The air inside the cave was dense—not only with cold and dampness, but with something unseen—as if time itself refused to move within its confines.
Dim light from natural crystals embedded in the stone ceiling was just enough to reveal faint silhouettes. At the center of the altar, ancient runes remained etched, still undeciphered, while the newly discovered spring soothed bodies long drained by thirst and hunger.
Yet even as they rested, something… watched from the depths.
---
"Still nothing," Cael muttered, sitting cross-legged before the inscribed rune. His fingers traced the pattern, almost silent now, yet holding the echo of a history older than their world itself.
Darin, one of the eighteen survivors, sat not far from Cael. He watched in silence before speaking carefully, "Are you sure this is important? I mean… maybe we just need to wait for help."
Cael didn't answer immediately. His gaze stayed fixed on the rune, his silence carrying more weight than focus.
"We've been thrown into a world that doesn't even know we exist. And you expect help?" Cael's voice was calm, but heavy. He wasn't mocking Darin—he was reminding him of reality.
Darin lowered his head. The others said nothing. None of them knew what to say.
---
Ms. Alea, the teacher who had led them on the mountain trip, now sat leaning against the cave wall, her breath slightly labored. She hadn't fully recovered from the illusions that had taken hold of them earlier. Yet her eyes looked at Cael differently.
"What do you see in those runes, Cael?" she asked gently.
Cael turned slowly.
"It's not what I see… but what I don't understand." He closed his eyes briefly. "There are too many layers. As if it wasn't made to be read by humans. But… that doesn't mean it can't be."
---
Meanwhile, several students had begun exploring the deeper sections of the cave. They found branching paths—corridors that seemed once used, but now lay empty and dead.
In one of the tunnels, Reinald, known for his stubbornness, found a wall covered in moss and dried blood.
"This… isn't just an ordinary cave," he said upon returning. "Something happened here. A sacrifice, a war, or something worse."
---
And amid it all, beneath the altar, the creature… lay still. It watched them from behind the cracks, hidden beneath the fractures of the world.
It could not reach them. Not yet.
An ancient barrier, a remnant of a power long faded, shielded the altar where they rested. But the creature waited. It knew… time was on its side.
---
Nightfall came—not from the movement of the sun, but as the crystals in the cave dimmed. The air grew colder. Still. Around a small fire they had made, quiet conversations flickered like the flame.
"Do you think… this is our home now?" "Don't say that. It sounds too weird." "But… at least we're not dying, right?"
Cael sat a little farther from the group. No one knew what he was thinking. In his hand, he still held the ancient stone compass given to him by the spirit-being—its direction unchanged, yet no clearer in meaning.
"This compass points to something," he thought. "But not a place. Maybe… an event."
He turned toward the altar stone. And for a moment, he felt something shift—whether within himself or around him, he couldn't tell.
The campfire burned low—not just from lack of fuel, but from a fear left unspoken. None of them knew how deep the cave reached, or what lay hidden behind the stone walls that echoed their footsteps.
"You're sure that altar isn't dangerous?" asked Liora, one of the sharper, more skeptical students. She stared at Cael from across the fire. "You look… too calm. As if you already know what's going to happen."
Cael didn't answer right away. He seemed to weigh whether to tell the truth or remain silent. Then, quietly, he said, "If I look calm, it's not because I know. It's because not knowing forces me to stop feeling."
Liora frowned. "What do you mean?"
"Panic belongs to those who think they still have choices. We've stepped too far in."
---
Elsewhere in the cave, two students—Reinald and Karin—were carving symbols into the walls with a small knife. Not to vandalize, but so they wouldn't get lost if they explored further.
"Do you think Cael really knows what he's doing?" Karin asked. "I don't know. But honestly, he doesn't just look calm. There's something in him… like a world behind those hollow eyes."
"Creepy?"
Reinald was silent for a moment, then smiled faintly. "Maybe… but that's exactly why I want to stay close to him. Ordinary people don't survive in a world like this."
---
The artificial night deepened. But it wasn't only because the crystals dimmed. There was a feeling… that something moved. As if the darkness had its own breath.
Suddenly, Cael stood. The compass in his hand trembled—barely, but enough to feel. It was reacting.
He walked back to the altar. Tracing the carvings again. There was something broken—a gap in the rune.
"A fragment," he whispered.
But just as he was about to touch it again, a voice called from behind.
"Don't."
It was Ms. Alea, now standing, though her body still weak. "That altar may not want to be touched again. If you go too deep into it… you might not come back as yourself."
Cael turned. His eyes unchanged. Calm. But carrying a wound far beneath.
"I stopped being myself on the first day," he said, then sat back down.
---
Behind the altar, small cracks in the stone began to blacken. Not from fire. Not from time. But because something was watching from the other side of the world.
The creature had not attacked. It only observed. But its gaze was sharp—like invisible thorns piercing into the soul. Not out of hatred, but hunger.
---
And that night ended without incident—yet also without peace.
They slept with half-shut eyes. Even dreams felt suspicious. But among them, Cael remained awake. Sitting before the rune, trying to decipher the language of a world never meant to be understood.
"If this is about strategy… then this is the first board. But who are the pieces, and who are the players?"
He didn't know. But he would find out—quietly, patiently. For time, to those with no home to return to, was nothing but a tool.