The shadows moved again—fast, too fluid to be human.
Elara pressed herself lower behind the brush. Beside her, Elric's hand went to the blade strapped at his hip, not yet drawing it, but close. They exchanged a look. No words. None needed.
Something out there wasn't right.
"We need confirmation," Elara whispered.
"Or we need to leave," Elric whispered back.
She shook her head. "If we retreat now, we lose terrain. And they know that."
"Then we observe. Ten minutes max," Elric said, voice clipped.
They crept along the ridge, keeping low. The two figures below weren't students. Their movements were too mechanical. Their posture too upright, too precise. And they were sweeping—methodically, like search units.
But Class Zero simulations didn't include external patrols. Not that Elara had ever heard of.
Her communicator pinged softly. She flinched.
A message.
Not from the Academy.
Just four words.
You shouldn't be here.
Elric leaned over her shoulder to see the message, his eyes narrowing. "Who sent that?"
"I don't know." She stared at the blinking screen, then closed the device. "We need a new plan."
Below, the strangers moved on—silent, relentless.
"I say we track them," Elric said.
Elara blinked. "I thought you wanted to leave."
"I changed my mind. Whoever they are, they're not part of the test. And I want to know what the Academy's hiding."
She gave him a thin smile. "Now you're speaking my language."
They slipped down the ridge, careful to mask their movements. Elara's training kicked in—step where the roots are thick, breathe with the wind, keep to shadows. Elric was quieter than she expected. Efficient. No wasted movement.
"Where'd you learn to do that?" she asked.
"I wasn't always a student," he replied, but didn't elaborate.
They followed the patrol figures through half a kilometer of dense forest. Then, abruptly, the terrain changed.
Just—nothing.
The trees stopped. The underbrush thinned to bare dirt. And then it was there.
A wall. Towering, seamless, unnaturally smooth. Steel or something like it, cold even from a distance. Its surface hummed faintly with a pulse beneath the metal, and faint cables coiled like veins just beneath its skin.
It wasn't just out of place—it was surgical. Like someone had carved a hidden lab into the wilderness and erased the seams.
Elara stepped closer, her boots crunching over the sudden, sterile ground. No grass. No leaves. As if nature had been scraped off the map.
"There's no transition," she murmured. "No decay, no wear. It's like—like this isn't part of the simulation at all."
Elric stared up at it. "Then what is it?"
Elara didn't answer. She couldn't.
A chill curled through her spine.
This wasn't a structure meant to be seen. It didn't belong here. And that's exactly why it mattered.
She'd come looking for cracks in the Academy's truth.
This felt like a fissure.
Her fingers reached out, brushing the metal—
A flare of red light shot across the surface, sharp and sudden.
Unauthorized Access.
She jerked back.
Elric grabbed her arm instinctively. "They're going to know we saw this."
"I want them to," she said, voice low. "Because now I know I was right."
And then came the sound—low and rhythmic, like a pulse beneath the earth. Machinery, maybe. Or something waking up.
They didn't wait to find out.
---
Back at their makeshift camp—just a pocket of dry land beneath a cliff overhang—they finally spoke again.
"You think this is why they paired us?" Elric asked.
"To discover secrets?" Elara stared at the fireless heater between them. "No. They probably paired us to break us."
He tilted his head. "And how's that going?"
"I haven't killed you yet," she offered. "That's a good sign."
A pause.
Then Elric said, "You were here before, weren't you?"
She froze.
"You knew your way up that ridge. You knew where the drones wouldn't see. That's not first-timer instinct."
Elara didn't answer right away. Then she said, "I was a kid. A long time ago."
He waited. When she didn't continue, he said, "Something happened here."
She nodded slowly. "There was a fire. Not part of a simulation. Not an accident. My sister and I were visiting. I was too young to be enrolled. But she was already training. One night, the alarms went off. By the time help arrived, half the old dormitory was gone."
"She…?"
"She didn't make it."
The words landed heavy between them.
"I only came back to find out why," she said. "To find who."
Elric didn't speak. But his expression softened—just slightly.
"You're not the only one with ghosts," he said at last. "Mine just wear different masks."
Then the trees shuddered.
A distant explosion ripped through the night.
Screams. Gunfire. Real this time.
They both stood.
"Not part of the test," Elric said grimly.
"No," Elara agreed. "But it just became our reality."
---
END OF CHAPTER 5
---