The mountains judge. The shadow hunts. The stone swallows.
The biting wind tears at my skin, each gust like an invisible blade.
It lashes my face, sharp, electric, an unrelenting assault that leaves marks.
Dust clings to my body, my hair lashes against my skull like dirty sheets in a storm.
The air swirls around me, invisible, malevolent arms encircle, strike, wound.
It hurts, but it's almost a relief.
It means I'm still here.
Still alive. I keep running.
No plan.
No thought.
Just the brutal rhythm of my legs, the desperate urge to escape.
I am a raging machine.
The wind in my ears, the echo of my footsteps on the rough earth, each stride feels like a blow.
My legs are made of concrete, but I won't stop.
The breath burns in my throat, my lungs scream, but I keep going, relentless.
The ground is alive, threatening with every step.
It seems to want to swallow me, to drag me into its gaping maw.
The earth cries beneath my feet, warning me that I'm nearing the edge.
I see the silhouettes of the Guards, tall and menacing, standing like statues of judgment.
The sun sets, but the light seems to fade with it.
All around me, the shadows stretch, twist, like cold hands wrapping around my throat.
But that's not what scares me.
What freezes my blood is what hunts me.
The Hunt.
Behind me, I hear a metallic sound.
Cold. Calculated. Distant, but already so close.
They're here, I feel it in my bones.
They advance, with that icy certainty that they will catch me.
A red flash slashes the air near me, grazing the rock.
My heart pounds, I hear the whistle of the impact.
A shot.
I don't have time to react.
The ground shakes, the air vibrates.
The explosion goes off to my left, a geyser of rock blinding me, making me stagger.
— Me (panting, words coming like an electric shock): "DAMN, THEY'RE SHOOTING NOW?!"
— Iris (detached, clinical): "Threat reevaluated. Status: Priority elimination."
I grit my teeth.
It's over.
They don't want to catch me anymore. They want to kill me.
Another shot.
This time, I feel it. It's closer.
The wind breaks around me, the air whistles, sharp like a blade. I dive.
I roll. I stagger to my feet, my knee shredded, the pain hits me like lightning.
Nothing's broken. Not yet.
The ground slips away.
The rock vibrates, quivering.
An invisible, crushing pressure weighs down on me.
In front of me: a rock wall.
A dead end.
The wall. The end.
It's over.
I stop dead.
— Roch (calm, his tone icy): "Stop."
He doesn't shout. But his voice swallows me, smothers me.
It carries a maddening coldness, a truth that pierces me, twists my insides.
Instant break.
My feet screech on the rock, sending up a cloud of dust.
Around me, the world seems suspended.
Time freezes.
The wall. Unyielding.
And me, right there, in front of it.
Trapped.
— Me (panting, panic rising in me): "Is this your brilliant plan, Roch? Getting killed against a wall?!"
He doesn't respond.
He doesn't even look at me.
His eyes scan, searching for something.
I don't know what.
The tension is palpable.
It grips the scene, warps the air around us.
And then... a tremor.
Beneath my feet.
A deep, immense, visceral sound.
A heartbeat, like the pulse of a monster hidden in the rock.
The rock cracks.
Slowly. Too slowly.
A gap.
A gaping black maw opens before us.
It swallows the light.
The cold assaults me, too icy.
It burns my lungs, paralyzes me.
— Roch (unmoved, as if he expected this): "Move."
He steps in.
Without a glance back.
Without hesitation. As if this place belongs to him.
I turn around.
Behind me, the metallic sounds draw nearer, the hunters.
They're coming.
The shadow of the mountains seems to shudder, shift, as if they too are on alert.
— Me: "You guys won't catch me!"
I dive into the opening.
The cold seizes me, the icy air tears at me.
The wind sucks me in.
The mountain rumbles around me.
I feel the pressure of the space, the echo of my flight resonating through the bowels of the earth.
Each step takes me toward an uncertain exit.
A fate I can no longer control.
But it's all I have left.