The house was silent, the kind of silence that pressed on the ears until it felt louder than noise itself. Aya lay in the small wooden bed that wasn't hers, staring at the beams of the ceiling, trying to breathe evenly so that the woman across the hall would think she was asleep. "Tessa's room." That's what her mother—Tessa's mother—had called it earlier when telling her where to rest. Aya couldn't stop replaying that phrase.
She had no right to this bed. She hadn't earned this family. She was living in borrowed skin, eating food made for someone else's mouth, smiling at people who looked at her with love that was never meant for her.
And then there were the friends.
Mia and Joren. Their faces still flickered behind her eyes whenever she blinked. They had laughed with her earlier, clapped her on the back, teased her as though nothing had changed. But Aya had changed everything. She was not the girl they thought she was. Every word she'd spoken to them was a balancing act—one misplaced phrase, one hesitation too long, and the illusion cracked.
And it had cracked.
Aya could still hear the awkward silence after each time she slipped up. Mia had been telling a story about the time the three of them had nearly set the chicken coop on fire trying to roast stolen corn. Aya had smiled, nodded… and asked, "It was Mr Airen's barn, right?"
The air had turned to stone. Mira's face had gone pale, Joren's laughter had faltered. Aya had quickly tried to laugh it off, muttering something about "testing if they remembered it right," but she could see it in their eyes—they noticed. A crack in Tessa's mask.
Aya rolled onto her side, clutching the blanket tight.
"I can't keep doing this…" she whispered into the dark.
Because every day she stayed, every smile she returned, every "goodnight, mother" and "I'm fine, father," was another betrayal. Another layer of guilt suffocating her. Aya wasn't Tessa. She had no right to wear her life like a costume.
The weight grew heavier with every heartbeat, pressing down on her ribs until it felt like she couldn't breathe.
Finally, she sat up. The wooden floor groaned under her bare feet as she stood, wincing at the sound. Her heart hammered, but the house remained quiet. The fire in the hearth had burned down to embers. Shadows clung to the walls like watchful spirits.
Aya crossed the small room and opened the chest where Tessa's clothes were folded neatly. Her hands hovered over the fabric. She didn't deserve to take anything… but she also couldn't walk into the night with nothing. She chose a raged cloak theat looked like it hadn't been used for a while, simple and rough, and slipped it over her shoulders. It hung a little too long, brushing her ankles, but it would do.
At the doorway, she hesitated. Her throat tightened, her body trembling with the urge to go back to bed and pretend none of this was happening. But then she thought of Mia's expression, the fragile trust in her parents' eyes, the gnawing emptiness in her chest.
She couldn't stay.
Aya stepped into the hall. The wooden floor creaked again, louder this time. She froze, heart in her throat. The door to her parents' room remained shut. No footsteps. No voices.
She padded down the stairs, each step a battle against the urge to turn around. The kitchen smelled faintly of herbs and smoke. On the table sat a half-finished carving knife her father had been sharpening earlier. Aya's eyes lingered on it before she shook her head and kept moving.
At the front door, she paused again. Her hand pressed to the rough wood, trembling. Words gathered in her throat, and before she could stop them, they spilled out in a whisper.
"…I'm sorry."
Sorry to the parents who had shown her kindness. Sorry to Mia and Joren, who had treated her like family. Sorry to Tessa herself, whose life she was desecrating just by existing here.
The night air hit her like cold water as she stepped outside.
The village was quiet, save for the faint crackle of a torch guttering in the square. Houses hunched in the dark, their windows shuttered, their occupants dreaming of tomorrow. Aya wrapped the cloak tighter and walked past them, each step sinking into the dirt road.
The further she went, the louder the insects became. The chirp of crickets, the hum of unseen wings, the distant call of a nightbird—all of it blended into a strange chorus that seemed to echo her own restless thoughts.
The forest loomed at the edge of the village, a jagged silhouette of trees reaching into the star-pricked sky. Aya's breath caught as she stood before it. It looked less like a forest and more like a mouth, yawning open, waiting to swallow her whole.
She should have been afraid. Alone, unarmed, stepping into the dark where monsters prowled. But instead, all she felt was… relief.
Because in the forest, she wouldn't have to pretend. No one would look at her with love meant for another. No one would catch her slip-ups. No one would call her "Tessa."
Aya lifted her hood, shadowing her face, and stepped beneath the trees.
The branches whispered overhead, leaves rustling like secrets. The smell of damp earth filled her nose. Her boots crunched softly on fallen twigs and leaves. Each sound seemed magnified in the silence, but she didn't care anymore. Let the monsters hear her. Let them come.
Because for the first time since waking in this borrowed life, Aya felt like she was walking her own path—even if it led straight into oblivion
Morning broke softly over the village, golden sunlight spilling through cracks in shutters and seeping across rooftops. The quiet hum of life began to stir—the smell of baking bread, the distant bleating of goats, the clatter of buckets at the well.
In the Tanren household, however, peace was shattered the moment Tessa's mother opened her daughter's door.
The bed was empty.
The blanket, folded back neatly, looked more like a confession than an accident. On the chest sat the clothes Tessa had worn yesterday, carefully arranged, but her traveling cloak was gone.
"Tessa?" Her mother's voice trembled as it filled the small room. No answer came.
Her father was up the stairs within moments, thick hands gripping the doorframe as his eyes scanned the room. His face went pale, jaw tightening. "She's gone."
"No…" His wife's voice cracked, thin and fragile. She stumbled forward, touching the blanket as if willing her daughter to materialize from the folds of cloth. "She wouldn't just—she wouldn't leave us again, not after everything…"
Aya's absence felt like a cruel joke, reopening wounds barely healed.
Her father didn't waste time. He turned sharply, boots thudding down the stairs. "We'll search. I'll ask Joren and Mia—"
"Wait, don't—don't say it like that," his wife pleaded, following him, voice trembling with rising hysteria. "She's not gone. She's not gone. She's probably just—just outside, helping the animals, or—"
"Mira." His voice snapped like iron. She froze. His eyes, though, were wet, his throat bobbing with suppressed emotion. "…We're finding her. Now."
By the time the village square filled with people, the news had already spread.
Joren was the first to arrive, sword belt hastily buckled, hair still mussed from sleep. His usual smirk was absent, his brow furrowed. Mia came not long after, clutching a spear that looked a little too heavy for her slender arms, her face pale with dread.
"She wouldn't run away," Mia muttered, almost to herself. "Tessa wouldn't… not without saying anything."
Aya's—Tessa's—father stood tall in the square, though his hand flexed restlessly on the hilt of his own worn blade. He was no knight, but years of fending off wolves and wild beasts from the farmlands had left him no stranger to steel. "She's not far. If we move now, we'll catch up before she's gone too deep into the woods."
One of the older villagers muttered, "The woods aren't safe these days. Goblins've been sighted near the western ridge."
At that, Mia's grip on her spear tightened. Joren cursed under his breath.
"We're still going," Tessa's father said flatly. "I'll not sit idle while my daughter wanders where beasts prowl."
"Then I'm coming too," Joren said. His tone brooked no argument.
Mia nodded fiercely. "Me too."
Others murmured support—neighbors, cousins, people who had watched Tessa grow up. For all her occasional recklessness, she was theirs. They would not abandon her.
Aya had wanted to leave quietly, to disappear without tearing open more wounds. Instead, her absence had drawn the entire village into turmoil.
The search began at the edge of the forest.
The treeline loomed tall and oppressive, branches knit together like the bars of a cage. Morning light struggled to pierce the canopy, casting the undergrowth in shifting shadows. The scent of damp earth and moss clung to the air.
Tessa's mother clutched a handkerchief to her mouth, her eyes darting desperately between the trees as though expecting her daughter to step out smiling at any moment. "Please… please be safe…"
Joren knelt in the dirt, scanning for tracks. He was no seasoned ranger, but years of hunting rabbits and deer had taught him enough. His fingers brushed across faint impressions in the soil.
"Footprints. They're small, human maybe." He stood, meeting the father's gaze. "She probably went this way."
"Then we follow."
And so they plunged into the forest.
The woods swallowed them whole.
Every step was punctuated by the crunch of leaves, the snap of twigs. Birds scattered at their approach, wings flashing between branches. Shadows twisted in the corner of their vision, the undergrowth rustling with unseen movements.
The villagers called her name again and again—"Tessa! Tessa!"—but the trees only threw the voices back at them, warped and hollow.
Aya, deep in the woods already, heard none of it. She was pushing further into isolation, further from the voices that begged her return.
But her family and friends pressed on, unaware of the darker shadows
The search party had been pushing through the forest for nearly two hours when the undergrowth went too quiet.
The constant buzz of insects dulled. The occasional rustle of small game scurrying through the brush fell silent. Even the birds overhead stilled, wings frozen in the canopy like ornaments.
Joren stopped mid-step, hand instinctively falling to the hilt of his sword. "Wait."
The others froze.
"What is it?" Mia whispered, her knuckles white around her spear.
He raised a hand for silence, crouching low to scan the ground ahead. A faint disturbance in the leaf litter caught his eye—drag marks, uneven footprints, and then something worse: a thin smear of dark, congealed blood across the roots of a tree.
His stomach sank. "Goblins."
The word hung in the air like a curse.
Tessa's father's jaw tightened. He raised his blade, voice a low growl. "Stay sharp."
It happened in the next heartbeat.
The bushes on their left exploded, a jagged spear thrusting out at chest level. Joren parried on instinct, steel clanging against crude iron. Three goblins tumbled from the brush, snarling, their beady eyes glinting in the dim light.
They were small, twisted things—barely the height of a boy, but wiry, vicious, their gray-green skin smeared with grime. Each clutched a weapon cobbled from scavenged steel and sharpened bone.
Mia screamed but held her ground, thrusting her spear wildly. One goblin ducked under, teeth snapping close to her arm before Joren cut it down with a clean slice across its chest. Black blood sprayed the undergrowth, foul and metallic.
Two more goblins burst from the other side of the trail, screeching. The villagers scrambled back, clutching farming tools and makeshift clubs.
"Tessa's father" met them head-on. His axe was old, nicked from years of work, but his arms were strong. He swung wide, cleaving one goblin's shoulder open, then rammed the hilt into another's face, sending teeth scattering across the dirt.
But goblins were pack hunters.
For every one they cut down, more appeared from the shadows. Five. Six. Seven. A dozen, circling, jeering in their guttural tongue. Their yellowed eyes gleamed with hunger as they licked cracked lips, tasting fear.
Mia's spear wavered. "Th-there's too many—!"
"Hold your ground!" Tessa's father barked, parrying another strike. His blade cut one goblin down, but not before another slashed at his thigh, drawing blood.
The smell hit the air instantly.
Thick. Coppery. Alive.
And the forest stirred.
It began as a rumble. Heavy, rhythmic thuds that shook the ground beneath their boots. Branches swayed as something massive pushed its way closer. The goblins, snarling moments ago, suddenly shrieked in panic. Their jeers turned into frantic chatter, their formation breaking.
Then came the roar.
A guttural, ear-splitting bellow that rattled bones and silenced everything for miles. Birds scattered from the canopy, the forest itself seeming to flinch back.
The first orc lumbered into view.
It was twice the height of a man, shoulders broad as a barn door, its body a wall of corded muscle beneath sickly green-gray skin. Two tusks jutted from its lower jaw, slick with drool. In its hand, it dragged a rusted cleaver longer than Mia was tall.
Behind it, more shadows moved.
One. Two. Four. Eight. A dozen. An entire warband, their guttural growls overlapping as they emerged from the trees, drawn by the stench of fresh blood like wolves to a slaughter.
The goblins scattered instantly, fleeing into the undergrowth with terrified screeches. The villagers, however, had nowhere to run.
Mia's face drained of all color. "O-Orcs…" Her voice cracked, almost a sob.
Joren swallowed hard, sweat dripping down his temple. He'd fought bandits, wolves, even a stray goblin or two. But orcs? Orcs were killers of men. Armies needed trained soldiers and walls to keep them at bay.
Tessa's father planted himself in front of the group, sword trembling slightly in his grip. His breath came heavy, but his eyes burned with stubborn resolve. "Stay behind me."
The orc at the front sneered, lips peeling back over jagged teeth. It raised its cleaver slowly, relishing their fear. The ground trembled with its steps as it closed the distance.
Joren tightened his grip on his sword, Mia raised her spear with shaking hands, and the villagers prayed under their breath.
They were going to die.
Unaware that every shout, every cry of her name, carried through the trees like a dinner bell.
Unaware that blood would soon stain the earth.
The forest shuddered with the weight of heavy footfalls.Growls. Snorts. The snapping of branches.
Aya crouched high in the trees, her chest pressed to the rough bark, breath shallow. Her body trembled—not from fear, but from the strain of holding her human frame so still. Below, the villagers clung together, wide-eyed, weapons shaking in their hands. Tessa's father stood at the front, clutching a rusted axe slick with goblin blood. He'd already fought once tonight. He couldn't possibly hold out against what was coming.
And what was coming… was a nightmare.
Orcs. At least twenty of them, muscled brutes with gray-green skin and tusks jutting from snarling mouths. They carried crude iron cleavers, bone-spears, and shields of mismatched hides. Their leader was a head taller than the rest, a hulking beast with scarred arms and a jagged greatsword strapped across his back.
Aya's lips tightened. If she did nothing, the villagers would be torn apart.
"…Guess I'll have to step in."
Her voice was a whisper in the canopy. She tore a strip of cloth from her tunic and wrapped it tightly around her face, masking her features. No one could know she was Tessa. Not here. Not ever.
Her compound awareness flickered to life. Omnidirectional Eyes.
The world shifted. Her vision exploded outward, every movement around her mapped in a glowing lattice of vectors and possible outcomes in the near future of about three seconds. Branches swayed. Leaves fell. The orcs advanced in crude formation. Each one was a glowing thread of danger. Each one was a potential problem to be solved.
Aya's heart hammered. Her nerves screamed. Already, her human body strained against the torrent of sensory input. But she held on.
The villagers needed her.
An orc stepped ahead of the others, sniffing the air. Its nostrils flared—it sensed blood, weakness. It raised a war cry and charged.
That was her cue.
Aya leapt. Steel Thread shot from her palm, snaring the brute's throat mid-stride. The orc's eyes bulged as the wire tightened. Aya swung, using her momentum to slice through its neck in one clean pull.
Its head hit the ground with a thunderous crash.
The horde froze. Dozens of yellow eyes turned upward. The forest canopy rustled as Aya crouched on a branch, cloaked face glinting in the moonlight.
One heartbeat. Two.
Then chaos.
Aya spread her fingers. Acid welled between them—thick, hissing green. She snapped her wrist and hurled it downward.
The splash caught three orcs in the chest. Their crude armor sizzled and collapsed. Flesh melted. Screams ripped through the clearing as they fell, writhing, smoke rising from their bodies.
The rest roared in rage.
Spears were thrown, cleavers swung, arrows loosed into the trees. Aya dodged each one with split-second precision, her predictive sight flashing warnings before every strike. She somersaulted from branch to branch, raining down more threads, tripping orcs, binding limbs, snapping necks out of place.
For the villagers below, it was a storm of death. A phantom in the trees.
But numbers had weight.
Two orcs charged her tree, hacking at the trunk. Another climbed, snarling, swinging a jagged axe. Aya vaulted backward just as the branch cracked under their strikes.
She landed hard, rolling across the dirt. An orc lunged at her immediately.
"Too slow."
She ducked under its swing, drove her acid-coated hand into its knee. The joint melted instantly, collapsing the beast with a guttural scream. Aya finished it with a Predator Swipe across its throat—shallow, weak in this body, but enough when the acid burned deeper.
Another came at her from behind. Her awareness flashed red—she spun, catching its spear with a loop of Steel Thread. She yanked, twisting the shaft into a nearby tree, then shoved her palm forward, blasting acid directly into its face.
It howled, clawing at its melted eyes, stumbling into its comrades.
Her breathing grew ragged. Already her stamina was dwindling. This body wasn't meant for extended combat. Every dodge cost her twice the energy it once had. Every strike lacked the weight she remembered from her ant form.
And now… three orcs closed in from different angles.
Aya's eyes blazed. Activating Omnidirectional Eyes in full force, burning through her mana reserves.
The world slowed. Every swing, every lunge, every breath mapped in her mind. She wove between them like a shadow, parrying one cleaver with Steel Thread, ducking under another to carve acid across a hamstring, then rolling free as the third's spear grazed her ribs.
She killed one, maimed another. But the third clipped her shoulder with a backhand blow, sending her staggering. Pain flared white-hot.
Blood dripped.
Aya gritted her teeth. "Not… yet!"
She snapped her thread to a high branch, yanked herself upward just as three more orcs barreled in. Their swings clashed against each other, confusion buying her precious seconds.
Her nose bled freely now. The strain of her vision skill rattled her brain. But she didn't deactivate it. Not yet.
A guttural roar silenced the battlefield. The leader stepped forward at last, dragging his massive cleaver. His tusks gleamed in the moonlight, his scarred muscles rippling with each stride.
Aya's body tensed. Every instinct screamed at her: Danger.
The villagers cowered, frozen. Aya was the only wall between them and slaughter.
She leapt down to meet him.
The leader swung. The blade cut the air like thunder. Aya barely dodged, the shockwave rattling her bones. She countered with a Predator Swipe—her claws raked his chest, but the wound was shallow. He barely flinched.
Too strong. Too tough.
Think. Think.
Another swing. Aya ducked, rolled, splashed acid onto his weapon mid-swing. The iron hissed and melted, the cleaver collapsing into useless slag.
The leader roared in fury.
Aya seized the moment. She anchored Steel Thread to a tree, swung herself upward, and dropped from above, acid coating her claws.
With a final, desperate cry, she slashed across his skull.
The leader fell.
Silence. Then panic.
The remaining orcs stared at their fallen chief, then back at Aya—bloodied, masked, standing tall despite the tremble in her knees.
They broke.
One by one, they fled into the forest, snarling in fear, vanishing into the night.
Aya collapsed against a tree, chest heaving, blood dripping down her side. Her entire body screamed in pain. Acid burns laced her arms from splashback. Her vision blurred.
But the villagers… they were alive.
The villagers cautiously began to approach her
She staggered away before they could reach her, dragging herself deeper into the forest. Her mask hid her face, her trail of blood concealed in the underbrush.
Later, she would stage her "wild animal attack." Later, she would let herself be found.
But tonight… she was only a shadow.