We were out. But "out" didn't feel like free.
It felt like colder, wetter, more exposed in.
The rain was relentless. It had been drumming on the school, but out here, in the clearing, it was a constant, freezing assault.
My clothes were soaked through. Every thread of my black uniform clung to me, heavy and cold. My shoulder, where I'd slammed it against the well shaft, throbbed with a dull, white-hot ache.
Elias wasn't looking any better. He was hunched over the ancient book, trying to shield the leather with his body. He looked like a wet, shivering scarecrow.
We started walking. Not running. Stumbling.
The ground was thick mud, sucking at our worn school shoes. The forest here was dense, smelling of pine and rot.
"Which way?" I gasped. My breath came out ragged and shaky.
Elias just pointed vaguely through the trees, towards a faint, sickly yellow glow in the distance. The main road.
"Road," he managed, his voice hoarse from the sulfur gas. "We need to get to the road. Need a sign. Need... distance."
We pushed through the brush. Twigs snapped back, stinging my face.
The bell had stopped ringing a long time ago. But the silence didn't feel safe. It felt like the absence of a heartbeat. Like the predator was now silent, too.
We reached the asphalt. It was black and slick under the streetlights, which were few and far between.
The relief was minimal. Now we were exposed.
We looked like we'd clawed our way out of a grave. Muddy, torn uniforms. Elias holding a backpack and a book; me awkwardly clutching a heavy, rusty crowbar.
A car rushed past. Headlights blinding. We both flinched, instinctively ducking back into the shadows of the trees.
The car was gone in seconds. But the brief flash of light, of civilization, felt like a spotlight on our guilt.
"We can't walk like this," I whispered, my teeth chattering.
"We have to," Elias argued, pulling his collar up uselessly. "We can't stay in the trees. Too easy to track. Too slow. They'll have patrols out now. Student cars."
The idea of Serena and her clique driving around in their expensive vehicles, hunting us, made the fear feel sharper, more personal.
"We need a moment," I insisted. "My shoulder is on fire. And we need to look at that book, Elias. Do we even know the reporter's name?"
He didn't answer. He just kept stumbling forward along the shoulder of the road.
"Elias!" I grabbed his arm. He winced, pulling away instantly.
"The book is wet, Kaito! I can't look at it in the rain. We'll destroy it! It's our only way!" he snapped. His voice was high-pitched, raw with desperation.
"So we walk until we collapse? Until a patrol car finds the two soaked kids with a murder weapon?"
I hated the sound of my own voice. High, hysterical. But I couldn't stop. The crash was coming.
He stopped, his shoulders slumping. He looked utterly defeated. "I don't know," he mumbled. "I don't know the protocol for this. I just know we can't stop."
He was right. We couldn't. But we were dying of the cold.
We kept walking. Every ten steps felt like a mile. My stomach was churning, empty and tight with tension. I was so hungry, I could almost taste the damp dirt.
After what felt like hours—maybe twenty minutes, time was meaningless—the road bent. Just past the bend, half-hidden by overgrown weeds, was a small, derelict structure.
An old shed. Or maybe a forgotten bus stop. Just a wooden shack with a listing roof and broken windows.
"There," Elias breathed. "Five minutes. That's all we need."
We scrambled off the road, pushing through nettles and thorns. I didn't care about the scrapes. I just wanted to be out of the rain.
The shack was worse inside than out. It smelled of decay, mold, and stagnant water. But it was dry, mostly.
We collapsed onto the floor, which was covered in old leaves and dirt. I dropped the crowbar. It clanged dully. I didn't care.
Elias immediately went for the book. He knelt, shielding the pages with his body, using his weak flashlight beam.
I sat there, shivering uncontrollably. My jaw ached from clenching my teeth. My focus was entirely on the cold. It was a physical pain, a constant, sharp needle pricking every nerve.
"Okay," Elias finally whispered. "Got it."
He was pointing to a loose sheet of paper tucked into the back cover of the journal. It was brittle, yellowed, and covered in tight, looping script.
"The founder's last entry. It was an insurance policy," he read, his voice low and halting.
"'The Watchman knows the full measure of the work. Find him at the last place of publication, on the anniversary of the first fall. The city of Ash, beneath the broken clock.'"
"What does that even mean?" I demanded.
Elias chewed his lip. "City of Ash... it's a local nickname for the nearest big city. The old industrial center, forty miles from here. 'The broken clock' has to be the old newspaper building, the Chronicle. It had a clock tower that broke in the '80s."
"Forty miles," I repeated, the number feeling insurmountable. "And 'anniversary of the first fall?' What fall?"
"Maya's disappearance," Elias whispered, his eyes wide. "They call it the 'first fall of the term' in the records. That was... two days ago."
"So he's there now?"
"He might be," Elias said, hope flickering in his tired eyes. "The Founder must have known that's when the Watchman would check the old spot for information."
"How do we get forty miles?" I asked, my voice flat. "We're soaked, we smell like a sewer, and we have two dollars between us."
We stared at the problem. It was too big.
"We can't ask for help," Elias muttered. "Blackwood's reach is everywhere. The moment we get close to any official—police, bus station—they'll know."
My gaze drifted to the crowbar lying in the dirt. Heavy. Cold.
"We need clean clothes," I said, my voice low and dry. "And we need cash. We need to be invisible."
Elias followed my gaze to the crowbar. He understood. His face went pale.
"No," he said, shaking his head sharply. "No, Kaito. We're not thieves. We're not... we're not becoming them. We're better than that."
"We're not better than dead, Elias," I countered, the adrenaline giving my voice a sudden, cold edge. "This isn't a debate club. This is a game where the winner lives. We need resources. There has to be a small house, a gas station... something off the road."
His face was a knot of internal conflict. His moral compass, the intelligence that had guided him, was fighting the brute fear of survival.
"Look," he finally whispered, pointing at the book. "There's a note scribbled here. A small town. 'Red Oak.' Ten miles from here. It's on the main road. Small. Easy to avoid people."
"We walk ten miles," I decided, standing up stiffly. My shoulder screamed. I didn't care. "We find a place to dry out, a place to shed these damn uniforms, and a way to get money. Then we head for Ash."
I picked up the crowbar. It was heavy. It felt real. It felt dangerous.
"We go now," I said. "Before it gets light. Before anyone thinks to check the road leading out of Academia Umbra."
Elias nodded, his face still etched with horror at the compromise we had just made. He shoved the book back into the damp backpack.
We slipped out of the shack, leaving the dubious sanctuary behind. The rain had slowed to a miserable drizzle.
The road stretched ahead of us, black and endless. We were ten miles from the first step toward freedom, and forty miles from the man who might save us. We were two haunted, ragged kids, armed with a rusty crowbar and a dead man's journal, walking into the dark. We were no longer hiding from ghosts. We were hiding from humanity. And we were about to become criminals to survive.