< Six were burned… one stood back up. That one is me. >First Sight: Where bdes melt.
“Did you wake up here?” Ptt asks after Arya leads him away from the mauled bear corpses.They stand before the charred ring of a camp?fire that—judging by the bckened trees—could have swallowed the entire forest if it hadn’t been beaten down in time.
“You told me you woke up with your own arm buried in your chest,” she says. Ptt nods; she continues:
“I wish mine had been that simple… I woke up with no body at all, just clumping smoke. It had to knit itself together piece by piece.”
Without thinking he reaches out and pats her hair—maybe because Arya looks younger than her unknowable age. He drops to one knee to inspect the ground. “The fire didn’t consume everything.” He taps ash?gray fragments that look like bone. “You weren’t the only victim; I can see at least two more.”
Her brows knot. “No matter how hard I try, I can’t recall anything before the fmes…”
“I understand.” He straightens, a heavy prickle of duty settling in his chest; in this chaos a single clear quest appears—protect the girl.
Arya’s irises redden. Her mind is bnk, yet her cells remember humiliation in vivid detail. “I can still see the shadows of the men who lit us up… ughing as they ransacked everything we owned.”
'She remembers more than I do', Ptt thinks. All he can summon is a blurred impression of a white?haired man.
“If you want, we can bury them,” he offers, though his feet itch to bolt. He masters the urge.
She wipes hot tears. “What about your pursuers? They’ll reach us soon, right?”
Oh, right. He nods. “Then we run.”
They freeze—'run where?'Their eyes meet. Ptt’s head drops as a memory of a blood?slicked train car surfaces. That train was heading north…
“North it is,” he decres, gripping her hand—only to find she instantly outpaces him, dragging him along.
“Why north? And what even is north?” she asks as she sidesteps snaking roots.
“I’m not sure, but it was my destination before I woke. Maybe there’s a city up there—someone who can tell me who I am.”
<< The two strangers met in the forest and forged a pact, but from the shadows a Nightmare watches, unblinking, until it steals their lives. >>
The cryptic voice cmps onto their skulls, detonating a three?second migraine that brands the words forever.
“H?hey, did you hear that?” Arya shivers, squeezing the metal of his arm.
Ptt pretends her grip doesn’t hurt. “Yes—same voice that handed me my name. Sounds like a predator has eyes on us right now.”
The entity’s phrases are brief, but meaning pours straight into their heads, along with a fshing notice: Current Zone—HIGH RISK.
“A very dangerous beast is circling us!” Arya yelps, bolts north without another thought.
“Stop!” His shout slices the dark; he pumps heat into the prosthetic and yanks her back. “If we sprint blind, the monster will find us exhausted.”
His lungs hammer. This is nothing like evading the cleaners—and he still cks a pn.
“We don’t know what the Nightmare is or where. First, we need shelter until dawn.”
Her brown eyes study him so deeply he wonders, Is she truly a child? Then she nods.
Fifteen tense minutes ter they come upon a rocky shelf reachable by a single goat track. “Perfect watch?post,” Ptt mutters, climbing first, then hauling her up by the wrist.
He sits facing the narrow entry. “You want to sleep?”
She shakes her head and mirrors his posture. They watch the sky until the moon centers itself overhead.
“I doubt either of us will,” he breaks the silence, scanning the timberline. “Curiosity’s killing me. Bet it’s killing you, too.”
So far every soul he’s met has tried to murder him except this strange girl; and even she has no answers.
“Look at our clothes and tell me who we are.”
He studies his own garb: a dark jacket stitched with a gold star, bck cloth trousers, a knee?length coat—regal if not for the ragged hole right over his heart.Arya wears a brown woolen pair of pants and a torn second?hand jacket—probably scavenged after her resurrection.
“You look rich,” she teases. “Check those fancy pockets for proof.”
He obliges and fishes out a noble knight’s badge, a fat bag of coins, and a wax?sealed letter stamped with an intertwined B. “These were in my coat back on the train.”
“A wealthy knight heading north… Open it. Might list your full name,” she nudges.
The moment his metal fingers touch the red wax, the migraine sms back:
<< The Nightmare hunt has begun. Aungreid stalks the two Strangers. >>
Along with the words, a data burst engraves itself in their brains:
<
Ptt staggers, swallowing a groan. “Good thing we already picked this perch…”
Arya only nods.--
Ptt fells a dead spruce and cleaves it into logs with ridiculous ease, the metal arm doubling as axe. After they prepare a pit, Arya exhales a ribbon of white steam; the timber whooshes alight.
“This is part of my First Sight,” she expins, letting vapor ooze from her palm. “I can super?heat any part of my body—and seal my wounds fast.” She directs the heat at a scratch on her forearm; the skin knits like cloth under a needle.
Ptt offers a shy grin. He extends the prosthetic, which screeches, reshaping into a short straight bde, then a hooked cw barely a handspan long. “I can morph my hand however I need… but every use bleeds my body heat. Overdo it, and the pain might kill me.”
She presses his forehead. “You are hot—literally. We’ll need real food before the Nightmare get us.”
Ptt goes rigid. 'Has she already lost hope?' She’d quaked when the voice named Aungreid, yet now she seems oddly calm.
Unease creeps up his spine again.