The participants moved frantic in the dark, chased by a clock they could not see and a fog that swallowed distance.
By the remaning ninth hour, desperation made people creative.
Some started singing, not for courage but for position, so others could hear them and not step on them.
Some copied the way skeletons moved, stiff and clacking, hoping the dead might mistake them for kin.
Some made animal sounds, barking and yelping into the black, trying to scare off what they could not fight.
Most stopped pretending they were lone heroes.
They grouped up in hundreds, and it was almost surprising how harmonious it looked from above.
Not kindness. Not unity. Just math. They already knew the prime names.
The son of a high merchant. The son of a cultivator. The ones with backing, with resources, with a reason to be kept alive.
What's more, people were promised benefits, a few spirit stones, connections, even backing.
