Run.
Trees blurred past in streaks of green and brown. The wind roared in the boy's ears as his boots slammed against the forest floor. Blood dripped from his temple, sliding down the curve of his jaw. His shirt was torn in several places, snagged and shredded by branches and frantic escape. His breath came in sharp bursts, eyes wide, wild.
Zeke was running like something had broken inside him. Like he wasn't sure if he was still sane.
Because maybe he wasn't.
A few minutes earlier.
The teleportation was rough — not like the last one. It was sudden, rough. Zeke's feet landed hard on damp soil, the sky overhead blocked by a thick canopy of twisted trees.
He spun, scanning the area.
No plaza. No teachers. No signs of Kaito, Tala, or Rian.
Just a dense forest... and three strangers.
A boy with dark brown hair and a scowl. A girl with dyed pink streaks, too much makeup. The third was quiet — short, with a tired look in her eyes and a scar across her nose.
All of them looked just as confused.
"Where are we?" the makeup girl muttered.
"The trial," the scarred girl said. "This must be the Wildlands."
"No signal. No help. I tried," the boy added grimly, tossing a stone that vanished into a shrub. "We're cut off."
Zeke said nothing, eyes scanning the trees.
Nothing.
"What's your name?" the pink-haired girl asked, snapping him back.
He hesitated.
"Zeke."
The others gave their names — not that it mattered.
And then the girl beside him began to float.
Slowly.
Silently.
She blinked, makeup smudged, mouth opening in confusion. "Huh…?"
Everyone turned.
"What the—?" the boy breathed.
She hovered higher. A few feet. Then more.
Then—
A scream.
It was sharp. Raw. A sound of agony.
An invisible force tore straight through her chest from behind. Blood sprayed in an arc, splattering Zeke's boots. Her limbs twitched in the air like a broken puppet.
Behind her — nothing.
No shape. No creature.
Just a distortion in the air. A ripple of light, like the world itself was being bent.
Whatever it was... was holding her up.
Zeke's mouth moved before his brain did. His voice came out hoarse.
"Run."
The other two were frozen.
Then the thing flung the girl's body like a discarded rag. Her scream cut off.
Zeke's voice cracked. "RUN!"
The three of them bolted.
Branches snapped. Leaves slashed their arms. Behind them, they could hear air moving thrashing as if a storm was brewing.
"No, no, no, please—!" the girl with the scar cried out behind him, voice cracking like glass under pressure.
Her foot had caught on a root — no, something had wrapped around her ankle. A limb of sorts, too fluid to be flesh, too solid to be mist.
Then it pulled.
A horrible, wet crunch echoed through the trees. Her body jerked backward and disappeared into the dark behind them.
Zeke didn't look back. His heart pounded like war drums in his chest. The voice in his head screaming to get out of the forest.
The boy beside him gasped for air, boots slamming the ground, arms pumping wildly. Zeke felt the boy's presence close behind him, trying to keep pace with Zeke through the chaos of the trees.
Zeke had always been a fast runner, relatively calm under pressure, quick on his feet — but the other boy was already stumbling, pushed to his limit just trying to keep up.
Then his foot caught on the root of a tree he tried to run over.
He went down hard.
"Zeke—!" he managed to scream, but the sound was muted but a sickening crunch.
He ran harder. Eyes stinging. Muscles shaking.
Don't stop. Don't stop. Don't stop.
Now he was alone.
One breath. Then another.
Faster. Faster, damn it.
Sparks danced inside him — the same heat from before, Mana.
RUN.
He forced the energy into his legs. It flared. It burned.
He screamed through clenched teeth, "Come on! Move!"
The pain surged. But he was faster now. Trees tore at his sides. His shirt ripped open.
Behind him, the creature picked up its speed.
He couldn't see it — not really. It was as if someone drew an outline for a monster but didn't colour it in...It was hollow. A gap in the world. The only sign of it was the way light curved unnaturally, and the sound of crashing trees.
Then—
BOOM.
Zeke was pushed to his limits. Every drop of energy gathered in his legs forging their own pathways like veins. A shockwave burst from his body, launching him forward like a cannonball through the underbrush. Leaves exploded around him. The ground blurred.
His shirt shredded.
His vision narrowed.
And the only thought that pulsed in his head was.
"Even if it can't catch up I need to keep going" Zeke muttered.
The dense forest suddenly thinned.
Before him stretched an open field — wide and empty under the dull gray sky. A thin column of smoke curled lazily upward in the distance, a beacon of hope.
Zeke's heart surged. Smoke. People. Rescue.
He pushed forward, legs pumping harder, breath burning, adrenaline surging through every vein. The forest behind him faded with every step.
Closer now, the ground beneath his feet changed. The soft dirt was marred by scuffed footprints — some deep, others shallow, but all frantic. And then, something else.
Dark stains spread across the soil like spilled ink. Blood. Fresh and dark.
His stomach clenched, but hope drove him onward.
The smell hit him next — metallic, coppery, heavy in the air.
He broke through the treeline and gasped.
A campfire lay cold at the center of the clearing — but the real horror was around it.
More than thirty bodies lay scattered within a fifty-meter radius.
Heads smashed in. Limbs broken and twisted in unnatural angles. Eyes wide open, frozen in terror.
A girl's pale face caught the dull light. Her mouth was open in a silent scream. Nearby, a boy's hand twitched, fingers curled against the dirt like he was trying to grasp something just out of reach.
Zeke's eyes narrowed. He staggered forward, heart pounding deafeningly in his ears.
No signs of struggle just devastation.
And then, his gaze locked on something hanging from a low branch near the fire.
A single cuff.
Leather, worn, familiar.
His blood turned to ice.
Tala's cuff.
He reached out slowly, trembling, fingers brushing the cold leather.
The forest seemed to close in, the shadows lengthening as the sky dimmed.
No. This can't be real.
But it was.
The cuff swayed gently in the breeze, a silent witness to the nightmare.
Zeke swallowed the lump in his throat.
A scream bubbled up — but no sound came.
He sank to his knees, eyes darting body to body desperately hoping to not see a familiar face .
But the clearing was silent. Dead.
And the only sound was the faint crackle of the dying campfire.
Still burning
Unmoved by the world's chaos.
A quiet witness to everything that was broken.