Arielle sat between Zeke and Lira, her elbows resting on her knees, hands loosely clasped.
The reunion had calmed from its emotional high, but the air still carried that strange tension—the kind that lingered after many years apart, after bonds had been stretched but never quite broken. Just paused or better still... forgotten.
They had spoken for over an hour now, swapping fragments of memory, names of those lost, theories on what had happened to others. Some had vanished.
Others had died. Some had become ghosts even while alive, never resurfacing, never speaking again. Some had also tried to break away from the Traversers like they had done but weren't quite lucky. They'd either been killed off or worse, they were being tortured even until this day.
