The first cracks came at night.
Not loud. Not screaming. Just voices pitched low enough to pretend they weren't arguments.
Ezra sat by the fire, chewing dried meat until it turned to dust between his teeth. He didn't look up, but his ears tracked every word.
Jalen's voice first — rough, clipped.
He watched, eyes drooping from tiredness . He remembered that man from earlier , one who caused commotion.
"You keep skinning the hides wrong."
Cassian's answer, quiet but sharp.
"Better wrong than rotten."
"Rotten because you leave them too long."
"Rotten because your brother can't drag back more than scraps."
The silence that followed was worse than the words. Ezra glanced up. Jalen's hand hovered near his spear , whilst his brother stiffened . Cassian's knife gleamed in the firelight.
Then Nora spoke. Not calm — never calm — but with enough bite to cut through.
"Both of you shut it. Nobody eats faster if you slit each other's throats."
The brothers backed down. Cassian muttered something under his breath. The fire cracked, filling the gap their words left behind.
Ezra didn't say anything. But in his head: First storm cloud.
The second crack came two days later.
Milo was counting supplies — water, mostly. He had a stick in the dirt, marking tallies, lips moving like he was praying to numbers. Mara hovered over him, pointing at jars. A young woman in her mid-twenties with hard lines on her face .
"That's half what we need," she said.
"It's what we have."
"It's not enough."
Rowan stepped in, broad shoulders shadowing them both. "Then we make it enough. Everyone gets smaller shares. Nobody dies."
Mara's eyes narrowed. "You call that living?"
Rowan didn't answer. Just walked away, jaw tight. Milo rubbed his glasses clean with the edge of his sleeve, not meeting anyone's eyes.
Ezra watched. Second storm cloud.
By the end of the week, the cracks weren't whispers anymore.
Arguments sparked quick, burned hot, and went out before they drew blood. Over meat. Over water. Over whose turn it was to watch.
And through it all, Atlas stayed quiet. Sitting near the fire with his glasses glinting, eyes unreadable. He barely spoke, barely moved, but Ezra noticed it:
When the arguing started, people's eyes always flicked to him.
Like they expected him to say something.
Like they dreaded it when he didn't.
Ezra thought: This camp runs on threads. And he's the one holding them, even if nobody admits it.
The camp wasn't loud. Not in the way Ezra expected, at least.
It wasn't voices filling the night or songs to hold off the dark. It was the scraping of bone against stone, the dull chop of a blade through hide, the low murmur of people who didn't have enough left in them to shout.
Survival didn't sound brave. It sounded tired.
Ezra sat near the fire, knees drawn up, picking at a strip of dried meat that tasted like rot disguised as food. The smoke stung his eyes. His stomach didn't complain — not out loud — but the taste clung like ash.
Names had started to stick.
Jalen — broad-shouldered, scar running down his neck. Too quick to anger. His brother, Mirek, smaller, eyes always down like he was afraid to make contact. Mara — sharp tongue, sharper glare, the kind of person who could cut you to ribbons without ever lifting a blade. And Kiva — thin, restless, perched at the camp's edge with her spear angled just so, as if monsters could smell nerves.
They weren't friends. They were bodies pulled together by the Trial's sick sense of humor.
Rowan tried to play peacemaker when arguments broke. He still had that big grin, but it cracked easier now, like the muscle for it had worn thin. Nora snapped when people got lazy. She didn't yell long — she didn't have the strength for it — but she bit hard. Milo kept scribbling. Food, water, numbers — as if writing it down might stop the world from collapsing. Cassian said little. Just sharpened his knife, weighed words like they cost more than rations.
And Atlas… Ezra kept watching him.
The way he sat, quiet, glasses catching firelight. He didn't mediate. Didn't argue. Just watched. And people looked at him sometimes, quick glances, like they were waiting for him to speak. Like if he opened his mouth, he'd say something that mattered.
Ezra hated it.
If you knew something, say it. If you didn't, stop acting like you did.
He rubbed his hands together, skin raw from using hide cords. His thoughts pressed in like the smoke.
This isn't a team. It's a pile of broken pieces shoved together. We're all waiting for the Trial to choose which one of us snaps first.
Across the fire, Jalen barked at Mirek for fumbling a strip of meat. Mirek muttered something. Mara cut in, telling them both to shut up before they wasted energy. Rowan sighed, rubbing his face. Nora cursed under her breath.
Ezra leaned back, watching sparks spiral upward.
Storm's coming. Not from the forest. From us.
——
The camp was too quiet when the food ran thin.
Ezra had been there long enough to tell when a storm was coming, not the kind that tore through the forest, but the kind that started with a voice — sharp, angry, hungry. He'd learned to hear the shift in tone, the way conversations dropped into that brittle silence, the way firelight painted everyone sharper.
Tonight it started with Jalen.
"You know it's true." His voice cracked the hush like a snapped twig. "We kill, we drag the meat back, we bleed for it — and we eat the same scraps as everyone else? How's that fair?"
Milo flinched, his ladle hovering over the pot. The broth inside barely passed for soup — cloudy, thin, with shreds of meat floating like lost memories. Ezra's stomach had been gnawing itself for days, but the words still scraped him wrong.
Fair? Nothing in this place is fair. If it was, half of us wouldn't be here at all.
Merrick backed his brother up with a hard nod, fists clenched. "We starve while counters and watchers sit on their asses. If hunting takes the most, we should eat the most."
Nora leaned against a post, arms wrapped in bandages, jaw tight. "Nobody's sitting on their ass."
Cassian finally looked up from the knife he'd been sharpening. His voice was flat, colder than the steel in his hands. "You want more food? Hunt something bigger. Don't whine about it.
"
"Mouth on you," Merrick spat, but his eyes didn't leave the pot.
Ezra sat back, watching. He'd seen this script already. Hunger always found a tongue, and someone always pushed back. The Trial didn't need to kill them — not when their own stomachs could do the job.
Rowan stepped forward before it went any further. He always did.
"We all eat the same," he said, voice calm but firm. "Doesn't matter who hunts, who cooks, who stitches, who guards. Equal's the only way this holds."
"Equal," Jalen sneered, "isn't fair."
The words hit the camp harder than any blow. Even the fire crackled softer, like it didn't want to be caught in the middle. Ezra felt the weight shift — people glancing, waiting, watching.
Atlas sat in the shadows, glasses catching firelight in sharp slivers. He didn't speak, didn't move, didn't even blink. He looked like he was listening to something Ezra couldn't hear, something quieter than breath. That stillness only made the tension worse.
And of course, Jalen noticed.
"You see him?" Jalen jabbed a finger toward Atlas. "Does nothing. Sits there like a ghost while we sweat and bleed. Why does he get the same share?"
Rowan's voice deepened. "Because he's here. Because we don't pick and choose whose life is worth keeping."
"Easy for you to say," Merrick growled. "You're strong enough to take whatever you want. We're the ones breaking our backs while others—"
"Drop it." Rowan's tone carried more weight this time. A warning.
But the brothers weren't built for dropping things. Ezra saw it in their eyes — the stubborn coil of resentment. Hunger didn't listen to reason.
Merrick's shoulders shifted, low, like an animal ready to spring. Ezra's gut tightened. Don't do it. Don't—
Rowan turned, maybe to end it, maybe to check the fire. Merrick lunged.
Ezra barely breathed before it was over. Rowan spun, faster than Ezra remembered he could move. His hand snapped out and locked around Merrick's throat. Lifted him clean off the ground like he weighed nothing.
The sound Merrick made wasn't a scream. It was a choke — sharp, ugly, human only by accident. His boots kicked against the dirt, scraping grooves in the earth.
The camp froze.
Rowan didn't shake him. Didn't slam him. He just held Merrick there, one hand steady, eyes flat and burning with something that wasn't the boy Ezra remembered from the Academy.
It wasn't discipline. It wasn't leadership.
For half a second, Ezra swore he saw something else in Rowan's gaze. Something primal. Animal. Like the Trial had peeled back the boy and let something older crawl into his place.
The sight made Ezra's stomach lurch.
He's not just holding him. He could kill him right now. And part of him wants to.
Rowan dropped Merrick suddenly. The boy collapsed in a heap, gasping, clutching at his throat, rage flickering in his eyes stronger than the pain.
"Enough," Rowan said, voice cutting through the silence like a blade. "Next time, I don't stop at holding."
No one argued. Not aloud.
But Ezra caught it — the way Merrick's glance slid to Jalen, the flicker of silent agreement between them, the bitterness that didn't burn out.
Seeds. Seeds that would grow, given time and anger and the right crack to split them.
Later, when the food was passed hand to hand, Ezra noticed Merrick's fingers linger too long over the water barrel. He caught Jalen's eye again, just for a breath, before looking away. Nothing spoken. Nothing needed.