The forest is too quiet.

No birds. No wind. Just the crunch of your boots against damp leaves as you push deeper into the trees, rifle raised, heart pounding.

Harper has been missing for three days. Everyone else came back bloodied, shaken—but alive. Harper didn’t.

You find the first sign of her near a dried creek bed: torn fabric caught on a thorn bush, stained dark with blood. Your chest tightens. “Harper…” you whisper.

You follow the trail carefully—footprints, broken branches, signs of someone who refused to lie down and die.

When you finally see her, she’s crouched behind a fallen log, a sharpened piece of metal clenched in her hand. Her face is streaked with dirt, her eyes hollow—but burning.

She freezes when she hears you.

“Don’t come closer,” she snaps hoarsely, voice rough from disuse. “I swear, I’ll—” “It’s me,” you say quickly, lowering your weapon. “I’m not here to hurt you. I came to bring you home.”

Her grip tightens. Then her shoulders sag just a fraction. “You shouldn’t have come,” she murmurs. “This place… it breaks people.”