The jungle breathed.
I realized this as we ran, our sneakers sinking into damp earth that pulsed beneath us like living flesh. The trees didn't just stand there - they leaned in, their canopies whispering secrets in a language that made my teeth ache.
Aaron was screaming something about the lasers ahead, his voice distorted as if coming through water. Red lines cut through the swirling mist, too precise, too rhythmic to be natural. My brain kept insisting they were rescue signals, but some deeper, animal part knew better.
Insha's hand clamped around my wrist. "Don't look at the shadows," she hissed. "They move when you're not watching."
I laughed. I don't know why. The sound came out wrong, bubbling like the swamp water we splashed through.
Zayn fired his pistol at nothing. At everything. The reports echoed strangely, returning to us a second later as whispered words.
"Too late too late too late..."
The bunker door yawned before us, its metal surface etched with symbols that squirmed under my gaze. The lasers originated from inside, casting our stumbling shadows against the trees in grotesque parodies.
Aaron reached it first. His axe was gone now, lost somewhere in the dark. When he turned to beckon us, his smile stretched too wide, his eyes reflecting the crimson beams in unnatural ways.
"Safe," he crooned. "We're safe now."
The interior smelled of antiseptic and spoiled meat. Surgical tables stood in rows, their straps dangling like jungle vines. The lasers crisscrossed the room in precise patterns, illuminating floating dust motes that... weren't moving. Frozen in midair.
I leaned against a wall, giggling at the impossibility. That's when the wetness registered.
My fingers came away red.
Not just red - shimmering, like the black sap from the creatures. The tear in my side wasn't jagged, but perfectly straight. Surgical.
Aaron collapsed like a marionette with cut strings. The back of his skull gleamed wet in the laser light, the wound too clean, too precise.
When had that happened?
The last thing I saw before darkness took me was our shadows on the wall. They weren't ours. Too many limbs. Heads at wrong angles. And they weren't falling like we were.
They were standing.
Watching.
Waiting for us to stop moving.