The silence that fell after the discovery of the blade was heavier than any scream. The three of them stood together, peering into the grey masses of the ruins. Arielle yanked her blade from the ground with a sharp motion.
"Fine. We play by its rules. For now." — She turned to Lloyd. — "Is your inner compass still insisting on this resort? Didn't change its mind while we were playing hide-and-seek with ghosts?"
Lloyd looked into her dark-honey eyes, where cold sparks danced.
'It's not just insisting. It's as if it's rooted to this spot.' — flashed through Lloyd's mind, but aloud he said something else, closing his eyes for a moment.
"It's... uncertain. The path forward seems blurred." — he admitted, struggling for words. — "As if we're already at the right point, and now we need to... wait?"
The needle of his inner guide darted about like a fly trapped in a glass jar, desperately beating against invisible walls.
"So we're not just trapped. We surrendered willingly. Brilliant!" — Leo concluded bitterly, nervously running a hand over his face, leaving dirty streaks on his pale skin.
It was he, with his engineer's eye, who found the first clue. Behind a pile of rubble lay not just trash, but something that made him freeze in silent astonishment. On the ground was a perfectly even circle laid out from small, polished to a shine pebbles. In its center lay a rusty, intricately engraved gear from some ancient mechanism. But the strangest thing was that rays, made from the same pebbles, extended from the circle in all directions, as if someone had depicted a sun or... a spiderweb.
"What is this?" — Leo whispered. — "Is this... some kind of ritual?"
Arielle frowned, not approaching.
"Doesn't look like the work of Drifters. They create chaos, not order. And certainly not people..." — She scanned the deserted area with her gaze. — "Too... neat. As if someone left us... a message. Or a warning."
'A message?' — Lloyd gripped the hilt of his cleaver, feeling the roughness of the wrapping.
A chill ran down his spine. He looked at this strange pattern. It wasn't a trace of struggle or a meal. It was an intentional act. A sign.
By noon, they tried to leave again. They walked fast, almost running, cursing every stone under their feet. Lloyd led them, trying to walk strictly against the pull of the compass. An hour later, drenched in sweat and panting, they emerged at the same spot. At the same perfect stone circle.
"No..." — Leo whispered, and genuine despair sounded in his voice. — "That's impossible. I was counting! We were heading strictly west!"
"There is no west or east here." — Lloyd said quietly but clearly. His own voice sounded alien to him. — "There is only the Camp. And everything leads to it."
Returning to the storeroom, they collapsed onto the floor in silence. Hope was melting before their eyes, like ice on a hot skillet. In a rage, Leo hurled his shield against the wall. The crash tore through the oppressive silence for a second.
"So we'll just sit here! Until we turn into those... the ones who left this diary! We'll die of hunger and thirst without even seeing the thing that's doing this!" — Hopelessness was clearly audible in Leo's voice.
"Calm down." — Arielle said harshly, almost fiercely. There was no sympathy in her voice, only steely will.
"Hysteria is exactly what it wants. We won't die of hunger. We'll die of fear. Or kill each other, like..." — Arielle hastily closed her mouth, realizing she was starting to say too much.
The air thickened. Lloyd caught Leo's gaze — swift, appraising, almost hostile. He saw the same in Arielle's eyes, in her slightly tense, compressed lips, in the way she had edged slightly away from him. The seed of suspicion, carefully planted by the invisible gardener, was sprouting.
'Divide and conquer, was it? First fear, then distrust, and then... self-destruction. How intelligent is it, really?' — Lloyd wondered what truly lay behind all this.
With nightfall, the fear became tangible, like wet wool clinging to the skin. A new order was established: One would stand guard outside, by the entrance. The second — inside, by the exit. The third rests. Shifts every two hours.
The role of the entrance guard fell to Lloyd, and the inside guard to Arielle. Leo, with dark circles under his eyes and trembling hands, crawled without objection into the darkest corner of the storeroom and almost instantly fell into a heavy, restless sleep, full of nightmares, Lloyd presumed.
Lloyd settled with his back against the cold concrete wall, a couple of meters from the doorway. His homemade cleaver lay on his knees. He felt every notch on its rough hilt. The night was unnaturally dark and starless, as if the sky had been draped in black velvet. The silence pressed on his ears, becoming almost ringing. He sat, listening for every rustle, every crunch of gravel underfoot... but it was empty and dead all around. Too empty. Too dead.
An hour passed. Two. His nerves were stretched to the limit, ready to snap from the tension. To keep from going mad from the monotony and oppressive silence...
"Wall. Rusty beam. Crack in the asphalt. Shadow from the column... Stone circle... Campfire... Campfire?!" — Lloyd began to list aloud, in a barely audible whisper, everything he saw, trying to anchor himself in some reality, until his gaze met something strange.
In the center of the stone circle, where the mysterious gear had lain during the day, flames now danced. A low but fierce campfire that couldn't be there. They hadn't lit it. And no one else could have. The flames were almost colorless, with only a bluish tint at the base, and emitted neither crackle nor heat. They simply burned, defying all logic.
'Sooo, something's starting.'
Lloyd's heart skipped a beat, then hammered with such force that the pain echoed in his temples. He froze, staring at the sight, his fingers gripping the cleaver. And then, from the shadow behind this silent, cold campfire, a Figure emerged. Transparent, faceless, as if carved from frozen smoke. It was unnaturally tall and thin, its contours flickering and blurring. The Figure stopped on the other side of the fire, its head tilted at an impossible, dislocated angle. And it was looking at him. Lloyd felt that gaze physically — like icy needles piercing his skin, through his clothes, straight into his soul.
'I suppose Leo would have gone into a coma from the sight.'
He wasn't breathing. His thoughts raced, trying to find logic, an explanation.
'Call the others? Move? Attack this... this nothingness?' — But his body wouldn't obey, paralyzed by an ancient, animal terror of the inexplicable.
Suddenly, the Figure slowly turned its head. Not towards Lloyd. Towards the dark opening where Arielle and Leo slept. Then, with a smooth, fluid motion, it began to move — not towards Lloyd, but parallel to him, gliding along the edge of the clearing. It was circling their shelter, like a predator assessing the boundaries of its territory, its pen of cattle.
'Is it... studying us?' — Lloyd froze, trying to understand its intentions.
Aggression? Curiosity? He felt his inner compass tremble, for the first time sending a signal of pure, undiluted alarm. It wasn't a call, but the death cry of instinct.
He slowly, centimeter by centimeter, moved deeper into the shadow, keeping the cold metal of the cleaver ready. His heart was beating so loudly it seemed the echo would carry across the entire area.
The Figure completed its silent circuit and stopped again in its original place. For a moment, its faceless gaze slid over Lloyd again, and he thought he saw something... familiar flicker in it. Not a threat, but a cold, indifferent curiosity, the kind a scientist has when examining a bug under a microscope. Then it just as slowly retreated into the shadow and dissolved. The campfire went out, leaving behind only the dark stone circle.
"Haaa..." — Lloyd's legs buckled and he fell to his knees with a dull thud.
Lloyd trembled and understood the main thing: they were not just in a trap. They were in a cage. And the owner had just demonstrated who was in charge.
He turned and through the doorway met Arielle's gaze. Her face in the semi-darkness was a pale mask, frozen with astonishment and pure, silent horror. Her wide eyes were fixed on the spot where the campfire had just burned. She had seen. Seen everything.
No doubts remained. They were guests of something for which their minds, their fears, and reality itself were mere toys. The game, it seemed, was only just beginning.