No.
No no no.
I crawl faster. Hands raw. Knees torn. The ash sticks to my sweat, to the blood trickling down my face, to everything.
There’s no one moving. Not even a twitch.
I reach the edge of the inner ring, where the fuel cells must’ve gone off. The whole camp’s gone cratered. Like something took a bite out of the planet. Fires still burn in places, flickering orange and blue. The wind pushes smoke across the flattened wreckage like a funeral shroud.
Still no Darun.
I stand. Somehow. Wobble. Everything in me is screaming not to. But I do. Because I have to find him. Because this doesn’t end withmealone.
“Darun!” I call again, quieter now. A plea.
I limp. Step by step. Across scorched stone and melted metal. Past what’s left of the med tent—gone. Past the broken fence—useless. Past the stretch of blood-slick ground where I watched him fight Kanapa tooth and nail.
There’s nothing.
No bodies.
No civvies.
No soldiers.
Just me.
And ash.
The wind howls through the wreckage, tugging at my hair, lifting tendrils of smoke. It sounds like a sob. Or maybe that’s me.
I collapse near the center of the blast zone. My legs give out. I’m kneeling in the black dust, heaving air that tastes like death, arms wrapped tight around my abdomen like it might hold me together.
It doesn’t.
I don’t know how long I sit there. Minutes. Hours.
The sun moves. Shadows stretch. My mouth’s gone dry, lips cracked. The recorder still blinks a few feet away. Still loyal. Still clinging.
A shape appears through the haze.
Not Darun.
Not anything familiar.
A white field medic coat, singed at the sleeves. A voice filtered through a mask.
“Hey—we got a live one!”
Footsteps. Hands on my arms. Gentle but firm.
“She’s burned. Minor. No fractures. Pulse weak.”
I blink up at them. “Where’s… where’s the?—”
“Shh,” someone says, pressing a canteen to my lips. “You’re safe.”
I spit the water out. Grab the medic’s sleeve.
