The Test Ends. Preparation For The Hunt Begins

Nathan climbed out through the cottage window, the wooden frame creaking slightly behind him. The afternoon sun bore down from above, casting a warm, golden hue across the grass and trees—but none of it eased the weight in his chest.

As his boots met the ground, he looked up—and froze.

Just a few feet away, Alice, Ivy, and Harper stood against the cottage's outer wall, the wooden boards behind them sunlit and silent. The shadows they cast were long, stretching behind them like tension stretching thin.

No one spoke.

The wind rustled through the nearby trees, filling the silence with nature's indifference. Harper was the first to move. Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest, and her gaze was sharp, unwavering.

She stepped toward him.

"That's what you think of us?" she asked.

Her voice was calm, but it wasn't peace—it was control, rage simmering just beneath the surface. Nathan couldn't meet her eyes.

"We trusted you, Nathan." Her words came like a slap. "All of us. And the moment it got hard, the moment you were offered a way out—" she took a breath, her tone sharpening, "you were ready to leave us."

He tried to explain, but nothing came out. His throat felt dry. Useless.

Alice, who had been silent until now, looked at him. She didn't glare or scowl—her face remained composed, almost gentle—but her eyes spoke volumes. Disappointment flickered across them, and that alone hurt more than anything Harper could've said.

"You didn't even struggle with it, Nathan," Harper continued, voice rising slightly. "Alice, Ivy, me—we didn't think twice. We thought of each other."

She gestured toward the others. Her eyes shimmered, whether with fury or something else, Nathan couldn't tell.

"I don't want to trust you anymore," she said flatly. "You didn't just break my trust. You broke Ivy's. Alice's too."

There was a long pause.

Nathan finally looked up, guilt twisting his expression, but it was already too late. The wound had been made.

Alice stepped forward now, placing a hand on Harper's shoulder.

"It's okay," she said softly. "Let's not fall apart now."

She glanced at Nathan briefly—not out of affection, but out of necessity. Her voice held the quiet strength of someone trying to hold the team together with words alone.

"We've made it through the test. We're all still here. That has to mean something."

Harper exhaled sharply through her nose, then finally gave a slight nod. She didn't say anything else, but the storm in her eyes didn't fade.

Ivy stepped next to Alice, folding her arms as she looked at Nathan.

"Alice is right," she said firmly. "If we start fighting among ourselves now, we won't survive whatever's next."

Then she stepped forward.

As she walked past Nathan, she slowed—just enough for her voice to reach his ears alone.

"But I won't be trusting you fully for our survival anymore… Nathan."

There was no bitterness. Just certainty.

Nathan didn't follow immediately. The three girls turned away and began walking toward the front of the cottage, just as Spes had told them. The sun above cast long beams through the trees, painting the ground with soft golden rays that contrasted the weight in his heart.

He stood still, eyes watching their backs.

They were moving forward.

Without him.

He looked down.

I tried to survive. That's all I wanted. But now… I might've lost everything that mattered in the process.

A breeze passed through the grass, ruffling his hair as he stood there alone, under the harsh clarity of the afternoon light.

Alone.

Nathan stood alone.

The others had walked past him, one by one, with silent scorn and burning disappointment in their eyes. He remained where they left him, in the dull sunlight of the afternoon, the warmth of it no longer reaching him. His head was lowered, his back hunched slightly. His breathing was heavy, uneven. The shadow of his own hair draped across his face, covering his eyes in a curtain of guilt.

His fingers slowly slid up to his face, wiping the sweat off his forehead as if it could wipe away everything he'd just done.

"I really did—"

"I really did fuck things up…"

"Right?"

His voice was barely audible, a cracked whisper in the empty air.

He slicked his hair back with both hands, trying to fix his appearance, as if fixing his expression could make him look like less of a coward. He exhaled, held his breath, then exhaled again. His forehead throbbed, not from a wound, but from how tightly he'd furrowed his brows during the decision. Tension had physically wrapped itself around his skull, and only now did he realize how much it hurt.

He'd wanted to be the strong one.

The one who made the right choices.

The one they could depend on.

The one who understood the stakes.

Instead, he'd almost let them die.

He wasn't a leader. He wasn't even a survivor. He was just… scared.

But there was no time to be lost in that.

Because… he looked to the side.

And saw hell.

At first, it didn't register. His eyes scanned the area where the ground behind the cottage had cracked open—the same place where, before, small tendrils had writhed and flailed weakly, like worms in shallow soil.

But now?

They had grown.

His pupils dilated instantly. His heart skipped a beat. Then another.

"What the fuck…"

It was no longer just tendrils. The ground had been torn apart entirely, gaping open like a festering wound in the earth. And from its dark maw emerged a horror of impossible scale.

The tentacles were enormous now—towering, writhing things that had burst free from the soil like demonic roots. Hundreds of them, maybe more. Thick, muscular cords of pulsing black flesh, veined and slick with something too viscous to be water, too alive to be called mud. They thrashed and twisted in unnatural rhythms, some slamming against trees and splitting them in half like twigs, others dragging deep gouges into the earth, carving it open like it was paper.

They weren't smooth. Not anymore.

Their surfaces were lined with irregular growths—like gnarled, malformed eyes that opened and blinked independently. Slits and gnashing teeth jutted from random parts of the flesh, like mouths that didn't belong there, drooling dark fluids that sizzled where they hit the dirt.

The tentacles didn't just move—they twitched with anticipation, like predators straining at a leash. They smelled of rot, iron, and burnt hair, and the air around them shimmered with heat, like reality itself was being bent under the pressure of their presence.

From the center of the ruined pit came the core—a mass of congealed black and violet, shaped like a grotesque flower blooming in reverse. Petals of skin peeled back to reveal an unholy orb of flesh, stitched with eyes that stared in all directions. Each eye blinked out of sync, darting, searching—some wide with curiosity, others slitted with fury, as if aware of being watched. The whole structure pulsed and shuddered like it was breathing.

Then came the sound.

A groan, but not one from a creature. It sounded like the earth itself had sighed in pain—deep, ancient, vibrating through the bones.

Nathan took a step back.

His hand reached for something—anything. But there was nothing to hold onto.

This… this was the Hunt.

And it hadn't even started yet.

Behind him, Alice, Ivy, and Harper had gone silent, their conversation cut short by the sudden, looming horror.

They turned.

And saw it too.

Harper clutched the wooden wall behind her, her jaw trembling. Ivy let out a shaky gasp, her breath visible despite the warmth of the day. Alice, for the first time, took a step back—not from fear, but calculation. Her eyes narrowed, reading every motion of the monster like a battlefield strategist.

"That thing's not like anything we've seen before," Alice muttered, more to herself than anyone else.

The sky began to dim—not from nightfall, but from something unnatural. A shadow cast across the land as the tentacles arched over the cottage, casting a canopy of horror. Somewhere far above, black ichor rained in slow, syrupy drops.

Nathan finally backed into the wooden railing, his hands shaking.

He wasn't just scared.

He was frozen.

"This is what would've killed them…" he whispered.

The truth was laid bare.

His selfishness, his desperation, his near-betrayal… would have left them to die by this.

By this thing that didn't even seem to have a name. A god of decay and distortion. An ancient predator that fed on fear and betrayal and trust shattered.

And he would've abandoned them to it.

He clenched his fists, guilt twisting his gut like a knife. He wanted to scream—but there was no point. He wanted to hide—but there was nowhere to run. He wanted to take back his hesitation, his fear, his selfish thoughts—but it was too late for that too.

There was only one thing left.

Survive.

And maybe—just maybe—redeem himself.

But as the creature slowly began to slither toward the front of the cottage, and as the wind picked up into a dry, sour gust, Nathan realized…

This was only the beginning.