For a few seconds, none of them could move.
The clearing looked frozen in time, like a shattered painting with cracks spread across the ground. The fissure had nearly closed, but the scent of torn earth still lingered—damp, heavy, carrying something far too ancient to belong on the surface.
Ren was the first to truly inhale.
Just one breath.Slow.Tired.Full of the feeling that something inside him had sunk along with the creature.
The flower flickered once more, as if confirming:the immediate danger had passed.
But it hadn't gone away.
Lyra approached Ren, her hand resting gently on his shoulder.Her touch pulled him back into his own body.
"Ren… are you afraid?"
He took a moment to answer.
"I'm trying not to be," he finally said, still staring at the ground."That's not an answer," she whispered.
He turned to her at last and saw her eyes shining.Not with tears—but with worry.A worry that cut through the fear.
Borin exhaled behind them."If what we saw is just a piece of what moves down there… we're screwed worse than I thought."
Draven was still sitting on the ground, hugging his knees, face pale, the fire gone from his hands."That eye… that eye…" he muttered, unable to shake the vision from his mind.
Ren knelt beside him.
"Draven," he said softly, gripping the boy's shoulder. "Look at me."
Draven raised his eyes slowly.
Ren didn't smile or try to comfort him with childish words.He spoke seriously.Firmly.Honestly.
"The eye was big. It was old. It was terrifying.""VERY terrifying," Draven cut in, almost crying.
"Yes," Ren agreed. "But it wasn't here for us."
Draven blinked."…it wasn't?"
Ren shook his head.
"It was looking for the fragment. It wasn't attacking. It wasn't hunting us."He took another breath."Not yet."
The silence that followed was thick, like snow piling on an old roof.
Borin dropped his axe beside him, the metal sinking a little into the soft soil.
"If that 'colossus' was chained down there… who the hell set it free?"
Ren stared into the dark of the forest.
That question had been burning inside him since the first roar.
"Someone who knows exactly what they're doing," he said."Or someone who lost control of what they were trying to use."
Draven tightened his grip around his knees."So there are people out there… messing with those things?"
Lyra's fingers grazed the bowstring."Messing with something like that… it's not something just anyone can do."
Ren nodded."It could be someone in the forest.Or someone outside it.Or someone who isn't… alive in the way we understand."
Draven froze."What do you mean, 'not alive'?!"
Ren didn't answer.
He wasn't sure.But he had felt something—the same unsettling sensation as when he first connected to the fragment's mind.
Something about the colossus was alive…but something inside it wasn't.
Lyra noticed the distant look in Ren's eyes and stood beside him.
"Don't think alone," she said, firmly.
Ren almost smiled.
The flower glowed a little brighter, as if agreeing with her.But then, suddenly, its light shrank—as if something had brushed against it.
Ren turned instantly.
"The box."
It was trembling.
Barely—almost too subtle to notice—but trembling.
Draven jumped to his feet, panicked."No, no, NO, not again—!"
"Calm down," Ren said.
He approached slowly, each step pulling a little more air from the cabin around them.Lyra followed, bow in hand.Borin reached for his axe again.
Ren opened the box.
The fragment was still there.Curled up.Almost wilted.
But something had changed.
In the corner of the wood, where nothing had been before, a small crack had formed inward.Not a root mark.Not a scrape.
A pressure mark—as if something had pressed from outside to inside.
Lyra frowned."Ren… was that here before?"
"No," he said quietly.
He touched the edge of the crack.
The wood was warm.
"The creature…" Ren whispered."What about it?" Borin asked.
Ren lifted his fingers into the dim light.
They were coated in a thin, gray dust.
Draven's eyes widened."That… came from inside the box?!"
Ren shook his head.
"It didn't come from inside."He turned toward the forest."It fell here when the colossus surfaced."
Silence.
A brutal, metallic silence.
Lyra stared at the dust on his fingers.
"You're saying the colossus…"She couldn't finish the sentence.
Ren finished it for her.
"Yes."He exhaled slowly."A part of it stayed behind."
The leaves around the box shifted.
Not from wind.Not from footsteps.
From vibration.
As if something very small…was still moving underground.
Borin stepped back."That's bad. Really bad."
Ren wrapped the dust carefully in a cloth.Closed the box.Stepped away from it.
Then he spoke—his voice firm, holding the weight of someone far older than he looked:
"The creature will return."He looked at Lyra.At Draven.At Borin.Then at the flower.
"And this time… it knows exactly where to look."