Aira had no reason to return to this place.
She should have ignored it. Should have walked away. Should have focused on her own survival. Should have buried the mory deep and let it rot in the dark like everything else in this forsaken world.
But she couldn't.
Because she had heard it.
A na.
A modern na.
Aira's pulse hamred against her ribs as she slipped through the narrow, crumbling doorway of the underground chamber. The scent of damp stone and mildew curled in her nostrils, clinging to the back of her throat like decay. The air was suffocating, thick with the kind of silence that only existed where suffering had long since settled. The dim torchlight barely reached the farthest corners, leaving jagged shadows stretching hungrily across the floor.
She swallowed hard, her footsteps unnervingly loud against the cold stone. This was insane. She had no reason—no logical reason—to be here.
And yet, the mont she had heard that whisper, that impossible na from lips that should not have known it, her world had shifted.
Now, here she was.
Because if that girl truly had a modern na, then she wasn't just so random peasant.
She was like her.
Or at the very least, she had a connection to Aira's world.
Her fingers curled around the small candle she had stolen from the sconces in the hallway above. It was a pathetic source of light, its weak glow barely holding back the darkness pressing in on her. But she didn't dare use a torch—too bright, too easy to be noticed.
No guards. No chains rattling. No screams.
Just the sound of slow, shallow breathing.
Aira's candlelight flickered as she stepped closer, the hunched figure against the far wall finally coming into focus.
The girl was slumped, her arms stretched above her head, wrists shackled by thick iron chains bolted deep into the stone. Her skin was so pale it almost seed translucent in the dim light. Her hair, once perhaps a dark shade, was tangled, crusted with filth and dried blood. The tattered remnants of cloth barely covered her, and beneath them, bruises and sores marred her thin fra.
Aira's stomach twisted.
She had been here for days.
No. Weeks.
For a long mont, Aira just stared, heart hamring wildly against her ribs. She had to be mistaken. This girl couldn't be from her world. It had to be a coincidence.
Right?
But then—
The girl moved.
Barely. Just a shift of her head, a flicker of movent. And then—
Aira saw her eyes.
Clouded. Unfocused. But alive.
A slow, rattling breath passed through the girl's cracked lips.
"...Who...?"
Aira hesitated. The voice was dry, barely more than a whisper, but it sent a jolt of adrenaline through her veins.
She crouched down, though not too close. Just enough to see the girl's expression in the flickering candlelight.
"...You spoke a na," Aira said quietly, forcing her voice to remain steady. "Before. When Lord Varlen brought here."
At that na, the girl flinched. A slight twitch, almost imperceptible.
Aira exhaled slowly, watching her. "That na—it doesn't belong to this world, does it?"
Silence.
The girl's fingers trembled against the stone floor. Weak, fragile.
But then—
A faint, almost imperceptible shake of the head.
Not from this world.
Aira's breath caught in her throat. Her mind whirled, a chaotic ss of questions and realizations clashing all at once. Not from her world, but sohow connected? What did that even an? Soone—soone from her world had been here before her. Long enough to na soone. Long enough to leave a mark.
Soone else had fallen into this twisted nightmare of a world before her.
Aira's heart pounded in her chest. Excitent. Fear. Horrified, giddy, overwhelming realization.
She wasn't alone.
But before she could ask more—
The girl's body shuddered violently.
A hoarse, wet cough tore from her lips, a sound so raw and ragged it made Aira's blood run cold.
Her breath hitched. No. No, no, no—
That wasn't just any cough.
It was the cough.
The one that had been spreading through the villages. The one that left people vomiting blood, covered in sores. The one that made bodies rot while still alive, their lungs turning black as they drowned in their own sickness. The one that killed.
Aira's stomach lurched. Her fingers clenched around the candle, her entire body locking up.
She had just walked into an enclosed room with an infected person.
The realization hit her like a collapsing wall, crushing, suffocating. Her breath ca fast, too fast. She stared at the girl, at the dark stains on the ground around her, at the way her chest barely lifted with each ragged, struggling breath.
Oh, shit.
Oh, she was so screwed.
This wasn't just dangerous. This was suicidal.
Her skin prickled. The air felt heavier, thicker, wrong. Aira's mind scread at her to get out, to turn around and run before she joined this girl in her suffering.
But she couldn't move.
Because for all her fear, for all the horror twisting in her gut—
She wasn't just terrified.
She was curious.
And that, more than anything, was what scared her the most.
The girl trembled, her breathing shallow, her feverish eyes barely staying open. She was dying. There was no saving her. Aira knew that.
And yet—
Soone had nad her.
Soone from her world had been here before her.
Aira was standing in a room with a dying girl who carried proof that she was not the first outsider to step foot in this world.
And that ant sothing was terribly wrong.
Her fingers twitched. The candle's fla flickered, casting wild shadows across the stone walls. The sickness. The mystery. The connection to her world.
Aira licked her lips, her heart hamring so hard it felt like it might break.
She had gotten herself into big trouble.
And for so insane, stupid reason—
She couldn't bring herself to regret it.
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