Darkness. Not the sleep or the soft kind. This felt held...like the world had taken a breath and forgot to let it go.
The last thing I remembered was cursing at everything and closing my eyes.
A chime bloomed behind my ears.
"Huh?"
[Bearer of Rune: Nestbreaker]
.....Selection confirmed. You are among the initial candidates for the Trials of Ascension., conducted by the Will of ████████.
Objective: Awaken your Rune. Resolve the situation of the village Namsai.
Moving to the trail location...
The words weren't sound. More like someone speaking inside my nerves.
Another pressure change, like an elevator dropping too fast.
The dark peeled away.
Trees. Tall enough to kink the neck if I tried to find the tops. Their bark shone like old scars. Fog ran between them in slow sheets, thick enough that the horizon looked like a throat about to swallow me whole. Cold air filled my mouth. The ground under my palm had a pulse .....a faint, steady, as if I'd set my hand on a sleeping animal.
Not a dream.
My heart sped up. Not panic but Recognition. Something old in me said, you're a prey. I....I can feel it. My legs.. my neck..they ..they seem to have a fine current running down. Every hair feels wired. My instict they're screaming, Is this how ghosebums are like.
Yeah. Definitely not a dream. The realization settled, heavy and cold.
I stood carefully. The fog adjusted to my movement like it was paying attention. "Hello?" I tried.
The mist ate the word.
I rubbed my arms. The sweat was wrong for this temperature; chilled but nervous. The air tasted metallic, like rust on the tongue. Far off, something dragged itself across bark. Wet. Slow.
Chime.
Name: Aren
Rank: 0
Rune: [Nestbreaker]
Description: A defiant soul born from fracture. It feeds on broken order, growing where stability dies. When its fangs sink into another's essence, it claims the right to hunt.
State: Unawakened
Abilities: None
The text hung in front of me like frost on glass, then thinned back into fog.
"Right," I whispered. "Status screens. Love that." Something I can work with.
My voice sounded smaller than I meant it to be.
Think. If this is a trial, there's structure. If there's structure, there are rules. If there are rules, there's a way through.
I tried, "Status," again. Nothing changed. "Map." Nothing "System Shop" Nothing. The fog kept its secrets.
Okay. Basics. Shelter. Water. Fire later. "Unawakened" probably means no free magic tricks. No gear, no phone, no tutorial fairy.
"Royally f**ked," I told a tree. It did not disagree from what I can tell. Don't ask me how I know.
I crouched to feel the ground. Slight slope. Good. Water runs downhill. I scanned for runoff lines, leaf fall patterns, gaps in the roots. The fog carried almost-sounds—breath without a mouth, footsteps without feet. I ignored them. Moving felt better than listening.
Deep breath in. Long breath out. Again. Again. Slow the heart so it doesn't make decisions for me.
I picked a line between trunks and walked. One step. Another. The forest smelled like damp soil and something sweet-gone-wrong under the iron. My shoes whispered on leaves. Every now and then, a branch far above ticked, like a fingernail on a bottle.
The slope eased into a shallow hollow. I stopped on the edge and lowered to a knee. The mud there held a darker shine. Maybe ground seep, maybe nothing. The fog coiled lazily, then slid away as if it had decided I wasn't interesting.
I found a root-tangle tucked against a tilted stone—three sides, one open, dry enough to sit under. A half-shelter. I ducked in and hugged my arms for warmth. The cold worked its way under my shirt anyway.
I waited. Not for rescue. For the forest to tell me how it worked.
Time stretched. The trees did not move. The fog did, slow as thought.
When the bell came, it sounded like a memory I'd forgotten to have. A single clear chime, very soft.
My heartbeat tried to line up with it.
"No," I said to my chest, and pressed my palm flat against my sternum. "You follow me."
Another chime. Closer, or deeper. I couldn't tell. The hollow grew warmer by a degree, which made the cold outside feel meaner.
A shape passed through the fog across the hollow. Tall. Head tilted too far. I did not look straight at it. Looking straight at things gives them room.
Third chime. Very near now. The air to my left cooled by a thread. Hair lifted at the back of my neck.
I counted to five. I made it to three.
"Status," I whispered again, because people do stupid things when they're scared.
Nothing.
"Okay." I slid out from under the roots, slow. The ground tried to take my shoes. I freed one foot, then the other, and stood. "We're moving."
The hollow funneled into a narrow path between two trunks. I took it, hand brushing bark to anchor my balance. The fog thickened until it felt like wading through breath.
A soft sound padded behind me. Not footsteps—cloth? The brush of something that didn't weigh enough to matter but still wanted to be there. I didn't turn. Turning is how you give the nightmare your face.
I lengthened my stride. The path curved. The bell chimed again, directly ahead, faint as glass touched by a fingertip.
A clearing opened. Low ground, ringed in trees. The center held a shallow depression where water wanted to be. The fog had collected there like milk.
I stepped to the edge. The mist in the basin stirred, slow as a sleeping thing rolling over. A wind that didn't touch my skin turned a prayer-flag caught on a branch. The fabric flapped once. No second time.
The bell chimed from the middle of the hollow. I couldn't see the bell.
"Not a dream," I said softly, because naming it helped keep my head from slipping. "Not a dream. Trial. Rules."
The fog remembered a kitchen smell. Warm rice. Spiced tea. A plate set gently on wood.
"No," I said, and surprised myself with how steady that came out.
The smell thinned. The bell did not.
I took one careful step down into the depression.
Something moved behind me.
The air changed first, a soft implosion of sound, the way a room feels when someone walks in quietly. Cold pinched the skin over my spine. The hairs at my nape stood up in a perfect line.
I didn't turn.
"Hello," a woman's voice said, close enough that I felt the word shape the air.
It wasn't my mother's voice. It wasn't anyone's voice. It sat where a voice should sit and wore the idea of one like a mask.
I turned.
A figure stood half in fog. Tall. Wrapped in layered cloth that didn't move right. Where a face should be was the suggestion of one, as if someone had described a face to a sculptor who'd never seen one and they'd carved it from steam.
Her hand lifted. At the wrist, a small bell made of bone chimed without moving.
I tried to step back.
Her other hand touched the back of my neck—soft, precise, exactly on the place where the body forgets to argue.
The world folded in.
Warmth rose through the dark like bathwater. A table shaped itself from nothing. Afternoon light slid across a cutting board. The spoon on the plate reflected a smear that might have been my face.
My throat tightened.
"Eat," said a woman not-quite-there, proud and pleading at once.
I sat. My hand reached. Halfway to the spoon, I stopped.
The clock on the wall ticked. A second late.
"Not real," I told the room. My voice sounded small again.
The bell chimed under the floor.
The light softened. The food smelled right. My chest hurt with how right it tried to be.
I closed my eyes, because sometimes that keeps you from falling.
When I opened them, the fog had climbed the kitchen walls, just a little, as if it had always been wallpaper.
I set the spoon down.
"Who are you?" I asked, and the bell answered for her.
Something stroked the back of my neck again, and the kitchen brightened so gently that, for one stupid second, I wanted to stay.
The second after that, I knew I was lost.