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Chapter 2 - Chapter 2: Waking to Hunger

POV: Sunny

They didn't belong here.

Sunny knew it the second he saw them — the way they moved, the way their souls bent against the world like oil on water. Too clean. Too defined. Whatever brought them here hadn't come from the Nightmare Spell.

They weren't Awakened. Not from this system. Not Dreamers, not Sleepers.

Not anything he recognized.

Which made them dangerous.

Or already dead.

He slid the blade from the creature's corpse and turned away. Let the blood steam. Let them sit in the silence.

"If you scream again," he muttered, not turning back, "you'll die before I get bored enough to help."

A ridge of bone and stone stretched ahead. Ice cracked beneath his boots. No wind here — just the weight of silence pressing down from the starless sky.

They followed.

Of course they did.

The red-haired one moved stiffly, one hand curled near her waist like she was used to summoning something that no longer came. The other — the dark one with the too-bright eyes — limped slightly, favoring her right side.

They had no weapons. No armor. Just tattered remnants of clothes that didn't belong to this world. One of them had lace trim. Lace.

Sunny exhaled slowly through his nose.

How long had he been in the Seventh Layer?

He didn't know. That was the trick of it. Time bled sideways here. Sometimes forward, sometimes in loops. Sometimes he woke with his boots frozen to the ground and no memory of lying down.

He knew this much: there was no going back.

Not for him.

Not for them.

They crossed two ridges and passed the remains of a shattered obsidian gate. The air was thin here — the kind that cut your lungs. The girls didn't speak, but their breathing gave them away.

Labored. Weak.

Sunny kept walking.

He didn't slow. Didn't look back.

If they couldn't keep up, they'd die. If they could — well, he wasn't sure that would be better.

He finally stopped beneath the ribs of a fossilized beast. The bones arched up like a cathedral. Good cover. Not too open. One exit.

He knelt and ran his fingers through the ground. Dry. Cold. No fresh prints. No signs of higher-tier predators.

He sat, blade resting across his knees.

The girls arrived a minute later, collapsing near the base of a rib column.

They didn't speak.

That was smart.

He closed his eyes. Counted the breaths.

A few minutes later, the redhead tried.

"What… is this place?" Her voice was dry. Controlled. Educated.

Sunny didn't answer.

She tried again. "Who are you?"

Still nothing.

"You saved us," the other one said — softer. "Why?"

Sunny opened his eyes.

The dark-haired girl had her head tilted. She wasn't afraid. Curious, maybe. Or just too tired to panic.

He studied her a moment. Then shrugged.

"You were loud. Something heard you. I killed it. That's it."

"You could've left us," she said.

"I should have."

The redhead sat forward. "We're not your enemies."

"I didn't say you were."

"Then what are we to you?"

Sunny didn't blink. "Liabilities."

Silence stretched.

Then the dark-haired one said, "My name's Akeno. That's Rias."

"So,Who are you?"

He watched them both for a moment.

They weren't native to this realm. That much was obvious. They moved wrong. Too clean. Like pieces from another game shoved onto a bloodstained board.

He tapped his chest lightly.

"Sunny," he said.

Just the name.

No surname. No explanation.

The word felt sharp in his mouth.

The redhead narrowed her eyes. "That's not your real name, is it?"

He gave a thin smile. "It's real enough for this place."

He stared at her for a long second.

Then pointed at the fireless center of their makeshift camp.

"Sit. Breathe through your nose. Don't speak again unless something's on fire or bleeding."

They obeyed.

Which was interesting.

Most people didn't.

He studied them in the half-dark.

They weren't illusions. That much was clear now. Not figments. Not false Echoes. Their souls were too active, their thoughts too loud.

They didn't recognize the terrain. Their movements were all wrong — too vertical. Too confident in gravity.

No contextual awareness, he noted. No dream-logic adaptation.

That would kill them within three days.

Maybe two.

Eventually, the redhead broke the silence again.

She didn't ask where they were.

She asked, "Are we still alive?"

Sunny looked up.

His expression didn't change.

"Wrong question."

"…Then what's the right one?"

Sunny closed his eyes again.

He spoke softly.

"The right question is: how long can you stay that way?"

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