Liora pressed her face closer to the window, eyes wide. This was the world she was being pulled into, the one that existed beyond the forests and farmlands she had always known. And somewhere in that glittering expanse, her fate, and the Hunt, awaited.
Soon, she didn't even know what had happened. Her eyelids grew impossibly heavy, and before she could fight it, her eyes closed.
When she opened them again, the world had changed. The bus had stopped, and the others were being forced out, shoved roughly into a vast hall.
The walls were bare, the ceiling high, the air thick with the metallic scent of fear and sweat.
Mattresses lay scattered across the floor, thin, hard, colorless. Nothing else. No chairs, no tables, no warmth. No comfort.
Liora's stomach sank. This was worse than a prison. Here, there was no privacy, no safety, no familiar faces, only strangers and the invisible weight of whatever awaited them in this place.
She stumbled forward on unsteady legs, her handcuffed wrists aching. She could feel the panic gnawing at her chest, alive and insistent.
Her heart pounded as the realization settled over her: there would be no escape tonight. No rest. Only the cold, endless waiting, and whatever horrors tomorrow would bring.
Liora's eyes darted around the hall. The light was dim, flickering from a few hanging lamps, casting long shadows over the pale, frightened faces of the others.
Some huddled together, whispering in hushed, trembling tones. Others sat alone, knees drawn to their chests, silent and wide-eyed.
The air was thick with fear, the smell of sweat, dust, and something faintly metallic making it hard to breathe.
Every small sound, shuffling feet, a cough, a whisper, made her flinch. She wanted to move, to hide, to vanish into the shadows, but the cuffs held her fast, cold and unyielding against her skin.
She lowered herself to the floor, pressing her back to the wall.
Her wrists throbbed, but her mind raced faster. She studied the hall: no doors except the ones they had been shoved through, no windows, nothing to climb or wedge. It was designed for control. Designed to break them.
A boy a few rows away whimpered softly, and she saw the glint of tears on his cheeks. Liora's chest tightened. She wanted to comfort him, to scream at whoever had brought them here, to do something, but all she could do was watch, trapped in her own helplessness.
She was kind but kindness needed power... Without power, you were just another useless mud.
Her mind kept turning back to the Hunt, the stories she had overheard from the villages: how those chosen never came back the same, how the wolf collectors were swift, merciless, and precise. Tomorrow, they would be hunted. And for what?
A test of survival. Was it a display of power? A punishment.
She shifted slightly on the hard floor, testing the cuffs. They rattled but did not yield. Panic clawed higher, sharp and insistent. She pressed her forehead against the wall and closed her eyes again, trying to calm herself, to think.
Somewhere deep inside, a spark of defiance flickered, reckless and fragile, but alive.
I have to survive… she whispered silently to herself. I will survive this.
Even as the others settled into uneasy, fearful positions on the thin mattresses, Liora's gaze remained fixed on the single door at the far end of the hall.
That door, whatever waited beyond it, would decide their fate. And she would not forget it.
She couldn't tell how long she had been sitting there, pressed against the cold wall, when a strange, crawling sensation brushed over her skin. She froze, every nerve alert, her breath catching in her throat. In the darkness, she could barely make sense of anything, half-asleep, half-aware, and then instinct snapped her eyes open.
It was pitch black inside and slightly lit up outside, the security lights. The hall was silent except for the shallow, uneven breathing of the others. Most had collapsed into exhausted sleep across the thin mattresses, but a few stirred, shifting, eyes wide in the dark.
Something wasn't right. The door, yawning open at the far end of the hall, let in a sliver of outside darkness, deeper than night itself. Liora's gut twisted. She had the disturbing sense of being watched, of unseen eyes tracking every movement, waiting.
Her hands were still handcuffed, the cold metal biting her wrists, but her legs were free. Carefully, she rose, the floorboards creaking just enough to make her flinch. Her heart pounded as she crept toward the door, every sense straining in the unnatural quiet.
Outside, the world was darker than she had ever seen. No stars. No moon. Just blackness that pressed against the edges of her vision, thick and suffocating. And yet the air felt wrong, too still, too heavy, as if it were holding its breath.