Ara didn't scream when it happened.
She flinched, swatted at the air, and only then looked down at her wrist like it had betrayed her. A sharp heat bloomed just under the skin, a bright red dot already swelling.
"Seriously?" she muttered.
The others were too busy dragging suitcases across the gravel to notice. Wheels rattled. Someone laughed. Someone else complained about the heat. Summer break optimism was loud like that—confident, careless, convinced nothing bad could happen yet.
Ara stayed behind for a second, sucking in a breath through her teeth as the sting throbbed.
A bee hovered near the hotel entrance, lazy and unbothered, then drifted away into the trees as if it had completed its task.
"Did you just get attacked by nature?" one of the girls called.
"By a bee," Ara replied flatly. "So yes."
A few chuckles. Someone told her she'd survive. Someone else said it was a bad sign, joking—obviously joking. Ara didn't laugh. She rubbed her wrist instead, eyes lifting to the hotel looming ahead.
The place was bigger than she expected.
Too big.
Wide glass doors reflected the sky, the trees, the group of students clustered outside—but not a single person inside. No movement. No figures crossing the lobby. No shadows where there should've been some.
They went in anyway.
The air inside was cooler, stale, smelling faintly of old carpet and something metallic. Ara's footsteps slowed as her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light.
The front desk sat straight ahead.
Neat. Polished. Empty.
No receptionist. No bell. No clipboard. No welcoming smile that said you're safe here now.
Ara stopped walking.
Her wrist pulsed again, sharper this time, and she had the strangest thought—uninvited, irrational, and sticky as sap:
This is the first warning.
Behind her, someone said, "Hello?"
Their voice echoed. Then nothing answered back.
Ara stared at the desk.
"No one's here," she said quietly.
And for the first time since the trip began, the laughter started to fade...