Morning did not arrive gently.

  The jungle woke in layers. First, with the low hum of insects beneath the soil, then the rustle of leaves high above, then the distant calls of things that did not sound like birds. The fire had burned down to a ring of ash and dull embers, barely warm enough to fog the air.

  The boy was already awake because hadn’t slept. He lay on his side, staring into the thinning dark, ribs aching with every breath. Each inhale scraped. Each exhale burned. He kept his breathing shallow, measured, counting without knowing why.

  Four in. Three out.

  The ground beneath him felt… wrong. As if something far below had packed the earth tighter during the night.

  Gravel was the first to stir. He rose without a sound, boots finding the ground like he’d never been asleep at all. He scanned the clearing, eyes sharp, then looked at the boy.

  “You didn’t take watch,” Gravel said quietly.

  “I didn’t sleep,” the boy replied.

  Gravel studied him for a moment longer, then nodded once. He didn’t seem to judge, just acknowledged the fact.

  Chop was next, sitting up with a grunt and rolling his shoulders. Sheath followed, rubbing sleep from his eyes, sword already within reach. Knell was already awake before anyone else excluding the boy—she was listening— and standing near the edge of the clearing, head tilted.

  Wrighty stretched loudly, arms over his head, staff clattering against a rock.

  “Man,” he yawned, “I dreamed I was falling again. Hate that one.”

  Snow pushed herself closer to the ashes of the fire, breath fogging faintly in the morning air despite the growing warmth. She hadn’t slept much either. None of them had.

  Above, branches creaked. Shiela peered down through the leaves, eyes scanning the ground before settling on the boy.

  “You okay? you didn’t sleep at all.” she asked softly.

  He nodded. It was easier than explaining.

  Five awoke last, arising lightly into the clearing. He got up without a sound, brushed dirt from his sleeve, and took in the group with a single, slow glance.

  “Well,” he said mildly, “we survived the night.”

  Gravel knelt and pressed his palm to the dirt near the fire pit and frowned. “Ground’s packed,” he muttered. “Didn’t feel like this yesterday.”

  Knell stiffened slightly.

  “I heard something,” she said. “Under us.”

  The boy’s fingers tightened against the club.

  He didn’t know why.

  Gravel stood. “We will move soon. Eat quick. Quiet.”

  As the group began to gather their things, the boy remained still for a moment longer, eyes fixed on the soil where Gravel’s hand had been. For just a second—barely long enough to register—he thought he saw the dirt settle inward. Like something below had shifted its weight.

  Then it was gone. And the jungle swallowed the moment whole.

  ***

  After finishing packing up the group head out deeper in the forest. They picked up supplies as they went as the boy inspected each fruit or berry and determined whether it was safe to eat by approximation.

  Their formation loosened as the terrain thickened. Gravel and Chop led, cutting a steady path through hanging vines and low brush. Knell was behind those two limping along. Snow rotated the middle with Sheath, her bow never lowered, eyes flicking from shadow to shadow. Eerie vanished almost immediately, his presence marked only by the occasional rustle that came too late to pinpoint. Five had reassembled Shiela’s wheelchair and was pushing her across the tough terrain near the back. He still had the seat strapped to his back despite this. The boy assumed this was because he wanted to be able to take her and carry her incase of an event.

  Wrighty stayed near the boy. He walked easily despite the uneven ground, staff tapping lightly against roots and stone, the sound irregular, like he wasn’t keeping rhythm on purpose.

  The boy lagged behind once, crouching near a patch of broad-leafed plants. The leaves were veined with pale lines, their undersides faintly sticky. He scraped one with his knife, sniffed it, then crushed it between his fingers.

  “Edible,” he said after a moment. “Probably. Not raw.”

  Gravel nodded. “Alright take it then, could be used for something later.”

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  Snow watched from a few paces away. She didn’t approach. When the boy looked up, she was already turning her attention elsewhere.

  They passed a fallen tree not long after. Its trunk had split lengthwise, the interior hollowed smooth. The edges weren’t jagged or rotten. They were worn.

  Gravel slowed, placing a hand against the exposed wood. “This wasn’t age.”

  Chop leaned in, squinting. “Too clean.”

  The boy knelt, examining the grooves inside the trunk. They weren’t claw marks. Not quite. They were much too shallow. Too deliberate and they were repeating at odd intervals, as if something had fed without teeth—or with too many.

  “Something was here,” the boy said. “It must’ve caused this.”

  Wrighty shifted his weight. “That’s comforting.”

  They moved on.

  The deeper they went the jungle seemed to quite down a little..

  Insects still buzzed beneath the soil, and leaves still whispered overhead, but the sounds felt restrained, muted. The boy noticed the way the others reacted to it—Snow’s fingers tightening around her bowstring, Sheath adjusting his grip on his sword, Gravel slowed his pace, assessing the situation. Even Wrighty stopped humming.

  Eerie appeared beside the boy without warning.

  “You seem to be very deep in thought. Aren’t you?” he said quietly.

  The boy didn’t turn. “I’m just watching.”

  Eerie considered that for a second, then nodded and stepped away, vanishing back into the brush without another sound.

  They found signs of the first expedition before noon. A frayed strap tangled in thorns. A scatter of ash rings half-washed by rain. A scrap of cloth snagged high in a branch. Several clues to the events that has transpired.

  Snow crouched beside the cloth, fingers hovering but not touching. “They didn’t run.”

  Gravel shook his head. “No.”

  The boy scanned the ground. There were no footprints leading away. No drag marks. No signs of struggle.

  “It is as if they vanished,” he said.

  As the group continued, the ravine came shortly after. It cut through the jungle like a wound, shallow but wide, the ground sloping inward toward bare stone. Gravel raised a fist, and the group halted instantly.

  “This is where the trail ends,” he said.

  The boy stepped closer to the edge. There was nothing below. No bodies. No tracks. No disturbance. Just bare rock and packed dirt, smooth as if it had never been touched.

  Knell tilted her head. “I don’t hear anything.”

  Five studied the ravine silently. His gaze flicked once—just once—to the boy, then back to the ground.

  “We’ll go around,” he said calmly. “No reason to rush.”

  Gravel hesitated, then nodded. “Long way it is.”

  As they turned away, the boy felt it again. The feeling he felt last night like the earth beneath them had shifted and hadn’t finished settling.

  He said nothing.

  ***

  They did not speak as they went.

  The path around the ravine forced them into tighter spacing. Roots rose like knuckles from the soil, slick with moss. The boy had to watch his footing carefully, one wrong step sent pain lancing through his ribs hard enough to make his vision blur.

  Wrighty noticed.

  He slowed without saying anything, matching the boy’s pace. His staff tapped twice against a root ahead, testing it, then he stepped around it and gestured with his chin for the boy to follow.

  “Careful there Doc,” he muttered. “That one’s got an attitude.”

  The boy nodded and followed, grateful but unsettled by how easily Wrighty adjusted. He wondered how long Wrighty had been doing things like that—watching without staring, helping without making it obvious.

  They cleared the ravine after nearly a couple of hours. The jungle on the other side felt different. It wasn’t darker but it felt heavy. Like a weight was placed on their shoulders. The air pressed in closer, warm and damp, clinging to skin and cloth alike. The ground here was softer, though no less compacted. It gave the impression something beneath it shifted often enough to keep it from settling naturally.

  Gravel paused again, scanning ahead.

  “This ground on this place is strange y’all watch.” he said quietly.

  Sheath snorted. “Pretty sure most of the ground here is strange.”

  Gravel didn’t sighed and kept moving.

  As they continued their walk the boy could only think of how much his ribs hurt. He felt he was being bombed from the inside. They came up to a particular patch of forest where Snow stopped abruptly.

  Her bow came up in one smooth motion, arrow nocked, breath held.

  “Movement,” she whispered.

  The group froze. The boy followed her line of sight, eyes adjusting to the layered green ahead. At first he saw nothing—just overlapping leaves, hanging vines, shadows folding into shadows.

  Then it moved. It wasn’t too fast, but certainly was not slow.

  Something withdrew behind a cluster of ferns, just far enough to be seen properly.

  Chop flexed his grip on the cleaver. “Was that a person?”

  Eerie’s voice came from somewhere to the left. “No.”

  Gravel raised two fingers. Wait. The boy felt something inside him. His hand tightened around the club before he realized he’d moved at all.

  Five glanced at him.

  The boy didn’t see him look—but he felt it, the same way he’d felt the ground shift the night before. When he glanced back, Five’s eyes were already elsewhere, focused on the tree line, expression calm, unreadable.

  The foliage rustled once more. Then stopped. Nothing emerged. Nothing that the boy expected happened. It was just nothing.

  Gravel exhaled slowly. “We keep moving. Eyes open.”

  Snow lowered her bow, but not all the way.

  While they walked, the boy became aware of something else.

  The others weren’t spreading out anymore. Without being told, without a signal, the distance between them closed. Wrighty stayed closer. Snow rotated near Wrighty. Even Eerie’s movements tightened, his disappearances shorter, his reappearances closer to the group’s center. And no one stood directly behind the boy anymore.

  He realized when he slowed and no one filled the space. He noticed when he stopped to inspect a cluster of fungi and Gravel’s gaze flicked to him immediately, sharp and assessing. He could tell when Sheath slowly moved his hand closer to the sheath of his sword whenever the boy moved close to him. Even Five and Shiela moved up farther.

  He did not comment.