The boy cradled his hurt wrist against his chest and ran. He couldn't run properly, his body off balance, stumbling more than sprinting, but fear kept him moving and he didn't stop until he was far down the river path and gone.
Ozair and Aryan slowly let go of Mayo.
Behind them, Elina's legs gave out. She sank to the ground, knees hitting the grass, her whole body shaking without sound.
Aryan turned and reached her in three steps. Toviro and Ozair came right behind him.
"Elina." Aryan crouched in front of her. "Are you alright?"
She didn't answer right away. Her eyes were down and her breathing was uneven.
Then Ozair noticed her arm.
The skin where the man had been gripping it had turned dark, a deep bruise already spreading under the surface. He pointed without speaking.
Aryan looked and his jaw tightened. He reached out and gently took her arm to look closer.
Elina pulled in a short breath. "Ah."
"Does it hurt a lot?" Aryan said quietly.
"Let us get you to a doctor," Ozair said.
Toviro was already moving. He touched his chest and something lit faintly. A small spray and a rolled bandage appeared in his hand. He held them out and crouched beside Elina.
He pressed the spray gently to the bruised skin. Elina's face tightened for a second, eyes squeezing shut, then slowly relaxed.
Aryan wrapped the bandage around her arm carefully, not too tight. Nobody spoke while he did it.
When he finished, Ozair sat back and looked at her. Something in his face had gone soft in a way it rarely did.
"I am really sorry, Elina. We should've been there sooner."
Aryan exhaled slowly. "It is my fault. I should've moved faster." He paused and looked away, regret pulling at his expression. "If I had arrived on time, I would have crushed that guy."
Toviro placed a hand briefly on her shoulder. "Next time something like this happens, please tell someone immediately. Do not face it alone."
Elina looked at the three of them and something in her chest came loose. She shook her head slowly and managed a small, tired smile.
"It is not your fault. Any of it." She looked at each of them. "I am really grateful that you care about me this much. Truly."
Her eyes moved then to the man lying unconscious a few meters away. His face was turned to one side, blood running from his nose and the corner of his mouth, the grass around his head dark and wet.
She looked at him for a long moment.
"He already got what he deserved," she said quietly. "Maybe more."
Then she looked further up the path.
Mayo was standing with his back to all of them, some distance away. He hadn't moved. His head was down and he was looking at his hands, just standing there in the fading orange light, completely still.
Everyone looked at him.
Nobody said anything for a moment, but they were all thinking the same thing.
Then Mayo turned around.
He looked at nothing in particular, his face empty, and started walking. Slow, steady steps, same as always, moving further down the path, away from them.
Elina's breath caught. She pushed herself up from the ground, still shaking slightly.
Aryan stepped toward her. "Elina, you don't need to stand yet."
"I am okay," she whispered. She got to her feet and looked at Mayo's back growing smaller. Her voice faltered open.
"Mayo!"
He didn't flinch.
"Mayo, where are you going? Please… talk to us."
Nothing.
She took a few steps forward. "Say something. Don't leave us like this."
He kept walking. His footsteps were slow and even, and each one felt like he was stepping further out of something she could not name.
Aryan moved up beside her, fists clenched. "We can't just let him walk away."
"We won't," Ozair said. "He's our friend."
Toviro stepped forward, his eyes fixed on Mayo's retreating back, his voice quieter than usual. "If we don't reach him now, we might not get another chance."
Elina's voice came out cracked and full. "You are our Mayo. Our friend. A part of our lives."
Aryan's voice dropped low and cold, the kind of cold that comes from something real. "You were never alone. So don't walk around like we don't matter." He paused. "You loser."
Ozair let out a short breath. "You were the guy who tripped over nothing and cried when he lost a toy. You were annoying and weak, and you were ours."
Toviro's voice came out steadier than his face looked. "Whatever is happening to you, we will face it with you. But you have to fight it too."
Mayo didn't stop. His pace didn't change.
Aryan and Ozair looked at each other once. Then they ran ahead and stepped into his path, side by side, blocking the way.
Mayo stopped.
He looked at them. His eyes were like dying coals in the low evening light, faintly red and unreadable.
"Move," he said.
"Not until you tell us what is going on," Ozair said.
"I won't let you go like this," Aryan said.
"Get out of my way."
Aryan stepped forward. "If you have the guts, then make me move."
Mayo hit him.
It was fast and direct, a straight punch aimed at Aryan's face. Aryan got his hand up and caught it. The impact pushed his arm back but the punch stopped. Aryan lowered his hand and looked at Mayo steadily.
"You know what, Mayo." His voice was calm. "I'm not one of those guys you just fought. I'm Aryan, your senior… and your friend."
Then Aryan punched him back. Clean across the face.
Mayo stumbled backward two steps. He stood there for a second, the surprise visible even through the blankness.
Then he straightened, wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand, and his eyes shifted into something colder and sharper.
He came forward fast, throwing a left hook. Aryan leaned back and felt it pass his chin.
Mayo didn't stop, turning the miss into a hard kick at Aryan's ribs. Aryan braced his forearm and took it. The impact was heavy and real and it vibrated through both of them.
Elina's voice came across the field. "Stop it! Both of you!"
Aryan's shoulders dropped for just a second, his eyes moving toward her.
Mayo was already moving. He left the ground, coming down with his heel toward Aryan's guard from above.
Ozair stepped between them.
He crossed his forearms and took the kick on them. The force shook through his whole body and into the ground. He looked at Mayo and shoved upward, sending him stumbling back.
"Enough, Mayo," Ozair said. Low. Not angry. Just final.
Mayo came at him instead. A flying knee, fast and direct. Ozair caught it on his forearms and answered with a hard, short punch to the body.
Mayo wheezed and used the momentum to spin, throwing a back kick that caught Aryan on his guard as he came in from the side.
Aryan skidded back. He settled into a lower stance and steadied himself. "He is faster than before," he said under his breath.
They came at him together. Ozair low with a leg sweep, Aryan high with a jab.
Mayo bent back under the jab. He jumped the sweep and hit Ozair twice on the shoulder in the space between. Ozair barely moved. He grabbed Mayo's collar and drove his forehead into his face.
Mayo's head snapped back, blood running from his nose. Aryan's kick caught him in the ribs immediately after and he went down into the grass.
"Stay down, Mayo," Elina said, her voice breaking. "Please just stay down."
For a moment he was still.
Then his fingers moved. He pushed himself up. Blood on his lip, on his nose, dripping into the grass.
Something had shifted in his face. Not anger exactly. Something rawer and more unsettling. He almost looked like he was smiling.
He came forward again.
They fought. All the way into the evening. The sky going from orange to dark above them, the river sounds fading beneath the noise of it.
Mayo landing hits. Taking more. Aryan and Ozair bleeding in small ways, bruised in bigger ones, both of them still moving, still coming back every time he put distance between them.
Toviro watched from nearby, pulling out a small silver tool with shaking hands. His eyes were desperate in a way his voice never usually was.
"Mayo, I won't let you hurt them or yourself anymore."
Mayo crossed the distance before he could activate it and knocked it out of his hands. The pieces scattered across the grass.
Aryan stood back up, blood on his lip, breathing hard. "Every bone in me can break. I am not moving."
Ozair smiled with his teeth, the kind of smile that was not about being happy. "You are worth more than this."
They went again.
Back and forward, hit and hit and hit, until Mayo was in the center of them, both of them breathing hard around him, and he was breathing harder.
He stopped moving.
He stood there, chest rising and falling, bruised and bleeding, and something under all the blankness was cracking open. His hands were shaking at his sides.
Then it tore out of him.
"Why won't you just leave me alone!"
His voice broke on the last word. Raw and ragged and full of something that sounded nothing like the emptiness he had been carrying all day.
There was no answer.
They just stood there. Still present. Still there.
Toviro raised another tool with trembling hands.
Mayo moved and shattered it again before it could activate. The pieces fell. Then he turned toward Toviro with his hand raised and his eyes burning red.
Aryan and Ozair were too far. They started running but the distance was too much.
Elina stepped in front of Toviro.
Arms out at her sides. Tears on her face.
"I won't let you hurt your friend, Mayo."
Aryan and Ozair stopped where they were. Toviro went completely still.
Mayo's hand was already raised.
Elina slapped him across the face.
The sound cut through everything. Mayo's head turned to one side and stayed there.
Silence.
Nobody breathed.
Then Elina's voice came out trembling and small and absolutely certain.
"If you are really our Mayo, then you will not hurt me."
She closed her eyes and waited.
Nothing came.
She opened them.
Mayo was frozen. His right hand was raised to strike. His left hand had wrapped around his own right wrist and was holding it back, shaking violently, both arms fighting each other.
His whole body was trembling.
"What," he said, his voice unrecognizable. "What is this?"
Toviro's eyes went to Mayo's face and locked there. The left eye had changed. It was dark gray, his natural color, uncertain and present. The right eye was still red. Still burning.
Two different things living in the same face.
Mayo made a sound that didn't sound human. Then he drove both fists into his own head. Once. Elina stumbled back. He hit himself again. His body bent, twisted, then went completely rigid.
Then he collapsed into the ground.
He hit the grass and lay still.
The river kept moving. The sky was fully dark now, the evening having arrived all the way while none of them were paying attention.
No one moved.