"Some doors open only when the heart stops pretending it isn't afraid."
The forest held its breath long after the shard's light vanished.
Aarav wished he could do the same.
The silence wasn't peaceful—it was hollow, stretched thin, like something enormous had inhaled and forgotten to exhale. Even the leaves seemed frozen in mid-rustle, suspended in a moment that didn't want to move forward. The echo of the shard's presence hung in the air like the after burn of a lightning strike, a taste of metal and memory lingering on the tongue. Aarav felt it crawling under his skin, humming in the spaces between heartbeats, settling into his bones like a truth he could no longer outrun.
His pulse still throbbed in uneven beats, echoing the resonance that had flared inside him when the shard touched him. He could feel phantom impressions of those impossible memories—ruined stone, a crown breaking, a scream that never made a sound. He hadn't lived any of those things, and yet they clung to him like echoes from a past that wasn't his but recognized him anyway. His fingers twitched unconsciously, remembering the cold pressure that had wrapped around him during the shard's approach.
Arin let the silence linger until even the birds felt brave enough to return their timid chirps. The small sounds were fragile, hesitant, like the forest itself was unsure whether the danger had truly passed or simply paused to listen. The breeze drifted through the trees again, cautious at first, then steadier, bringing the smell of damp leaves and broken bark.
"We need to move," Arin finally said. "The shard's destruction will have ripples. Something will notice." His voice carried the weight of someone who had seen the aftermath of such events before—someone who understood that endings and beginnings often looked the same from far away.
Meera rose first, pulling the trembling boy gently to his feet. "Can you walk?" Her voice was soft, warm, grounding him with the kind of steadiness only she could manage in a place like this.
He nodded, barely. "I—I think so." His legs wobbled beneath him, his eyes unfocused, the trauma still fresh and clinging to him like a shadow that refused to fall behind.
Amar sheathed his knife and gave Aarav a sharp look. "Can _you_?" His tone wasn't mocking or harsh—it was protective in a way Aarav was almost afraid to acknowledge.
Aarav didn't answer right away. His legs felt like they were carrying someone else's weight. Like whatever had awakened inside him was too heavy for his body to contain. But he nodded and forced himself upright.
"I'm fine." The lie wasn't convincing, even to him, but it was the only thing that kept his feet moving.
Arin studied him with a wary eye. "You're not. But we don't have the luxury of stopping. We need to reach the outpost before nightfall." Arin's gaze drifted to the shadows lengthening between the trees, the dimming sky, the places where the world turned dark first.
The boy stiffened. "No. Please… not the outpost." His voice cracked with a fear so raw it made the air feel cold again.
Meera crouched to meet his eyes. "Why? What happened there?" She reached out but hesitated, as if afraid touch might break him further.
The child swallowed, trembling. "My father—my father told us to run because he saw… something. He said the outpost changed. Like people weren't… people anymore." His voice faded into a whisper, the memory too frightening to fully articulate.
Aarav felt a cold knot tighten at the base of his spine.
Something that made people _not people_ anymore.
The shard's echo.
Or something worse.
Arin's expression darkened. "Then it's worse than I feared." His fingers tightened around his staff, knuckles whitening with the certainty of a truth he didn't want to speak.
Amar turned toward him. "Explain." The word came out sharp, controlled, edged with a readiness to fight whatever answer came next.
Arin exhaled slowly. "Shards don't travel alone. Where there's one, others may converge. And if they reach a place filled with fear, chaos, or grief—"
He stopped. The silence that followed landed like a blade.
Aarav didn't want to hear the end of that sentence.
But he had to.
"What happens?" His voice trembled.
Arin looked him square in the face.
"They imprint."
A pause heavy enough to hold breath.
"And whatever they imprint… loses itself." He said it gently, but the words were knives.
Aarav felt his stomach drop. "You're saying the outpost—"
"—may already be compromised," Arin finished. His eyes carried a sorrow older than any ruin they had seen.
Meera's grip tightened on the boy's shoulder. "We don't know that for certain." Her voice was controlled, but fear trembled beneath the surface.
"No," Arin agreed. "Which is why we go. Carefully." His gaze swept the trees as though expecting them to shift shape at any moment.
Amar stepped forward, shoulders squared. "What's the plan?" His voice steadied, sharpening into readiness.
Arin raised his staff slightly. "Stay close. Stay quiet. And do not—under any circumstance—let anything touch you."
His eyes landed on Aarav.
"Especially you."
Aarav tried to steady his breathing. He hated how the hum inside him reacted to Arin's words—like the resonance itself knew exactly what awaited them, pulsing in anticipation rather than fear.
They moved.
The forest thinned, giving way to open hills. The sun had started its slow descent, painting the landscape in amber and long, stretching shadows. The light caught the edges of distant stones and dry grass, turning the ground into a shifting mosaic of gold and shadow. The air cooled with each step, carrying the scent of stone and evening.
The boy stayed close to Meera, gripping her sleeve like a lifeline. His small steps echoed the rhythm of the group's tension.
Aarav walked beside Amar, who kept glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. Amar wasn't subtle, but he didn't try to be.
"You're quieter than usual," Amar said. His tone was low, almost gentle.
Aarav shrugged. "Just tired." His voice wavered.
"Don't lie."
Aarav sighed. "Fine. I… I feel different."
Saying it out loud made it feel real.
"Different how?"
"I don't know," Aarav said softly. "Like something inside me is awake and learning how to move."
The words frightened him. They felt borrowed from someone else's vocabulary, like a truth too old to belong to a teenager.
Amar didn't like that. Aarav could see the tension in his jaw. But he didn't push further. His silence said enough—he heard, he understood, he would watch.
Meera slowed until she was walking on Aarav's other side. "We're not letting anything take you," she said firmly. Her voice didn't shake.
Aarav nodded, unsure whether the reassurance eased or deepened the pressure in his chest.
Arin raised a hand. "Stop."
They all froze mid-step.
Ahead, the path dipped toward a valley—and in the distance, just barely visible through the fading light, lay the outpost.
Except it didn't look right.
The buildings stood intact, their silhouettes sharp against the horizon. But the air above them shimmered faintly—like heat rising, but colder. Wrong. Still. It wasn't movement; it was distortion, like the world was breathing in a pattern out of sync with its own rhythm.
Arin's grip tightened around his staff. "That's resonance disturbance."
His voice dropped to something quieter.
Older.
Aarav swallowed. "From the shard?"
"No," Arin said quietly. "From something larger."
The word _larger_ made the ground feel suddenly less solid.
Meera's eyes widened. "Another fracture?" Her hand instinctively reached for the boy, pulling him closer.
"Possibly." Arin's gaze narrowed as though trying to see through the shimmer itself.
Amar straightened. "What do we do?" His stance was ready—danger closer meant fewer questions and more instinct.
Arin looked back at them—at the child, at Meera, at Amar, at Aarav, whose chest was already humming in response to the distant shimmer. The resonance inside him recognized the disturbance the way a wound recognizes salt.
"We do what we came for," Arin said.
"We find the survivors."
"Then we survive."
His tone held no dramatic flair—just necessity.
He stepped forward.
Aarav felt something shift as he followed.
A heaviness in the air.
A subtle, unwelcome pull.
A quiet recognition.
The same feeling he'd sensed at the boundary stone.
The same feeling he'd felt when the shard touched him.
Only stronger.
The valley ahead wasn't silent.
It was waiting.
"He crossed the threshold unsure, but the world treated the step like a promise."