To the north

**Kelly Thompson's POV**

The north is a clenched fist.

Glaciers tower like broken teeth, their slopes scarred by crevasses that exhale whispers of dead storms. The vial of Veyd’s dust hangs heavy around my neck, its hum a morse code against my collarbone—*hurry, hurry, hurry*. Jara marches ahead, her breath frosting the air in sharp bursts, her boots crunching through ice crusted with black algae. She hasn’t spoken since we buried Eden. Grief is a language she wields like a blade, and right now, I’m the whetstone.

The auroras here are sickly, their light tinged green as radiation from long-dead Verse experiments seeps through the permafrost. My merged shadow—part Hunger, part Echo—flickers at the edges of my vision, a silent argument I can’t parse. *She’s weakening,* the Hunger growls. *Let me take control.*

*Never,* Echo’s voice rasps, fainter now, her starlight dimmed by Oblivion’s aftershocks.