The air in the Upper Chamber felt unusually still that morning. No storms, no strange tremors, no whispering anomalies from the far corners of the land. For once, the horizon stretched in lazy quiet, the only sound the bubbling stream that coiled near their camp.
Lenara was lying on her stomach, lazily kicking her legs while scribbling shapes into the dirt with a stick. Levitine sat cross-legged, polishing his blade as if it were more meditation than maintenance. Withered Flame leaned against a moss-covered stone, half-asleep, one eye lazily keeping watch.
Koro, however, sat in the middle of them, looking uncharacteristically… content. His usual sharp gaze was softened, and the corners of his mouth tugged upward in a faint, almost mischievous smile.
"So," Aaren finally broke the silence, arms crossed, "you going to tell us where you vanished off to, or are we supposed to just assume you were on vacation?"
Koro chuckled — not his usual dry, tight-lipped laugh, but something warmer. "Vacation's one way to put it," he said. "Though mine had fewer beaches and more collapsing tunnels."
Aaren shifted closer. "We already know the short version… but I think you owe us the real story."
Koro leaned back on his elbows, gaze drifting toward the stream. "Alright, but don't expect some grand hero's tale. I was scouting one of the outer paths — thought I'd be back by nightfall. Then I found… something. A collapsed corridor that wasn't there before, like it had folded in on itself overnight. I followed it."
His voice carried the same events they had heard before in brief, but this time his words lingered on the details — the metallic taste in the air, the faint hum under the ground, the way shadows seemed to cling longer than they should.
"I ended up in a chamber I'd never seen. No light, just these faint silver lines etched into the walls — moving, almost breathing. Then came the noise. Not footsteps, not breathing. More like… pressure. Like the air itself was looking at me." He smiled faintly, as if recalling a strange joke only he understood. "And then something decided it didn't like me being there. A figure — tall, faceless, made of the same silver lines — started moving. I didn't fight. Not because I couldn't, but because it didn't feel like the kind of thing you 'fight.' I just… moved with it. And somehow, I ended up outside the path entirely, near the west ridge."
Lenara blinked, propping her chin on her hands. "That's the calmest description of almost dying I've ever heard."
"It wasn't death," Koro said, shaking his head. "More like… being shown the door and told to leave politely. Even if the message came in the shape of something that could crush my spine."
Eren tilted his head, smirking. "Where's your usual doom-and-gloom delivery? You sound like someone just told you a bedtime story."
Koro's grin widened — a rare sight. "Maybe I've been spending too much time around you people. I'm starting to remember there's more to life than warnings and bad news."
For a moment, no one spoke. The fire crackled softly, the stream gurgled, and in that rare peace, the group simply let the silence wrap around them. Even in the Upper Chamber, such days were precious.