Page 133 of Veiled

Mateo studies the sky, “Do you think the time is the same as back at Scion, or did it change for the simulation? Varin said the last known point was north-east.”

“Help—please … someone? I’m lost…” The child’s voice echoes through the marsh, small and trembling.

Mateo jolts. “She sounds so close. Should we…”

“No,” Rhyan snaps. “It’s a projection. They want us to run toward it.”

A voice comes again, this time older and more panicked. “Please…my child…my baby…help!”

Rhyan’s head jerks toward the sound. “That one sounded legit.”

“It sounded staged,” Reyna counters. “Listen to the echo. It’s bouncing wrong.”

Mateo raises his flarestone slightly. “Should I mark our position?”

“No,” I say on impulse. “Not unless we make contact with one of our 'living simulations.’”

“Fuck, this is heartbreaking. Do you think any of those were real voices captured from another attack?” Reyna asks, and I shiver at the thought.

“I don’t know. And honestly? I don’t think I want to,” I admit, knowing I’m going to have a hard enough time not focusing on the voices when I think they are all sound projections.

A twig snaps behind us.

We spin, mud splashing, only to see the fog shift again, forming the vague outline of a kneeling figure, shoulders shaking, hair matted and dripping.

The figure lifts its head, its pitch-black eyes stare back at us as Reyna unsheathes her dagger halfway.

The figure flickers, then distorts and melts into mist.

“Just a decoy,” Mateo sighs in relief.

Voices begin layering around us—crying, shouting, whispering. A chorus of wrongness.

“How do you think we’re supposed to tell which ones are real?” Rhyan asks.

Reyna glances at me, voice dropping. “Annalise. You good?”

“Yeah, just thinking,” I say. “We need to move, slowly. Stay on high ground. Look for signs of an actual disturbance: bent reeds, fresh mud prints that don’t loop in circles like the illusions.”

Reyna nods sharply. “Finally. A plan.”

We start forward carefully. Then, faintly, so different from the rest—“…h-help…”

My heart stutters.

That voice wasn’t echoing or magically layered like the others. It was small. Human. Terrified.

Rhyan meets my eyes, clearly having heard it too.

“It sounded like it came from North-East of us,” Reyna whispers.

“Okay,” Mateo takes a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

Following the sound, we climb a root-covered ridge, careful as we can be with mud slipping under our boots at every step.

I force myself to remember Varin’s words…then repeat them out loud.

“Your eyes will lie. Your ears will lie. Your footing will lie. Only what you already know will not.”