Shadows Don’t Trip When They Run

Amari caught movement ahead—not the panicked, sharp kind he'd come to recognize in prey, but the unspoken kind that meant someone else was already watching. His pace slowed. Not to stop. To listen. The girl's path was thinning, her steps fresher. But it wasn't her presence that made the air change. It was the absence around her. The sound that should've been there.

Then—between branch and silence—Shylo materialized.

Not with flair. Not with warning. He didn't rise from the roots, he unfolded from them. A shape the trees had worn for too long. The air seemed to breathe differently when he moved—like wind shifting to accommodate.

Amari didn't nod. Shylo didn't speak.