Storm clouds still cling to the sky by morning, As if the valley is holding its breath. The final day of the unity trial arrives not with fanfare, but with tension pulsing through every heartbeat.People gather near the central clearing, some shivering from cold, others from fear. Sol stands straight-backed and confident, hammer at his side, followers behind him like a wall.Mia stands opposite him not tall, not armed, but steady in a new, unsettling way. Riven, Kael, and Deborah hover at the edges, watching with sharp eyes.Chris leans on a wooden support beam, leg wrapped, face pale but present. He refuses to sit. Deborah stays near him, not touching, but close enough that the air between them feels warm.Fenn watches everyone everyone except the trial. His gaze is somewhere distant, listening for a shift in reality no one else can hear.Riven steps into the middle. “This is the final test. Unity. Not between leaders between the people.”Sol smirks. “We’ll see who they resonate wit

Night deepens until the valley feels carved out of darkness. No stars. No moon. Just a low hum beneath the soil. A hum that wasn’t there yesterday. A hum that wasn’t meant to return. Deborah feels it first not in her ears, but in her bones.She stands at the ridge’s edge, breathing shallow, hands trembling before she forces them still.Chris limps to her side “You’re shaking,” he whispers.Deborah doesn’t look at him. “I’m remembering.“Remembering what?”She finally turns eyes full of a fear he’s never seen on her face. “The last time the ground thinned.”Chris’s voice cracks. “There was a last time?”Deborah nods slowly. “And we survived by mistake.”Down in the valley, Riven and Kael gather torches. Mia stands between them, heart pounding fast enough to hurt.Jerr clings to her sleeve. “MIA BAD FEEL. VERY BAD.”“I KNOW,” Mia whispers. “I FEEL LIKE EARTH BREATH WRONG.”Riven steps closer. “If Deborah’s fears are right something’s happening beneath us.”Mia’s eyes widen. “I HEAR VOI

The ground doesn’t just split. It exhales. A blast of cold, ancient air surges upward carrying with it the sound of something vast, unfurling in the dark. Kael stumbles backward, Riven catches him, and Sol plants his hammer into the stone to keep upright.Deborah doesn’t move. Her hair whips violently around her face, torch sputtering, but her feet remain rooted in place as if the fissure itself is anchoring her.Fenn stands on the other side of the crack calm, almost reverent. The hollow groans, a sound like mountains remembering an injury.Riven shouts over the roaring wind “DEBORAH! FALL BACK!”She doesn’t respond. Her eyes are locked on the widening fracture not in fear, but in recognition.Kael pulls at her arm. “DEBORAH, MOVE!”She whispers, barely audible: “They’re not rising. They’re remembering.”Sol roars above the noise “What does that mean?!”Deborah closes her eyes, And the memory slams into her. A different place. A different time.She stands alone in a cavern lit by bur

The hollow holds its breath. Mia stands before the living memory small, shaking, eyes glowing like someone set fire behind them.Deborah stares at her, stunned. “Mia what did you say?”The memory trembles, tendril recoiling as if searching her outline. Then YOU.The word isn’t spoken. It vibrates through stone.Jerr clutches the wall, terrified. “MIA, NO! YOU NOT DOOR! YOU LITTLE!”Mia doesn’t blink. “I AM NOT LITTLE.”Her voice echoes in layers her own, and something beneath it.Chris, collapsed against the ground, tries to rise. “Mia step back”But he can barely lift his head. Deborah crawls to him, gripping his shoulders.“Stay with meChris, stay awake please”He fumbles for her hand.“I’m fine just dizzy.”But his pupils shake. His skin is cold. The tendril’s touch is still echoing inside him. Riven kneels beside him, checking pulse. “He’s crashing. We need to get him out.”Kael nods. Sol tenses, unsure which threat to face the memory, or Mia.Fenn steps forward slowly. Eyes fixed

Silence is heavier than the noise ever was. Not peaceful. Not relieved. Weighted. The hollow no longer hums. The spirals have dulled to lifeless scars in stone. The air feels emptied as if something vast was torn out and the space it left behind doesn’t know how to close.Deborah does not wake. She lies on the cold ground, body still, eyes shut too tightly as if bracing against a dream she can’t release.Mia kneels beside her, hands hovering uselessly.“DEBORAH,” she whispers again and again. “COME BACK. PLEASE COME BACK.”Chris lies a few feet away, unconscious but breathing.His chest rises unevenly. Blood crusts beneath his nose.Riven checks him, fingers shaking. “He’s alive,” Riven says hoarsely. “But barely.”Kael kneels beside Deborah, face pale. “She burned herself out,” he whispers. “She ripped something fundamental away.”Fenn sits against the far wall of the hollow, staring at the sealed fissure like a man watching the grave of a god, Sol groans somewhere behind them, coming