The arena smoked in the half-light, the twisted wreckage of the ruin-forged creature strewn across the cracked earth like the remains of some forgotten nightmare. The survivors moved in slow, aching silence, every breath sharp, every motion pained. Kairon dropped into a crouch beside Ynara's prone form. His heart hammered against his ribs as he checked for signs of life. For a terrible second, he thought she was gone — but then her chest heaved in a shallow, ragged breath.
"She's alive," he said hoarsely, his voice barely carrying over the broken stillness.
Vess knelt beside him, vines curling protectively around Ynara without touching her skin. Nyra hovered nearby, her shadows flickering weakly around her body, barely clinging to her. Vael stood a little apart, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides, electricity still sparking fitfully from his fingertips as though it no longer obeyed him fully. No one spoke. There were no cheers. No triumph. Just exhaustion. And fear. Kairon finally forced himself to stand, wiping blood and dirt from his face with a trembling hand.
"We can't stay here," he said. "More of those things must've heard the noise and will be here in a matter of time."
Vael gave a hollow laugh. "Maybe that's better. Maybe we end it before this place finishes eating our heads."
Vess shot him a sharp look, but she didn't argue. Nyra crouched lower, tracing defensive runes into the dust again with frantic, trembling fingers. The symbols were crude, desperate. She didn't even seem aware she was doing it. Kairon watched her for a moment, then looked away.
"We need shelter," Vess said, her voice brittle. "Somewhere to hide. Somewhere to think."
Kairon nodded slowly.
"There." Tarek pointed toward a half-collapsed structure at the edge of the shattered square — the remnants of what might once have been a temple or a fort.
No one argued. They moved like broken soldiers, dragging themselves through the ruins, every step a battle. Inside, the air was cooler, the ground more stable. The stone walls bore scars of ancient battles — deep gouges and blackened burns — but they still stood. For now. They collapsed against the stone, like survivors realizing breath might be the last thing they own.
No one spoke. Not at first.
Time became unreal — a stretched, warping thing. Minutes bled into hours. Or maybe seconds. They couldn't tell. The silence wasn't healing. It wasn't peace. It was numbness — the kind that settles after adrenaline fades and your brain finally admits the world broke in half. Kairon sat with his back to the wall, his knees drawn up, fingers locked tightly around a relic shield he wasn't strong enough to carry anymore. His eyes didn't move. His thoughts didn't either. Just Cael's broken body. Ynara's near-lifeless whisper. The hallucinations that nearly tore them apart. The javelin flare — his wild, reckless attempt to hold the team together — had worked.
But it hadn't fixed anything. They were still bleeding. Just slower now. Finally, it was Vess who spoke. Her voice barely more than air scraping across a cracked throat.
"Does anyone… actually know what's happening?"
Not rhetorical. Not even scared. Just tired. Nyra let out a dry laugh. It broke halfway through and turned to something closer to a sob.
"What's happening? We're fighting for our lives and unraveling. That's what."
"No," Vess said again, a little louder now, like if she spoke with enough certainty, she could shape the world back into something sane. "I mean… why this? Why us? What did we do?"
Silence answered. The kind that feels like it's waiting. Kairon closed his eyes. The memories were slippery — like dreams right before waking. But some parts stuck. Small, ordinary things.
"I was walking to the corner shop," Kairon said, voice low. "Needed batteries... for something, I think. Must've been for the old clock at my place, can't exactly remember what." He paused, brow furrowing. "Just... felt like I had to go. Not like a choice. Just... movement." His hand twitched in his lap. "I remember the wind felt wrong. Like it was trying to push me back. But I kept going. One step. Then the next." Kairon exhaled slowly. "I don't remember deciding. Just walking. And then... the street was gone. Just light. And heat. And this place."
"You make it sound like you were dreaming and sleepwalking," Nyra murmured, watching him too closely.
Kairon gave a hollow chuckle. "Yeah. Kinda dumb, huh?"
But his eyes didn't match the tone. For a second, no one spoke.
Vael leaned back against the wall, the stone cold against his spine. His voice came low — steady, but laced with something heavy. "I was in the garage with my brother. We'd been working on Dad's old Crown, the one he handed down on his birthday two months ago. Thing barely ran, but we wanted to make it breathe again. Spent half the weekend under the hood, cursing at bolts and passing each other tools we didn't name right." He gave a faint, crooked smile. "My birthday's in three months. Figured I'd get his ride working before mine came around. Felt fair." A pause. His gaze dropped to his hands. "We were arguing over the fender. Trying to line it up just right. He kept saying it was the bracket. I said it was the frame. We were both wrong. I remember thinking — 'Just finish this up, take a shower, and crash.' I was wiped." His jaw tightened. "Then the wrench slipped. I caught myself on the side of the car. Blinked." A breath. "Next time I opened my eyes… I was here. No garage. No brother. Just this place. Just ruin."
"I was tending to my vineheart," Vess murmured, her voice softer than breath. "It was a cutting I'd saved from a dying greenhouse — this twisted, stubborn thing that refused to wilt. I spent weeks nursing it back to life. The leaves were curling that morning, reaching for the sun like they knew something I didn't." Her fingers trembled slightly in her lap. "I was loosening the soil… just checking the roots. I remember brushing a knot in the base, and then—" She hesitated. The silence grew taut. "It felt like the soil grabbed me back. Just a twitch. Like something underneath was awake. Then the light shifted, and—" She swallowed, her gaze distant. "I thought I passed out. But when I woke up... I was here. No pot. No plant. Just ash and ruin. And I haven't felt anything real since."
Nyra's voice was low, almost reluctant, like each word cost her something. "I was outside. Just walking, fuming… I'd just stormed out after a fight I don't even recall who it was with. Dumb stuff. Words I shouldn't've said." She stared down at her hands, flexing her fingers like she could still feel the metal of her keys. "I chucked my keys into the street — no real reason, just… rage, I guess. Bent down to pick them up, still muttering under my breath." Her jaw clenched. "Then the world... tilted. Everything stretched, like the sky cracked open." She didn't look at anyone as she said the last part:"I blinked, and next thing I knew, I was here. Covered in ash. Running for my life."
Tarek leaned back against the wall, his voice dry, almost too casual — like he was trying not to care too much. "I was skipping dinner." He scratched at the dirt near his shoe, not meeting anyone's eyes. "It was my dad's birthday. He was grilling outside, playing those same cringey songs he always does when family's over. I'd bailed before, plenty of times… but that night, I don't know." He gave a half-shrug. "I figured I'd show up late. Crack a joke about traffic. Pretend I hadn't just sat in the driveway for twenty minutes trying to decide if I wanted to go in." There was a beat of silence.
"I looked up at the porch light. Thought, 'Okay, just five more minutes.'" He paused, jaw tightening.
"Next blink… and I was here. Ruins. Screaming. No warning." Then with hands over his face, one could hear the regret in his voice. "Stupid song's lyrics have been on my mouth since I got here!"
Ashei didn't speak at first. Her gaze stayed fixed on the wall across from her, as if she could see something the rest couldn't. When she finally spoke, her voice was low — almost like she wasn't sure if she wanted to share or not. "I was in a bookstore," she said, fingers absently tracing a pattern into the dust beside her. "Secondhand spot near the train tracks. One of those places that smells like old paper and forgotten things." She paused. The others waited. "I wasn't looking for anything, really. Just… wasting time. Trying to feel like I wasn't wasting it. Then I saw it — this mirror. Just leaning there, shoved between some encyclopedias and a stack of magazines from, like, the nineties." Her eyes narrowed slightly, voice fading. "It didn't belong there. The frame was cracked, and the glass had this weird shimmer — like heatwaves. I remember thinking someone must've dropped it off by mistake. I touched it. Just to straighten it." Another pause. Her next words came quieter. "It didn't show me. I looked straight at it, and it showed... something else. Something wrong. And then — that was it." She looked down at her hands. "Next thing I knew, I was waking up here. Fighting for my life."
Ynara stirred at last, her voice dry and fragile. She had been listening to their stories. "I was in the back room of my aunt's house. It was quiet. Everyone else was in the living room watching TV I guess." Her voice was barely above a whisper. "I was in my bed. Door half-shut. I'd been meaning to go out and join the others… but I didn't." She swallowed, eyes fixed on some distant point beyond the ruin's walls. "Elise was in the sitting room. So were the rest. I could hear them talking. Someone laughed — probably her. That sharp, perfect kind of laugh. I was writing something. A letter. I never finished it. Just kept… circling around what I meant to say. And then I stopped. Just sat there. Holding the pen like it could anchor me." She exhaled, shaky and uneven. "I should've gone out. I should've said something. Or… anything. But instead, I just stared at the paper. I remember hearing her footsteps pass the door, light, quick, like she had somewhere better to be. Like she always did." Her hands curled into her sleeves. "That was it. The last thing I remember. Not a goodbye. Not even eye contact. Just silence I chose." And then quieter, more to herself than anyone; "She died saving me. After I'd already stopped trying to save myself."
They sat in it — that stillness. That unbearable ache of being forgotten.
Not even grief anymore. Just the weight of not knowing.
Of having no tether.
Kairon's hand curled slowly around the base of a relic he'd picked as they sought shelter, thumb tracing the jagged fracture like it might answer him. The others had grown quiet again, but it wasn't the safety of silence. It was the silence you fall into when there's nothing left to say that wouldn't break you. Then Ynara spoke again, softer this time, like it hurt to bring the words up.
"Elise would've known what to do." Everyone looked toward her. Not sharply. Not with expectation. Just… gently. Because they felt it too. "She used to get mad at me for staying in," Ynara continued, voice brittle. "Said I was always on the edge of living, but never stepping over. That I'd regret it one day." Her eyes shimmered. She blinked fast, but the tears still came. "I regret it now."
Kairon didn't move. Didn't speak. No one did. They just let it land. Let it live. Because maybe that was what the ruin couldn't consume — not strength, not hope, but the quiet, human ache of could've-beens.
"She died saving me," Ynara whispered. "She shouldn't have had to."
A beat. Then Nyra, barely audible cut in "She probably didn't hesitate."
That hurt worse somehow. Ynara wrapped her arms around herself like she was holding something in. Or trying not to fall apart. "She went without saying anything. Just acted. And I stood there. I just… stood there."
"You lived," Kairon said, voice steady.
"Doesn't feel like living," Ynara muttered.
And again, the silence rolled in. This time, more accepting. More shared. They were all holding ghosts now. Vess broke the quiet.
"Maybe that's why we're here. Not just because we were chosen… but because we're haunted."
Nyra raised her head slowly. "Or maybe this place is the haunting."
Vael didn't speak. He didn't need to. His fists were still clenched. But not in rage this time. Just to feel something. Solari would've had something to say, Kairon thought. But she wasn't here. Not yet. And neither was Daein. And who knew if they ever truly would be again. He looked toward the cracks in the ruin wall. Just dark sky and ash beyond. Then, quietly — more to himself than anyone.
"We're not dead."
The others looked up.
"We're not dead," he said again. "And as long as we're not, someone might be looking. Might still leave a light on. Even if it's just for hope."
That didn't feel like comfort. But it didn't feel like despair either. It was just enough to stand on.
For now.