Eska whispers to herself, remembering her teachings from both Oblea and Marina. "Wendigos are blind but have incredible hearing."
She replays every lesson. "Visibility-altering skills could work, but sound-based skills will give me away."
Closing her eyes, she focuses on her heartbeat, tracing the flow of blood through her veins. She guides the blood toward her eyes, careful to avoid damaging the delicate vessels.
Too fast and the vessels will rupture; too slow and the process will fail.
Slowly, she feels the blood pooling beneath her irises, enhancing her vision as her pupils dilate unnaturally wide. The darkness around her sharpens into clarity, the shadows no longer an obstacle.
Eska moves deeper into the cave, following the faint tracks left by the expedition team. Their footprints mark a clear trail on the ground, though signs of struggle become apparent. She notices some old animal parts scattered along the path, and dried blood smeared across the floor.
Kneeling, she touches a drop of blood, its texture thick and strange.
"A wounded wendigo bleeds coagulated blood," she recalls, her mind replaying Oblea's lectures.
"Their organs function at the bare minimum—they don't rely on them to survive." She clings to these memories, keeping her thoughts focused on strategy and survival as she moves forward.
Her path eventually leads her into a massive chamber, its vastness unsettling.
The walls stretch far beyond her sight, their edges lost in shadow. Her muscles tense instinctively, her senses heightened, as she surveys the cavern for any sign of movement.
The cave's rough stone walls gradually give way to metal and cement as Eska ventures deeper. Massive statues line the chamber, their painted surfaces blending red, black and yellow highlights.
Each statue towers at least seventeen feet tall, their right legs labeled LATHROS UNIT followed by distinct numbers. Fourteen units stand in total, seven on each side, forming an imposing corridor that leads to what appears to be the entrance of the laboratory.
Her fingers tighten around the hilt of her blade as she turns back to the entrance she came through. The way out is still clear. Her chest tightens at the thought of leaving, of retracing her steps. A moment of hesitation lingers, her grip slackening for just a second.
Maybe I can get Mom.
The thought slips in. The rational choice.
Her gaze flicks back ahead. A slow breath escapes her lips, barely a whisper in the heavy silence.
No. If she leaves now, the team inside won't have that time. Wendigos are relentless. If they're still breathing, it won't be for much longer.
Her jaw tightens.
She steels herself. She exhales quietly and moves forward.
At the end of the chamber, a massive double gate looms before her, standing seven feet tall and fourteen feet wide. The metal doors are partially closed, their edges bent and scarred with deep scratches as though forced open from the inside.
In front of the gates stands a pedestal, dusty and damaged, its surface littered with debris.
Eska examines it briefly—it appears to be a command station, outfitted with broken screens, buttons and switches.
Just like Marina's stories, she thinks, recalling the tales. A facility built to study magic and create weapons.
With a deep breath, Eska crouches and slips through the damaged gate.
A narrow hallway stretches ahead, the ceiling low and lined with evenly spaced rectangular holes. Doors are scattered along the walls, each leading into shadowed spaces. Faint footsteps echo somewhere in the distance, far beyond her position.
Noticing the sound, Eska tenses and begins to move stealthily, her senses sharp as she explores the ominous corridor.
Eska steps into the first door she spots, finding a room filled with wooden desks. Papers are scattered haphazardly across the surfaces, their edges curling with age. Her eyes drift to the far wall, where big bold letters read "LATHROS."
Below it, smaller text spells out, "Longevity-Assured Technological Humanoid for Reactive Operations and Surveillance."
She continues exploring, moving from one room to another.
For nearly an hour, she finds little of significance until she comes across a pair of metal double doors, thinner than the main gate but just as stubbornly closed.
Eska attempts to push them open, but quickly realizes they won't budge. Drawing a thin blade from her blood, she slides it into the gap between the doors, working quietly to force them apart.
After several tense minutes, the doors finally give way with a loud creak.
Eska steps through, only to see a massive hole in the wall that leads directly into the adjacent room.
"Ugh, I could have just walked around," she mutters to herself, frustrated.
Continuing down the next hallway, she catches a foul odor in the air. Her stomach tightens as she follows the scent, leading her to a broken security gate.
Beyond the gate is a large room filled with chaos.
Thick cables snake along the walls, connecting to massive metal tubes and shattered glass cylinders. The tubes show signs of containing liquid, their interiors now dry and stained.
Then a movement catches her eye, and her breath hitches.
Before she has time to think, her body reacts. She drops low, shifting swiftly behind a thick coil of cables pressed against the wall.
In one corner of the room a creature squats, hunched over as it gnaws on something unrecognizable.
Its humanoid, emaciated body twitches as it eats. It doesn't appear to have noticed her yet, but it would only be a matter of time.
She needs to act fast.
Hands trembling. Eska silently draws a long sword with her blood, her grip firm as she edges closer. Pausing a few steps away, she crouches and smears blood from the pile the creature is feeding on across her face, chest and shoulders.
The rotted scent instantly cloaks her own, masking her presence as she prepares to strike.
I can do this. Eska's grip tightens on her blade.
She moves slowly in an arc around the creature, careful not to make a sound. The wendigo remains focused on its meal, oblivious to her presence, until she positions herself behind it. With a sudden charge, she drives her blade into its back.
The creature lets out a blood-curdling screech, throwing its head back as its cry echoes through the room.
It rises to its full height, yanking itself off Eska's blade as she steps back. The wendigo turns to face her, its white, unseeing eyes and jagged teeth now fully visible.
Its gray, emaciated body looks frail as it hunches over at its full height.
The wound on its chest bleeds briefly before stopping entirely. The blade's strike should have pierced its heart but it proves ineffective.
Eska freezes, holding her breath as the wendigo sniffs the air and tilts its head, listening intently. Though blind, it seems to lock eyes with her, its focus unnerving.
Eska's heart pounds as she slowly begins to step back.
The faint sound of her movement causes the creature to release a piercing scream and lunge at her with unnatural speed, closing the distance in an instant.
Its claws swipe at Eska's chest but she quickly pulls her body back, narrowly avoiding the attack. Twisting her torso, she counters with a slash across the creature's stomach, her blade slicing cleanly.
The wendigo screeches again, jumping back before bolting through a different door, its movements erratic and fast.
"Shit!" Eska hisses, gripping her blade tighter as she watches it vanish. Her mind races, her breath uneven. That thing is fast—and it knows I'm here. Her surroundings fall silent once more.
Eska darts after the wendigo, but quickly realizes her mistake and slows down.
"I don't need to chase it," she reminds herself, forcing her racing heart to calm as she moves cautiously through the facility.
Tracking the creature takes a few minutes, but soon, distant screeches echo through the halls. "Dammit," she mutters under her breath.
She presses forward carefully, each step deliberate to avoid alerting the wendigos. Moving against a wall, she holds her breath as panic sets in. The sound of claws scraping and footsteps grows louder until three wendigos appear in the hallway ahead.
Two of them look eerily human—bald, malnourished, with claws far too large.
The third is much larger, its grotesque form deformed and hulking. Its claws extend unusually large, and its gnarled jaw snarls as it leads the pack, sniffing the air in search of the new intruder.
Cripple, then kill. I can do this, Eska thinks to herself, her body coiled and ready to spring. She stays still as the wendigos move closer, but the large one pauses suddenly. It sniffs the air and tilts its head, its glowing white eyes scanning. Slowly, it turns its head in her direction.
Eska's panic spikes, and she acts on instinct.
She launches forward, her blade slicing through the larger wendigo's right leg. The creature screeches in pain, stumbling as its balance falters.
Eska uses her momentum, planting her leg against the opposite wall and springing back toward one of the smaller wendigos.
She swings her blade in an arc, but the wendigo leaps back with inhuman speed, leaving her momentarily off-guard and stunned at the quick reaction.
Just as Eska begins to correct her stance, the wounded wendigo lunges, nearly colliding with her. She lowers her stature, extending her left arm and drawing blood, hardening it into a thick shield just in time.
The creature's claws crash against the shield, the impact sending them both staggering backward.
Eska recovers quickly, retaliating with an upward swing that severs the Wendigo's arm at the elbow. Seizing the moment, she jumps back to gain some distance, but a smaller wendigo rushes her from behind.
Its claws rake across her back, tearing from shoulder to hip.
"GAH!" she screams, the searing pain nearly paralyzing her.
Whipping around, she slashes her blade horizontally, cutting deep into the smaller wendigo's neck. It screeches in pain, stumbling back as dark, coagulated blood sprays across the floor.
Before Eska can catch her breath, the larger wendigo strikes again, its massive fist slamming into her back.
The force throws her forward, her legs buckling as she hits the ground hard. She rolls from the impact, her body screaming in pain, and she struggles to crawl into a side room for cover.
Propping herself against the wall, Eska forces her breathing to slow, her back throbbing with agony.
The screeches of the wendigos echo through the halls as they search for her, their movements chaotic and disorganized. After a few seconds, the creatures split up, running in separate directions, leaving the area eerily quiet.