“A Village Held Together by Lies.”

  Samuel woke to the smell of smoke.

  Not fire.

  Just the bitter, clinging kind that lingered after fear had been burned into the walls.

  The light outside the window was dull and flat, a thin sheet of gray barely cutting through the glass.

  No birds.

  No chatter.

  Only the slow creak of the village breathing the wrong way.

  He sat up slowly, muscles stiff, hands numb.

  No immediate pain.

  Just a deep wrongness in his bones, like he'd been pulled too hard through something he wasn't meant to survive.

  > [Codex: Passive Recovery Mode Active. Monitoring Emotional Stability.]

  Velara: “…You’re awake. That’s good.”

  Her voice was softer today.

  More careful.

  Less like a guide.

  More like a hand hovering just above a wound.

  Samuel didn’t respond.

  He didn’t have the energy to lie yet.

  A knock at the door.

  Gentle.

  Polite.

  Like whoever stood there was afraid even sound might shatter him.

  Dorian entered first, carrying a small tray with stale bread, a cracked cup of water.

  His smile was tight, and it didn’t reach his eyes.

  “Good morning, champ.”

  Champ.

  The word hit Samuel like a stone thrown underhand — soft enough to feel like an accident, hard enough to bruise.

  Eliara followed, arms crossed loosely, pretending she wasn’t scanning him from head to toe with every step.

  Pretending he wasn’t made of glass.

  Samuel pulled the blanket tighter around himself.

  “Morning,” he rasped, voice scraping like sandpaper.

  Dorian set the tray down on the bedside table and cleared his throat awkwardly.

  “You should eat.”

  Eliara smiled, too wide, too bright.

  “We’re just… we’re happy you’re okay.”

  Samuel nodded.

  He didn’t touch the food.

  They stood there a moment longer, awkwardly lingering like actors who had forgotten their lines.

  Then Dorian patted the bed once, careful not to touch Samuel, and backed away toward the door.

  Eliara pressed a kiss to Samuel’s forehead — feather-light, trembling — and followed.

  “Rest up. We’ll be close if you need anything.”

  The door clicked shut behind them.

  Samuel sat alone again, staring at the untouched tray.

  The bread crumbled under its own weight.

  The water caught the light just wrong — like it was tilted toward another reality.

  He didn’t eat.

  He didn’t drink.

  He just listened.

  To the quiet scrape of villagers fixing broken fences outside.

  To the tired breathing of people who weren’t sure what they were rebuilding for.

  To the faint whisper of something moving beyond the tree line.

  Something that hadn’t left when the beast fled.

  Something that had waited.

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  > [Codex: Foreign Signature Detected – Passive Surveillance Initiated.]

  Velara: “It’s small now. But it’s coming closer.”

  Samuel laid back down without a word.

  Because part of him knew.

  It wasn’t over.

  It was just beginning.

  “The Thing That Watched from the Woods.”

  It started with the shadows moving wrong again.

  At first Samuel thought it was just exhaustion.

  The way the light twisted at the corners of his vision.

  The way the grass outside leaned toward the forest — not from wind, but as if pulled by something breathing just out of sight.

  > [Codex: Surveillance Mode Active]

  [Foreign Entity Tracking: Proximity Threshold — Moderate]

  Velara: “It’s getting closer.”

  Samuel sat up in bed.

  The tray of untouched food had gone cold. The water had a thin layer of dust across its surface.

  He hadn’t moved for hours.

  But it had.

  Whatever it was.

  The villagers outside didn’t notice yet.

  They were too busy nailing boards, moving sheep, pretending nothing had changed.

  But Samuel saw it — how the light bent wrong near the forest’s edge.

  How the trees closest to the border seemed to shudder inward, recoiling from something unseen.

  The Codex flickered a brief, almost apologetic warning across his mind:

  > [Threat Level: Unassessed. Caution Advised.]

  Velara whispered:

  “It’s not like the beast.”

  “It’s… smaller. Quieter. More patient.”

  Samuel’s chest tightened.

  A hand he couldn’t see seemed to press lightly against his ribs, not hurting—testing.

  It wasn’t here to tear the village apart.

  Not yet.

  It was measuring.

  Hunting a memory, not a body.

  Something intelligent.

  Something loop-touched.

  Or worse—

  Loop-aware.

  A knock came at the door.

  Not frantic.

  Polite.

  Measured.

  Samuel flinched so hard he nearly knocked over the tray.

  The knock came again.

  “Samuel?”

  Dorian’s voice. Steady. Human.

  Samuel forced himself to breathe.

  “We need to talk.”

  There was a pause.

  “…Something’s wrong in the woods.”

  Samuel closed his eyes.

  Because he already knew.

  > [Codex Update: Encounter Imminent. Prepare for unknown variables.]

  Velara’s voice followed.

  “Stay small, Samuel. Stay quiet.”

  “This isn’t the kind of enemy you meet with strength.”

  He pulled the blanket tighter around himself again.

  And for the first time since waking—

  he felt cold.

  Not from fear.

  From recognition.

  Something was coming.

  Not a beast.

  Not a hunter.

  Something smiling.

  Something that wanted to say:

  "I found you first"

  “Plans Made Too Late.”

  The knock came again.

  Harder this time.

  Urgent.

  Samuel pulled the blanket tighter, trying to disappear into the mattress as Dorian opened the door and stepped inside.

  Eliara followed — her face drawn, her posture tense.

  They weren’t trying to be calm anymore.

  Dorian knelt by the bed.

  Not like before.

  There was no casual smile now.

  No false sense of safety.

  Just a father who looked like he was about to tear the world apart with his bare hands to save his son — and knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  “Listen to me, Samuel.”

  His voice was low. Controlled. Barely.

  “You’re not safe here.”

  Samuel stared, numb.

  He already knew.

  The feeling had been humming through his bones since he woke.

  The feeling that whatever was coming —

  it wasn’t going to knock next time.

  Eliara sat beside him, folding her hands in her lap so tightly her knuckles turned white.

  “There’s a place,” she said, voice trembling at the edges.

  “An old safehouse. South past the river.”

  Dorian continued.

  “Old magic there. Wards. Defenses built back when the world still remembered how to be afraid of things like this.”

  “You’ll be safer there.”

  Samuel didn’t answer.

  He didn’t know how.

  His throat felt closed, his heart pounding too hard.

  He wasn’t strong enough to walk.

  Barely strong enough to sit upright.

  And they wanted to send him away?

  Velara stirred in his mind.

  “They’re afraid they can’t protect you.”

  “They’re right.”

  Eliara’s hand brushed his.

  He flinched before he could stop himself.

  Her face crumpled — just a flicker — but she hid it with a tight smile.

  “We’ll go with you,” she promised.

  “We’re not abandoning you.”

  But Samuel felt it anyway.

  The fear in the room.

  The way they were already grieving something they couldn’t name.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  He didn’t know why he said it.

  It just… fell out.

  Dorian shook his head fiercely.

  “You don’t ever apologize for surviving.”

  “You hear me?”

  Samuel nodded.

  Lied.

  Pretended again.

  Because it was easier than saying:

  > “I don’t think I survived.”

  Not really.

  They started gathering supplies after that.

  Quick. Efficient.

  A satchel packed with dried meat, water skins, a few old talismans that smelled of iron and salt.

  Every movement was heavy with a finality they didn’t dare name out loud.

  Samuel sat in the bed and watched them.

  Feeling smaller by the second.

  Feeling wrong.

  Like no matter where they ran —

  no matter how fast —

  it would find him anyway.

  And far beyond Ulaz,

  in the edges of shadow,

  something unseen smiled.

  “The Smile in the Dark.”

  Night fell over Ulaz in a shroud of fake peace.

  The villagers bolted their doors.

  The hunters sat with weapons across their laps, pretending they could hold the darkness at bay.

  The trees beyond the border stopped swaying.

  Not from lack of wind.

  But because they were listening.

  Samuel drifted into uneasy sleep, curled beneath rough blankets, heartbeat thudding too loud against the silence.

  And somewhere between one breath and the next—

  he was no longer alone.

  It started with a hum.

  Low. Familiar in the way a nightmare sometimes feels familiar before you realize you’re dreaming.

  He sat up.

  The room around him was wrong.

  Too stretched.

  Too quiet.

  The walls bent slightly inward, as if they were breathing with him.

  The window showed only blackness — not night.

  Void.

  And in the center of the room, sitting calmly in a chair that hadn’t been there before—

  someone waited.

  He wasn’t sure if it was a man.

  Or a shadow.

  Or something pretending to be both.

  It wore a long, pale cloak that shifted like smoke, and where its face should have been, there was only a faint smile.

  No eyes.

  No nose.

  Just that smile, thin and wide and endless.

  “Found you.”

  The voice wasn’t loud.

  It didn’t need to be.

  It uncoiled itself in Samuel’s chest like a worm burrowing into soft wood.

  Samuel tried to stand.

  His body didn’t move.

  Tried to speak.

  His mouth didn’t open.

  All he could do was listen.

  “You’re earlier than I expected,” the thing said, tilting its head slightly.

  “Still cracked. Still leaking memories. Still pretending you have a choice.”

  The smile didn’t widen.

  It didn’t need to.

  Samuel could feel it — the shape of its hunger.

  Not for blood.

  Not for flesh.

  For failure.

  > [Codex: Emergency Lockdown Failed. System Intervention Blocked.]

  [Warning: Direct Psychological Contamination Risk – HIGH.]

  Velara: “SAMUEL — WAKE—"

  Her voice, screaming across an ocean.

  But the thing’s whisper drowned her out.

  “You don’t belong here, little loop.”

  “You’re a crack in their pretty little world. And cracks…”

  Its head tilted the other way.

  “…are meant to be widened.”

  Samuel’s vision blurred.

  The shadows under the bed stretched toward him.

  The smile leaned closer.

  “Run if you want.”

  “Hide if you can.”

  “But you were marked the moment you refused to die properly.”

  The voice sank lower.

  Colder.

  “And we never forget our own.”

  The world snapped.

  The dream shattered.

  Samuel bolted upright in his real bed, gasping, drenched in cold sweat.

  His heart hammered against his ribs like it was trying to escape.

  He clutched the blanket so tightly his fingers hurt.

  > [Codex: Memory Anchor Reestablished. Psychological Damage Minimal.]

  [Velara: "You're safe— for now."]

  But Samuel didn’t feel safe.

  He didn’t feel awake.

  Because he knew, deep down:

  It wasn’t just a dream.

  It was a promise.

  And somewhere beyond the walls of Ulaz, the trees whispered again.

  Listening.

  Waiting.