The body was gone.
Where the creature had fallen, now only fragments remained—scattered bones, a smear of blue ichor dried into the stone, and the stench of something that should not have existed.
But Jun wasn't looking at the bones.
He was staring at what lay beneath them.
A stone.
Rough, dark, irregular. It pulsed faintly in the light. Almost imperceptibly. As if it breathed.
Jun didn't call the others. Maya and Lina were still behind him, studying the rune-covered remains with quiet intensity. He approached it alone.
He knelt.
His hand hovered over the stone but didn't touch it. Not yet.
It didn't feel like the other things they'd found in the Ruins. This wasn't debris, or an artifact, or even a piece of the monster.
It was… something else.
Something that watched.
He picked it up.
The sensation was immediate.
Cold. Heavier than it looked.
And something more—something that wasn't quite a sound, but felt like it could become one. A low vibration in the back of his skull, behind his thoughts.
He slipped it inside a pouch made from scraps of his shirt and walked back to the others, saying nothing.
The rest of the day passed in uneasy quiet.
Maya was fascinated by the bones, obsessively copying the runes etched into them with a sharp piece of charcoal. She spoke in murmurs to herself, speculating, discarding, rephrasing. Lina helped her, though without real understanding—she was more worried about Jun, casting frequent glances in his direction.
But Jun sat apart from them, alone, just beyond the campfire.
The stone rested in his hands.
He hadn't let it go since morning.
He turned it over again and again, examining it from every angle, his fingers tracing the rough, unnatural texture. It didn't shimmer like crystal, nor shine like metal. Its surface seemed inert—until you stopped moving. Then, it felt like it pulsed again. Like it knew you were watching.
Jun didn't know why he was drawn to it. Only that he couldn't stop.
He didn't eat that day. He barely moved.
Each time Maya looked up, she saw him holding it, studying it. Once, she almost asked what it was. But something about the way he held it—not possessive, not secretive, but… reverent—made her hesitate.
That night, as darkness fell across the Ruins, the campfire flickered quietly between the broken walls. Maya fell asleep curled against her makeshift blanket. Lina lay not far away, her hand resting on the handle of a half-finished wooden spear.
Jun didn't sleep.
He stayed seated.
The stone in his hands.
The air was cold.
The ruins seemed quieter than usual, like even the distant beasts had fallen silent. Jun stared at the stone, unmoving. His eyes were hollow, tired, but not from lack of rest. Something in him was reaching toward it—and something in it was reaching back.
He didn't understand.
But he didn't need to.
He turned the stone one more time.
A sharp edge cut the side of his thumb.
Just a scratch.
A single drop of blood slid down his skin… and fell.
It hit the stone.
Nothing.
Then—heat.
A flash of warmth shot through the stone like fire under glass. A pulse. A hum. And then—
Pain.
Jun gasped.
The stone lit up—no, not with light, but with motion. Lines began to shift across its surface—tiny, delicate grooves that hadn't been there before, forming patterns, spirals, circles, layered upon one another like something ancient unfolding.
The pain surged through his palm, racing up his arm. It wasn't burning. It was something deeper. Like metal fusing with flesh. Like a scream with no sound.
He tried to let go.
He couldn't.
His fingers wouldn't move.
The stone was pulling him in.
He fell to his knees, teeth clenched, eyes wide.
The runes now danced along the stone's surface, matching those that had been etched into the monster's bones—but moving, alive, shifting into configurations he couldn't follow.
His breath caught.
The world around him began to blur.
The fire.
The sky.
The ground.
All of it flickered, like a dying flame.
And then—
Silence.
He was standing.
But not in the ruins.
Not anywhere.
There was no ground beneath his feet.
No sky above.
No sound.
No direction.
Only blackness.
Endless.
Weightless.
The Néant.
Jun turned—though there was nothing to turn toward. His body moved, but it didn't feel like his body. His skin felt thinner. His breath didn't echo. His heart wasn't beating—or if it was, it made no sound.
Shapes flickered in the distance. Or maybe in his mind.
Vast, cold, impossible geometries.
Not made of stone.
Not made of matter.
Made of meaning.
Something was watching him.
No—it wasn't watching.
It was waiting.
Then, slowly, a symbol appeared in the void. Suspended in black. Glowing faintly with a pale, silver-blue light.
One of the runes. But not from the bones. Something older. Sharper.
It turned slowly, as if inviting him to look closer.
Jun stepped forward—or maybe he was pulled.
He reached out.
The moment his fingers touched the symbol, everything collapsed.
A whisper.
No words.
Just feeling.
Then light.
Blinding.
He gasped.
Air rushed into his lungs.
He was back.
The campfire still burned. The ruins were silent. The wind rustled through dead branches.
His knees were on the ground.
His hand was empty.
The stone was gone.
No, not gone.
It was inside.
He felt it.
Not physically.
But in his chest, behind his ribs. In the back of his mind. As though it had nestled itself deep into something he didn't know he had.
Jun stared at his palm.
The cut was gone.
No blood. No mark.
But the skin where the drop had fallen was… different. Just slightly. Like a scar that hadn't healed completely. A line of almost-invisible runic etchings, barely the size of a splinter, embedded into the skin.
He didn't understand.
He didn't move.
He didn't wake the others.
He just sat there.
Alone.
The fire cracked beside him.
Lina murmured something in her sleep.
Maya shifted under her blanket.
Neither of them stirred.
Jun didn't sleep that night.
And he never touched the stone again.