"I wouldn't go in there if I were you," Boris says.
I'm not looking at the shop. I'm looking at the old man sitting behind the blanket. The hood. The posture. The skin—thin, pallid, stretched over bones that seem too close to the surface.
I've seen that skin before. On the figures chained to the walls along the main road when we first entered Lost Ark.
"Boris. Why does this man look exactly like the slaves?"
Boris exhales. Long. Heavy. The kind of breath that precedes an explanation he's given before and hates giving.
"If you really want to see Lost Ark without the mask, go ahead. I won't stop you."
"I'm not liking any of this, Boris."
His face locks. The grin is gone. The warmth is gone. What's left is stone—the hardest expression I've seen on him since we arrived. Harder than the Red Tide. Harder than the Stalker.
"It's not about liking. It's the only answer we found." He steps aside. Gestures toward the door. "Go and see."
