Jason's hands burn. His knuckles are scraped, sweat running down his forearms, mixing with the dust clinging to his skin. The final beam presses against the cabin wall, wobbling under his uneven grip.
"Stay…" he mutters, jaw tight.
Clang. The iron scrap twists sideways again.
He exhales through his nose. Tries again.
A memory surfaces, Marcus leaning against the gym wall, arms folded, gray eyes tracking Jason's movement with the particular patience of someone watching something fail on schedule.
Jason had been working the same drill for twenty minutes. His footing was off. He knew it. He kept going anyway.
"You're holding back," Marcus said. Not a question.
"I'm trying," Jason had muttered, wiping sweat from his brow.
Marcus watched another rep. Said nothing for a moment.
"You always say that."
Jason had looked away, jaw tight. "Maybe I'm not ready."
Marcus pushed off the wall. "Your confidence is weak." His voice was low, not cruel, just honest in the specific way of someone who has already decided the outcome and is simply confirming it. "Doesn't matter how hard you try if you don't believe the try is worth anything."
He walked away without waiting for a response.
The gym smelled faintly of old varnish and rubber mats. The sound of bouncing balls and shouted instructions filled the space around Jason, but in the memory it was quiet, focused and unyielding.
The words press on him now, heavier than before.
This is my fight, he thinks, fists tightening around the hammer. I can't hold back here.
Jason exhales sharply, slams the hammer again. The beam quivers. Dust swirls in the dim cabin light.
A groan escapes his throat as he bends to adjust the rope, fingers trembling.
"Just… work," he whispers, teeth clenched.
He thinks of the barricade, leaning on it, the wood giving, pins scattering. His own attempts held for seconds before collapsing. The Smith dismantled both without comment, rebuilt from the ground up, then reached for Jason's hands and repositioned them on the brace. Two blunt taps. Weight redistributed. No words. Just the precise adjustment of someone who knew exactly where the problem was.
Jason mimics it now. Guides the beam with careful hands, redistributing the load the way the Smith showed him.
It holds.
For a moment, it actually holds.
Jason steps back, chest heaving. "Yes… finally."
The cabin falls silent except for the echo of his ragged breathing.
Then a faint glow shimmers on the wooden wall.
He freezes.
A cube hovers before him, its edges faintly glowing. Etched on its surface is a labyrinthine sigil, lines twisting into themselves, impossible angles folding where they shouldn't. It pulses with a slow, deliberate rhythm. Heat creeps up his fingers, a prickling acknowledgment that the Construct has noticed.
"What…?" Jason mutters.
The glow flickers, reflecting in his eyes. His heart thumps so loudly the clearing seems to quiet around it.
Jason steps back, breathing uneven, the cabin dimly lit by the smoldering cube.
A thin, glowing progress bar shimmers before him, crawling forward with deliberate slowness.
+180 XP
Then it hesitates.
The line stutters. Stalls midfill.
Jason's chest tightens. He watches the bar sit frozen, more than halfway across, going nowhere.
"What now?" he mutters.
He stares at it. The Construct does not explain. But he has learned to read what it shows him, the creatures' positions, the glow responding to his breathing, the beam holding only when he stopped forcing and started aligning.
The bar is not full. Something is not finished.
Jason exhales slowly.
Understood.
The wind shifts outside. The trees carry the faint scent of earth and iron. Dust rises in miniature whirlwinds around the cabin. Then he hears it, low vibrations through the ground. Tremors, subtle at first, then growing. Something massive moves beyond the clearing. Unseen. The sound is not footsteps, it is deeper than that, like pressure shifting beneath the earth, like the Construct itself adjusting its weight.
Jason's pulse spikes.
The creatures at the clearing's edge turn. Their heads snap toward the new presence, away from Jason. Their glowing loops flicker and rearrange, reacting to something he cannot see.
Jason staggers back, fingers scraping the rough wood of the cabin wall. The structure shudders under his touch.
"What is that?" he whispers.
A gust rattles the walls. Shadows stretch and bend as if the forest leans toward the motion. Then the air pulses, sharp, violent, a vibration surging through the ground and rattling the cabin's frame. The cube brightens, reacting, its sigil burning with sudden intensity.
Jason's knees buckle.
He blinks, and the world flips.
Jason gasps, real air hitting his lungs, sharp and familiar. Sunlight cuts across the room. The monitor is still on, the game's loading screen casting a pale blue glow across his desk, cursor blinking in the corner like it has been waiting. His chair is solid beneath him. The desk is wood and dust and the smell of his room. His hands are shaking against the edge of it, knuckles white, and he cannot immediately remember how to let go.
The weight of what was approaching still sits in his chest. Unresolved.
He wasn't safe.
Not yet.