Noctis surged forward, shoulder crashing into those grasping hands, boot slamming hard into its forearm. The impact jarred his bones, but the thing lost what little purchase it had, dropping deeper into the pit as more dirt slid. Noctis forced himself back, dragging Astra by the arm. "Up," he rasped. "Move."
Astra staggered, breath hitching, hands shaking as he pulled his power together, trying to weave a shield—a thin shell of shimmering light between them and the hole. The air hummed as the weave took shape, unstable but present.
For a single breath, freedom tasted real.
Then the thing climbed.
Fingers hooked stone like iron claws, muscles bunching effortlessly as it pulled itself up from the collapse. Dust streaked its skin; ugly scrapes bared raw flesh on its arms, but its eyes… its eyes burned brighter, more focused, pupils narrow and sharp as a blade's edge. It did not roar or curse. It simply rose—relentless, unbroken, gaze fixed.
This was no simple hunt—not predator and prey alone, but a lesson carved into skin and bone. Every wound was a sentence. Every narrow escape, a question. The answer, always the same: Learn or die.
They fled through the ravine's tight exit, lungs tearing, stones skidding underfoot. The thing's silence followed like a second shadow. Another trap snarled ahead—a swinging blade hung from a hidden frame of branches. Noctis saw the tension loaded in the rope, the wrongness in the way leaves shifted. With a grunt, he snatched a shattered branch and hurled it into the trigger.
The blade scythed down. Noctis swayed aside, feeling the wind sting his cheek as metal flashed past. The deadly arc changed course, whistling back toward the ravine mouth. The thing dropped low, rolling as the blade shaved its hair and carved a brutal gouge in the rock behind. For the first time, it slipped, boots skidding, one arm scraping raw against jagged stone. Blood streaked the ravine wall, dark against gray.
Astra nearly pitched forward, knees buckling. His breaths came quick and high, panic scraping his throat. Noctis scooped him without thinking, the boy's weight slamming into his chest and shoulder like a reminder of everything he refused to lose. He carried Astra into a cave passage twisted with thick, gnarled roots and brittle bones—skulls half-buried in dirt, ribs jutting like broken bars.
But the thing did not relent. It slipped into the cave's warped geometry with the familiarity of a creature born there. Each trap that failed to catch them only refined its approach. It flowed around its own devices like water around stones, never wasting motion, never panting, never speaking. Only the steady, determined rhythm of its steps told them it was still there.
Noctis's thighs burned, arms trembling under Astra's weight. Breath grated like sandpaper in his lungs. His vision tunneled at the edges, black creeping in with each staggered step. The thing drew close, posture lowering into a predatory crouch, hands splayed, fingers slightly curled—a silent specter of inevitability.
In the final heartbeat before it closed, the ravine floor groaned.
Rock split with a grinding roar, centuries of strain giving way. The ground between hunter and hunted caved in, stones plunging in a sudden cascade. A storm of rock burst upward, dust and debris churning into a blinding cloud. The thing jerked back, thrown off balance, forced to hop to a more stable outcropping as a jagged chasm widened between them.
Astra reacted first, fingers clawing at the stone beside Noctis. Astral energy flared ragged and hot, burning through loose debris, carving a low, narrow crawlspace beneath tangled roots and fallen stone. "Here!" he gasped, voice cracking. Noctis dropped to his knees, shoving Astra through ahead of him, shoulders scraping raw as he followed. Rock tore his clothes and skin, but they squeezed through, leaving the collapsed ravine—and the thing—behind, if only for now.
On the far side, they scrambled to their feet in a tunnel barely wide enough to stand, lungs dragging air like broken bellows. The Echoframe flickered weakly at the edge of Noctis's hearing and sight, its glow dim and unsteady:
"Threat evaded: temporary. Operator remains active. Warning: Further pursuit likely. Energy reserves—critical."
Noctis pressed a hand to the damp wall, feeling the earth's slow, indifferent pulse. Somewhere beyond the debris, in the threaded tunnels and haunted trees, the thing waited. The forest had swallowed their conflict, roots and bone now etched with a new story—human cunning against something older and colder, a silent war written in scars.
Hours of darkness crawled forward, thick and sluggish. Noctis and Astra squeezed themselves into a cramped fissure, stone hugging their backs, knees pressed to chests. Dust motes drifted in the faint half-light, swirling in the stale air with each shuddering breath. The space smelled of old earth and older fear. Noctis's wounds pulsed in slow, angry waves; dried blood cracked on his skin with every slight movement. Astra's astral glow had dimmed to a few stubborn sparks skipping along his fingertips—too faint for defense, just bright enough to prove he was still awake.
Still alive.
Unease gnawed at the edges of rest. Even as their bodies slumped, minds frayed, the forest weighed on them: a presence beyond sight, listening. The silence outside was wrong—no distant howls, no rustle of lesser predators. It was the stillness of a held breath.
Time bled toward dawn, the sky beyond the canopy shifting from black to bruised purple to the first wash of orange. The fissure's narrow opening glowed faintly, smearing light along the rock. Noctis dozed in snatches, every small noise snapping him awake. Astra leaned against him, head on his shoulder, eyes heavy.
The sound came like a knife slipping through fabric: a rustle too deliberate to be wind. Shadows outside lengthened, coagulating into a form that stepped carefully where soft soil muffled impact. It was a hunter's approach—patient, claimed.
The thing emerged from the thinning dark.
It stood at the edge of their refuge, clothes now matted with fresh blood and glittering slivers of glass embedded in skin—trophies or wounds, it was hard to tell. Broken reflections winked and died as it moved. Its gaze, flat and unblinking, locked onto them. No snarl. No smile. Just… watching.
Noctis pushed himself upright, every movement a grind. His hand closed around his blade's hilt, the leather grip tacky with dried blood. His eyes burned from sleeplessness, sight blurring and refocusing. Astra tried to draw power from the stone itself, fingertips scraping rock as he reached, tremors shaking his arms. Pale, glimmering light flickered and faltered like a candle in a storm.
The thing moved faster now. It flowed from behind roots and outcrops, vanishing and reappearing with unnerving grace. Each new advance showed how much it had learned. Traps had changed: nets of bone and sinew snapped from higher branches, falling where panic would naturally drive them. Pits lined with poison-tipped stakes hid beneath perfect moss, their edges smoothed by careful hands. Small distractions—a tossed stone, a shifting branch, the flash of something metallic—pulled their eyes aside at the worst moments.
The chase resumed, merciless.
Noctis and Astra ran, legs laced with lactic fire, lungs flayed by cold air. Every inhale tasted of iron and sap. Behind them, always, the thing was just out of reach: arms stretching, fingers nearly brushing, feet silent as mist, movements uncanny in how precisely they tilted toward interception. Noctis hurled rocks ahead, trying to trigger traps early—springs snapping before they were in range, nets dropping harmlessly, blades swinging wide. But the forest's bones had been rewoven. Paths narrowed where they'd been open. Thorn-walls erupted where there had been empty air. Snare wires hugged their ankles, cutting deeper every time they tore free.