We ran.
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At first she didn't follow.
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Then she did.
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The knife changed everything.
The mana inside it.", "I will never forget what that felt like.", "Completely different from the crystals we had been cultivating from.", "The moment we touched it.", "The moment we drew from it.",
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It didn't feel wild.
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The crystals always felt wild.", "Like reaching into something that hadn't decided what it was yet.", "Like trying to hold water with open hands.",
This was different.", "I can't fully explain the difference.", "Only that it was there.", "Immediate.", "Undeniable.",
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I felt fire.", "But underneath the fire.", "Something else.", "Rage.", "But not my rage.", "Loyalty.", "But not to anything I could name.", "A drive toward something.", "Toward being stronger.", "Toward becoming something the present version of me wasn't.",
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Feelings that weren't mine.", "Moving through me like they belonged there.", "Like they had always been there and the knife had simply opened the door.",
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The mana level itself.", "Similar to the crystals in quantity.", "But different in quality.", "In weight.", "In what it asked of the body when you held it.",
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We couldn't cultivate the whole time.", "The reserves too small.", "The knife running down.",
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Then she started chasing us.
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Cat and mouse.", "Through the forest.", "Through the rain.", "Through the dark and the light and everything in between.", "Time losing its shape.", "Hours becoming days or days becoming hours.", "I stopped being able to tell.",
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Then she stopped.
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Simply stopped.", "And looked at us.",
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"You failed."
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I will never forget her eyes when she said it.", "The way they looked at us.", "Not with contempt.", "Worse than contempt.", "With a specific kind of patience.", "The kind that knows exactly what comes next and has already decided not to share it yet.",
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"There will be one final test.", she said.", "To see if you are ready.", "To see if you are worthy.", "To be the humble servants of Lord Ash.",
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We went back to the base.
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She gave us food.", "Real food.", "I don't have words for what that meant to the body.", "It just received it.", "Quietly.", "Without ceremony.", "The way the body receives what it has needed for too long.",
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The showers.", "Dear God.", "The water.", "Blood and dirt and everything the forest had put on us finding the drain.", "Watching it go.", "The clean arriving afterward like something earned.",
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She gave us suits.", "Both of us.", "White shirts.", "Black ties.", "Simple.", "Precise.", "The kind of clothing that suggested tomorrow was something that required a specific kind of presentation.",
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I don't know what tomorrow is.", "I don't know what the test will be.", "I don't know what Lord Ash looks like up close.", "I don't know what worthy means in his eyes.",
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All I know is that everything has been leading here.", "Every morning.", "Every cold shower.", "Every session on the floor.", "Every time the fire burned through me and I didn't move.", "Every night in that big white room.", "Every conversation in the dark between the bunks.",
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All of it pointing at tomorrow.", "Whatever tomorrow is.",
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Lord Ash.", "Am I worthy.", "Am I strong.", "Am I ready.",
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I don't know.", "I genuinely don't know.",
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That night I couldn't sleep.
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She couldn't either.", "I could tell.", "The quality of the silence from the bottom bunk different from sleeping silence.", "A person awake in the dark sounds different from a person asleep in the dark.", "Even when neither is moving.",
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I thought about her.", "About what this had cost her.", "About the fact that she hadn't chosen any of this.", "The music.", "Her father's ideas.", "Her mother never hearing the album.", "Being taken from all of it and brought here.", "To this underground facility beneath a jungle.", "To cold showers and wooden sticks and chi-long's hands finding every weakness.",
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She didn't want to be here.
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I did.
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That difference sat with me in the dark above her.", "Pressing down gently.", "The way the ceiling pressed down.", "The way everything close presses down when you have time to feel it.",
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The facility breathing around us.", "Old and quiet.", "The lights still on.", "The pipes still capable of warm water.", "Someone still caring about that.",
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Tomorrow.", "Whatever it was.",
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It was coming regardless.