Rudra sat there—back straight but breath shallow—because the tent suddenly felt too small, too warm, too alive for what was whispering behind his ribs.
He blinked again. The universe didn't glitch this time, but something behind his eyes did, a subtle contraction, like a camera adjusting its aperture without permission.
Riley stood in front of him chewing yak meat, casual, bored, and absolutely oblivious to whatever eldritch tremor just hummed through Rudra's skull.
"Oi mate," Riley said, toothpick bobbing between his teeth, "you okay? Your eyes just did a whole… I dunno… expanded like— like a fish trying to kiss someone, then retracted like it regretted it."
"What the fuck does that mean," Rudra muttered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Then the déjà vu snapped into place. "Wait. I said that once already."
"You did?" Riley frowned, paused, replayed the interaction in his mind. "Huh. Weird."
But Rudra's stomach was sinking. The air felt wrong. Too familiar. Too arranged.
"Fuck… Maybe it was a dream after all."
Riley squinted at him. "Are you high? You had that premium Mongolian—"
"Marmot Zaza," Rudra said in sync with him.
Both froze.
Riley's face contorted into at least four levels of "what the actual shit."
"Why the fuck did you know I was gonna say that?" Riley demanded, taking a cautious step back. "Mate, you good?"
"Probably," Rudra said, but his voice felt like it belonged to a stranger wearing his mouth.
Riley backed toward the tent flap. His stomach clenched visibly—an instinctive, animal reaction. "Mate, I dunno what's wrong with you but my guts are knotting around you." He pressed a hand to his abdomen, grimacing. "I need air."
He slipped out.
The tent went quiet.
Rudra exhaled slowly.
The phantom pain stabbed through him again—ice crystals twisting inside his heart, a tearing cold in his right lung, the memory of his vocal cords freezing and fracturing like cheap glass. None of that happened here, supposedly.
Except he could feel every shard. A haunting bruise on his soul.
He stood. The air shifted around him.
Ticks on the tent floor scrambled away from him—but not fast enough. Half of them convulsed, then curled in on themselves, wings stiff, legs rigid. A cluster of flies dive-bombed toward the entrance like their tiny lives depended on it. Some didn't make it.
They dropped like stones.
As if something in him—some pressure, some presence—was draining the life out of anything small and weak.
Rudra swallowed, hard.
"What the hell is going on…"
He reached for the flap of the tent. His hand trembled—not from fear, but from the weight of a revelation crawling up his spine.
Nicole.
Her mole under her lip.
The yaks and their manure in the wrong spots.
The doppelganger.
The gunshot.
The cold.
The black.
all of it was a dream.
Which meant this—this tent, this moment, this "nigtmare"—might not be real either.
Rudra's heartbeat thudded once, loud and heavy.
"Nicole was just a dream," he whispered.
But the way the world shivered at the sound of her name told him that was a lie waiting to break its bones.
Rudra stepped out of the tent like he was stepping out of a fever. Every sensation felt edited. Every shadow felt like it was trying too hard to be a shadow. Even the cold Mongolian wind brushing against his cheek felt… scripted.
Riley sat by the campfire with his rifle across his lap, cigarette glowing between two fingers. The moment Rudra's boot nudged his back, Riley jolted like someone had fired a cannon behind his skull.
"FUCK—" Riley spun, hand on his heart. Then, deflating, "Oh. It's just you."
Rudra didn't laugh. Didn't smirk. He just said, "Let's go on a walk."
Riley blinked. "Right now? Why?"
"My joints are stiff. Need to move." Rudra forced a shrug. "And I get bored alone. Then I do something reckless."
"So I'm your babysitter now?" Riley scoffed, but there was tension in the way he tapped ash off the cigarette—like Rudra's presence was vibrating against his instincts. "Fine, whatever. Let me finish this drag… why don't you join me?"
"I'm fifteen," Rudra shot back flatly. "I can't smoke."
Riley stared at him, took a long drag, exhaled a ghostly cloud.
"Mate," Riley said, voice dry, "you literally shot a demon in the face yesterday with a revolver. Pretty sure a ciggie won't be the thing that ruins you."
Rudra didn't smile.
Didn't move.
Didn't even breathe for a moment.
Just watched Riley—really watched him—because the smoke drifting from the cigarette tip didn't rise right. It curled upward, then twitched sideways as if hitting an invisible wall before correcting itself.
Rudra's eyes narrowed. His fingers tingled. The tiny ticks near the firewood began crawling away from him again, legs frantic.
Riley saw it this time.
"…Why are the bugs running from you?" Riley whispered, cigarette hanging limp.
Rudra turned toward the steppe. Toward the darkness beyond the firelight. Toward whatever was watching.
"Let's walk," he said again.
This time, Riley didn't argue.
He stood immediately, cigarette half-smoked, hands trembling—not from cold, but because some gut instinct older than humanity told him:
Rudra wasn't just off.
Something in the universe was bending around him.
Riley kicked a pebble down the slope as they walked, the cold grass whispering under their boots. For a few minutes they stayed silent—Rudra scanning the plains like he expected the horizon to peel open, Riley stealing glances at him like Rudra might suddenly grow tentacles.
Naturally, Riley chose the most male topic possible to break the tension.
"So… girls," he said, puffing the last of the cigarette smoke out of his lungs. "Always a solid conversation between two blokes walking in the dark with loaded weapons."
Rudra didn't break stride. "Didn't get one."
"Same, mate. Same," Riley said, then immediately added, "So, what's your type?"
Rudra actually paused a second—like the question weighed more than frostbite, death, or invisible monsters. Then he answered slowly, analytically, as if reading from a battle doctrine.
"Asian girls age the slowest," Rudra said. "Longest youthfulness. Longest prime. Good genetics. But the con is—"
"Their parents?" Riley offered.
Rudra raised a finger. "—their parents. Exactly."
Riley nodded sagely. "Slavic girls, though, mate—peak beauty. Pure, goddamn femininity. But they age like milk on a radiator."
"True," Rudra admitted. "Terrifyingly true."
By then the conversation had momentum. They discussed hair types, bone structures, cheek shapes, the moral implications of simping for elves, whether Australians counted as their own species, and what would happen if a Mongolian girl suplexed Riley for calling her 'horse princess.'
Then Riley asked the fatal question.
"So what do you like? Specifically?" he said with that smug, 'I'm-going-to-judge-you-harshly' grin.
Rudra didn't hesitate.
"Latinas."
He didn't elaborate.
He didn't blink.
He just said it like a man stating his preferred caliber of ammunition.
Riley stopped walking entirely, staring at him as if Rudra had just admitted to a war crime.
"…Latinas?" Riley repeated slowly.
Rudra's eyes stayed on the plain, hyper-alert, scanning shadows that shouldn't exist.
"Yes."
"That's it? That's all I get? No reason?"
"No reason."
Riley squinted with the most judgmental, knowing grin an Aussie could physically manifest.
"I know what kind of man you are."
"You don't," Rudra said.
"I absolutely do."
"You don't."
"Maaate… you're fifteen and you said 'Latinas' with your whole chest."
Riley opened his mouth for another joke about hips, spice, and divine curvature—then stopped when Rudra's glare hit him like a sniper round.
"Alright, fine," Riley muttered. "We'll talk about something else before you summon a demon or whatever."
They walked in uneasy silence for a moment, boots crunching frost, breath fogging in the air. The night felt too open, too still—like the world was listening.
Riley, never knowing when to stop, nudged him."So… serious question now. Why were you in that prison for two years anyway?"
Rudra didn't answer immediately.
His steps slowed.His shoulders tightened.The cold around him thickened, just barely, like even the air braced for the answer.
Riley frowned. "Mate, if you don't wanna say—"
"No." Rudra cut him off quietly. "I'll say it."
He inhaled like someone lowering himself into ice water.
Then, deadpan:
"I tried to invade Israel."
Riley froze mid-stride.
His eyes didn't blink.His jaw didn't close.His cigarette fell out of his mouth without him noticing.
"You—""Yeah.""YOU WHAT?"