Caleb didn't sleep much that night.
Every time his eyes closed, the faint lap of water against the stones pulled him back awake. It was too steady, too rhythmic, like something breathing through the pool. Once, he thought he heard a faint clicking beneath the surface—soft, deliberate, almost insect-like.
The fire burned low. Shapes shifted in the dark beyond its light, but no one stirred except the watch pair—Petra and Dev—who sat in silence, staring out toward the mist.
Mara was gone.
Caleb's pulse jumped. He rose quietly, slipping away from the sleeping forms, and scanned the edge of the camp. Then he saw her—kneeling at the pool, one hand skimming the water as if searching for something beneath.
"What are you doing?" he asked in a low voice.
She didn't flinch. "Listening."
"To what?"
She glanced at him over her shoulder, her expression unreadable. "The water here doesn't reflect the sky. It reflects memory."
Before he could ask what that meant, she withdrew her hand and stood, brushing damp earth from her knees. "Go back to sleep, Caleb. You'll need the strength."
She walked past him without waiting for an answer.
By morning, the mist was thicker than the day before. The pale stones were now slick with condensation, gleaming faintly in the diffuse light. Caleb kept catching himself counting them, realizing only after the fifth or sixth glance that they formed nearly a perfect ring around the water.
The diary was clear:
Do not cross into a closed circle of stone. If you do, leave before night.
They weren't inside the ring… yet.
But he noticed the way Mara's chosen path kept drawing them closer to its arc.
They broke camp slowly. Water skins were full, but food was scarce again—nothing but boiled roots and a handful of dried fungus that the diary deemed "edible but unwise in quantity."
By midday, tensions began to fray.
"This isn't enough to keep us moving," Petra said, tossing aside her share. "We're walking ourselves into weakness."
"It's better than eating something that kills you," Alya shot back.
"Better to starve slowly than choke quickly, huh?" Petra snapped.
"Enough," Caleb cut in. "We ration until we can trap something. And we keep moving."
Biran muttered under his breath but didn't argue.
They skirted the pool's northern edge, keeping to the tree line. The air felt heavier here, as though sound didn't quite travel right. Every word they spoke seemed swallowed before it reached the others.
Then they found the first carcass.
It lay half in the water, half on the bank—a long-bodied creature with too many legs, its chitin cracked open along the spine. Its flesh looked boiled from the inside, skin sloughing away to reveal pale bone.
"Heat-walker?" Dev asked.
"No," Mara said quietly. "Something older."
A ripple spread across the water, reaching the pale stones before fading.
By the time they made camp again, Caleb had decided. Tomorrow, they would break away from Mara's route, even if it meant losing her knowledge of the terrain.
But that night, something changed.
The mist rolled low, curling around the stones. Somewhere beyond the circle, a shape moved in the water—not breaking the surface, but pacing beneath it, matching the breath of those who slept.
And just before dawn, Ivy woke screaming.
"They're in the water!" she cried, clawing at Hana's arm. "They're whispering in it!"
No one could calm her. Not even Caleb.
And when Mara finally stepped into the firelight, her boots wet to the knee, she only said, "It's too late to go around now."
By the time the first light filtered through the mist, the circle was gone.
At least, that's what they told themselves.
The pale stones no longer stood in a neat ring—they were scattered now, half-sunk in the soil, some lying on their sides like toppled gravemarkers. It was enough to convince most of them they had left it behind.
Caleb wasn't so sure.
The ground still had that strange, muffled quality to it—each footstep sounding softer than it should. And the air, instead of growing warmer with the day, felt thick and cold against the skin.
Mara led them along a shallow gully, the earth slick from mist-drip. The path curved without them noticing. It wasn't until Petra stopped to adjust her pack and glanced up that she froze.
"Caleb," she called, her voice low.
He came up beside her, following her gaze.
There it was again. A pale stone, slick with condensation, its surface marked with the same faint groove he'd seen on the skull two nights ago. Another lay a few paces beyond it, and another beyond that—arcing gently to the left.
They were walking inside the curve.
"We should turn back," Petra said.
"We can't," Mara replied without looking back. "The gully walls are too steep now. You'd have to climb into the fog."
"Then we climb," Petra snapped.
"No," Mara said simply. "You'll lose your footing, and something will be waiting in it. The only safe ground is ahead."
The others caught up. A debate started.
"Every time we follow her shortcuts, we end up closer to the things the diary says to avoid," Dev muttered.
"Maybe the diary's wrong," Biran countered. "Maybe whoever wrote it didn't know half of what's out here."
"They survived long enough to write it," Alya said sharply. "That's more than most."
Caleb held up his hand. "Arguing here gets us nowhere. We move until we find higher ground. Then we decide."
Mara gave him a faint, approving look before moving on.
The gully deepened until the walls rose over their heads. The pale stones appeared more frequently now, some leaning inward, others cracked and hollow. Once, Ivy tried to peer into one of the hollows and jerked back with a cry.
"What did you see?" Hana asked, pulling her away.
"Eyes," Ivy whispered. "But they closed when I looked."
The group pushed on, the ground growing softer underfoot until every step sank into cold, dark soil. Caleb noticed faint ripples in puddles they passed—ripples that didn't match their footsteps.
Then they reached the basin.
It was almost perfectly round, its center holding a shallow pool no larger than a campfire. But the water wasn't still—it quivered in place, tiny concentric circles forming and fading, as if something far beneath was breathing.
Mara stepped right to the edge. "We're here."
"Where is here?" Caleb demanded.
"The middle," she said.
The mist swirled, and for just a second, he saw it—faint outlines of the same stones they'd passed all day, closing the ring behind them.
They were inside.