Ink stained my fingers again. I hadn’t noticed when it happened. Or when the candle burned halfway down. Or when the forest outside grew quiet.

The door slid open behind me with a sharp mechanical hiss, breaking the fragile stillness. I didn’t turn immediately—I already knew who it was.

“Nathan,” I muttered, finishing the last line in my journal before closing it with a soft thud.

His boots were heavy, deliberate. Tactical. Always ready for something to go wrong. “You’re going to want to hear this,” he said. No greeting. There never was.

I stood, grabbing the edge of the table for balance as I stretched out the stiffness in my back. “If this is another false reading from Sector C, I swear—”

“It’s not.” His tone cut clean through my assumption. “We’ve got movement. Northern edge of the forest. Patrol caught visual before pulling back.”

Now I turned. “…Define ‘movement.’”

Nathan hesitated. That was unusual. “Not anything we’ve cataloged,” he said. “And it noticed them.”

A slow, familiar tension coiled in my chest—not fear. Never fear. Curiosity.

I exhaled once, already reaching for my gear. “Did it leave a trace?”

“Minimal. But enough.”

“Good.” I slung my field bag over my shoulder, fingers instinctively checking each tool in place. Scanner. Vials. Journal. “Then it exists.”

Nathan watched me for a second longer than necessary. “You’re not even going to ask if it’s dangerous?”

I paused at the doorway, pulling my gloves on. “It’s always dangerous.”

I glanced toward the treeline beyond the reinforced glass. The forest looked still again.

“…Which is exactly why we can’t ignore it.” I stepped past him into the corridor, already moving.

“And tell your team to try not to scare it off this time.”

Nathan let out a quiet breath behind me, somewhere between a sigh and a laugh. This meant we were about to learn something new.