Month 1, Day 4, Morning

I woke up before it got light.

Not because I was ready. Not because my body had said, hey, big day, get up. But because my head just wouldn't stop. The whole night. Thoughts like flies smashing into a lamp, always the same, always pointless, and still they wouldn't stop.

Antoine. The ruins. Antoine. What if he does something this time. The ruins. What if there's something inside. Antoine. What he's planning this time. His disgusted look last time, him screaming that he'd kill me.

I lay on my side and stared at the wooden wall. The moss between the boards was damp from the night dew. Somewhere outside a bird was singing, some lone idiot who didn't know it was still too early. Or maybe he knew and just didn't care.

I got up.

That was all. No big moment. No today I'll show them all. I got up because staying down wasn't an option. Basha had said sunrise, and Basha meant sunrise.

Outside, the air was so cold it burned in my nose. The sky above the camp was dark blue, almost black, and on the horizon lay a thin strip of orange like a scar. Fog hung over the river, thick and still, and I could barely see the palisade.

I walked to the water.

The river was the only thing in camp that didn't make me nervous. It was just there. Flowing. Didn't care whether I existed or not. That was somehow calming. The world kept going no matter what happened today. No matter whether I embarrassed myself or not. The river just flowed.

I knelt down and scooped water with both hands. Ice cold. It hit my face like a slap, and for one second my head was empty. Just cold. Just water. Just the rushing sound.

Then the thoughts came back.

Okay, I thought. Drops ran from my chin onto my shirt. Okay.

That was all I had. No plan. No courage. Just that one word I kept telling myself like a broken record. Okay. As if it meant anything. As if it helped.

It didn't. But it was enough to take the next step. Stand up. Straighten my pants. Start walking.

Sometimes that's all you have.

I'd walked maybe twenty steps when I saw her.

Carmen stood by the path, between two huts, like she'd been waiting there for someone. For me, I realized. She was waiting for me.

"Hey." She smiled.

My heart did something stupid.

"Hey," I managed, and no voice crack slipped out.

She had something in her hand. A cloth, folded, and when she held it out I saw bread inside, and dried meat.

"You always forget to eat breakfast." So casual, like it was the most normal thing in the world.

I took it. Our fingers touched for a second, and I hoped she didn't notice how my hand was shaking. Not from the cold. "Thanks. You didn't have to..."

"Yeah, I did." She brushed her hand over my arm. Once, quick, her fingers across the fabric of my sleeve. Then she looked at me, and her gaze stayed a second longer than it needed to. "Come back in one piece, okay?"

I forgot to breathe.

Come back in one piece. Like she had something to lose if something happened to me. Like it would matter to someone. Like I would matter to someone.

"Sure," I croaked. Amazing. Sure. One whole word. Impressive, Aleks.

Carmen smiled again, that smile that was somehow warm and sad at the same time, and then she turned around and left. I stood there and watched her go and forgot for five seconds that Antoine existed and ruins and dark creatures and everything else.

I ate the bread while walking. It tasted better than anything I'd eaten in weeks. Not because it was good bread. The bread in camp was always hard and dry and tasted like wood fire. But Carmen had given it to me, and that made it different. Stupid. I know. But that's how my head worked.

The others were already there.

The meeting point was at the eastern edge of camp, where the path to the river split. Normally nobody was here this early, but today they stood there like figures in a bad play, each in their role, each with their own way of hiding the fear.

Jonas sat on a rock, bouncing his leg. When he saw me, he raised his hand. "So? Ready to die?" His grin was too wide. Nobody laughed. "Was a joke. Bad timing probably." His hands fiddled with a stick, snapping it into smaller and smaller pieces. Jonas cracked jokes when he was scared. The worse the jokes, the bigger the fear.

Rafi stood a little apart, checking the gear. Every rope, every blade, the water supplies. I could hear him counting quietly. That was his thing, when Rafi counted, everything was under control. He caught my eye and nodded. Once. Short. That was all Rafi needed to say: I'm here. We're doing this.

Mirae sat in the grass, eyes closed. She breathed calmly, steadily, like she was sleeping. When I got closer she cracked one eye open. "Morning." Then closed it again. Mirae didn't waste energy on things that explained themselves.

And Old Ben. Ben sat on a tree trunk like a boulder that had grown there. Arms crossed, blade of grass in his mouth. He chewed on it with a calm that came either from experience or from complete indifference toward death. His gaze met mine. He nodded. Slowly. And in that nod lay everything a man like Ben had to say: I've been in worse. Probably. Don't care either way.

These were the people I was about to go into a ruin with.

My people.

I hated how much I liked that.

Then suddenly there was a hand on my shoulder.

I flinched. Spun around, heart in my throat, and...

Nikita. Grinning wide. Like today was a damn good day.

"Finally," he breathed. "Finally we're working together."

Nikita was... hard to describe. He wasn't especially tall. Not especially broad. But he had this energy, this thing that some people just have and others don't, no matter how hard they try. When Nikita walked into a room, people stood straighter. Not because he demanded it. Not like Antoine. But because around him you somehow felt like things would work out.

"Relax." He clapped my shoulder again, and his hand stayed there for a second. "It'll be fine."

It'll be fine.

I didn't know if that was true. But Nikita said it, and Nikita didn't lie. That was the thing with him, he didn't talk much, and when he said something, he meant it. In a camp where most people looked at me like I had something contagious, Nikita was the only one who was happy to be standing here with me.

Then I heard the voices.

From the main path. Still far, but I knew one of them better than I wanted to.

Antoine.

"...don't want to." His voice. Cold.

Basha's voice, calmer: "He's earned his place. His squad found the ruins."

"Earned?" A laugh. Short, sharp, without any warmth. "He hid in the dirt while others fought. That's not proof. That's a joke."

Then silence. They came closer and saw that we were standing there. That I was standing there.

I saw Antoine before he saw me. He came down the path and he looked... good. That was the problem with Antoine. He ALWAYS looked good. Tall, upright posture. Broad shoulders. He moved like someone who owned the world and knew it. New gear, better leather, a blade that flashed in the first sunlight. His hair was tied back and his face had that expression that said: I'm here, and you should be grateful.

Next to him, Viktor. The blond one. Broad, aggressive, always half a step behind Antoine like a dog waiting for his owner to point at something. Behind them the rest of Squad 1: a dwarf with scarred forearms and a hammer on his belt. A female elf, tall, cool, with long blonde hair. A reptilian whose scales shimmered greenish in the morning light.

Antoine's gaze hit mine.

He said nothing.

He looked at me. Top to bottom, slowly, with a face that was neither angry nor annoyed. Just... nothing. I wasn't important enough for him to even react.

Then he turned away. Kept talking to Viktor.

The knot in my stomach came back. Twice as big as before. Carmen's bread felt like stones.

Then I felt Nikita beside me. Calm, upright. He'd seen it. All of it. And he said nothing, because there was nothing to say. He just stood there. Next to me. And that was enough.

I breathed in. Out. Okay.

Basha stepped in front of the group. She was shorter than most people here, and she didn't speak loud. But when Basha talked, everyone listened.

"Squad 7 leads. You found the place, you know the way. Squad 1 secures."

I watched Antoine's jaw twitch. Barely visible. Squad 7 LEADS? The loser unit? He said nothing. Swallowed it down. Basha saw it anyway.

"We don't know what's in there," she continued. "We don't know if it's dangerous. So: stay together, stay quiet, eyes open." A pause. Her gaze wandered through the group, lingered on Antoine for a second. "Nobody plays the hero."

Then: "Move out."

The path to the ruins was long enough to think. That was the problem.

We walked in two groups. Not officially, nobody had said you left, us right. It just happened. Squad 7 on the left, Squad 1 on the right. Two currents on the same path that didn't mix.

Nikita walked with me. He belonged to Squad 1, but he walked with me, and Antoine had seen it, and I could feel his stare in my back like a needle.

Nikita and I looked at each other. Just briefly. A look that said what words would have ruined. We'd been in something like this before. Back then, before there was a camp. Before everything. Our first dungeon, with the old crew, where we had to hide and ended up spending the night.

"Like old times, huh?" Nikita, quiet.

"Hopefully not."

He grinned. "Hopefully yes."

Typical.

Viktor turned around after a while. "Make sure the loser unit doesn't wimp out, yeah?" He laughed at his own joke. Nobody from Squad 1 laughed along, but nobody spoke up either.

Next to me, Jonas clenched his fists. I saw it, briefly put my hand on his arm. Shook my head. Not worth it. Jonas clamped his jaw shut, breathed out, nodded.

And then the forest went silent.

Gone. Everything gone.

The trees stood closer together. The sunlight that had fallen through the leaves in golden streaks before grew thinner, paler, like someone had draped a cloth over it. The ground under our feet got softer. Wetter. It gave way like something that wasn't quite solid. The air smelled like earth and something sweet that I couldn't place. Like rotting flowers.

Old Ben stopped. Put his hand against a tree trunk. Listened. Five seconds. Ten. Then he kept walking. His face had changed.

I leaned toward Nikita. Quiet, so only he could hear. "Do you hear that?"

"What?"

"Nothing. Exactly."

Nikita listened. His eyes narrowed. He heard it now too. The silence. The absolute, heavy silence of a forest holding its breath. As if everything alive knew what was here and had gotten as far away from it as possible.

We kept walking. Nobody spoke. Even Viktor had stopped talking.

The ruins lay before us like yesterday.

Stone. Smooth edges. Half covered by dirt.

But something was different.

Mirae stopped. She was the first to see it. "That..." Her voice was quiet and steady at the same time. "That wasn't like this yesterday."

Around the entrance, the entrance we had discovered YESTERDAY, the vegetation was dead. In a perfect half circle. Grass, moss, the roots of the trees that had grown over the stone: black. Withered. Like burned, but without fire, without heat, without ash. The soil beneath was dark and wet and smelled of that sweet something the whole forest breathed out, only stronger. More concentrated.

And the entrance itself.

Yesterday it had been half buried. Dirt, roots, stones. You had to squeeze through to even recognize it as an entrance.

Today it stood open.

Basha walked slowly toward the entrance. Her steps were careful, measured, like a hunter approaching a wounded animal. She placed her hand on the stone.

Her fingers lingered for a moment.

Then she pulled them back.

"Cold," she whispered. "Ice cold."

It was a warm autumn morning. The stone shouldn't have been cold.

And then I felt it. From the depths, from the open entrance, from the black behind it: a draft. Weak. Barely more than a breath against my face. But it was there. And it came in waves. In. Out. In. Out.

Like a breath.

As if something under the earth was breathing in and out.

Antoine stepped forward. Drew his blade. For the first time that morning, the mockery was gone from his face.

Basha turned to face us. Her face was calm. But her eyes said something her mouth didn't.

"Weapons out."