Chapter 64
I must have dozed off for a few minutes, because when I finally opened my eyes, the sky had already turned to night and the aurora borealis was lighting up the inside of our hollow trunk, casting the walls in green.
Careful not to wake Adele, who was sleeping soundly beside me, I sat up with heavy eyes and stared at the snow falling outside. Only then did I notice the unnatural stillness in the forest—and realized that silence was what had woken me.
I poked Adele, whispering softly in her ear:
“Do you notice how quiet it is?”
“What quiet?” Adele grumbled, unconsciously snuggling closer to me, but she didn’t open her eyes.
“Listen,” I said, falling silent. There were no crickets, no cicadas, no night birds or animals. Even the wind seemed to be holding its breath. “The insects and animals aren’t playing their nightly symphony.”
“Animals don’t make symphonies, Kyller. Stop talking nonsense and go back to sleep.”
“They do—you just have to stop and listen. The forest speaks, Adele, and tonight it’s silent. Something’s wrong,” I murmured, craning my neck to look outside. When I pulled away from Adele, the cold hit me again.
“It must be because you’re wild. You hear and feel things I don’t understand, like the contaminated water,” she said, reluctantly opening her eyes this time and sitting up to look at the forest. “Look, there’s a vial right in front of us! And we’re not far from the center.”
A few stars twinkled on the horizon, dancing with the aurora borealis, and sure enough, there was another green vial about 500 meters ahead of us.
I spotted several lights near our position and could tell the red ones from the blue.
In some spots, lights clustered together—probably alliances of students carrying vials—which meant we were all close to each other and would have to run hard the next day.
Back near the barrier, there were also fainter lights, lagging behind.
I wondered which ones belonged to my friends and whether they’d managed to get their points.
I’d bet Hiro and Aish were together and doing fine, but I worried about Breno.
I mentally marked the path ahead: we’d need to keep heading north, veering slightly right toward the center of the dome.
I watched the strangely silent forest a while longer, trying to convince myself it was just my paranoid mind going into panic mode because I’d left the walls.
I was settling back down to sleep when that discomfort intensified, now so overwhelming I couldn’t ignore it.
Distressed, I peered into the darkness below, wondering what the hell was wrong with my body—but I froze mid-movement, struck by an avalanche that didn’t physically exist, yet was so dense it could have torn my brain from my skull.
It felt like wind hitting my face, but it wasn’t wind—the air was completely still. The feeling was heavy and suffocating, pressing my soul against my bones.
“Do you feel that?” I whispered, my breath caught in my lungs. The terror was so intense I wanted to vomit. Adele shot upright and stared at me with wide eyes.
“No! Feel what?!” she asked, frightened, as I let out a shaky breath. Like the forest around us, I could barely breathe. Every animal and insect in the woods was aware of that thing.
Another shiver crawled up my spine, even more unsettling than the last. I opened my mouth, but I was too terrified to speak. I didn’t need to—a scream of pure horror sliced through the silent forest. Adele grabbed my arm like a frightened child clinging to her mother.
We both jumped when a flare exploded in the air near the center of the barrier, on the opposite side from us.
It shot up red, releasing light and smoke, illuminating the entire dome.
To my terrified eyes, the red light looked like hot blood washing over the horizon.
Another scream echoed through the darkness, but this time it cut off mid-cry, as if it died in someone’s throat.
The moment it stopped, we heard a grotesque howl—half animal, half human.
Something like a snarling scream. Then another, and another, and another, all in perfect sync.
They came from the center and from the far side of the area.
Five in total, each with a different pitch—they were communicating like a pack.
But I knew they weren’t wolves.
“Kyller?”
I heard in my mind, and I jumped, heart pounding. It was Zion! My heart raced out of control—and so did Adele’s. Another flare shot up close to the first.
“Kyller?” Zion shouted again.
Through the bond, I felt him striking something, and I quickly realized he was trying to destroy the dome—on the horizon, I could see it glowing blue from the impact. Something in my chest began to stir.
“I’m here, Zion!” I called back, terrified. Adele squeezed me tight, her eyes so wide they looked like saucers.
“Something's wrong. The cameras are going dark, the drones are dropping. The jammer at the center of the field isn't responding and its feed cut out. We can't bring down the barrier, and no one can get through—not even me or the shadows.”
I snapped out of my stupor. My heart was pounding so hard it felt like it wanted to leap out of my throat and run far away from this place.
“I know,” I replied numbly.
“We think they're chimeras,” Zion said firmly, despite the desperation in his heart.
In my mind, an image flared unbidden. Like a warning. A scene straight from my dreams with Oriel and Angel: twisted, disfigured monsters on four legs. Smooth, dry skin, black eyes, and an enormous mouth full of pointed teeth jutting past thin lips. A chill ran down my spine, making my stomach drop.
“They're not chimeras, Zion,” I replied, digging my nails into my thigh so the pain would keep me grounded. My eyes went wide as I stared into the cold darkness below, and it stared back. It seemed hungry.
“What are they?” he asked, also trying to keep control.
I took a deep breath. There were tears in my eyes—I couldn't control them. I couldn't stop them from falling, just as I couldn't stop the creeping death that slithered through the shadows. How was it possible they were here? What had gone wrong for myths to become real?
“What are they, Kyller?” he asked desperately.
We were lost. All of us were already dead—we just didn't know it. When I answered, my voice was barely a trembling whisper, while something in my heart grew and threatened to swallow me whole.
“They're ghouls.”