"Dream?"

"Feels like a nightmare."

"This is Dark Realm Erosion!"

"You know?"

Selina nodded, voice wrapped in mist. "The Dark Realm gnaws at the mind, resurrects a buried memory, then eats the soul within it, till you’re a hollow shell."

"That sounds dramatic."

"The elders all say it," she whispered like wind through reeds.

Hedi turned, wary as a deer. She looked over the place—bare as winter bones. White walls, white ceiling. No furniture, just a drift of junk: a cracked axe, wrinkled clothes, a dust-sealed wooden chest.

The carpet was dark brown, old as dried earth. Faint patterns curled like withered vines.

She narrowed her eyes. Dust lay thick like ashfall. The pattern had bled away, leaving thread-thin lines. The edge was chewed and scabbed, pocked by moth bites and cigarette burns like fallen stars.

"Where are we?"

Hedi watched Selina, mind quiet as still water, face calm as moonlight.

In the dim glow, tear tracks shone on Selina’s cheeks, her skin soaked and tender, like a peeled lily bulb, like the heart of an onion.

Selina sat cross-legged, telling their escape in vivid bursts, words clicking like beads, urgency beating like drums after a battlefield film.

She circled the story without the core, but relief rippled like warm spring after a storm.

"From what you said," Hedi steered the topic like a boat, "I was out for a long while?"

"Not sure, but I did chest compressions right away," Selina said, voice fluttering like sparrow wings.

"After we came in here?"

"Yeah. We were running, saw a door like a shadow, and turned in."

Interest sparked like flint in Hedi’s eyes. She pinched her chin, thinking. "We’re leashed and led. Where does it want us to go?"

"I brought you here," Selina said, guilt soft as dusk.

"Funny coincidence," Hedi murmured. "We saw that cockroach tide on the grassland, ran like prey into a passage, met again, turned into this room... Maybe this place links to hidden tunnels. We walk in, meet roaches, get driven somewhere else."

"That repeats," Selina said, words flat as slate.

"The Dark Realm wants us herded to a point," Hedi said, like a shepherd with no flock.

"Which point?"

"How would I know? Let’s breathe first. Did you check the room?"

"I kept rescuing you," she said, shoulders drooping like wilted leaves.

"Chest compressions," Hedi covered her face, a sigh like fog. "Isn’t that just CPR?"

Selina pretended not to hear, head lowered like a bow. She rubbed her coat hem, finger trembling. A red tide rose up her neck, like seawater at flood, and buried her cheeks in a heartbeat.

Silence pooled between them like a dark pond, making avoidance impossible.

Selina cleared her throat, voice fragile as glass. "You... won’t be mad at me, right?"

"For what—the mouth-to-mouth?" Hedi’s tone was steady as stone. "It’s standard first aid."

"Mm," Selina breathed, shyness like dawn mist.

Hedi glanced at her, then moved to the junk-stacked corner, breaking the mood like a breeze. "This coat’s the same as the Investigator’s."

Air started to flow again, like windows cracked open. Selina followed the sound and looked at the coat, but her eyes settled on the chest. Before she spoke, Hedi was already working the combination lock like a spider at a web.

"Can you open it?"

"You try," Hedi said, stepping back and weighing the axe, hand feeling its heft like a farmer testing a tool.

"First row is 1210, second is 3211000. Third row’s unknown, ten digits long."

"Quick math," Hedi said, grin brief as lightning.

"The first two are set; we only lack the third."

"If an Investigator built this room, pre-entered rows save time like sharpened knives."

"But we still don’t know the third row."

"I’ll try," Hedi said, arms swinging wide like oars. Under Selina’s expectant gaze, she brought the axe down. The chest cracked with a bang, a slit opening like a mouth. She raised the axe again. Wood splinters flew like birds. The split widened with each strike.

At last, food and several rolled parchments showed within, like treasure under river silt.

"Stored clean," Hedi said, picking up a can. She turned it, eyes bright. "Ha, preservation magic." She crouched and unfurled the parchment. "Magic scrolls. Our odds of escaping the Dark Realm just climbed."

"Even if the Realm holds no ambient mana, I can use my body’s flow to engage the scroll’s magic and cast basic-class spells."

She looked at silent Selina. "What’s wrong? Food, water, scrolls—that’s luck raining on us."

"I thought you’d use a method fit for a Professor," Selina said, words soft as a feather.

"Brains are nice, but an axe gets it done," Hedi said, then flicked a look at the lock. "6210001000."

"Huh?"

"The code," she said, calm as a sealed letter.

Selina turned the dial, half disbelief like a bent reed. The lock clicked, a tiny pat sound like a pebble in a stream.

"How did you know?" she asked, eyes wide as moons.

"A self-describing number," Hedi said, waving it off like smoke. "Explaining it takes a whole scratchpad, so I’ll skip."

Hedi twisted open a can. Spice and meat rushed up like warm wind. Her starved stomach cheered like a festival drum, cramping hard. Her dry mouth woke, salivating like thaw.

She passed the open can to Selina, took another, and ate with the little spoon, rhythm steady as rain. "Nothing steadies the heart like a full belly."

"You said those coats match the Investigator’s," Selina asked between bites, voice low as a stream. "There are several. Does that mean more Investigators?"

"Your crystal only caught one rescue ping. That says he was the last Investigator," Hedi said, certainty cool as steel. "Maybe there’s a note or a record. Investigators exploring the Dark Realm should carry a notebook, right?"

"This is my first Dark Realm," Selina said, a wry smile like bent willow. "I only brought money."

"I keep forgetting you’re an apprentice Investigator," Hedi said, mouth quirking, annoyance light as a breeze. "Even if he had records, I burned him to ash."

Selina ate in quiet, spoons scraping like cicadas. She met Hedi’s gaze, lifting her face a little. The instant their eyes touched, Hedi smiled. Her spotless cheeks bloomed like daffodils in a courtyard.

"What is it?" Selina asked. "Is there something on my face?"

"You’re smiling," Hedi said, warmth like sun on snow.

"I always smile."

Hedi shook her head, fingers tapping the can side in a pattern like drumbeats. "We haven’t known each other long, but I feel your change. Smiling like this around me proves it."

"Like what?"

"From the chest," Hedi said, simple as breath. "From the heart."

"I didn’t before?"

"At first, you were careful—polite, tight as a drawn bow," Hedi said, voice gentle as rain. "When you learned I might leave Shattered City, you showed anxiety like a shadow. Then came riots, then the Dark Realm pulled us in... I’ve almost—no, I’ve never seen you smile like this."

"You too," Selina said, eyes glinting like ripples. "You were terrified of cockroaches, almost died, and now you’re analyzing me like nothing happened."

"I doubted you could get me out," Hedi said, honesty bare as a blade. "But after we came to this room, that feeling thinned out like fog. So did the fear."

"Because of the scrolls?"

Hedi shook her head again, firm as an oak.

"No?" Selina asked, curiosity bright as lantern light.

"Of course not," Hedi whispered, leaning close like a tide. She brought her thumb to Selina’s lips and traced them, inch by inch, touch soft as silk. "My safety doesn’t come from magic."