The forest suddenly felt alive, but not in the normal way forests are. Not with birds and bugs and rustle-wind. It felt like something huge was holding its breath, waiting, watching, maybe deciding if it should swallow them or spit them out. Yun felt it pressing on his skin, like the air got thick and sticky, and his heart was beating too loud, too noticable, like the creature could hear it.

The thing between the trees was closer now. It didn't walk right, not like any animal or person. Its legs bent weird, and its spine seemed too loose, like it was made out of ropes instead of bones. Its head hung forward like it was too heavy for its neck, and those pale circle-eyes didn't blink. Not once. Just stared. Straight at Yun. Only Yun.

Shen Yu moved first. He didn't shout or shake Yun. He didn't try to be a hero in a storybook. He just stepped forward, slow, with this tired sadness in his shoulders, like he already knew how everything might end and he was just walking into it because there wasn't any other choice.

"Yun," he said, voice low but strong, "go. Turn back and don't look again."

Yun wanted to run. Every part of his body screamed to run so fast his feet burned. But he couldn't. His legs felt like they were nailed to the dirt. He felt something inside him vibrating, humming, like a string pulled too tight and about to snap. A buzzing behind his ribs. A pressure behind his eyes.

"I—I can't," Yun whispered. His voice cracked like it was breaking in half. "I can't, Shen Yu… I can't leave you."

Shen Yu didn't answer with words. He just stepped forward again.

The creature moved too.

It didn't leap. It didn't sprint. It just—shifted. And suddenly it was closer. Too close. Yun stumbled backward but didn't fall. Shen Yu stood his ground.

His hands lifted, but not like to punch or strike. His fingers curled in the air like he was grabbing something invisible. Like he was pulling a thread out of the air itself. Something unseen rippled around him, just a flicker, like heat waves over sand. The air shivered.

The creature twitched. A jerking, snapping movement like a puppet string pulled too quick. It let out a sound—not a roar, not a screech, but something wet and deep in the throat, like something drowning slowly.

Shen Yu moved first this time. He stepped forward and the ground beneath his feet shifted like shadow pulling away. There was light—no not light, something dim but glowing, something like moonlight trapped underwater—flowing around his arms.

He struck, but not with fists. The air cracked. The creature flew back, body twisting like a broken branch. Yun gasped. Shen Yu had never shown anything like that. Never hinted. Never even looked strong enough.

Shen Yu didn't look back at Yun, but his voice shook:

"I told you, you weren't supposed to see this."

The creature screeched this time—real, sharp, like metal tearing open. It snapped forward, limbs flailing like they didn't have joints, rushing not at Shen Yu but at Yun.

Yun's chest froze. His ears roared. He couldn't move his body wouldn't answer. Shen Yu shouted something, but the words didn't make it to Yun's ears. Time blurred. Everything slowed.

The creature lunged.

Yun's heart broke open.

The humming in his chest turned into light—no, heat—no, something like a star exploding quietly inside his bones. His vision went white, blinding white, but not painful. Warm. Familiar. Like he knew this from before he was born.

The air around Yun pulsed outward.

The creature was thrown back. Not far. But enough. It landed wrong, limbs tangle-twisting under it like they were made of rope and not bone. It shrieked again, but now the shriek sounded afraid.

Yun gasped, falling to his knees. The white light flickered out like a candle breath-snuffed.

Shen Yu grabbed Yun's arm.

"We run. Now."

They ran.

Branches slapped Yun's face, arms, chest, he didn't feel any of it. The world rushed past in dark streaks of green and shadow. The creature didn't make sound following them, but Yun knew it was there. He could feel it behind him. The same way you feel being watched in a nightmare when you can't wake up.

Shen Yu's breathing was heavy, rough, desperate. He wasn't calm now. He wasn't collected. He was afraid too.

They burst out of the forest. The village stood quiet in the pale morning. Too quiet. Doors closed. Windows shuttered. Smoke from cooking fires drifted up slow and lazy, like the world didn't know what chased them.

Shen Yu stopped, chest heaving, sweat on his forehead. His hand trembled when he let go of Yun's arm.

He looked at Yun the way someone might look at lightning if it struck in their kitchen.

"…You awakened," he said, voice shaking maybe from fear, maybe from awe, maybe both. "You weren't meant to yet."

Yun's mouth felt full of stones. "What… what am I?"

Shen Yu looked toward the trees, where the shadows moved wrong, where the creature still waited, somewhere in the dark.

"You are the reason the stars went quiet," he whispered. "And now the things that remember you have come to take you back."

The wind stopped.

The village bells rang once.

Not by human hands.

Something

had just entered

the village.

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