The darkness peeled away slowly. My eyelids fluttered,my mind still tangled in the last echoed of the nightmare loop. My breath shook,my fingers twitching weakly against the cold ground.
" Yona...? Hey. Can you hear me?"
Kael's voice was close, strained.
Xeno was kneeling on my other side, his expression unreadable behind the blindfold,but his posture tense, defensive, like he had sensed something neither of us did.
Tears rolled down my eyes and Kael comforted me
"It's okay Yona, it's probably the work of a xenophore we can't name yet."
But no, his words weren't reaching me
"WHY, WHY, WHY!!! Why did the world have to shatter like fragile glass on a marble floor? Why did people I love have to be taken away from me, leaving me with nothing but echoes of their laughter and ache of their absence?"
"Why did people sin, hurting each other with words and actions, leaving scars in the world that cut deeper than any knife,creating such despicable monsters?"
"I wish everything could go back to normal, back to the days when the sun shone, and the air was sweet with the scent of blooming flowers. Back to the days when Daddy's hugs were the safest place I'd ever known, and Mommy's smile could light up the darkest room."
"Tell me Kael —" I turned to look at Kael who was listening to me intently, "why did the world have to twist and turn into this dark,scary place? Why do the monsters have to be so cruel, so heartless? I don't understand, I don't comprehend,I just want it to STOP!"
I turned to Xeno,"why do I have to feel pain, this ache, this emptiness?"
"I wish I could turn back the clock, go back to the moment before everything changed, and make it stay, MAKE IT STAY! But it's gone, it's gone, and I'm left with nothing but memories and the crushing weight of reality."
"WHY, WHY,WHY!!! Why did the world have to be this way? Why do I have to suffer, to hurt, to bleed? I'm just a little girl, and I don't know how to heal, to mend, to fix. I just know that I want to hurt less, I want the pain to go away, I WANT IT TO STOP!"
I curled up on the ground, holding my knees to my chest, and I cried. I cried and cried, wishing it would all go away.
Xeno walked up to me, placing a hand on my shoulder, "you need to calm down Yona." He said
I looked at him,my eyes red and filled with emotions, "calm down,but I don't get it Xeno, how can you be so calm, you're the same age as me but nothing fazes you and Everytime I think about it,it makes me feel useless and always makes you less human in my eyes."
Before either of us could say more,a quiet voice echoed from behind a boulder,
"That... wasn't supposed to happen."
Both Xeno and Kael snapped towards the sound.
A girl stood atop a slanted boulder, looking at us with her arms loosely folded. She looked around sixteen, but there was nothing fragile or starving about her, nothing like the other survivors we had come across.
Her clothes were clean.perfectly clean.
A black jacket without a single tear. Dark fitted pants. Boots that looked almost new. Her dark hair was tied back neatly, not a strand of place. She seemed untouched by the chaos of the world, like she had stepped out of time before it all fell apart.
Her eyes were sharp and calculating.
Xeno was fast, already pointing his shovel at the girls throat, "who are you?" He demanded
"Heh,a shovel as a weapon." The girl sounded amused
Xeno didn't move the shovel an inch.
If anything, he leaned in closer.
"Name," he said flatly. "Now."
The girl didn't flinch. Didn't blink.
She simply tilted her head, examining the blade of Xeno's shovel like it was a mildly interesting insect.
"You're tense for no reason," she said calmly. "If I wanted you dead, I would've let that loop finish."
Kael stepped forward, eyes narrowing.
"so it was you? Yona nearly—"
His voice cracked as he glanced at me. He didn't finish the sentence.
The girl,
still perched on the boulder like she owned the place.
Let out a slow exhale.
"i wasn't really the one," she said. "But I guess I was partly involved in it."
My breath hitched.
"Y-You… were involved in it?"
"involved in it?" She hopped down lightly, landing without a sound. "yes. But still I intervened."
Xeno stiffened.
Kael swallowed.
"How?"
The girl stepped closer, hands in her pockets, unbothered by the weapon still pressed to her throat.
"The creature lurking behind those rocks," she said, nodding casually to her right,
"feeds on imagination. It turns whatever you fear most into a projection. Not real, but… real enough to break you."
My chest tightened.
Images of Kael dying,of Xeno dying again and again,flashed in my mind.
"Why didn't you stop it sooner and how were you involved in it?" I whispered.
Her eyes shifted to me for the first time.
Dark. Sharp. Too observant.
"Because I needed to understand the xenophore ."
She shrugged one shoulder.
"And what you would do under pressure."
Xeno tightened his grip.
"So we're experiments to you."
"Not experiments," she said as if correcting a child.
"Data."
Kael bristled.
"You— You can't just—"
She lifted one hand lazily.
A silent command for him to stop.
"I didn't harm her. In fact, I kept her mind from snapping completely."
Her eyes moved back to me.
"You were five seconds away from being stuck in the cycle permanently."
My heart dropped.
Permanently?
Xeno finally lowered the shovel, though not entirely.
"What's your name?" he asked.
The girl paused.
As if considering whether she felt like sharing.
Then,"Lira."
Just that.
No last name.
No explanation.
Kael exhaled slowly.
"Are you… human?"
Lira smiled.
A calm, knowing smile that unsettled me more than any monster had.
"Yes," she said quietly.
"But unlike most humans… I didn't just start roaming this world unprepared."
She brushed past Xeno, her boots still impossibly clean, and crouched in front of me.
Her expression softened,barely,but not out of kindness.
"You're stronger than you think, Yona."
My breath caught.
"How do you know my name?"
She tapped her temple lightly.
"I heard it," she said.
"And I remember everything."
Her eyes flicked toward the ridge behind us.
"And if you want to survive the next hour… you're all going to need me."
Xeno's jaw tensed.
Kael inhaled sharply.
And I still shaky, still recovering,felt a cold shiver slide down my spine.
Because Lira didn't just look prepared.
She looked like she'd come here for us.