The world outside Larkos smelled different.
Cleaner.
Sharper.
Almost honest in a way the city never was.
But breathing it didn't hurt any less.
I walked until the broken walls were nothing more than jagged shadows behind me. Even then, my ribs felt tight, as if some invisible part of Larkos still clung to me and refused to let go. I stood there for a moment, letting the wind pass through me, letting the silence widen around my thoughts until it almost swallowed them.
Ahead lay the forest.
Behind, the corpse of the city.
And in between… me.
Something that was not quite broken, but not whole either.
I followed a faint path until it disappeared, becoming nothing more than grass bending under the breeze. While crossing a cluster of rocks, I sensed them before I saw them: faint breaths, the soft rustle of fabric, the trembling presence of people trying to disappear.
Only when a child's frightened eyes peeked out from between two boulders did I realize they were hiding there—elderly men and women, exhausted, thin, with a few children pressed against their knees. People who could never reach a refuge, not with those limbs, those wounds, those ages.
They didn't speak at first. They barely looked at me.
When the eldest woman finally whispered, "We… couldn't go," I understood without needing explanations.
And yet, there was nothing I could give them.
No food.
No protection.
No promise strong enough to hold the world together.
So I left them with only the truth I could afford:
"I'll try to come back for you."
The forest deepened as I entered it. The air grew heavy and moist. Trees rose like pillars holding a dark green sky. The ground bore marks of claws, dragged weight, and violence I didn't want to imagine.
My steps slowed.
My breathing tightened.
Hilo Lunar trembled faintly in my chest, as if reacting to something unseen.
Then I heard it.
Not a whisper.
Not an animal.
A horde.
When I peeked through a curtain of leaves, my body froze.
There it was—the refuge.
A wooden structure reinforced with logs, barricaded on all sides.
And around it…
Monsters.
Dozens. Maybe more. Misshapen bodies, gray skin, spines jutting like broken weapons. Some climbed over others, some rammed the barricade with their shoulders, others tore at the wood with claws that ripped entire chunks off.
The refuge wasn't safe.
It wasn't even standing—it was only enduring.
My throat tightened.
I could never reach it.
Not like this.
Not today.
So I stepped back. Slowly. Quietly. Until the sound of wood cracking under monster claws faded into the distance. The forest swallowed me again, but now the air felt thinner, as if even the trees understood that my plan had died before it began.
Then my stomach growled.
It wasn't a normal growl.
It was sharp, painful—like hunger trying to claw its way up my throat to remind me that I was still human, still fragile.
I needed food.
Not only for myself.
But for the elders and children hiding in that impossible corner of the world.
They wouldn't survive without it.
So I went deeper into the forest—farther from the horde, farther from the refuge, wandering under branches that twisted like ribs overhead. I searched bushes, overturned fallen logs, reached under thorny shrubs. I didn't care how far I walked; I only cared about finding something.
Finally, under a thorned bush, half-hidden in shadow, I saw them:
Small red berries.
Not many.
Not enough.
But real.
Edible-looking.
My fingers trembled as I picked them.
"Great," I muttered. "If the monsters don't kill me, food poisoning will."
But even as the words left my mouth, I didn't put the berries in my pockets for myself.
I put them aside, not eating a single one.
Because as I knelt there with dirt under my nails and hunger twisting my insides, a truth forced its way into me:
The old woman, the trembling man, the children who stared with hollow eyes…
They needed this more than I did.
And I—
I needed to be someone who didn't walk away forever.
So I gathered everything I found: a handful of berries, a few edible leaves, cracked seeds, two bitter roots that tasted awful but wouldn't kill anyone.
Pitiful.
Laughable.
Barely enough for a single meal.
But it was something.
And I turned back.
Toward the stones.
Toward the hidden breaths.
Toward the tiny flicker of life I'd left behind.
Even knowing the monsters were still out there.
Even knowing the forest could devour me.
Even knowing I might never make it to that refuge at all.
Sometimes surviving isn't advancing.
Sometimes surviving is choosing to return
—to the people who can't move forward on their own.
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