fire crackled softly. Its warmth was modest, its light barely pushing back the thick darkness pressing in from every direction. Maya and Lina sat close to it, their backs curved, eyelids heavy from the day's exhaustion. Jun remained a few paces away, squatting against a ruined pillar, silent.
He said nothing as the girls spoke softly—Lina mumbling about how cold her feet were, Maya replying in her usual clipped tone, trying to keep control despite the fatigue etched deep in her eyes.
Then, quiet.
Maya was the first to sleep, her head tipping sideways. Lina resisted a bit longer, her gaze searching the darkness, glancing at Jun.
"You'll wake us if anything happens… right?" she asked, her voice barely audible.
Jun nodded without looking at her. "Sleep. I'll stand guard."
She hesitated, her lips parting like she wanted to say more. But no words came. She lay back slowly, curling up beside Maya, and closed her eyes.
Jun waited.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. Their breathing deepened. The occasional twitch in their fingers or legs slowed.
Jun stood.
Carefully. Quietly. He moved like an animal used to surviving in silence. He stepped over a charred root, past the remnants of the makeshift lances they'd made earlier. His bare feet pressed against cold stone and dew-covered moss.
He walked to the edge of their shelter—an open, broken structure with only three walls and no ceiling—and looked out at the ruins. The same ones they'd wandered all day. Crumbling arches, collapsed floors, twisted beams, and decaying roots that strangled everything like veins of death.
Jun knew where the creature was.
He'd seen it earlier. Just a glimpse. At the edge of a collapsed square, pacing like a sentinel—a hulking, quadrupedal beast whose body seemed made of fused bones and wet sinew. Its form glowed faintly under the moonless sky, shimmering with the dull blue haze that marked a Category 1.
It hadn't seen them. Not yet.
But it would.
And Jun knew—he knew—that eventually, one wrong step or a shift in the wind would bring it to them. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe an hour from now. Maybe while they slept.
So he made a decision.
Not because he thought he could win.
Not because he had a plan.
But because he was tired.
Tired of running. Tired of hiding. Tired of having no control over his own fear.
He grabbed the crude spear he'd sharpened earlier—a long stick with a jagged shard of rock tied to the end with burnt cloth. It looked pathetic. He held it anyway.
Then he stepped into the dark.
The ruins at night were a different world.
No insects. No wind. Just silence.
It wasn't peaceful. It was watching.
Jun's steps were slow, deliberate. His body knew how to move without sound—he had practiced it since the age of eight, when the world above turned wild and cruel. But every sound he made tonight—every crackle of a leaf or snap of a twig—felt louder than thunder.
He passed a broken statue covered in moss. A pool of black water. A collapsed tower with bones scattered around its base.
He knew this area now. He had mapped it in his mind.
The creature would be near the large archway. The place they had avoided earlier. It hadn't moved far.
Jun's heartbeat drummed in his ears.
He crouched behind a toppled pillar and peered over.
There it was.
A mass of pale limbs, thick and corded with grotesque muscle. Its spine arched unnaturally high, its head low to the ground, sniffing with a faceless snout that split open like petals when it breathed. No eyes. No fur. Just raw, living flesh.
It was eating something.
A carcass—hard to tell what kind. Bones cracked under its weight as it chewed.
Jun's grip tightened around his spear. His hands were shaking.
He whispered to himself: "You run. You always run."
He closed his eyes. Images flooded his mind. The time he abandoned his scavenging group. The time he left a boy behind when the beasts came. The time he watched his mother die while he hid in a crawlspace.
He never fought.
But now… Lina and Maya were asleep. Trusting him. Depending on him.
He didn't want to wake up tomorrow and find them torn apart.
He didn't want to keep living like a shadow.
He stood.
His legs almost buckled.
He moved.
No plan. Just forward.
The creature heard him.
Its head twisted with a snap. The petals of its face flared wide—too wide—and a screech pierced the night like a blade.
Jun screamed as he hurled the spear. It missed.
The creature charged.
Jun dove behind the pillar, barely avoiding the swipe of a massive claw. Stone exploded where the blow landed. Dust and pebbles rained down on him.
He scrambled to his feet, running toward a broken staircase. The beast was already behind him. He ducked. Rolled. A claw tore open his back—burning pain, hot and deep. He screamed again.
He picked up a stone and threw it. Pointless. It bounced off the beast's flank.
He grabbed a broken piece of wood and jabbed blindly. The creature caught it in its mouth and crushed it like paper.
Jun turned and ran.
For five steps.
Then he stopped.
He screamed again—not in fear, but in rage—and turned back around.
"COME ON!" he shouted, voice cracking. "I'M RIGHT HERE!"
He grabbed a rusted beam and swung it with both hands. It hit the monster's leg with a dull clang. Barely a scratch.
The beast slammed its body against him.
He flew.
His ribs cracked against a wall. Blood filled his mouth.
His vision blurred. His arms shook. He couldn't breathe.
But he stood.
He stood.
He found the spear again, lying half-buried in rubble. He ripped it free, turned, and jammed it into the creature's mouth as it lunged at him again.
It pierced the soft flesh between its jaws.
A shriek. The beast reared back. Jun held on with both hands, dragged along the ground, his feet scraping, body bouncing like a ragdoll.
He lost grip.
He slammed into a root. Pain again. His arm twisted at a wrong angle.
But the creature was bleeding now.
Blue blood hissed against the stones.
Jun crawled.
Found a sharp bone. Jammed it into its leg as it stomped down.
It missed his head by inches.
He rolled away.
Stood again.
Screamed again.
He wasn't winning.
But he wasn't running
creature was wounded, but it only seemed more enraged.
It slammed its claw into the ground, sending dust and debris into the air. Jun staggered back, his lungs burning, his hands slick with blood—his or the creature's, he couldn't tell.
He grabbed a jagged stone and threw it again. Pointless.
Still, he had to move. He rolled behind a crumbled wall, breathing raggedly. His mind spun with panic and instinct.
His whole body screamed at him to run.
Every part of him—every lesson he had ever learned from the wasteland—told him to leave, to disappear, to survive.
But something deeper kept him rooted here.
He crawled across broken tiles and slipped inside what remained of a half-fallen structure. It had a hollow wooden beam, brittle with rot, but dry. His eyes darted to the firestone Maya had tucked into his belt earlier, in case the girls got cold during the night.
He had forgotten it until now.
He struck it against the beam—once, twice. A spark. Then a flicker of flame.
The dry wood caught fire.
Jun backed away quickly, lifting the burning end of the makeshift torch high above his head.
The beast roared from the other side of the ruin.
Jun ran out, waving the fire in front of him.
The creature hesitated.
Flame. The old enemy of all things wild.
He advanced step by step, pushing the fire closer, forcing the monster to retreat. Its screeches turned guttural. It tried to circle around. Jun blocked its path. Again. And again.
Then he saw it—just behind the beast. A splintered column, leaning on the edge of collapse. A narrow ledge above it. If he could lure the creature into range…
It was stupid. Reckless. Desperate.
He sprinted sideways and threw the flaming beam at the beast's side.
It hit.
Not enough to injure, but enough to anger.
The creature charged again, just as Jun hoped.
He dodged left, leading it straight toward the ruined structure.
As the beast passed beneath the leaning column, Jun ran up the side of the rubble and jumped—grabbing a vine-covered beam, swinging himself high, reaching the ledge.
He kicked hard.
The whole structure groaned.
One more kick.
Then another.
The beam cracked.
Stone shifted.
And the column came crashing down.
It hit the creature squarely across the back, pinning it to the ground with a sickening crunch. Dust and debris exploded in every direction. The screech that followed was deafening.
Jun dropped to his knees, gasping for breath.
Every muscle in his body trembled.
He didn't move.
He couldn't.
The ruins went still.
The monster writhed once, twice… then stopped.
Its form twitched, bleeding that strange blue ichor into the cracked stones. Its petals closed, finally, over its empty maw.
Jun didn't celebrate.
Didn't shout.
Didn't smile.
He just sat there.
His hands were raw. His skin was cut in more places than he could count. His ribs throbbed with every breath. One eye was swollen nearly shut.
But he had done it.
He hadn't run.
The walk back was slow.
The torch had burned out.
He walked through darkness, guided by memory and instinct, tripping over debris, holding his side.
When he returned to the ruined shelter, the fire was still glowing faintly.
Maya and Lina were asleep.
Jun looked at them in silence.
Lina had curled her legs up, her lips twitching as if she was dreaming. Maya's brows were furrowed even in sleep, her hand resting against her chest protectively.
They hadn't stirred.
Jun collapsed next to the fire.
He didn't lie down. He just sat there. Breathing. Watching.
His blood dried in streaks on his arms. His legs throbbed. He wasn't even sure how deep some of the cuts went. His right shoulder was purple with bruising.
But he was alive.
And more than that—he hadn't run.
Even as pain screamed through every nerve, even as the cold of night settled into his skin, Jun felt something unfamiliar bloom in his chest.
It wasn't pride.
It wasn't relief.
It was something simpler.
Conviction.
Morning came slowly.
The girls woke just as the light broke across the ruins, thin rays painting the shattered stones in dull gold.
Maya stirred first. She sat up groggily, rubbing her eyes.
Then she noticed Jun.
She stared.
"…What happened to you?" she whispered, panic rising in her voice.
Jun didn't answer.
Lina woke next, her expression quickly shifting from confusion to horror.
"Jun?!"
He didn't move. Only gave them a tired glance.
They rushed to him.
Maya's fingers hovered over his wounds, unsure where to touch without causing pain. Lina's hands shook as she tore cloth to wrap the worst of the cuts.
"Why didn't you wake us?" Maya snapped, angry and terrified all at once.
"I didn't want you to see it," Jun muttered.
"The monster…?" Lina asked, her voice trembling.
Jun nodded.
"It's dead."
Silence.
Then Maya whispered, "You fought it. Alone?"
Jun didn't answer. He didn't need to.
Lina's hands paused. "Why…?"
He looked at her. His eyes were dry, but heavy.
"I was tired of being weak," he said.
"I thought that was all I was good at—running. But if I kept doing that, you'd die. I'd die. Nothing would change."
He looked up at the sky, pale and empty.
"So I stopped running."
Neither girl spoke.
They sat with him as the sun rose, warming their bruised and weary bodies.
Something had changed in that night.
Not just in Jun—but in all of them.
They saw him differently now.
Not just as a survivor. Not just as a scavenger.
But as someone who would fight—even if he didn't know how.
Even if it broke him.
Because he had something worth protecting.