The river kept flowing.
Like nothing had changed. Like the world hadn't shifted sideways and swallowed them whole.
Anish stared at the current for a long moment before he spoke.
"…They weren't scared of fire," he said. "They were scared of it going out."
No one replied. The words hung there, heavy with something none of them could name.
Tejas exhaled. "Okay. Just check your bags first."
They moved at once, and the sound of zippers tore through the quiet like something being ripped open. Tejas dumped his out first — a notebook, a half-empty water bottle, and nothing else. He stared at it for a second longer than he needed to.
"You're kidding," Kiara muttered, digging through hers faster.
Mia's hands weren't quite steady. "There has to be something—"
"I've got this." Diya held up a small flashlight.
For a moment, it felt like progress. Then it didn't.
"I have chips," Mia said quietly.
Everyone turned. She held up a crumpled packet, already half-crushed.
"How much?" Tejas asked.
She peeked inside. "…Not a lot."
That was it. No food worth counting. No weapons. No plan. Just five people sitting beside a river that didn't care about any of them, in a world that might not be theirs.
The silence that followed was the worst kind — the kind where everyone is thinking the same thing and no one wants to be the first to say it.
"So what now?" Mia asked.
Nothing.
"What do we *do* now?"
Still nothing. And that was the answer that broke her.
Her breathing quickened, shallow and fast. "We can't just sit here—"
"Mia—" Diya started.
"No!" She was on her feet before anyone could react. "We're *lost*. Our phones don't work, we have no idea where we are, and — " She stopped, eyes darting through the treeline like the words were hiding somewhere in the dark between the branches. "We're not even on the mountain anymore. Are we even in our *world*?"
That one landed differently. Kiara's frown deepened.
"Okay, calm down—"
"Calm *down*?" Mia turned on her instantly, and the dam broke. "Are you serious right now? This is your fault."
The words hit like a slap. Silence crashed down.
Kiara's expression went very still. "…Excuse me?"
"You were the one who wanted to go in," Mia said, voice shaking. "You kept pushing, kept saying it'd be fine—"
"Oh, so now it's my fault?" Kiara's voice sharpened like a blade.
"Yes!"
"You came in too!"
"I didn't drag everyone like you did!"
"Yeah? And I didn't see you trying to leave, either!"
"Because I didn't think we'd end up *here*!" Mia's voice cracked on the last word, and the anger drained out of it just as fast as it had come, leaving something raw underneath. "We're never going back, are we?"
Silence.
No one answered. Because no one could — not honestly, not kindly, not without lying through their teeth.
Kiara looked away first. "…You don't know that."
Mia laughed, and it sounded hollow. "Then how do we go back?" She waited. "…Exactly."
"*Enough.*"
Tejas didn't raise his voice. He didn't need to. There was something in his tone that just made everyone stop — flat and tired and final, like a door closing.
"This isn't helping anyone."
Anish stood. "He's right. Arguing won't change where we are."
Mia wiped her eyes and turned away. Kiara stared at the ground, jaw tight. The tension didn't leave — it just went quiet, the way fire goes quiet when you smother it rather than put it out.
---
Tejas noticed Kiara had been sitting slightly off from the rest of them, one arm held at an odd angle. He walked over after a moment and crouched beside her.
"Let me see."
"I'm fine," she muttered.
"You're not."
She hesitated — long enough that it wasn't really a protest anymore — then looked away without stopping him.
The scratches along her arm were worse than they looked at first. Some ran deeper than the others, already crusting over in a way that would sting later if left alone. Tejas poured water from the bottle over them slowly.
Kiara flinched. "That stings."
"Yeah." He kept going.
He cleaned them as carefully as he could manage without proper supplies. Not perfect. But enough to matter.
"You should've said something," he said.
She shrugged, like it was nothing. "Didn't feel important."
"It is."
She didn't reply. A few steps away, Diya stood watching them in silence. Her hand had drifted to her own sleeve without her seeming to notice, fingers wrapped loosely around the fabric. Then she caught herself and looked away.
---
Night wasn't far off. The light had already started bleeding out of the sky, and the forest around them felt different in the dimming — less like trees, more like shapes.
"We shouldn't move right now," Anish said.
Kiara frowned. "So we just stay here?"
"It's dark," Tejas said. "We can't see anything, and we'll only make things worse."
Mia pulled her arms around herself. "What if something's out there?"
Anish was quiet for a moment. "…Probably is."
"That's *not helping*," she whispered.
Diya sighed softly. "Someone should stay up. Keep an eye out while the others rest. We can take turns."
No one argued. It was the most sensible thing anyone had said in hours.
Tejas took first watch. The others lay down near the riverbank — not really sleeping, just closing their eyes against a dark they couldn't do anything about.
Mia sat curled up, knees to her chest, staring into the space between the trees. She wasn't sure how long she'd been sitting like that before she realized Anish had come over.
He didn't say anything. He just sat down beside her, facing the treeline like he was taking the watch with her.
"You don't have to," she said quietly.
"I know," he said. "It's fine."
She didn't push back. After a moment, some of the tension in her shoulders eased, just slightly. It was a small thing. But the dark felt a little less like it was pressing in.
Time moved slowly after that.
Then a sound rolled through the trees — low and distant, like something very large shifting in its sleep. It didn't repeat. It didn't need to.
No one slept properly after that.
---
Morning arrived without ceremony, pale and cold and offering nothing in the way of answers.
They stood stiffly, tired in the specific way that sleep without rest creates. The river caught the early light and did nothing useful with it.
"Okay," Kiara said. "What now?"
Anish looked at the water. "We follow the river. There's usually people near water — settlements, roads, something."
Tejas nodded. "Worth more than standing here."
They started walking.
They didn't get far before Anish stopped.
"Wait."
A flash of blue through the trees ahead. Then stillness.
The bird perched on a low branch, watching them with those unsettling emerald eyes. The same iridescent blue as before. The same patient, deliberate stillness — like it had been waiting for them specifically.
"That's the same one," Mia said.
As if it heard her, the bird lifted off, flew a short distance further down the path, and landed again. Waiting.
"No." Kiara's voice was flat. "We're not doing this again."
Tejas looked at her. "What?"
"That thing led us straight to that temple," she said. "And you remember how that turned out."
"It didn't *force* us," Tejas said.
"Oh, so now we're trusting random birds?"
"She's not entirely wrong," Anish said carefully. "We don't know what it is. We don't know what it wants."
Tejas glanced at him, something flickering across his expression.
"But what if it's trying to help?" Mia said. "Last time we at least ended up *somewhere*. We found something."
Kiara laughed, short and dry. "Yeah, and look where that got us."
"We don't have anything else!" Mia snapped, and the rawness in it silenced the argument for a moment. "What's the alternative? We just walk and hope?"
Tejas looked at the bird. Then back at them. "You got a better idea?"
Nobody did.
The bird fluttered forward again. Further this time. Still waiting.
Diya spoke softly, almost to herself. "…We can try."
Anish exhaled through his nose. "If something feels wrong, we stop. No arguing about it — we just stop."
Kiara looked at the bird for a long moment. Then she looked away. "This is a bad idea."
But she followed.
---
The forest changed around them as they walked. Slowly at first — the undergrowth thinning, the trees spacing out, the quality of light shifting from deep shadow to something paler and more open. The air changed too, carrying something different underneath the cold.
"Do you smell that?" Anish said.
"Smoke," Diya replied.
They quickened their pace without discussing it.
The trees opened—
And through the gaps, tucked low against the hillside like something trying not to be noticed, they saw it.
A village.
Small. Quiet. The buildings were rough-hewn and dark with age, smoke curling thin and grey from a few chimneys into the pale morning sky. No movement in the narrow paths between the structures. No sound carrying from inside.
They stood at the treeline and stared.
None of them said *we're saved*, or *finally*, or anything that felt like relief — because something about it didn't sit right. It looked lived in, but barely. It looked like a place that had stopped expecting visitors a long time ago.
The bird landed on a post at the village's edge, glanced back at them once with those green eyes, and was still.
No one moved.
Because somehow, standing there at the threshold of the first sign of civilization they'd found since this whole thing started — this didn't feel like safety.
It felt like the next part of something they hadn't agreed to.
---
*End of Chapter 6*