Chapter 2 – The Girl with Braids
The moonlight was cruel. It laid me bare, painting every inch of me in a pale glow that felt too sharp, too watchful. My skin was still crawling with the sensation of earth and worms, like I had only just stolen myself back from the grave.
I stood there, shaking dirt from my hair, when I realized I wasn't alone.
She was there.
The girl. The one I'd seen at the edge of the trees. She hadn't moved an inch since I clawed myself free. Her figure was small, almost fragile at a glance, but the stillness about her made her presence larger than mine. Those braids framed a face too calm, too deliberate for the situation.
Her eyes—dark, unblinking—were on me, dissecting me the way a child might prod at a pinned butterfly.
"You rose from the ground," she said again. Her voice was flat, yet deliberate, as though every word carried its own tiny scalpel. "That's either impressive… or inconvenient."
The words slipped into me like cold water. I wanted to speak, to explain, but my throat was dry and raw. Only a rasp came out, half a breath, half a growl.
I swallowed hard. My body was… wrong. Still changing. The air stung my lungs less than it had moments before. My legs no longer trembled beneath me. Wounds I didn't even remember earning sealed shut before my eyes.
Adaptation. That cursed wheel inside me. It was moving, always moving, finding ways to twist me closer to survival.
But she didn't flinch. Didn't step back.
In fact, she stepped closer.
The crunch of her boots against the soil was deliberate, slow, each sound louder in my ears than it should have been. I could smell the forest, damp wood and dead leaves, but beneath it lingered something sharper—ozone, like the air before a storm.
When she stopped, only a few paces away, I realized how small the distance between us was. Her head tilted, studying the dirt under my nails, the bloodless cuts closing on my arms.
"I'd say you don't belong here," she murmured, her eyes locking with mine, "but I find myself strangely entertained."
I felt myself tense. Something in me wanted to run. Something else wanted to lunge. Both instincts pressed hard, like twin weights crushing my ribs. My fingers twitched, betraying the animal hunger in me that hadn't existed in my old life.
But I forced myself still. Breathing shallow. Watching her the way she watched me.
For a long, suffocating moment, neither of us spoke. The only sound was the whisper of leaves high above and the slow turning of Mahoraga's wheel inside me—silent, but undeniable.
At last, she blinked. Just once.
"Tell me," she said, voice smooth as a blade sliding from its sheath. "Did you dig your way out… or did something let you out?"
The question dug into me as sharply as her stare. I didn't know the answer myself.
But the night didn't care. It only pressed closer, waiting for me to find words.