn't-"
"You tripped Lukas," Dorian said sharply. "We all saw it!"
"And Adrian?" Anya added, their voice filled with disgust. "You crushed his skull and then ate him"
All of them looked physically sick. Dorian had turned completely away, covering their mouth with a hand
"You're a monster," Anya muttered under their breath
That word landed harder than anything else
Soren shook his head violently. "No-no, you don't understand! We were starving, we were trapped down there, there was no way out!"
"So you murdered your own friends?" Anya voice's snapped
His chest tightened as the stares around him grew colder
"I did it to live!" Soren shouted, his voice cracking. "What was I supposed to do-just lie down and die?!"
"Maybe you should have," Noah replied bitterly
The words struck the room like a blade
Lyra stepped forward quickly before the argument could spiral further, her voice firm as she raised a hand
"Enough"
The room fell quiet again, though the hostility in the air didn't fade. Alaric's expression had hardened completely now, whatever sympathy he may have had earlier gone
"What you did cannot be ignored," he said evenly
Soren stared at him, panic beginning to creep into his expression
"I… I survived," he said weakly
"You murdered two of your comrades," Alaric replied. "And abandoned the rest"
He turned slightly toward the door
"Guards"
The door opened almost immediately as two armoured soldiers stepped into the room, clearly having been waiting outside
Soren's heart dropped
"Wait-"
Alaric didn't even look back at him
"Until His Majesty returns, this matter will be handled according to royal law," he said calmly. "The King will decide your fate personally when he returns"
The implication was clear. Soren would remain imprisoned until then
The guards approached the bed, their expressions grim as they grabbed Soren by the arms and forced him to his feet. His body was still weak, his legs barely able to hold his weight as they began dragging him toward the door
"Wait!" Soren struggled weakly. "You can't-!"
No one stepped forward to stop them. Not Lyra his teacher. Not one of his classmates. As he was dragged out of the room, the last thing he saw was the way they were all looking at him now
Not as a survivor
But as something far worse
A monster