The group trudged deeper into the pond's obsidian depths, waist-deep in liquid shadow. Every motion stirred the ink around them, rippling across the stillness like they were trespassers in a place that was never meant to be disturbed. The water clung not just to their clothes, but to their skin—cold, yes, but more than that. Heavy. As if it sought to memorize their shapes. To record them before erasing them.
The silence was a presence of its own. It crawled inside their heads, filled the space behind their eyes. Each step was a betrayal of that stillness, a splash of defiance in a cathedral that demanded reverence and dread. Riven led the way, his shoulders squared, steps deliberate, moving not like a soldier—but like a ghost already resigned to haunting.
The deeper they pressed, the colder it grew—not just the water, but the air above it. It kissed their cheeks like something long dead and long watching. It whispered down their spines, curled around their bones, a breathless hush that seemed to murmur: Leave.
Then Brin's voice cracked through the quiet like a twig snapping underfoot in a hunted forest. "Were those plants in the pond when we first got here?"
The others paused mid-stride. Eyes dropped.
Red.
Slender, sinewy strands of it drifted up from the dark below. Tendrils, plant-like in appearance, but wrong in their movement—far too slow, too intentional. They didn't float. They reached. Curling softly around ankles like curious fingers, brushing flesh with the gentleness of something that wanted to lull.
"Pretty sure they weren't," Rei muttered, narrowing his gaze. His voice carried unease, but also defiance—his own cracked armor stitched together with sarcasm. "Let's just keep moving. A couple weird plants can't hurt us, right?"
Sir Calden shook his head, water sloshing softly around his chest. "Can't even trust fruit these days," he grumbled. "You think plants are any better?"
The words hit Mira like shrapnel.
The red grove.
The dark red fruit.
The searing pain.
She stiffened, breath catching in her throat as her body remembered what her mind had tried so hard to forget—black-veined leaves, crimson juice, bark splitting through her skin like bones betraying her. She had clawed at herself, begged the trees to stop growing inside her. Her screams had become background noise in a world where nothing was natural anymore.
Her stomach turned. She gagged, bile rising before she could swallow it down.
Brin caught it immediately, reaching over to steady her with a hand on her shoulder. "You okay?"
She turned to him, eyes glassy, jaw trembling. For a moment, the mask dropped—and then, just as quickly, it was back.
"Yeah," she said with a brittle smile. "Just was… thinking about something."
They all knew what. None of them pushed. They had all built armor over their trauma, and none of them were ready to peel it back.
They kept walking.
Riven glanced back at Mira, concern flashing in his eyes—but he said nothing. Words wouldn't help. They never did, not in this place. Especially not here, in a Trial that fed on the noise between silences.
And behind them all, Erasmus floated with infuriating calm, drifting sideways along the pond's edge as if carried by some internal current only he could feel. His arms moved in lazy arcs, tracing invisible symbols in the air. Eyes wide. Lips half-curved in some thoughtless smile.
"It was a beautiful forest, though," he said wistfully. "Wasn't it?"
Rei's entire body tensed, his fists curling, nails digging into his palms. He could feel his teeth grinding together hard enough to make his jaw ache. Beautiful? The forest had eaten them alive. He wanted to shout, to rip Erasmus's throat out with the fury bubbling under his skin—but Riven's words echoed in his mind. Don't feed the madness. Feed the ego.
So he swallowed the scream and forced a single, sharp word out from clenched teeth, his gums bleeding. "Sure…"
Riven broke the silence before it could rot further. "This pond should take about a day to cross," he said, voice low and calculated. "So far, this has been too easy. Too still. It doesn't fit. The Trial has never been this merciful."
His eyes flicked toward the edges of the cavern. "Something's wrong. Either the danger's ahead… or it's already with us."
Erasmus turned in place, water swirling lazily around his knees. "Told you," he chimed with mock innocence. "I'm only doing my best to help all of you survive."
No one responded. Not out of agreement—but exhaustion.
Then, the world shifted.
The lantern—the one flickering above the cavern like a single eye of God—began to pulse. Once. Twice. A stuttering heartbeat of failing light.
And then—it died.
Darkness fell like a burial cloth.
The pond—once cold—now felt hollow. Not empty, but expectant. Like it had been holding its breath for this moment.
Then came the sensation—wrongness.
The illusion Erasmus had laid, the solid "floor" beneath their feet, vanished beneath them as if exhaled by the void. One moment, the water only clutched at their waists.
The next—it dragged them down.
Their feet met nothing.
They dropped like stones, pulled into a void that swallowed balance and breath alike. The water surged up around them, and in seconds, they were submerged in choking black. The world narrowed to thrashing limbs, desperate kicks, and the crushing certainty that this was how they would die.
But then—
Air.
They surfaced. One by one, gasping, coughing, wild-eyed. Their wet hair clung to their skin like veins. And then:
"What the hell?!" Sir Calden shouted, rage and panic fused into his voice.
But the sound didn't echo.
It fractured.
It cracked across the cavern like glass, duplicating—splitting—returning in distorted pitches that weren't his voice anymore. Dozens of warped reflections of that shout came back to them. Some deep and slow. Others sharp and shrill, stabbing into their skulls.
The sound was too much. Too many. Too wrong.
And then came the pain.
Crimson trickled from eardrums, running down necks, seeping into the water—and the pond welcomed it. Drank it down. No ripple. No stain.
Just silent absorption.
And then came the pain.
Crimson trickled from eardrums, running down necks, seeping into the water—and the pond welcomed it. Drank it down. No ripple. No stain.
It was as if it had been waiting.
Waiting to be fed.
Waiting to remember them.
And then—
Silence.
No breathing.
No water.
No echoes.
Just the kind of silence that makes your bones hum with the weight of your own heartbeat. The kind that whispers, You were never really here. Not to this place. Not to yourself.
And the pond no longer felt like water.
It felt like the absence of space
It was hungry.
And it demanded sacrifice.