We moved fast.
Elira led the way with silent confidence, her boots crunching softly over silver grass. I trailed behind, heart hammering, feet stumbling to keep pace. A few other cadets joined us—two twins with matching bows and a guy whose right arm was entirely mechanical, humming with runes I couldn't read.
No one spoke. Even the forest seemed to hush as we pushed deeper toward the southern ridge.
"Elira," the mechanical-armed guy whispered. "Any sign?"
She paused, crouched low near a glowing fern, and pointed.
There—about ten meters ahead—something had scorched a line through the grass. Not burned. Not cut. Warped. Like the ground itself had recoiled.
"Distortion track," one of the twins muttered. "Fresh."
Elira glanced back at me. "Still think you're just a lost student?"
I swallowed hard. "Starting to have doubts."
We kept going.
That eerie pulse I'd felt in the white void? It was stronger here. Like something just beneath my skin was tuning to the forest's hum. My breath came faster, not from exertion—but anticipation.
Then I saw it.
Floating just above the ground in a small clearing, tangled in tree roots, was a figure.
Or at least… the shape of one.
It had no face. No legs. No detail. Just a loose, shifting silhouette—black as ink, rimmed with glitching light like a corrupted hologram. The air around it buzzed faintly, distorting the sound.
I froze.
Elira raised her spear. "Do not move," she hissed.
The silhouette jerked—snapping its head toward us with a motion too quick, too wrong.
It hadn't seen us before.
Now it had.
I felt something cold invade my chest.
Not fear.
Recognition.
The figure twitched again. And then, it spoke.
Not with a mouth. Not aloud. Directly into my head.
"UNBOUND. UNCLAIMED. UNSTITCHED."
The others stumbled back, hands to their temples.
But I stood frozen.
Because the voice—the broken, many-layered whisper—said something else.
Just for me.
"YOU DO NOT BELONG. YOU WERE REMOVED."
Elira lunged with her spear.
The shadow shrieked—not with sound, but by pulling the air inward. A wave of pressure knocked everyone back. My ears rang. My vision blurred. Runes flared across Elira's weapon as she tried to push forward.
The creature turned again—toward me.
And for one terrifying instant, I saw something inside it.
A reflection.
Of me.
Screaming.
Then it was gone.
The air snapped back. The pressure lifted. Birds cried out as though time had restarted.
Silence returned.
Elira sat up slowly, rubbing her shoulder. "What in the Twin Moons was that?"
I didn't answer right away.
Because I couldn't stop shaking.
Because in that flicker—when our eyes met, when that thing looked inside me—I understood something horrible:
That wasn't just a monster.
It was a message.
And I wasn't the only one who'd been expelled from reality.