Sadness didn't fall.
It sank.
Slow. Heavy. Inescapable.
Like dusk bleeding through him until every trace of light was gone.
He stood still.
Silence pressed close—too thick to breathe through.
For a moment, thought itself stalled.
Out of that inner fog, a voice rose.
His teacher's voice.
Calm. Methodical. Almost cruel in its simplicity.
"It's not about certainty. It's about increasing the odds."
Each syllable hit the back of his mind like hammer blows against glass.
Truth, stripped of comfort.
The tone that had once sounded philosophical now rang mechanical… empty… absolute.
"You have no certainty for anything. Not even for this world."
The words rippled through him.
Cold recognition followed.
What once felt like wisdom now pressed against his ribs like bars closing.
Every layer of his memory folded inward.
Something ended there.
Something else began.
The weight remained—but it moved now.
Purpose, faint and directed.
He felt the shift before he could name it.
Scene shifts - Noren island .
A new place breathed in.
Noren Island. Yangpass.
Metal and wet stone scented the air.
He inhaled once, eyes closed, then opened them to the thin gray light.
No path backward existed anymore.
Wind rose above the forest canopy, sliding through leaves like stirred paper.
High on the ridge of an immense tree that vanished into cloud, a boy stood.
Beside him crouched a smaller shape.
Air thinned at that height—cool, sharp, clean.
It tasted of sap and distance.
He wore a plain purple shirt, shoulder-creased and wind-stirred.
Skin-colored pants tucked into green shoes worn to smoothness.
When the breeze shifted, the fabric whispered faintly.
Silver hair brushed his neck.
Light caught it in metallic glints before the next gust scattered them.
A quiet face.
Too gentle for the world beneath him.
Long lashes.
Pale skin stretched over narrow features.
Eyes bright and circular—blue to the point of unease.
Seventeen. Almost untouched.
His name was Reinhard.
In his right hand, an apple—half shadow, half shine.
In front of him, a small white omnithal breathed against the wind.
Four-legged.
Fur thin as frost.
It nibbled carefully, savoring the fruit.
Slow, rhythmic sound—tiny jaws on skin.
Reinhard's fingers brushed its back once.
Warm fur.
Pulse beating faintly through it.
Not food to him. Just life.
A branch behind him shivered.
Footsteps.
Soft, practiced, deliberate.
"So, Reinhard, feeding an omnithal again."
Voice of Kael.
Dry tone.
Half amusement, half scorn.
Reinhard turned slightly.
No hurry in that motion.
Kael stood with his arms folded, ankles crossed on the branch.
Grin sharp but lazy.
"Nice work," he said.
"Feeding human food to food for humans."
The wind paused.
Kael's voice cut through it.
"Your cousins starve, our enemies dine, and you—our savior—share apples. Charming."
Reinhard's gaze shifted.
The light in his eyes cooled to blue glass.
"How many times will you repeat yourself?"
Kael shrugged.
"Until repetition stops hurting."
His laugh was short, without heart.
"You ignore me every time anyway."
"Then say something else."
Kael tilted his head back toward the drifting clouds.
"Fine. Let's change topics."
Silence swelled between them.
Then Kael spoke again, lighter now.
"Message came from the Level 2.b Human Government Office. They want us there. Both of us."
Reinhard exhaled.
Tension diffused into the air.
"Then we go."
They left the canopy behind.
Metal bridges cut through the mist like ribs through flesh.
The path spiraled down the trunk until it met paved stone—an old walkway peppered with steel moss.
Neither spoke.
The trip through mid-island lanes was silent.
Machines hummed somewhere beneath the soil, carrying power to unseen districts.
Even the sky seemed still.
By the time they reached the Human Government Department, Level 2.b, the quiet had deepened—a kind of institutional hush.
Inside, fluorescent lights hummed faintly.
Footsteps echoed down smooth hallways trimmed in gray steel.
No chatter, no warmth—just air filtered to sterility.
Reinhard felt it first.
A pressure behind the silence.
Like the walls themselves had ears.
Then someone called his name.
He turned.
Elizabeth stood near the corridor's end.
Nineteen.
Grace trained into every motion.
Golden curls fell to her shoulders; her blouse caught the light like threads dipped in frost.
Her eyes—same blue as his, but softer.
They held calm, though the tension beneath it quivered faintly.
"Are we all summoned together?" he asked.
"Seems so," she said.
Tone measured, unsteady beneath the surface.
They walked side by side through the long corridor.
At its end: a heavy door.
Steel frame. Pressure-sealed hinges.
Reinhard pushed it open.
Cold air hissed across their faces.
The hiss carried that faint metallic tang of machines kept too clean.
Behind a broad desk sat Malric.
Their uncle.
Head of Human Government Department 2.b.
Fifty-five, maybe more.
Hard lines of age drawn beneath steadied eyes.
Black coat pressed to perfection.
A magician's hat rested beside the documents.
He looked up slowly as they entered.
"Earlier than I expected," he said.
They bowed lightly.
"Good afternoon, Uncle."
Malric gestured.
"Sit."
Three chairs waited before the desk.
They sat.
Stillness settled again, timed precisely to his next breath.
Reinhard spoke.
"Why have you called us?"
Malric clasped his hands, elbows braced on the table.
"You've always wanted to see outside," he said. "Especially you, Reinhard."
Something flared behind Reinhard's eyes—an almost dangerous light.
For a heartbeat, emotion cracked his calm.
Malric saw it.
"I have a mission," he continued.
"Not a minor one. You'll leave the island—to save a species."
Reinhard stilled.
Even Kael stopped tapping his fingers.
"The Oryn," Malric said.
"Eight-legged. Spider-like. Climbs trees and earth alike. Territorial. Aggressive. Endangered."
Reinhard's breath shortened.
Half thrill, half disbelief.
Kael leaned forward.
"Where?"
Malric's answer landed slow.
"Hawkins."
The name pulled the air out of the room.
Reinhard's jaw tightened.
Behind his calm, something cold rippled.
Hawkins.
Third continent.
Predatory land where human was prey.
Species ruled there like gods.
Only death knew the roads.
They'd read of it in lessons.
Never thought to walk it.
Even the human continent—vast, familiar from maps—existed to them as rumor.
Their own island, Noren, felt complete enough.
Until now.
Noren: small, contained, safe.
Boundaries enforced not by ocean but by law.
Ninety-five percent forbidden.
Yangpass Village—a settlement in the heart of permission.
To go beyond that circle meant more than privilege.
It meant escape.
Freedom.
First breath of it.
Malric's voice broke the thought.
"You'll leave immediately. Jet's ready."
Reinhard blinked once.
"Private?" The word felt foreign.
Kael's grin returned, predatory this time.
"Don't worry, Uncle. The Oryn will be saved, documented, and returned in three days. Consider it done."
Malric nodded.
"I trust you."
Elizabeth's silence lingered.
Her hands twisted against her skirt—the only sign of fear.
Weeks ago, her professor had shown them Hawkins on old holo-maps.
Drawn its forests as living mazes.
Told them the treaties still held.
Explained the phrase "for now."
Now that phrase rang like a timer.
She masked her unease with composure.
Perfect posture, perfect calm.
Inside, heartbeat quick and small.
Malric rose from his chair.
His shadow stretched across the desk's edge.
"One thing before you depart."
He opened a drawer, drawing out a folded sheet.
Old parchment, edges frayed from use.
He spread it across the ironwood surface.
"Come here."
They leaned in.
The map smelled of dust and ink and the faint resin of decades.
"This," Malric said, "is the world as we know it."
His fingertip traced lines, precise and unhurried.
A small oval.
"This is Noren Island—our territory, two hundred thousand square kilometers."
His hand shifted westward.
"Human continent—civilized, governed, layered."
Then northeast.
His finger paused.
A blot of shadow.
"Hawkins."
The name sank again between them.
They stared at that dark shape.
No movement, no sound beyond the low hum of the air unit.
Reinhard watched the space between island and continent—the thin divide of water inked on paper.
He felt the gulf widen inwardly.
Understanding came quiet.
Small.
Complete.
One world opens only as another closes.
The page rustled faintly under Malric's palm.
"Prepare yourselves," he said.
Reinhard nodded.
Kael straightened.
Elizabeth lowered her gaze, fixing it on the map's edge.
The door opened again.
Dim light spilled from the corridor.
Outside, wind slid along the glass walls with a low searching sound.
They stepped through it together.
Three shadows drawn thin against the reflected glass.
Behind them, Malric's office fell silent once more—only the hum of static air left behind.
The map remained unfolded on the desk.
Its ink glimmered faintly beneath fluorescent white.
Noren.
Hawkins.
Two islands of thought divided by a single dark sea.
And in the middle distance beyond the building windows—
Rain began.
Slow first.
Measured.
Then heavier.
Each drop struck against the steel frames like a clock counting down to departure.