Hestan breathed under morning gold.
Sunlight spilled lazily across rooftops and ran fingers through alley cracks, spreading warmth over old bricks and sleep-drenched streets. The sky was shy blue, dotted with cotton-dream clouds, and birds darted like they had somewhere urgent to be.
But inside the farmhouse, urgency hadn't quite arrived.
Not yet.
The living room was quiet, lit only by a soft stream of light sneaking through the crooked window. The smell of dust and dry wood lingered, barely touched by the perfume of morning.
A stretch. A yawn. A muffled groan.
Sathvic blinked awake on the couch, hair sticking in all the wrong directions. He rubbed his face once, twice, like pressing the sleep out of his bones.
Alethea sat cross-legged nearby, one eye open, one still negotiating terms with consciousness. She looked toward the window.
> "When's the match?" she asked, her voice gravelled with sleep.
> "Twelve," Sathvic mumbled.
Then—
> THUD.
A sharp, full-bodied sound.
Like someone fell.
Hard.
They both jumped.
From Eucliea's room.
No words were exchanged. Just instinct.
They scrambled up—Alethea nearly tripped on the rug—and ran.
Zorion was already halfway there, still in yesterday's T-shirt, blinking in confusion. All three of them reached the door at the same time.
> "Eucliea?" Alethea called out.
No response.
Then:
> "Okay! Okay, I'm fine!" came Eucliea's voice—tight, breathy. The kind of tone you used when you were very much not fine and trying your best to sell the opposite.
They burst in.
Eucliea was on the floor beside her bed, one hand gripping her phone, the other bracing herself like she'd just leapt from a bad dream into a worse reality.
Her hair was a mess. Her face was pale.
And her eyes—sharper than usual, but hiding something.
Zorion tilted his head. "What—"
She cut him off with a look. One of those don't speak yet kind of looks.
Then, slowly, she stood. Composed herself. Brushed imaginary dust off her pants.
And spoke with the calmness of someone stitching her panic together mid-sentence.
> "Sit down," she said, voice neutral—but her swallow was loud.
They obeyed, the three of them forming an uneven triangle in front of her like students waiting for results.
Eucliea took a deep breath. "Okay. First of all… there's news spreading around town."
Alethea rolled her eyes. "Obviously. We expected that. The hospital—"
Eucliea held up a finger. "Wait."
She continued.
> "The city's talking. Everyone knows someone's gone missing. Rumors, gossip, headlines. The whole nine yards."
That part wasn't shocking.
But then she added it.
The line that cut through the room like cold steel.
> "The Zaherran police suspect Indrans behind it."
A pause.
And then:
> "They've even sketched one of the girls involved."
Silence.
It was the kind of silence that didn't feel quiet—more like every molecule in the room was holding its breath.
Zorion's lips parted slightly.
Sathvic's shoulders stiffened.
Alethea's mouth hung open for a heartbeat too long.
> "But… the sketch," Eucliea added softly, "hasn't been made public yet."
Still, the implication hung there like smoke after fire.
Someone had seen them.
Someone had remembered.
And now they were drawing faces.
Faces that weren't supposed to exist here.