The moment my boots hit the soil of Gaeth-9, I knew this moon was made for killing.
The earth here isn't like anything back home—soft and wet, almost sponge-like, as if it had once been alive. The trees reach high with limbs like fingers, branching and curling unnaturally, casting long shadows even without a sun. Strange purple moss glows in patches along the roots, illuminating paths that lead nowhere. The air hums. Not with life, but with hunger.
Around me, the others scatter.
Some run in panicked packs, their footfalls loud, clumsy. Others drop to the ground, already sobbing, or praying to gods that never answered when the Empire came.
I don't run.
I walk.
Not because I'm brave. I just know how predators think. They go for the noise. The herd. The weakest.
The collar around my neck pulses once—red. The timer blinks beneath my jaw.
72:00:00HUNTING WINDOW ACTIVE
We have three days. Survive, and we're granted a "reward"—a month of rest, double rations, and a new job sector.
No one's ever survived the full three days.
Not in the last ten years, anyway.
A soft drone-whir echoes above me. I don't look up. I already know it's one of the Overseer Drones, broadcasting the Games live across the empire. The nobles are probably sipping firewine, placing bets, laughing.
I crouch, slide between a pair of wide-leafed stalks, and move toward a ridge. If I can gain elevation, I'll have a view of the terrain—find somewhere to hide, maybe somewhere defensible.
But Gaeth-9 doesn't like plans.
A scream tears through the trees behind me—sharp, male, followed by the wet crunch of something being torn open. I don't stop. I don't look. You only get one mistake out here.
The rules are simple: move, hide, kill if you must, and never trust anything you see.
Half a klick in, I find a slope covered in moss and layered with dense brush. I crawl under a root archway and wedge myself into a hollowed stump. It stinks of rotting sap and something older—something wrong.
I watch the forest from my hide. The silence returns. But not the empty kind from Velmora. This silence feels... alert. Like the whole moon is listening. Waiting.
Then I see it.
A figure—tall, cloaked in reflective mesh—moving between the trees with perfect grace. One of the Hunters. A noble, maybe, or one of their specially-trained killhounds. He carries a neuro-bow slung over his shoulder, but doesn't draw. He doesn't need to. He's not here to rush. He's here to enjoy himself.
His visor turns slightly toward where I'm hidden.
I stop breathing.
My fingers grip the wet soil. The collar pulses again. If it makes noise, I'm dead.
But then the figure turns and walks away. He didn't see me. Or maybe he did—and chose to save the chase for later.
It takes another hour before I move again.
Eventually, I find a crevice in a stone wall, half-covered in vines. Behind it—darkness. A cave.
My first instinct is to keep moving. Caves are traps. One way in, no way out. But something tugs at me.
A feeling.
A pull.
The kind you don't ignore when you've lost everything and have nothing left but instinct.
I slip inside.
The temperature drops instantly. The air is cold and stale, but dry. The deeper I go, the quieter the forest becomes. I reach a chamber—round, hollow, long abandoned. The walls are etched with unfamiliar symbols. Burned into the stone. Not carved. Branded.
And at the center... something glows.
Red. Deep red.
Not like fire.
Like blood.