The clearing was quiet — too quiet.
Elian leaned back against a gnarled old tree, Kael's frail body resting beside him, Rae sitting across from them with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. Her knife was still stained with blood, the blade resting in the dirt at her side.
The morning light broke through the canopy above, thin and ghostly, illuminating the bruises on Rae's skin and the haunted look in her eyes.
None of them spoke.
Not for a long time.
Their breaths mingled with the mist, silent and shallow.
Elian finally broke the silence.
"Who are you, Rae?"
His voice wasn't accusing — it was exhausted, broken.
Rae didn't lift her head. Her fingers dug into the dirt as if grounding herself.
"I was... like you once," she said quietly. "Lost. Running. Betrayed."
Her voice cracked on the last word.
---
Elian's heart ached at the rawness in her tone, but he stayed silent, letting her speak in her own time.
"My brother and I... we were sold," Rae whispered. "Not by strangers. By our own blood. The ones who were supposed to protect us."
She looked up then, her eyes shining with a grief so deep it seemed endless.
"He didn't survive," she said. "But I did. I learned how to survive."
She laughed then — a hollow, bitter sound that made Elian's stomach churn.
"You learn, when you have nothing left, that survival comes at a cost. You lose pieces of yourself. You forget what it means to be whole."
She turned her gaze to Kael, lying pale and silent beside them.
"She reminds me of myself back then," Rae murmured. "Fragile. Breakable."
Her voice hardened.
"But if she's going to survive, she has to become something else. Something stronger."
Elian swallowed hard.
He knew she was right.
But it didn't make it any easier to accept.
---
"You're scared," Rae said softly, looking at him now. "I can see it. You're afraid of what's coming."
Elian clenched his fists.
Of course he was afraid.
He wasn't a fighter.
He wasn't a hero.
He was just a boy who had lost too much too soon.
A boy pretending he could protect what little he had left.
"What do we do?" he asked, his voice barely a whisper.
Rae's eyes were fierce, blazing now with a light that defied her battered body.
"We fight," she said. "We run. We hide. We endure. Whatever it takes."
Her hand found the hilt of her knife again, gripping it tightly.
"And when they come for us — because they will — we don't beg. We don't break. We survive."
Elian felt something stir deep inside him — something he hadn't felt in a long, long time.
Hope.
Not the gentle, innocent kind.
The hard, sharp kind that cut like glass.
The kind that kept you alive.
---
The moment didn't last.
A low rumble echoed through the trees, so deep it seemed to shake the ground itself.
Rae shot to her feet, her body tense.
Elian strained his ears, heart hammering.
And then he saw them.
Figures emerging from the forest — not soldiers, not hunters.
Something worse.
They moved oddly, their limbs jerky, their faces hidden beneath bone-white masks. Their bodies were stitched together from different parts, like patchwork nightmares.
Creatures pulled from hell itself.
Rae swore under her breath.
"They're sending Wretches now," she said, voice tight with fear.
Elian didn't know what Wretches were.
But judging by Rae's face, he didn't want to find out.
---
Rae grabbed Kael roughly, slinging the girl over her shoulders despite her own injuries. She motioned for Elian to run.
There was no time to think.
Only time to move.
They tore through the forest, branches whipping at their faces, the howls of the Wretches chasing them.
Elian's lungs burned, but adrenaline drove him forward.
The images of the masked figures burned behind his eyes.
They weren't human anymore.
If they ever had been.
Every time Elian glanced back, the Wretches were closer. Faster. Relentless.
Rae stumbled, cursing under her breath as blood seeped from a wound on her thigh.
"Keep going!" she shouted at Elian.
But he couldn't leave her.
He couldn't.
--
They reached a cliff edge — a sheer drop into mist and trees far below.
Rae skidded to a halt, panting, looking around wildly.
There was nowhere to go.
Nowhere to hide.
The Wretches closed in, their grotesque forms shifting and snarling.
Rae set Kael down gently, then turned, knife in hand, ready to face the monsters alone.
Elian stood beside her.
His heart was pounding out of his chest.
But he didn't move.
He wouldn't run.
Not this time.
The first Wretch lunged.
---
Rae moved fast, slashing at the creature, but there were too many.
They swarmed toward them, a wave of horror.
Elian grabbed a broken branch from the ground, wielding it like a spear.
He barely managed to fend off the first attacker when a second slammed into him, sending him sprawling toward the edge of the cliff.
For a terrifying moment, he dangled over the abyss, clutching at nothing.
Then Rae's hand closed around his wrist, pulling him back with a strength that didn't seem possible.
Her face was fierce, teeth bared in a snarl.
"Don't you dare give up!" she screamed.
---
They fought side by side, hopelessly outnumbered.
Elian swung the branch wildly, each blow buying them a second, maybe two.
Rae's knife flashed in the mist, cutting deep, but the Wretches kept coming.
Blood splattered the ground, both theirs and the creatures'.
It was a losing battle.
They both knew it.
But they kept fighting anyway.
Because there was no other choice.
Because survival wasn't a gift anymore.
It was a demand.
---