The pain came first.
Then the cold.
Then the hunger.
Torian woke to a dull throb that pulsed across the side of his skull like a heartbeat trapped in stone. His arms were pinned awkwardly beneath his chest. His legs felt wrong — bent, twisted. He coughed, and the taste of mud filled his mouth. It had rained.
He opened his eyes.
It was nearly dark again.
Gray light filtered down through cracks in the stone ceiling far above — impossibly high, like a mouth that had already closed. He lay on a bed of moss, damp with runoff, surrounded by broken stone, tangled roots, and shattered pieces of bone so old they crumbled when touched.
He was at the bottom of a long, narrow crevice—no clear exit in sight.
The fall hadn't killed him.
But it hadn't done him any favors.
He rolled slowly onto his back, biting down on a sharp breath as his ribs lit up in pain. His right shoulder was badly bruised. His back was scraped open from the fall, but not deep enough to cripple him.
His sword was gone.
He looked around and found it nearby, still wrapped and half-buried under a pile of wet leaves. He crawled to it on shaking limbs and dragged it back to his side, clutching it with numb fingers like a lifeline.
He didn't cry.
He hadn't cried since the fire. Since the crater. Since the ribbon.
But he felt the pressure in his chest — like something about to crack from the inside.
Instead, he crawled.
The tunnel narrowed, twisting deeper into the stone. The walls were moist, covered in fine lichen and old carvings so eroded they were barely visible. Spiral symbols, long lines of text, claw marks, handprints. Some were too large to be human. Others looked too precise to be anything but.
Eventually, the tunnel opened into a wider grotto where a stream trickled down from above, pooling into a shallow basin of clear water. Bits of moss and glowing fungi clung to the stone — just enough light to see.
Torian fell beside the pool and drank greedily. The cold hit his stomach like stone, but he didn't stop. When he finally leaned back, gasping, water dripping from his chin, he looked up.
The vines that had broken his fall still hung far above. No path back.
No way up.
So forward was all that remained.
⸻
He climbed a ridge of loose shale and pushed into a narrow, root-choked tunnel. It smelled of mildew and something older — like iron and rot. His fingers bled from scraping at the walls to keep balance. Thorns caught at his legs. Sharp brambles snagged his tunic and sliced across his arms.
By the time he emerged into the next hollow, his sleeves were shredded, and a thin line of blood streaked his left shin.
But he found berries.
Clustered along a low branch, half-hidden by moss, small dark red bulbs grew in silence. He didn't hesitate. He plucked two, crushed one between his fingers, sniffed it, then tasted it.
Bitter. But not deadly.
He ate them all.
Every last one.
He kept going. Found more.
He scraped lichen from the rocks and chewed it. Sucked moisture from leaves. Caught water dripping from overhead vines in his palms.
Every step was survival.
Not battle. Not defiance.
Just the stubborn, pitiful clinging of a creature that refused to die.
⸻
He found a hollow beneath a warped tree root where he could curl up for a while. His legs folded tight. His back throbbed. Every breath reminded him he was bruised, possibly worse.
His ears twitched at every sound — the drip of water, the skitter of insects, a long echo he couldn't identify. The world down here breathed differently.
Somewhere, something shifted.
He didn't sleep, but his eyes closed for a moment. Maybe two.
And when they opened again, it was darker.
And something was near.
Not a soldier.
Not a human.
It didn't breathe like a man.
It clicked.
And watched.
Waiting.
Torian didn't move.
He lay beneath the tree root, breath shallow, every muscle locked. The darkness around him pulsed, thick and alive, and in that suffocating quiet he heard it again—clicking.
Sharp.
Wet.
Deliberate.
He turned his head slowly toward the noise.
Eyes blinked open in the dark—four of them. Not glowing, not yellow. Black. Reflective. Empty. They blinked again, not together but in sequence, like shutters adjusting to his breath.
Then the creature crept forward.
Its body moved low to the ground, ribs brushing stone, long limbs folding and unfolding like knives. Its skin was smooth and leathery, dark as bark, speckled with bits of leaf and moss—perfect camouflage for these ruins. Its mouth hung slightly open, no lips, only two rows of curved teeth like needles jutting from the top and bottom of its jaw.
And it made no sound.
Only the click of claw against stone.
It was a stalker-beast—Torian remembered the stories. Creatures born in the dark, bred in the wild edges of the Spiral Realms, where instinct replaced logic and nothing ever died clean.
This one was bigger than he imagined.
It circled his hollow slowly, head low, nostrils flaring as it took in his scent. The tip of its tail was barbed, twitching.
Torian pressed himself tighter into the roots. His sword was still wrapped. His body was useless. He had no Spiral Flame. No weapon. No strength.
Just fear.
The beast took another step.
And paused.
It stared directly at him.
Then it leapt.
Torian threw himself out of the hollow just as claws raked the earth where his head had been. He hit the ground and rolled, landing hard on his injured shoulder. The pain flared white. He screamed without meaning to and crawled backward over rock and leaf, the sword still in his grip.
The beast lunged again.
He ducked under its swipe, but not fast enough—its claws raked across his back, slicing clean through his tunic and into the flesh below. The pain tore through him like fire. He staggered, nearly dropped the blade.
The stalker hissed.
Torian spun and ran.
He didn't know how. His legs barely worked. His back was bleeding fast, warm liquid soaking his ribs. But fear took over. Pure, desperate terror.
He bolted through the ruins, leaping over fallen stones, ducking beneath branches. The beast crashed after him, knocking trees aside, slamming into stone walls. It shrieked once—sharp and furious.
He hit a slope and slid.
Fell through thorns. Rolled down a drop. Slammed into a trunk at the bottom of a ravine and stayed there, gasping, unable to rise.
The beast didn't follow.
Not immediately.
Not down here.
⸻
The moon rose through a break in the canopy above—a pale sliver behind drifting ash clouds. Its light spilled through the twisted limbs of the trees like silver water.
Torian lay beneath it, his face turned upward, blood seeping through his side and back, eyes flickering open and closed.
He was fading.
He knew it.
The pain was fading too.
That worried him more.
He wanted to cry out—but he didn't have the strength. He wanted to crawl forward—but there was no forward anymore.
He was alone.
Broken.
And bleeding.
The last thing he saw before darkness took him was the shape of the branches above, curling into a spiral.
Not made. Not carved.
Just… there.
Waiting.
Torian couldn't move.
The pain in his back was molten now — white-hot, screaming with every breath. The gash left by the stalker's claws had torn through flesh and sinew. Blood soaked the shredded remains of his tunic and matted the dirt beneath him. He lay sprawled at the base of the ravine, one arm outstretched, the other curled tight against his ribs, trying to hold himself together.
The forest above shimmered with ash-filtered moonlight.
Thin branches crisscrossed the sky like the bars of a cage.
His eyes half-closed. His mouth hung open. Every exhale rasped like wind through splinters. Cold crept into his fingertips, into the soles of his feet, into his chest.
But it wasn't sleep that called to him.
It was something heavier.
Quieter.
The slow press of a world that didn't care if he stopped breathing.
⸻
A leaf fluttered past his face.
The breeze shifted.
And in that subtle motion, the world returned to movement.
The stalker was still nearby.
He couldn't hear it—but he felt it.
Its presence lingered, just out of sight, waiting for his heartbeat to fade. Waiting to see if the meal had stopped moving.
He had to go.
Now.
With a grunt that nearly choked him, Torian rolled onto his side and pressed a palm into the mud. His arm shook violently under his weight. His vision swam. The pain made his jaw clench so hard his teeth ached.
But he moved.
Inch by inch.
He dragged himself up the side of the gully, clinging to roots and jagged stone. His boots slipped once, and he nearly fell back, but he caught himself. His fingers bled. His chest burned. The world tilted.
But still—he moved.
At the ridge top, he collapsed again, barely able to lift his head.
The trees ahead shimmered under the moon.
He crawled into them.
No direction. No thought. Just instinct.
Every branch was a wall. Every root was a trap. The trees grew closer together, tighter, almost spiteful, as if they, too, wanted to keep him. Their bark scraped his arms. Their thorns tore his sleeves. His feet dragged in the leaves like he was half-dead.
And still—he moved.
Because dying here meant nothing.
Because if he stopped now, it would all be for nothing.
The sword. His father's voice. The fire. The crater.
The ribbon.
He clenched his teeth and pulled himself through the last of the brush—
—and stumbled into a clearing.
Open. Cold. Quiet.
The moonlight fell directly in the center, pooling like silver blood across the grass.
He staggered forward. One foot. Then the other. His arms hung limp. His back was soaked. His face was blank.
He didn't see the stone he tripped over.
He just collapsed.
Flat on his back, arms spread, chest rising once—
—then again—
—then slower.
His eyes flicked to the stars. Or maybe they were just light through the leaves.
Either way, they blurred.
A faint wind passed over him, stirring his hair.
And finally, after everything, after all the running and bleeding and breaking—
Torian stopped.
He lay in the grass beneath the moon, unmoving, as the forest swallowed the noise of his flight.
Not dead.
But no longer running.