"You think we're safe here?"

"..."

Okay, that whole sleeping thing was getting on my nerves.

We had been jogging for ages and finally found a place to hide —a sort of grotto, surrounded by tree roots. From the silence, we'd put a reasonable distance between us and all that craziness.

Opening the bag, I took the grey stone and examined it. There didn't seem to be anything special with it. It was just surprisingly light, considering its size, but nothing besides that.

"Myrra," I shook her awake, "here." I showed her the core.

She took it and repeated the earlier display. Her eyes glowed a faint golden light, and the stone crumbled into ash.

"Are you fine?" I asked her.

"Uhum," she responded, tiredly. "Good."

She seemed exhausted and was still white as a sheet, but she did look better than before, that's for sure. Hopefully, I wouldn't have to carry her the rest of the way. She’d stumbled so much over the last few kilometers that I’d ended up piggybacking her here.

"Any ideas?" I asked. "A plan?"

"More cores," she said, "and then we go find lights."

"Find lights? What do you mean?"

"We go to lights," she seemed confident.

Well, that was about as far as my plans went, too. But I pressed on, just to see if she gave me new info.

"Why lights?"

"Essence."

Urgh, It seemed there was no way around it. I had to ask.

"What do you mean by Essence?"

She looked at me questioningly but tried to explain.

"Uhhh, Essence... Ene- energy? Thing to Spiritus, you know?"

She thought I was getting lost in translation somewhere.

"Aspect wielders use, you know? Lights?" she pointed up.

"Ah, ok," I nodded.

I had no real idea of what she was talking about, but it sounded like some type of energy. Like "mana" in the videogames.

"That's why I core," she pointed to herself and then at the ashes. "Need Essence."

Right. That table did mention something about a "Low Essence Area."

"Okay," I said, "We stay here for the night, okay?"

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The lights in the sky had diminished somewhat; it was better to wait the night out here now that we had found a nice little hiding spot.

"Ermm..."

"Hmmm?" She looked like she wanted to say something.

"We can't," she said.

"Can't what?"

"Stay here."

"Wha- Why?" This was the best place we had come across so far.

She pointed to the ashes on the ground.

"Core."

I stared at her blankly.

"It... uhmm... calls... uhmm... to here..."

Was she embarrassed?

"It... calls here? They know where the core is? Or was?"

"Uhum. I absordb- abosrbd-"

Was she trying to pronounce absorbed?

"I took core to me. They know now."

"Oh..."

"Sorry..." she whispered, seeming genuinely sorry.

Wait... So that Panther went after us because she absorbed the core? Was that why?

That explained a lot—and made things worse.

"They know when you absorb the core?" I asked her, looking to confirm.

She nodded frantically. "They feel it," she completed.

"..."

Fucking hell. This girl was a walking time bomb. She needed essence, but every time she absorbed a core, she lit up like a damn beacon for every monster around us.

Dark thoughts crept in. She was becoming more trouble than she was worth.

"Okay," I said, standing up and forcing my poker face. "We leave, then."

I took a sip from the canteen and passed it to her. As she reached for it, I tightened my grip. Her eyes flicked to mine.

"Anything else I should know?" I asked her.

She shook her head, looking down. I let go of the canteen.

"Okay. Let's go."

And that’s how we continued our pleasant trek through a deadly forest at night.

No rest for the damned.

"Did you see how that panther moved?" I asked her in a low voice as we jogged.

"Ya," she said.

"How did it move that fast?"

She took a while to answer, "Dual-core, maybe. Or initial stage."

"Dual-core? You think?" I asked her, trying to mask my lack of knowledge by turning this into a pseudo-discussion.

"Ya. Two affinities."

Affinities? That was new.

"Which ones do you think?"

"Sound and shadow," she said, sounding confident.

The panther did seem unnaturally silent sometimes.

"Yeah, it looked like it," I said.

The sky that had calmed down lit up with orange flashes once more. It had grown more and more unpredictable these past two days, for reasons I could not hope to decipher.

Before I could dwell on it any further, something caught my attention.

"You see that?" I asked Myrra, pointing to a small luminous point in the distance and stopping.

"Ya," she took two steps forward, and even though it was extremely dark, I had the impression she was squinting her eyes and frowning; she had that habit. "Any ideas?" she asked me.

Was she copying me? I remember using the same exact sentence earlier.

"We go and find out," I said, crouching slightly and moving ahead. I just hope it doesn't try to kill us.

Myrra followed me right behind.

The luminous point was dark azure in color, which only served to further my curiosity. Blue things tended to be mysterious in this place, for some weird reason.

At the same time, if I were a hideous monster dwelling in this dark, creepy forest, one easy tactic to employ would be to attract unsuspecting prey to a shiny dot and enjoy an easy meal. Wasn't that the strategy of some deep-sea fishes or something?

We kept approaching the small light, even under the constant flares in the sky. My heart was beating fast in my chest. It was always the unknown that made you stressed like this.

Minutes later, we had gotten considerably close to the light. By its position, it wasn't completely on our level, more like some meters above ground. Maybe it was coming from a tree, which wasn't a good sign on my books.

I lay down on the ground instead of going directly to the light, and Myrra did the same right next to me. I was no moth to fly directly to the shiny flame.

"See something?" I whispered to Myrra. She had that weird essence shenanigans going on for her; maybe she could feel some vibrations or whatever.

"Nei. Still far," she said.

We waited for a few minutes, but nothing happened. The small light didn't even flicker. I touched Myrra's shoulder, indicating we should continue.

Some ten minutes later, we finally reached the source of the tiny luminous dot.

A peculiar metal pole, roughly five meters in height, stood at the center of a perfectly clear circle. The radius was considerable, maybe 20 meters or so. We crept cautiously to the edge of the treeline.

This seemed like a transmission tower of some kind.

I met Myrra's gaze, both of us sharing a look of intrigue before our eyes returned to the looming metal tower in the center.

"Familiar?" I asked her.

She shook her head.