The fire crackled beside Aiden, casting flickering shadows across tired, worn faces. The sweet scent of grapes had faded hours ago, their juice long gone — devoured in desperation by the twenty starving mouths huddled in this patch of fading light.
The boy, once filled with hope, now lay silent beside the flames. His breaths were short. Shallow. His condition was deteriorating by the hour.
Aiden clenched his fists.
Those grapes — they hadn't been enough. Barely a flicker of hydration. If that boy hadn't eaten some, he would've already been dead. But now… it was only a delay. A cruel extension.
Aiden stood slowly, staring into the dark beyond the trees. His fire axe hung heavy in his hand, the metal reflecting just a sliver of the firelight. He looked around at the others, most of them asleep, barely holding on. Even she — the girl he once flirted with — was curled into herself like a frightened animal, her breath quiet, her body still.
"I can't just sit here," Aiden whispered to himself. "Not this time."
He stepped toward the shadows. The woods greeted him with silence. And dread.
The firelight behind him faded with every step, but he didn't stop. His body ached. His thoughts were hazy. Yesterday his mind had been bursting with ideas — strategies, hope, survival plans. But now? Now it was just noise. Empty static.
Still, his feet moved forward.
Because even when the mind is silent, the will to live screams.