He counted what remained—not the wounds, but the tools still in reach. Astra's astral light, trembling but not extinguished. The terrain near their cave: tight tunnels that could funnel, jagged stone that could block, natural choke points if used well. The scattered carcasses and bones of monsters they'd killed, still lying where they'd fallen—grisly, but useful. And the cave itself: shelter, familiarity, and, if they were clever, a fortress instead of a grave.
He began to talk his thoughts into shape, muttering plans between muttered curses. "No more running blind," he said. "We scout the cave perimeter, every inch. Every weak branch, every loose stone—we turn them into counter-traps. We watch how he uses the roots, tear apart his patterns before he reaches us. We force him into open ground when we can. He's strong, but he's been here too long. He thinks the world won't change."
Astra nodded slowly, clinging to the thin thread of hope. "What… if we use the monsters?" he ventured, voice wavering. "Like luring wolves—or…" The memory of the shattered wolves, glass and blood, flashed behind his eyes, stealing the rest of the sentence.
"Anything," Noctis said grimly. "We block every entrance but one. Make it obvious enough that he thinks he's found our weakness. Maybe we bait him. Maybe we just wear him down. Use scent, sound, illusions—anything. If he reads the world like a map, we redraw it."
They ate what little food remained without tasting it, the silence between bites as heavy as the pain they didn't name. Noctis cleaned cuts and gashes with the last of their clean water, each dab a sting punctuated by low curses and a low murmur of stubborn resolve. "I won't let you die, Astra," he said under his breath, binding a strip of cloth around the boy's arm. "I'll burn this forest down before I let that thing—whatever he is—win."
By the time the sun climbed higher and light thickened, rest had become a luxury they could no longer afford. Noctis forced himself to his feet, muscles screaming. Astra followed, shaky but upright. Determination linked them, rage braided with fear until both felt like armor.
They returned to the cave not as fugitives but as architects of a trap.
The cavern became a hive of tense motion. Every scrape of stone and rustle of brush took on purpose. Noctis and Astra moved in near-silence, speaking only when necessary, every word shaped into a plan. The air itself felt tighter, vibrating with the urgency of the work.
"Snare wire there," Noctis muttered, fingers deft even through tremors. He looped a coil of scavenged cord around tangled roots near the cave mouth. "Low, almost invisible. If he ducks under the main opening, his foot'll catch, flip him off-center."
Astra nodded, lips pressed thin, stacking cracked bones in a narrow passage that led away from their real position. "We make a false path," he said, repeating it like a lesson. "Scatter some blood—just enough to look real. If he smells it, he'll think we crawled this way, hurt. He'll rush where we want him."
Noctis dragged old monster pelts from a deeper chamber, hanging them over a tighter entrance until the space stank of wolf. He layered them carefully, turning the passage into a reeking blind. "He'll smell this from the first bend," Noctis said. "It'll drag him in. Force his path. If we know where he has to step, we know where to cut."
"Sharpen those branches," he added, nodding toward a cluster of roots and fallen limbs. "Spike the lower shadows. If he rolls, he bleeds."
Astra's hands glowed faintly as he shaped astral light, weaving illusions into the cave's hollows. Vague figures flickered at the edge of sight—blurry shapes darting between rocks, always just out of reach. "He tracks movement," Astra whispered, refining the speed and distance. "If he chases the wrong us, you close the real trap. Make his instincts fight his eyes."
Noctis's grin flashed briefly, wild and sharp. Blood stained his teeth; his eyes burned with something beyond exhaustion. "Good," he said. "We let him drown in false choices. When he can't tell what's real, he'll hesitate. That's when we kill him."
They worked until their hands shook and their legs felt carved from stone. Shadows lengthened across the cave floor, lines of darkness snaking between their handiwork. Each knot tied and stone shifted tightened the coil in Noctis's chest. Astra's illusions drifted and reformed, growing steadier as he found their balance.
Night came down like a curtain.
Wind coiled through the twisted roots outside, a low moan scraping against rock. Noctis crouched with Astra near the heart of the cave, back pressed to a column of stone, sword in a ready grip. The trail of smeared blood they'd laid from the forest to the entrance glistened faintly in the thin moonlight that managed to pierce the canopy. Illusion-lights flickered deeper inside, phantom bodies darting and pausing in a calculated pattern. Snare wires hummed faintly in the air currents.
Time stretched. Their heartbeats became the loudest sound they knew. Noctis forced each breath slow, ears straining for the slightest shift.
It came: a ripple at the edge of vision, a shadow slipping between trees, then still. A shape stepped into sight—lean, wary, moving with the same careful intent as before, but slower. The thing's head turned from side to side, eyes sweeping the cave mouth, the blood trail, the ground. He moved as if expecting blades behind every rock.
He followed the blood anyway.
He dipped into the main entrance, posture low. Just as Noctis had hoped, he ducked beneath a low stone shelf, foot catching the nearly invisible wire. The line snapped taut with a sharp snap. Barbed branches, hidden in the shadow above, whipped down across his legs and arms. Flesh tore in red lines. The thing didn't scream. He barely made a sound—just a twitch, a tightening around the eyes, a momentary stagger.
He lunged for movement—one of Astra's illusions flickering near the side of the chamber. His fingers closed on empty air and coarse fur instead. The thing crashed into the dangling monster pelts, bathing in the heavy wolf scent. Disoriented, he barked a guttural sound, somewhere between a growl and a breathless hiss. His flailing limbs knocked into trip-points Noctis had hidden, releasing a shower of stones and debris from the ceiling. Rocks pelted his shoulders and skull, forcing him to shield his head and give ground.
Astra waited just beyond the reach of direct sight, tucked behind a pillar, eyes narrowed in concentration as he nudged the next illusion forward. A swift shadow of "Astra" sprinted through the gloom toward the cave's center.
The thing darted after it. The real Astra held his breath.
He rushed through the line of sights they'd planned, feet landing exactly where Noctis had hoped he would. The ground beneath him was nothing but a thin crust. Years of erosion and the last hours of digging had hollowed it out. An astral veil, woven thin as air itself, masked the pit beneath.
The surface broke.
Earth crumbled in a sudden slide; stones and dust gave way. The thing dropped in a sprawl of limbs, reflexes grabbing for edges too late. His hands scraped rock, fingernails tearing, but momentum dragged him down into the darkness.
Noctis moved the instant he heard the crash.
He was already at the pit's lip, sword raised high, eyes blazing. His heart hammered against his ribs, but his hands were steady. For the first time since this nightmare began, he looked down on the thing instead of up at it.
Astra let go of subtlety. True light burst from his palms, spilling over the pit's rim in a pale flare. It washed over the thing's face, forcing his pupils to constrict. Shadows warped in the sudden brightness, destroying depth perception, turning the world at the bottom into disorienting glare and contrast.
The thing lay sprawled among spikes driven into the floor, some cutting into flesh, some narrowly missed but pinning his limbs at awkward angles. Shattered and salvaged monster bones jutted between stones. The astral wall that had disguised the pit now shimmered faintly around its edges, distorting sight and making orientation treacherous. For the first time, the thing looked genuinely off-balance. His movements were no longer precise; they were jerky, driven by instinct rather than calm strategy. His hands scrabbled against slick stone, trying to find a handhold where none existed. His breath came faster, chest rising and falling, muscles flexing against pain he could no longer entirely ignore.
Noctis let out a breath that shook the whole of him, a sound half-laugh, half sob. "We're not prey anymore," he said, the words trembling but fierce.
Astra stayed just behind him, small shoulders squared, lips pressed together to keep from shaking. His eyes shone with a mixture of terror and a flicker of something brighter—hope, hesitant and fragile, like a first flame in damp wood. Daylight seeped slowly into the cave's mouth, turning the air at the pit's edge pale and clear. Below, the thing still snarled silently, but the power had shifted.
For now, he was at the bottom. Snared. Battered. Still dangerous—but caught in lines woven not by nature, but by human will.
The thing sprawled there, unconscious by degrees—caught in the borderland between waking fury and collapse. His chest dragged in air, each breath ragged; muscles twitched with involuntary shudders, as if his body refused to fully lie still even when his mind couldn't command it. Noctis held his sword poised above, knuckles white, arms trembling with the effort of not bringing it down.
Astra lingered just inside the circle of light, cloaked in shadow and uncertainty. Fear hollowed his eyes, but resolve kept him from turning away.
"Noctis," he whispered. "What now?"
Noctis finally tore his gaze from the pit and looked toward the faint glow of the Echoframe. His voice scraped rough in his throat. "What do we do with him? He's too dangerous to let go. He's nearly killed us more times than any monster."
The Echoframe's aura stirred, clarity cutting through fatigue. Its message formed with crisp indifference:
"Advisory: If human target is terminated, emotional stability module will reset. Full spectrum of suppressed feelings and memories restored. Nature of subject: Human—similar origin, possible kinship. Alternate action—possible risk: retain, monitor, rehabilitate."