The forest thinned as they moved north.
Theo let Nova lead, watching the way she wove between the trees, barely disturbing the undergrowth. She moved like she knew the land — or maybe like the land knew her.
Either way, he trusted her sense of direction more than his own.
They traveled in silence for a long time. Theo didn't mind. After everything — the blood, the fear, the sudden sharpness of survival — words felt clumsy.
Besides, he needed the quiet to think.
Saving the caravan had felt... good. Necessary.But it had also stirred something in him he hadn't expected. A crack in the armor he had worn since the Collapse.
You can still save them, a small voice whispered.You can still make a difference.
He tried not to listen too closely. Hope was a dangerous thread to weave.
Ahead, Nova slowed, then stopped.
They stood at the edge of a clearing — a strange, hollowed-out space where the trees bent away like something had once exploded outward.
In the center, half-buried in moss and dirt, was a stone monolith.
It looked wrong here — too smooth, too deliberate. Ancient, but untouched by time in a way that made the hair on Theo's arms stand on end.
Nova crouched low, brushing her fingers over a faint symbol etched into the surface. Her brow furrowed.
Theo stepped closer.
"You recognize it?" he asked.
Nova hesitated.Then she shook her head.
"No. But it feels... familiar. Like something I dreamed once and forgot when I woke up."
Theo didn't realize he was holding his breath until he let it out slow.
The Origin Core inside him thrummed softly, a low resonance that made the world around him seem to tilt.
Carefully, he reached out and placed his palm against the stone.
The reaction was immediate.
A flash of heat.A surge of pressure behind his eyes.And then — images.
Not clear visions. Just impressions.A sky full of threads, burning.A tower of glass and bone, reaching into forever.A voice — not words, but a question, hanging heavy and patient in the void.
Theo jerked his hand back with a gasp, stumbling a step.
Nova caught him by the arm without thinking, steadying him.
"You okay?" she asked, voice low but urgent.
Theo nodded, though he wasn't sure it was true.
"I saw something," he said. "Not memories. Something older."
Nova glanced at the monolith, her mouth tightening.
"This isn't just a relic," she said. "It's a marker."
Theo looked at her sharply. "Marker for what?"
Nova didn't answer immediately.Instead, she knelt again and traced the symbol with the tip of her finger — slow, deliberate.
"It's a boundary," she said finally. "A line between what should exist... and what shouldn't."
Theo frowned, feeling the Origin Core pulse again in agreement.
"You think this has something to do with the Collapse?"
Nova stood, dusting her hands off.
"I think," she said carefully, "we're standing on one of the first cracks."
Theo's pulse quickened.
First crack.First wound.
Maybe the Collapse hadn't been a single disaster.Maybe it had been death by a thousand hidden fractures — old, forgotten, waiting for the right pressure to break.
And maybe... just maybe... they could still mend them.
Theo looked back at the monolith, the symbol glowing faintly now under the setting sun.
A shard of the past, buried but not dead.
"We need to find more," he said, already feeling the shape of the next steps forming.
Nova gave a dry, tired laugh.
"You think it'll be that easy?"
"No," Theo said.And for once, he smiled — small and real.
"But it's a start."
Nova smiled too, a rare and fleeting thing.
Together, they turned away from the clearing, the threads of fate stirring in their wake.
Ahead lay more dangers, more questions.But for the first time, the future didn't seem like a death sentence.
It felt like a challenge.
One they might actually survive.