Ever so swiftly, he turned back toward the crackling sound. Atama's fingers closed around a stone at his feet. He straightened, arm coiled back, stone ready. He waited.
His knuckles were white. The stone trembled in his grip. While his eyes began wondrously searching for a shadow.
The bushes erupted. Leaves and twigs burst inward.
The stone slipped from his hand, ignored. His breathing was ragged as he broke through the underbrush, branches whipping his arms and face. Behind him, the noise grew louder, whatever it was, it was chasing him. He didn't turn around. He couldn't. The overwhelming feeling of being watched had taken form, and only one thing mattered: to put as much distance as possible between him and the shadows hunting him in this upside-down world.
His feet slammed against the fragile ground, leading him further into the woods where the dim light played tricks on his eyes, and every direction seemed like the last.
"Hey!"
Atama stupefied at the sound of the voice.
Not a screech. Not the guttural hiss of a dyviak. A human voice. But in this place, that was somehow worse.
He didn't think. He moved.
First, he dove behind a wide, gnarled trunk, pressing himself against the rough bark, holding his breath. His heart slammed against his ribs so hard he was certain it would give him away. He strained to listen over the rush of blood in his ears.
Footsteps. Crunching on the brittle soil. Coming closer.
Not enough. Not safe.
With desperate, silent urgency, he reached up, found a low branch, and hauled himself into the tree. Bark scraped his palms, but he ignored it, climbing higher, pressing his body against the thick limb, making himself as small and still as possible. Leaves and twisted shadows draped over him like a flawed veil.
Below, the footsteps stopped.
Right where he had been standing.
Through the gaps in the foliage, Atama dared to look down. A figure stood there, turning slowly. Searching. No face,just a shape. Someone who had seen him run.
Don't look up. Don't look up.
The figure tilted its head. Listening. Then, slowly, it began to circle the base of the tree.
Then another voice joined the first.
"Hey."
Atama's fingers dug into the bark as the second figure emerged from the treeline. They met beneath his branch, close enough that Atama could see the dust on their boots. Through the rustling of leaves and the thundering of his own heart, Atama strained to catch their words.
Nothing. A murmur. Syllables rising and falling like wind through dead leaves. One of them pointed toward the thicket Atama had burst from. The other nodded. Then tilted his head back.
Atama's lungs locked. His heart didn't stop,it just became something else, something that existed only in his throat, his temples, behind his eyes.
The figure's gaze seemed to pass over him, through the leaves, through the branches. Then it turned back to its companion, murmuring something that made them both laugh. A low, casual sound. The sound of people with nothing to fear.
They stood there. One scraped mud from his boot against a root. The other rubbed the back of his neck. Then, without hurry, they walked on. Footsteps crunching away into the brittle undergrowth.
Atama waited. A muscle in his thigh began to cramp. A bead of sweat crawled down his ribs. The footsteps faded completely. The woods settled back into silence.
He did not move. His breath returned in shallow sips, each one careful, measured. His heart slowed from a hammer to a heavy, irregular thump.
They had looked right at his tree.
A brilliant light bloomed in their hands.
Atama's eyes stretched wide. For a fleeting moment, he saw their faces,smooth, young, maybe his age. Strangers. Human. Their mouths moved together in low harmony, words that reached his ears as vibration without meaning.
They pressed their palms toward the ground.
The light left their hands and sank into the brittle soil. Faint glowing veins spread across the earth, pulsing once, twice,then deeper, like breath drawn into lungs. The ground beneath them shuddered. Soft. Brief. A quiet exhalation.
They watched the light fade into the depths. Then turned. Walked away. The twisted woods swallowed them without a sound.
Atama stayed frozen in the branches. His fingers ached from gripping bark. His eyes fixed on the spot where the light had disappeared,just ordinary ground now, dry leaves scattered across it, the muted sky doing nothing to mark what had happened.
He waited. Listened. The silence pressed against his ears.
Nothing moved. Nothing answered.
But the weight of being watched still clung to his skin, and the woods around him felt too deliberate, too arranged, like a held breath waiting to be released. He shifted against the branch, wincing as the cramp in his thigh tightened.
He would stay until he understood. Or until the cold drove him down.
The question wouldn't leave him alone.
He clung to the branch, staring at the empty space where the two figures had vanished. Rituals. Chanting. Light sinking into earth like water into thirsty ground. None of it made sense. But all of it felt deliberate. Purposeful. Meant for this specific place.
He couldn't stay in this tree forever.
Atama moved.
His hand found a branch. He tested it. Lowered himself. One branch. Then another. His heart marked each second. Bark scraped his palms; he ignored it. The ground waited below, patient and dark.
His feet hovered just above the soil. He let go, dropping the last short distance,
The world detonated.
Light erupted beneath him, brilliant, searing veins that spread outward in every direction like lightning trapped under glass. The glow raced across the earth, branching and multiplying, illuminating the entire clearing in sharp, pulsing radiance. Beautiful. Unmistakable.
An alarm.
Atama stumbled back, but the damage was done. The glowing veins continued to pulse beneath the surface, a beacon screaming into the silent woods: Someone is here. The ward has been triggered.
His heart seized.
Panic took over. Atama ran.
He didn't know where. He didn't care. Away from the light, away from whatever those two had set, away from the certainty that something was now coming for him. His lungs burned, his legs pumped, and branches whipped at his face and arms like vengeful spirits. The twisted woods blurred around him, identical trees repeating in an endless, nightmare loop.
He ran until his body demanded he stop.
Collapsing against a cluster of pale boulders half-swallowed by creeping roots, Atama doubled over, hands on his knees, gasping for air. The thin atmosphere of this world offered little comfort to his straining lungs. Each breath felt like sucking air through a straw.
For a moment, he just listened to his heartbeat thunder in his ear, while the wild, deathly still.
He slid down against the cool stone, pressing his back into its rough surface, and allowed himself one minute. Just one. To breathe. To think. To survive.
I think I regret this he murmured.
What now?
The question had no answer. He was lost in an inverted world, hunted by gods knew what, with nothing but a fading inner light and a name he didn't understand.
Viona Caine.
He held onto it like a lifeline. It was the only direction he had.
Pushing off the boulders, Atama forced his trembling legs to move again. He would walk. He would find answers. He would survive long enough to understand why the deer had chosen him.
And maybe just maybe he would find a friendly face.
Minutes bled into one another as Atama stumbled through the twisted woods, his body running on fumes and fear. When his legs finally threatened to give out, he found a shallow alcove between massive, exposed roots and collapsed into it, fumbling with the straps of his charred backpack.
He needed food. Needed to think. Needed to breathe.
His hands rummaged through the damaged pack, the wrapped bundle of food his mother had prepared was still there, slightly crushed but intact. He pulled it out, about to tear into it, when something made him stop.
Movement? No. Not movement. Shape.
His eyes lifted, and there, through a gap in the skeletal trees, he saw it.
A village.
It huddled in the distance like a forgotten graveyard,a cluster of small structures with collapsed roofs and walls that leaned at wrong angles. Some were built from the same root-stone hybrid he'd seen everywhere, others from what looked like pale, bleached wood. Smoke rose from none of them. Light glowed from no window.
Desolate. Abandoned. Swallowed by the same oppressive silence that blanketed everything in this world.
For a moment, hope flickered in Atama's chest. Shelter? Supplies? Answers? But the feeling curdled quickly, replaced by a deeper wariness. In this place, anything that looked like refuge could just as easily be a trap. He thought of the glowing alarm, still pulsing somewhere behind him, and the two figures who had set it. Were they from this village? Had they left it for somewhere else? For somewhere safer?
He couldn't stay here forever, exposed in the roots. And he couldn't keep running without direction.
Slowly, deliberately, Atama tucked the food away, shouldered his pack, and began walking toward the dead village. Every instinct screamed at him to turn away. But his instincts had also led him here, to this inverted world, chasing a voice and a name and a light he still didn't fully understand.
He would approach carefully. He would observe. And if the village held nothing but ghosts and shadows, he would leave the same way he came,alive and unseen.
The buildings grew larger with each reluctant step. Even abandoned, even fallen, they held stories. And Atama needed to know if any of those stories could help him survive.
Atama's breath caught in his throat. Footsteps,soft but deliberate,crunched against the brittle soil somewhere nearby. He didn't think. His body moved before his mind could catch up, slipping through the gaping hole in the nearest house's wall and pressing himself against the cold, decaying interior.
The building was a hollow shell. Part of its roof had collapsed entirely, letting in the muted sky-light, and the far wall was little more than a skeletal frame open to the elements. Through the cracks in the rotting wood, Atama had a narrow, fragmented view of the village's main path.
He waited. Listened. His heart hammered against his ribs.
Then he saw him.
A figure emerged from between two collapsed structures, walking with a slow, measured pace. He was a man, broad-shouldered, with a posture that spoke of someone accustomed to carrying weight, literal or otherwise. His clothes were little more than rags, hanging loose on a frame that suggested he had once been strong, perhaps even formidable. Now, he looked worn. Tired. But his movements were deliberate, his eyes scanning the village with purpose.
Atama pressed deeper into the shadows, barely breathing.
The man stopped in the middle of the path, turning his head slowly as if searching for something,or someone. His gaze passed over the house where Atama hid, lingered for a heartbeat, then moved on.
Where had the other gone?
The question surfaced unbidden in Atama's mind. The two figures from before,the ones who had set the ward,had been young. This man was neither. Had they been traveling together? Was he looking for them? Or were they all part of something larger, something Atama had stumbled into without understanding?
The man muttered something under his breath, too low for Atama to catch. Then, without warning, he turned and walked toward another cluster of buildings, disappearing behind a collapsed wall.
Atama's blood turned to ice.
"We have been looking for you."
The whisper came from directly behind him,so close he could almost feel breath against his neck. His hand froze mid-reach for his pack. Every muscle in his body locked into place.
Slowly, impossibly slowly, he turned.
A girl stood in the deeper shadows of the ruined house, just beyond the reach of the muted light filtering through the collapsed roof. She was young,perhaps his age,with glisten golden hair that fell in tangled waves around a face too still, too knowing. Her eyes caught what little light there was, reflecting it back like a cat's.
And behind her, half-hidden in the gloom, something else lingered. A shape. Small, crouched, with limbs that bent at wrong angles and eyes that glowed faintly,two, no, four of them, blinking in asynchronous rhythm. It made no sound, but Atama could feel its gaze crawling over his skin like insects.
He couldn't move. Couldn't speak. The girl simply watched him, her expression unreadable, as the creature behind her shifted its weight with a soft, wet sound.