Maria.
By the time the structure came into view, my legs felt like stone.
Not weak.
Not trembling.
Just heavy, like every step I'd taken through the forest had slowly hardened inside me, turning muscle into something stiff and unyielding. The path beneath my boots crunched with quiet finality, each sound too loud in the stillness. My breathing had settled into something controlled, measured… but I could feel the strain in my calves, the dull ache climbing upward as if my body already understood what my mind refused to dwell on.
The eastern storage wing stood ahead of us.
Isolated.
Square.
Built from old gray stone that looked colder than the forest surrounding it.
