My stomach growled.
Not just a quiet rumble,a loud, demanding protest that echoed through the canyon. I pressed my hand against it, embarrassed, but it growled again anyway.
Xeno didn't slow his pace. "Ignore it."
"I can't ignore it," I muttered. "It hurts."
"Pain is information," he replied flatly. "Your body is telling you it needs fuel. Acknowledge it. Then keep moving."
I wanted to argue, but my legs felt too heavy. We'd been walking for hours since leaving the cleansing pond, and I couldn't remember the last time I'd actually eaten. Days? Longer?
Kael, limping beside me, let out a rough exhale. "The girl's not wrong, Xeno. We're all running on empty. I can barely feel my legs."
"Then we find food when we reach the ridge," Xeno said. "Not before."
Lira, walking ahead with her usual measured stride, glanced back briefly. "There's a cache point three kilometers north. Pre-fall supply depot. If it hasn't been raided, we'll find rations."
"If," Kael muttered.
My stomach twisted again, this time not from hunger but from exhaustion. Everything ached,my feet, my arms, even my thoughts felt slow and heavy. I stumbled slightly over a loose stone, catching myself at the last second.
Xeno's hand shot out, steadying me by the shoulder. "Careful."
"I'm trying," I whispered.
He didn't let go immediately. For a moment, his grip was almost… gentle. Then he released me and kept walking.
I stayed close to him, trying to match his pace even though my legs screamed in protest. As we walked, a thought surfaced,something I'd been wondering about for days now, ever since we left the village.
"Xeno," I said quietly.
"Mm."
"That scroll the Elder gave us... what was on it? You never showed us."
His stride didn't falter.
But something in his posture shifted. Barely noticeable,a slight tension in his shoulders, a fractional tightening of his grip on the shovel.
"It's handled," he said.
I frowned. "Handled? What does that mean?"
"It means I looked at it. It's not relevant yet."
Kael's head snapped toward us. "Not relevant?" His voice sharpened despite his exhaustion. "You have a scroll that would show us the first step. How is that not relevant?"
Xeno's jaw clenched. I couldn't see his eyes behind the blindfold, but I could feel his resistance like a wall going up between us.
"I said it's handled."
"That's not an answer," Kael pressed, stopping in his tracks. "Xeno, if there's something we need to know—"
"There isn't."
Lira had stopped walking too. She turned slowly, her sharp eyes fixed on Xeno's back. When she spoke, her voice was calm but edged with something dangerous.
"You've been carrying an important script this entire time?" she asked.
"And you didn't mention it?"
Xeno didn't respond.
"Everything is my concern when it involves pre-fall knowledge," Lira continued, taking a step toward him. Her tone wasn't angry,it was cold, calculating. Precise. "Show it."
"It's not your concern," Xeno replied, still facing away from us.
"Xeno." Kael's voice was firmer now, almost commanding despite his weakness. "We're a group. We share information. If that scroll contains something important—"
"It doesn't," Xeno cut him off.
But his hand moved to his pack anyway.
The motion was reluctant, almost defensive. He reached inside slowly, as if every second of delay might change what was about to happen.
When his hand emerged, he held a weathered scroll. The parchment was yellowed with age, its edges darkened and brittle. It was bound with a thin cord that looked organic,like dried vine, or something that had once been alive.
Xeno held it out in front of him but didn't unroll it.
"It's written in the old language," he said quietly. "I can't read all of it."
Lira stepped forward, her hand extended. "Let me see."
Xeno hesitated.
For a long moment, he just stood there, scroll in hand, blindfolded face turned slightly toward her. I could feel the conflict radiating off him,the reluctance, the distrust, the weight of whatever secret he'd been carrying.
Then, slowly, he handed it to her.
Lira took it carefully, treating it like something fragile and dangerous at the same time. She untied the cord with precise movements and began to unroll it.
Her eyes scanned the surface, moving quickly over symbols I couldn't read from where I stood. Her expression didn't change, but her breathing slowed. Deepened.
"This is..." she murmured, almost to herself. "Older than I thought. Pre-collapse. Maybe even pre-establishment."
I stepped closer, craning my neck to see. The scroll was covered in symbols,the same ancient language I'd seen at the arch, at the temple, in the marks left in the dirt. They twisted and curved in patterns that felt almost alive, like they were shifting even as I looked at them.
"What does it say?" I asked.
Lira's finger traced one of the symbols,the same eye-shape that had appeared everywhere. The one that felt like it was watching me even when it was just carved into stone.
"It's instructions," she said slowly. "For something. A process. Or a ritual. The first line says... 'To those who bear the mark of—'"
The ground pulsed.
Click.
Everyone froze.
Click... click...
The sound came from beneath us, faint but deliberate. Not the distant threat we'd grown used to,this was close. Right under our feet.
"Move," Xeno said sharply.
But it was already too late.
The earth in front of Lira cracked open with a sharp, splintering sound. A shape burst upward,small, skeletal, wrong.
It wasn't like the other Xenophores we'd seen.
This one was no larger than a dog, its body elongated and insect-like, covered in segments of chitinous black plating. Its limbs were too long, ending in blade-like appendages that clicked against the stone as it moved. Where its head should have been was just a smooth, featureless surface,no eyes, no mouth, nothing.
But it moved with purpose.
Lira jerked backward, but the creature was impossibly fast. One of its bladed limbs shot out,not toward her, but toward the scroll in her hands.
It grabbed it.
"NO—!" Kael shouted.
Xeno lunged forward, shovel swinging in a brutal arc, but the creature twisted its body at an unnatural angle, avoiding the blow entirely. It scuttled backward on its too-long legs, the scroll clutched in its segmented grip.
Lira's hand snapped to her belt, pulling a knife in one fluid motion. She threw it with precision,straight at the creature's center mass.
The blade struck.
But instead of piercing, it bounced off the plating with a sharp metallic ring.
The creature didn't even flinch.
It turned and dove back into the hole it had emerged from.
"STOP IT!" I screamed without thinking.
Xeno was already moving, dropping to his knees at the edge of the hole, reaching down into the darkness. His hand grasped at nothing.
The hole sealed.
Not slowly. Not gradually.
The earth itself closed like a mouth snapping shut, stone grinding against stone with a sickening crunch. Within seconds, the ground looked untouched,as if nothing had ever been there at all.
Silence.
Xeno stayed on his knees, fists pressed against the ground. His shoulders rose and fell with controlled breaths, but I could see the tension radiating through his entire body.
Kael staggered forward, staring at the spot where the hole had been. "What... what just took it?"
Lira stood perfectly still, her expression unreadable. But her eyes were cold. Calculating.
"A Harvester," she said quietly.
"A what?" I whispered.
"A collector Xenophore," she clarified, still staring at the ground. "They don't kill. They don't hunt. They steal. And they take things to someone,or something,that wants them."
My heart sank. "Someone wants the scroll?"
"Someone always wants knowledge," Lira replied. Her voice was flat, emotionless, but there was an edge beneath it. "Especially knowledge written in the old language."
Kael slumped against the canyon wall, breathing hard. "We just... lost it.The first step."
Xeno rose slowly to his feet. He didn't speak. Didn't look at any of us. His hands were clenched so tightly around the shovel that I could see the tension in his knuckles even from where I stood.
I felt tears prickling at the corners of my eyes. Not from fear this time,from frustration. From helplessness.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "I shouldn't have asked about it. If I hadn't—"
"Don't," Xeno cut me off sharply. Then, softer, almost too quiet to hear: "It's not your fault."
Lira turned toward the direction the Harvester had gone,or rather, where it had disappeared beneath the earth. Her jaw tightened.
"We get it back," she said simply.
"How?" Kael asked, his voice strained. "It went underground. We don't even know where—"
"Harvesters follow paths," Lira interrupted. "Old tunnels. Pre-fall infrastructure that the earth hasn't fully reclaimed yet. They don't burrow randomly,they follow routes."
"And you know these routes?" Xeno asked, his voice low and dangerous.
Lira met his gaze,or at least, the place where his eyes would be behind the blindfold.
"Some of them," she said. "Enough to track it."
Xeno's expression didn't change, but I saw his grip on the shovel shift slightly. "And when we find it?"
Lira's face remained cold. Unreadable.
"Then we take it back," she said. "By any means necessary."
A chill ran down my spine.
Kael pushed himself off the wall, wincing as his injured leg protested. "If we're doing this, we need a plan. We can't just—"
"We don't have time for plans," Lira said, already moving. "Harvesters deliver quickly. If we don't track it now, the scroll will be gone permanently."
She started walking, her pace faster than before. Purposeful.
Xeno followed without a word, his posture rigid, radiating barely-contained anger.
Kael limped after them, muttering something under his breath about recklessness and suicide missions.
I stood there for a moment, staring at the spot where the Harvester had vanished. The ground looked so normal. So innocent.
But I could still feel it,the echo of that clicking sound, the wrongness of the creature's movements, the cold certainty that someone, somewhere, now had something we desperately needed.
My stomach growled again.
I ignored it this time.
And I ran to catch up.
The canyon stretched ahead of us, darker now, the shadows deeper and more alive. Lira moved with purpose, eyes scanning the ground for signs I couldn't see.
Behind us, faint and distant, I heard it again.
Click... click... click...
Not just one.
Many.
And they were getting closer.