Laila was watchful through the early dawn. She did not volunteer, nor did she attempt to evade. She waited for her turn, holding the passive, heavy calm of someone anticipating a postponed verdict.
When the sun finally slanted low, casting a brief, cold golden light—the designated hunting time—her rotation arrived.
She stood at the perimeter without hesitation, moving as if she had been coiled and ready for this moment of exposure. She said nothing. She crossed the boundary with fast, low steps, measuring the brief window of safety rather than the distance. She did not venture deep. Close to the edge, she found a low-lying shrub bearing small, non-reflective berries—pale, dull, and barely qualifying as nourishment.
Logic dictated that such a minimal find could not sustain life. But hunger operated outside the jurisdiction of logic.
She plucked a single, uneven handful quickly and retreated. Back inside the circle, she did not wait for validation or consult the others. She ate with a silent, desperate greed, consuming as if she were stealing from herself. Her teeth crushed the soft fruit; the thin, tart juice stained her lips. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and immediately stood, as though afraid that the swallowed sustenance might be retracted if she delayed.
It was not a reward. It was merely the bare minimum for continuity.
A short while later, the pain began.
It started as a dull, muffled pressure in her abdomen, rapidly escalating into waves of searing agony. Her temperature spiked instantly; her forehead shone with cold sweat; her breathing became shallow and broken. She doubled over, attempting to vomit, but her stomach was empty save for the meager food that clung to her like a spike. She dry-heaved air.
The pain intensified cruelly, without external explanation. There was no visible poison, no overt curse. It was a compounding effect: an exhausted, dehydrated body, rapid consumption of poor food, and a sudden, uncontrollable thermal imbalance. Every minor physiological error converged in that single moment.
Laila collapsed onto the grass, her eyes half-open, but she made no sound. She trembled violently, then quieted, then trembled again. One of the other survivors started forward, but Elias raised his hand—a clear, stark signal to stop. It was not cruelty, but the absolute resignation of helplessness.
By the time the sun fully disappeared, the pain had utterly consumed her. Her breathing grew progressively shallow, then erratic, then… it ceased. The body, rigid in its final posture of self-punishment, lay still.