I took a deep breath, the cold air clearing the smoke from my chest.

  I did it.

  The thought didn't feel real yet. Behind me, the orphanage was ablaze, its silhouette belching black smoke into a starless sky. There weren't any screams now. Just the slow collapse of old wood and crackling fire. It sounded… calm, almost. Like the mountain had finally gone quiet after holding its breath too long.

  Somewhere in the distance, I could make out a few torchlights. Probably the caretakers dragging the children out toward the monastery down-valley. I should've felt something. Relief. Guilt. Maybe even fear.

  But all I felt was cold.

  I took a final look over my shoulder, making sure I wasn't followed, then turned and disappeared into the woods.

  I turned north.

  There was no road, only memory.

  The mountain rose in harsh, uneven tiers, its ridgeline jagged like broken teeth. There were two flatter zones etched into its body, where landslides had leveled the terrain. We called them Camp One and Camp Two. The orphanage and the Temple sat on Camp Two—the highest ledge.

  I passed a cairn just below Camp Two, its stones half-swallowed by frost, the prayer ribbon long since torn away by wind. Faint footprints marred the snow around it, quickly fading, erased by the passage of time and frost.

  The moon tonight was nothing more than a dim smear, veiled in cloud and disinterest. Good. I didn't want my chances of being spotted to increase.

  I descended the mountain, trying to find myself using any major landmarks. I suddenly found myself faced with huge pine trees, they must have been about seventy metres tall with wide branches. I took a look around, feeling watched, although it was probably just the unknown frightening me. I immediately started climbing the tree, hoping to camp on one of its branches.

  The branch barely supported my weight.

  Fingers dug into bark gone brittle with frostbite, I inched up until I could tuck myself beneath a split in the trunk. The pine needles rustled faintly beneath my coat, releasing a scent both sterile and nostalgic. I tucked in my knees and rested my back against the spine of the tree.

  I stared into the dark, tracing phantom shapes between trees. Shapes that never quite resolved. Eyes that weren't there but lingered anyway.

  That was the thing about being alone. The mind was prone to tricks, and mine was no different.

  Something cracked in the underbrush below. A frozen branch?

  My body tensed by reflex, shoulders curling tighter into the split bark behind me. I didn't move. Didn't breathe.

  Waited.

  Silence returned—not the absence of noise, but that taut, pregnant stillness the forest knew how to wear like a second skin. I held onto it, listened.

  Then I let the breath out through my teeth—a slow, silent sigh.

  Just nerves.

  Still, I didn't sleep.

  I counted the stars appearing and disappearing behind the layers of clouds.

  Dawn arrived without ceremony. Just a slight whitening of the sky. I didn't move until the cold in my bones outcompeted the ache in my spine.

  I climbed down stiffly, my body exhausted from the previous night's hike. The snow below was a perfect white. No prints. Good. Whatever I'd imagined hadn't been curious enough to investigate.

  My boots sank ankle-deep in slush as I started walking. Still going north.

  My plan was still to make it to the Northern Miren Coalition, a country north of Huaxia, to seek asylum. It was a reach, I couldn't be sure they would allow me to even cross the border due to increasing tensions between both countries.

  Before I could even think of making it to Miren, I would have to cross the mountain ravine at the bottom of the mountain and avoid any larger cities until I can make it out of Jincheng.

  After that, well, that's where the real work began.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  By midday, I was limping.

  The terrain had shifted: less snow, more ice. Jagged protrusions of half-buried stone made walking a slow, measured ordeal. I caught myself thinking like a tactician again; it was odd, like another entity was guiding me through this campaign.

  I stopped beneath a narrow overhang and peeled back my makeshift gloves. My fingers were pale, bone-white around the joints. No signs of frostbite. Yet.

  I flexed them slowly.

  "You're not dying today, Jude." I said it aloud. More for reassurance than anything.

  This was the farthest away from the orphanage I had gone to. It was scary, but the freedom I had gained was liberating.

  Night came and went as I continued to trek through the mountain forest, making sure not to stray off the path I had set myself in my mind.

  On the sixth day, I met something.

  I knew the Custodian was close before I saw it.

  The smell hit first—burnt ozone and rust, like the Temple’s old generators choking on their own decay. Then came the sound: hiss-clank-hiss, a mechanical heartbeat.

  I froze.

  Downslope, its obsidian-plated frame blurred into the shadows. Moonlight slithered across its visor, smooth and featureless as a doll’s eye. Steam vented from its spine in rhythmic bursts, each exhale carrying the faint hum of a dying star.

  Sable Custodian. Scout-Class.

  I had read about these autonomous hunters. Machines developed in a global effort to fight back against corrupted beasts. There was no such thing as mercy with these.

  I was careful not to alert it.

  I just waited.

  It was close. Ten meters away from me, its frame stood tall, armored in matte black plating etched with faint graffitis, its joints exhaling steady streams of lunar-tinged steam. The sentry's face was hidden behind a smooth visor shaped like an inverted teardrop, lightless and indifferent.

  It scanned the path, slow and deliberate.

  One misstep, one breath wrong, and it would see me.

  I lowered myself into the snow, pressing into the frozen earth until my skin burned from the cold. My heart slowed down, not from calm; this was instinct. If I made a sound, I was dead.

  Fighting a lower-tier sentry at my level would be suicide.

  Suddenly, a branch cracked. It wasn't me, but it came from my general direction.

  Crap.

  The sentry swung it's head around, it's massive red eyes scanning the area.

  I had to move to the small mound, a few metres to my right. Without making any noise.

  I slowly crawled back from the log I was hidden behind, and began crawling towards the mound, hoping I wouldn't alert the sentry.

  A shard of black ice—thin as a blade, hidden beneath loose snow—sent a jolt of pain up my knee as I caught myself against a jagged slope of rock. I gritted my teeth, suppressing a hiss, and looked up.

  I was met with the sentry's red gaze.

  "Unauthorized presence detected." Its voice booming. "State designation."

  I couldn't breathe.

  Run. Hide. Fight.

  Those were the prescribed options—and none looked promising.

  My only other option being to adapt.

  I lunged sideways as the Custodian’s claw sheared through the tree I’d been crouching behind. Splinters rained down, embedding in my cheek. Hot blood trickled into my collar.

  I pressed a hand to my bleeding cheek. The warmth felt alive. Strange, how violence could make you feel human.

  The Custodian swung again, its claw missing me by inches.

  I tumbled down the slope, snow exploding around me. My coat snagged on a rock outcrop, yanking me hard enough to dislocate my shoulder. Pain lanced up my arm, sharp and raw. I bit down on my own tongue to keep from screaming.

  The sentry descended after me in three elegant, graceful steps.

  Hiss. Clank. Hiss

  Its legs bent mechanically—then it leapt.

  I rolled sideways just in time.

  The machine landed where I’d been, its impact cracking the earth. Ice fissured beneath its weight, sending spiderweb patterns across the surface. I saw it—weak ground. Thin ice. Over water.

  A plan took shape.

  It wasn’t good. But it was what I had.

  I scrambled to my feet, favoring my left side. I couldn’t outrun it, not uphill. But if I could get it to chase me—exactly how I needed—maybe I could drown it.

  The Custodian adjusted, head tilting slightly, calculating trajectories.

  "Target: Designation unknown. Risk level: Low."

  It sprinted forward. Faster than it had any right to be considering its size.

  I led it towards a cracked basin.

  Five meters. Four.

  I was ice-skating on boots not meant for speed.

  Three meters.

  “Come on,” I muttered, “just a little...closer...”

  Two.

  The moment it stepped where the ice was weakest, I pivoted, dug in my heel, and dropped low.

  It looked like it had noticed my idea, but it was too late. I sprang towards it pulling out a sharp rock I had grabbed earlier. I twisted my one good arm, hitting it in the knee joint, the damage was minimal but the rock had done its job. The custodian could no longer move, its left knee was jammed, all that was left for me to do was break the ice.

  In a swift motion, I slid underneath the immobile sentry, trying my best to pull its bad leg with all my might. The Custodian adjusted too late. Its foot slamming down onto the basin’s faultline.

  The earth screamed.

  The ice collapsed beneath it with a thunderous crack.

  Both of us plunged into the glacial reservoir.

  The cold was instant and merciless, stealing breath and clarity in equal measure. My muscles seized. I reached blindly, kicking upward, ignoring the weights on my limbs. The Custodian, heavier and locked in rigid motion, sank faster.

  In the chaos, its red visor still glowed.

  Still watching me.

  I broke the surface, gasping.

  I dragged myself to the edge, fingers numb and raw, and clawed my way over. Every movement was mechanical. One step. Another.

  I heard bubbles, praying I wouldn't see it resurface as I turned around.

  Please just stay down, I need a hard earned nap.

  Then—

  Silence.

  It was down there, somewhere. Maybe still operational. Maybe not.

  I wouldn’t bet on either.

  But I was alive.

  Alive.

  I collapsed on the bank, chest rising and falling, looking sideways at the gaping hole of the frozen basin I had just come out from. I could still hear the water sloshing underneath the ice. The stars above blinked out, one by one, as clouds rolled back in. A flurry of snow began to fall.

  I looked up at the sky.

  The stars weren’t aligned in any known pattern tonight. A rare occurrence.

  "Still here," I whispered.

  For a brief moment, relief crept in. Too exhausted even to hide, I slowly closed my eyes. Letting the light snowfall of spring lull me to sleep.