Five minutes passed after their departure, and in that fragile, trembling stillness the forest dared to breathe again—though not freely—only in shallow, terrified gasps, as though the land itself feared that any fuller exhale might summon back the thing that had just violated it.
The cottage stood exactly as they had left it, quiet and outwardly untouched upon its hill, its walls straight, its roof unbroken, its silence perfect. Yet beneath that fragile mask, tension stretched thinner than a scream held behind clenched teeth—a lie waiting for the moment it would finally tear open.
Then—
Eira revealed herself.
She did not step out like she had been hiding... she was simply there, as though the world had briefly forgotten to render her and had only now remembered its mistake with a guilty flinch.
