Chapter 78 - 77: Desperate Hands
A woman near the back shook her head.
"I saw it clearly."
"You did?"
"Between the trees. It was enormous."
Her companion immediately disagreed.
"It wasn’t enormous. You were just close to it."
"I know what I saw."
Their voices rose slightly before both remembered themselves and lowered them again.
Nina listened quietly.
The stories were different.
Some people had seen the light directly.
Others had seen only a faint glow.
Some had heard about it from survivors who had seen it.
Others had simply followed the people already walking toward it.
There was no single stream of people summoned from across the world.
The movement had grown naturally.
One person told another.
One group encountered another group.
A survivor saw strangers walking in the same direction and decided to follow.
And somewhere along the way, the unknown destination became a reason to keep moving.
Nina looked ahead at the scattered groups winding up the forest road.
Nobody knew where they were going.
Nobody knew who had created the light.
Nobody even knew whether there was anything waiting for them at the end of the journey.
Yet they kept walking.
Perhaps that was the strangest part.
They weren’t following certainty.
They were following a possibility.
Scene 4: Desperate Humans
The trail had grown quieter as the afternoon wore on.
The survivors had spread out again, leaving several meters between groups. Nobody wanted to bunch together after what had happened earlier. The memory of claws tearing through the trees was still too fresh, and every unfamiliar sound made people glance toward the forest.
Nina walked near the back of her small group when the people ahead suddenly stopped.
She slowed.
A few figures stood in the middle of the trail.
There were five of them.
They looked exhausted.
Their clothes were torn and stained with dirt. One man held a wooden club with both hands, while another carried what appeared to be a kitchen knife. A woman had a short spear made from a sharpened branch, but the point was crooked and chipped.
None of them looked particularly dangerous.
That did not make Nina relax.
The tallest man stepped forward.
"Food."
The word carried down the trail.
Nobody answered.
He looked over the scattered survivors, his eyes moving from person to person. "Give us some food."
A woman beside him tightened her grip on the spear. "And water."
Several survivors immediately moved closer together.
Someone whispered, "We don’t have enough."
The man’s expression hardened. "Then give us whatever you have."
A few hands moved toward weapons.
Nina’s fingers closed around her knife.
Before anyone could step forward, Kyle moved.
He didn’t charge.
He didn’t raise his weapon.
He simply walked several steps ahead of his family and stopped between them and the strangers.
His posture changed.
Nina noticed it immediately.
His shoulders straightened. His feet settled firmly beneath him, and his eyes moved across the five strangers one by one.
Not their faces.
Their hands.
Their weapons.
Their positions.
The distance between them.
The nearest trees.
The path behind them.
He was measuring everything.
The man with the club lifted his weapon slightly. "Move."
Kyle didn’t.
"You heard me."
Kyle’s gaze remained fixed on him. "Leave."
The stranger gave a humorless laugh. "Or what?"
Kyle’s hand rested loosely near his weapon.
"Or you find out."
There was no shouting in his voice.
That seemed to make the threat worse.
The man with the club took another step.
Kyle didn’t move.
For several seconds, neither side did anything.
Then the stranger’s eyes dropped briefly toward Kyle’s equipment.
His expression changed.
Not much.
Just enough for Nina to notice.
He looked at the other four.
One of them whispered something too quietly for Nina to hear.
The woman with the spear lowered her weapon first.
The man with the club hesitated, then slowly lowered his as well.
"We don’t want trouble," he muttered.
Kyle’s expression didn’t change. "Then don’t cause any."
The group backed away.
Nobody chased them.
Nobody celebrated.
They simply watched until the five strangers disappeared between the trees.
Only then did Kyle return to the others.
His son, Kai, looked at him but said nothing.
Edwin continued walking as though nothing had happened.
Nina glanced back toward the trees.
For a moment, she could still see one of the strangers standing there.
The woman with the spear.
She looked thinner than Nina had first realized.
Her cheeks were hollow.
Her clothes hung loosely from her body.
She wasn’t glaring at them.
She was staring at the water-skin hanging from another survivor’s belt.
Hungry.
Nina slowly looked away.
They hadn’t been smiling.
They hadn’t been enjoying themselves.
They had simply reached the point where hunger had become stronger than shame.
Nina’s fingers tightened around her knife.
Monsters were frightening because they hunted people.
Humans were different.
Humans could become desperate.
And desperation could turn almost anyone into something they once feared.
Scene 5: The Roads Divide
The trail became harder to recognize with every step.
What had once been a narrow path through the forest was now little more than churned earth and overlapping footprints. Hundreds of feet had passed through the area, trampling the undergrowth until the original trail had almost disappeared completely.
Then the paths began to split.
One narrow trail curved toward the left, climbing between two enormous trees. Another continued straight ahead, disappearing beneath a thicker section of forest. A third seemed to follow the slope upward, but several people standing near it were already arguing over whether it actually led in the direction of the light.
"This way," a man insisted, pointing uphill. "We were going this way before."
"You don’t know that," another survivor replied. "None of us can see the light anymore."
"We were following the same direction."
"Following a direction isn’t the same as knowing where you’re going."
Their voices carried through the forest.
Nearby, another group had already made its decision. A family gathered their belongings and turned onto the left-hand path without waiting for anyone else.
A few survivors followed them.
Others stayed where they were, uncertain.
Nina watched the movement quietly.
The stream that had seemed so large earlier was beginning to break apart.
Families stayed together. Small groups gathered around people they trusted. Some followed whoever appeared to know where they were going, while others deliberately chose quieter paths where fewer people were walking.
No one could guarantee that any of them were choosing correctly.
Kyle looked over the different trails before finally pointing toward the path that climbed most steadily.
"We keep going up."
The others followed without argument.
Nina glanced at the remaining paths.
People were already disappearing between the trees.
A woman carrying a bundle of clothes turned down one trail with her family. Three men chose another. A small group remained behind, still debating which direction to take.
For a moment, Nina wondered whether she would ever see any of them again.
Probably not.
The thought felt strangely heavy.
They had spent hours walking together, sharing the same road and the same uncertainty. Yet now, a few turns in the forest were enough to send them toward completely different futures.
Some would reach whatever destination waited ahead.
Some might turn back.
Some could lose the trail entirely.
Others might never leave these woods.
Nina looked forward again.
The sun had dropped lower, its fading light filtering through the trees in long golden streaks. The air had grown cooler, and the forest behind them seemed quieter than before.
Even the distant voices were becoming harder to hear.
They were getting farther from the people they had travelled with.
Or perhaps everyone else was simply choosing different roads.
Kyle continued climbing.
Kai stayed close beside him, while Edwin followed at a slower pace.
Nina adjusted her grip on her knife and continued after them.
They no longer had a clear trail to follow.
They didn’t even know whether they were still heading toward the right destination.
But the ground continued rising beneath their feet.
For now, that was enough.
They climbed.
The afternoon was slowly giving way to evening.
The sunlight filtering through the trees had lost its warmth, leaving long shadows stretched across the uneven ground. Every step had become an effort.
Nina’s feet ached with every movement. Her remaining arm felt heavy, the muscles sore from gripping her knife and steadying herself throughout the climb. Dried blood and dirt had stiffened her clothes, and strands of her hair had become tangled against the side of her face.
She didn’t bother fixing them.
There was no energy left for that.
Ahead of her, Kai walked with his shoulders slumped slightly. The confidence he had shown during the attack was gone, replaced by the exhaustion of someone who had spent the last several hours fighting simply to stay alive.
Even Kyle looked tired.
He continued leading the group, but his eyes constantly moved across the surrounding terrain. He checked the trees, the slope and every unfamiliar opening they passed, never allowing himself to become completely distracted by exhaustion.
Behind them, Edwin struggled to maintain his pace.
His wooden staff sank into the earth with every step.