The next day broke like a threat.
Even the wind felt off—too dry, too still. The jungle hung quiet, like it had taken a breath and forgot how to let it go.
And then the sky changed.
Not violently. Not like the first Fall.
But subtly.
A flicker of cloud cover gone wrong.
A moment of too much color in the air.
Yuren looked up.
"No way…" he muttered.
Chloe, standing near the outer fence, caught it too. Her eyes narrowed.
"That's not possible," she said. "We're still nine days out."
A minute passed.
Then—
Light fell.
Not a full wave.
Not the usual hundred.
Just one.
A single figure, wrapped in white fire, plummeting through the sky like a meteor.
And she landed less than three miles away.
The camp scattered.
Chloe assembled a response team instantly. Reika volunteered. Denzel invited himself.
Yuren didn't speak. He was already moving.
This wasn't a Fall. It was a drop.
Intentional.
Controlled.
Someone sent her.
They found her standing in the middle of a crater, arms crossed, body radiating heat.
Not injured.
Not confused.
Waiting.
She looked about twenty-five. Dark braided hair. Copper skin. Pale gray eyes that never blinked too long. A jagged tattoo ringed her neck like a collar, and small discs floated behind her back—three of them, metallic, humming.
She smiled when she saw them.
"Finally," she said. "Thought I overshot the mark."
Chloe stepped forward. "Who are you?"
The woman tilted her head. "You first."
Reika's hands twitched toward her glass.
Yuren was already running Trace Sense.
Her power read as A-rank. Maybe higher.
The discs weren't decoration. They were weapons. Orbiting. Tracking targets.
"I'm not here for your shelter," she added. "I'm here because of a message."
That stopped them.
"What kind of message?" Yuren asked.
The woman smiled again—this time a little colder.
"A glyph was activated," she said. "Halfway across the continent. You lit it up two nights ago. And it pinged something that's been asleep for a long time."
She stepped forward, slow, deliberate.
"I'm here for the second key."
Yuren's heart thudded once, hard.
He didn't respond.
But Reika glanced at him—just once.
A flicker of knowing.
She's talking about the locks.
About the stone.
Someone else already found another.
And now they were coming to collect.
Back at camp, Chloe tried to set ground rules.
"You don't enter the inner quarter. You don't go on patrol alone. You don't ask questions about anyone's abilities."
The woman just smiled.
"Too late for all three."
She gave her name freely: Kaela Idris.
Said she'd been dropped from another node. Not part of the original Fall. One of the secondary waves—"Delayed Deliverables," she called them, as if the world had a shipping department.
She didn't eat with the group.
She didn't sleep.
She sat outside the camp perimeter and waited.
For what, no one knew.
But Yuren had a sinking feeling in his gut.
Because before dawn the next morning, he returned to his hidden glyph—
And found the first socket gone dark.
In its place was a carving.
Clean. Fresh.
THE SECOND HAS BEEN PLACED.
TWO OF THREE.
THE DOOR REMAINS.
Three days.
That's all they had.
And everyone felt it.
Even the sky looked heavier—clouds stacking higher, the wind sharper, the animals quieter. The jungle was holding its breath again.
And so was the camp.
Kaela didn't wait long to test the water.
On the second morning, she walked straight through the middle of the quartermaster's square, past ration stores and trade tables, and took an axe.
Didn't ask.
Didn't look around.
Just swung it up onto her shoulder and walked off toward the perimeter like she owned the place.
Tyrell tried to stop her.
Tried.
She didn't hurt him.
She didn't have to.
One of her floating discs spun in a perfect circle and stopped an inch from his throat.
Then hummed once, like a warning.
He backed off. She kept walking.
Denzel, of course, noticed.
"She's a damn problem," he told Chloe that night. "She doesn't follow your rules. She doesn't talk to anyone. She's scouting for something."
"She hasn't attacked anyone," Chloe replied.
"Yet."
Yuren watched from the edge of the fire circle. Listening. Processing.
Kaela was hunting. That was obvious.
But she wasn't hunting animals.
She was looking for someone with the third key.
Or someone strong enough to make her believe they had it.
She hadn't looked at him twice.
Not once.
That was what worried him most.
That night, Reika approached him.
Quiet. Direct. No pretense.
"You said nothing about the glyph flaring," she said. "Nothing about that message on the slab."
"I didn't think it meant anything yet."
"You don't lie like Denzel. You lie like someone who's used to being careful."
He didn't deny it.
She stepped closer, voice low.
"I think you have more than one power. I think you've had more than one for a while now."
He said nothing.
"And I think Kaela is here for you."
That one made him pause.
"You think she knows I triggered it?"
"No," Reika said. "But I think she's trying to find out who did."
Later, Yuren sat alone in the ravine near the stone glyph, the wind shifting through the trees above like distant warnings.
The slab didn't pulse anymore.
It didn't light up.
But the inscription had changed again:
THIRD SHALL FALL.
THIRD SHALL CHOOSE.
THE DOOR WAITS FOR THREE.
And Yuren felt it now.
Not just power building.
But pressure.
The kind that forced you to act before you were ready.
Before you had enough.
Back in camp, Kaela stood at the edge of the firelight, speaking to no one, watching everything.
And when she looked up toward the treeline—toward where the stone was hidden, toward where Yuren sat unseen—
She smiled.
Just slightly.
The night before the Fall always felt longer.
No one said it, but everyone felt it.
The sky was thick with tension. Campfires burned lower. Conversations dropped in volume, then disappeared entirely.
Even the jungle held back.
Like it, too, was waiting for the storm.
By mid-afternoon, it started.
Denzel made his move.
He didn't yell. He didn't rally people. He walked straight into the center of camp, past the food crates, past the fire, and planted a spear—twice as tall as he was—into the dirt.
Then he looked around and said:
"We need a vote."
Chloe stepped up almost immediately, expression unreadable.
"This isn't a democracy."
"Exactly," Denzel said. "So either we stop pretending it is—or we make it one."
No one clapped. No one shouted.
But no one walked away either.
And that was worse.
"I'm not saying we throw her out," Denzel continued, nodding toward Chloe. "I'm saying we put it to a count. Real leadership. Patrols. Distribution. Security. Who decides?"
"You want command," Reika said flatly.
"I want us to stop dying because someone thought 'fair' was more important than smart."
His voice hit a chord. The room shifted.
Yuren watched from the back.
Arms crossed.
Silent.
Not because he agreed.
But because he could feel it.
The fracture.
This wasn't about food.
Or safety.
It was about what happened after tomorrow.
Kaela stood outside the ring of people, arms folded, smirking slightly.
She hadn't said a word since Denzel started talking.
She didn't need to.
She was studying them.
Weighing them.
Like a butcher selecting a knife.
Chloe stepped forward.
"If we do a vote, it won't stop at roles. It'll be rank. Power. Who's worth what. And you know what happens next?"
Denzel shrugged. "Then the weak die quicker."
A ripple passed through the crowd. Someone shifted. Someone else looked down.
But no one disagreed.
Not out loud.
And then, Denzel turned.
"Why don't we start with the scout?"
Yuren blinked. Slowly.
"You," Denzel said, pointing. "You've been creeping off alone for days. Finding secrets. Hiding them."
He glanced around.
"You think he's really just a D-rank?"
A few people looked toward Yuren now.
Not aggressively.
But curious.
Reika's hand was on her hip—near her shards. Subtle.
Yuren met Denzel's stare.
Then smiled slightly.
"If I had anything worth hiding, you think you'd still be standing?"
Laughter. Brief, sharp.
But Denzel didn't flinch.
He stepped forward.
"Then prove it. Tomorrow. When the new ones come. First beast, first contact, you're on the line."
"I already patrol," Yuren said.
"No backup. No cover. You lead it."
Chloe started to speak, but Kaela raised a hand—just two fingers—and everyone stopped.
"I like this," she said. Calm. "Let's see what the scout can do."
That night, Yuren returned to the glyph.
The second socket glowed.
The third was still dormant.
The stone hummed as he approached.
Not warm. Not cold.
Balanced.
Waiting.
And for the first time, a new inscription scrolled beneath the others:
THE THIRD WILL COME. NOT ALONE.
THREE SIGNS. THREE WILLS. THREE CHOICES.
ONE DOOR. ONCE.
Yuren closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, everything would change.
He would either hide a little longer…
Or step into the light—and start his real climb.