Nico frowned, jaw tightening, but he didn’t press the question. Not now.
Maybe, on some level, she had a point. We were free spirits. That was part of why trying to fit into life here felt so difficult.
But I didn’t like the idea of changing that about us. Not for this place. Not for anyone.
Fifteen minutes later, the mentees had dispersed, led to each of their respective woodland entrances. Anna called down two silver-ringed outreach staff to act as Nico and Robert’s guides for this task. We were each equipped with light helmets and padded straps for our arms and knees, which were supposed to protect us from sharp branches.
Anna finally made eye contact with me as she walked me to my spot. She behaved as if yesterday didn't happen. When we reached my position, she simply opened her palm to reveal my small metal device.
“Now, I suggest you let me attach this to your ear since it’s your first time wearing one of these things,” shesaid.
I lifted my helmet and leaned my right ear toward her, acquiescing. I felt her fingers firmly grip near my outer ear, and then the cold, uncomfortable sensation of the metal piece clipping into it. It gave a sharp prick, which almost felt like an electric shock. I squinted and bit my lip at the discomfort. After a second, the pain dissipated.
“Alright,” she said, her tone businesslike. She replaced my helmet on my head. “You know what to do.”
I glanced ahead of me, at the gloom of the thick woods. “How will you even know how to guide us?” I asked.
“Don't worry,” she said. “That's our problem, not yours.”
I frowned in confusion, wishing I knew just for the sake of quenching my curiosity, but she strode away before I could attempt to press the question.
I glanced to my left. Jessie stood twenty feet away. On her other side was Nico, and to my right was Robert. We exchanged tentative glances through our visors, before fixing our gazes straight ahead into the dark trees.
Anna's voice came through the loudspeaker again. “Remember, stay put until you hear the whistle. Then, mentees, follow the commands you hear.”
I clenched my fists, palms slick with sweat, eyes fixed on the darkness ahead. I kept telling myself this was for the greater good—for humankind’s future, for when we finally returned to the Old World and pursued therighttarget. I tried to hold onto that thought, to believe there was purpose in what I was about to do. That all of this meant something. That the shadows hid something worth facing.
Then a sharp whistle pierced the air?—
And Anna’s voice shrieked in my ear: “GO!”
THIRTY-FOUR
A cold waveof nausea rolled through me as I plunged into the trees. I couldn’t tell if it was Anna’s voice—thin and needling in my skull—or just nerves, but it hit like vertigo.
Branches lashed at my arms. The only light was a sickly, pale glow filtering through a canopy so dense it smothered the world. I should have felt at home here, raised as I was beneath green shadow, but now the trees seemed to crowd closer, strangling, pressing in on every side.
“Turn right!” Anna’s voice shrieked, sudden and electric inside my head. My vision blurred. My right ear buzzed like it was being stung from inside. I winced, bile crawling up my throat. Her voice wasn’t just a sound—it was like a violation, scraping something raw.
I lurched right, stumbling into a clearing littered with squat, white mushrooms. They gleamed eerily in the half-light, and for a moment I thought I saw them pulse, breathing with the earth. My chest tightened. What are we doing here? What are we hunting? Are we prey?
“Focus!” Anna snapped, each syllable drilling into my skull.
“I am focusing,” I rasped, but my own voice sounded thin and strange. My body wasn’t moving right. My thoughts stuttered. I waited for direction like an animal for the next shock.
I stepped forward—and the ground vanished beneath me.
Falling—slamming into a pit so abruptly it stole the breath from my lungs. Mud caked my hands, the air thick and grave-cold. Panic surged at the memory of the last time I was trapped in the dark. My mind reeled, half-expecting claws or teeth in the blackness.
“We hit a trap!” Anna screeched. Her voice seemed to split my skull, so loud I whimpered, clutching my head, wanting to claw the sound out of my brain.
Above, a shower of light particles spiraled down—beautiful, almost, until I realized they were sealing the pit, forming a roof of cold radiance, cutting me off from the world.
The pain came suddenly. White-hot, lancing through my head like a spike. It was so intense, so merciless, that I curled in the mud, gagging, tears streaming down my face. It was the kind of agony that erases the world, that makes you forget language, forget who you are.
“What. Is. Happening?” The words burst from me, not even words—just animal noise.
“You need to listen to me, Tani,” Anna crooned, her voice sticky and monstrous in my ear. “Listen, and you’ll acclimate. Listen, and you’ll survive.”
