The Price

Two days left.

The thought followed me through the forest like a shadow, heavy and inescapable. Two days until the beacon closed permanently. Two days to find a core, gain power, and prove we deserved to survive. Two days until everything we'd endured became meaningless if we failed.

The forest had changed since we'd left the beacon, or maybe Hoshino and I had finally started seeing it clearly. Every rustle in the underbrush could be a Morph or another desperate contestant. Every clearing could hide an ambush. Every moment of rest felt like borrowed time we'd have to pay back with interest.

We moved carefully through the trees, our footsteps nearly silent on the damp earth. Hoshino stayed close behind me, one hand pressed against her ribs where the Morph's claws had torn into her days ago. The wound should have been healing by now, but I'd seen her changing the bandages that morning. The edges were red and inflamed, and some of the deeper cuts looked like they might be infected. She needed real medical care, not the basic first aid supplies we had left. But neither of us mentioned it. What would be the point? We couldn't leave without a core, and complaining wouldn't make one appear.

The plan was simple in theory: find injured Morphs, the ones other contestants had already weakened, and finish them off before anyone else could claim the cores. In practice, it meant stalking through a forest full of things that wanted us dead, hoping we'd get lucky enough to find prey that was wounded but not so dangerous it would kill us anyway.

My dagger felt heavier than it should in my hand. I'd cleaned the blade after our last failed hunt, but I could still see faint stains in the grooves where Morph blood had dried. We'd tracked three different creatures over the past day and a half. One had been too fast, disappearing into the fog before we could get close. Another had turned out to be hunting us instead, and we'd barely escaped. The third had already been dead when we found it, its chest cavity torn open and the core harvested by someone faster and more desperate than us.

We were running out of time, and we both knew it.

The screaming started just after midday.

Hoshino and I froze simultaneously, our heads turning toward the sound. It came from somewhere to our left, close enough that I could make out words between the desperate shrieks. Someone was begging. Someone else was refusing. And underneath it all, I heard the wet sounds of a fight that had already been decided.

"We should keep moving," Hoshino whispered beside me. Her face was pale, her eyes fixed on the direction of the screams.

She was right. Getting involved would only put us at risk, and we had enough problems without adding someone else's desperate fight to the list. But my feet were already carrying me toward the sound, and Hoshino was following despite her better judgment, and we were both idiots for doing exactly what we knew we shouldn't.

We approached carefully, staying low, using the thick undergrowth for cover. The screaming had stopped by the time we got close enough to see what was happening, replaced by an awful silence that somehow felt worse. I crouched behind a fallen log and peered through the gaps in the rotting wood.

Two contestants stood in a small clearing. One was on his knees, his hands pressed against a wound in his chest that was bleeding too heavily for him to survive. His face was twisted in pain and fear, his mouth moving like he was trying to speak but couldn't find the breath. The other contestant stood over him, and in his hands was a glowing blue core that definitely hadn't been his a few minutes ago.

I watched as the kneeling boy reached up with one trembling hand, not attacking, just pleading. The standing boy looked down at him with an expression I couldn't quite read, guilt, maybe, or resignation, or just the blank numbness that came from doing something horrible because the alternative was worse. He didn't say anything. He just stood there, holding the core he'd killed for, while the other boy's hand slowly fell back to his side and his breathing stopped.

Beside me, Hoshino's fingers found mine and gripped hard enough to hurt. Neither of us moved. Neither of us made a sound. We just watched as the boy with the core stared at what he'd done for a long moment before turning and running into the forest, disappearing into the fog like a ghost.

When we were certain he was gone, We crept away from the clearing as quietly as we'd arrived. Neither of us looked back at the body. Neither of us spoke about what we'd seen. But I felt something shift inside me, some last naive hope dying and being replaced by a cold, certain understanding: out here, everyone was capable of murder. Everyone would kill for a core if pushed far enough. The only thing separating us from that boy was opportunity and desperation, and we had plenty of both.

Trust no one. Not the contestants who smiled and offered to team up. Not the injured ones who looked helpless. Not anyone except each other, and even then, only because we'd already proven we wouldn't abandon each other when it mattered.

I kept my hand on my dagger as we walked.

And I let myself think about it. Just once. Just briefly.

How long before I'd do the same thing.

Not if. How long.

The answer came back faster than I wanted it to — not long. Not if it was Hoshino's life on the line. Not if it was the last core and the last chance and someone standing between me and the only exit. I'd like to believe I was above it. I'd like to believe there was a version of me that would rather die than take something by force from another person.

But I'd been wrong about myself before.

I pushed the thought away and kept walking.

I didn't push it very far.

The attack came two hours later, and it proved that my fears weren't paranoia.

We were moving through a particularly dense section of forest where the trees grew so close together that only thin shafts of gray light penetrated the canopy. The undergrowth was thick here, full of twisted roots and thorny bushes that caught at our clothes and slowed our progress. I was focused on navigating the terrain, my attention split between watching for Morphs and trying not to trip over the uneven ground.

That's probably why I didn't see the girl until she stepped out from behind a massive tree trunk directly in front of us.

She was young, maybe seventeen, with tangled brown hair and clothes that were torn and stained with blood that might have been hers or might have belonged to something she'd killed. Her eyes were too wide, too bright, with the manic energy of someone who'd been running on adrenaline and terror for too long. In her hands she held a crude spear—just a sharpened branch, really, but the point looked sharp enough to kill.

"Don't move," she said. Her voice was high and strained, like a wire pulled too tight.

Hoshino and I stopped walking. My hand tightened on my dagger, but I didn't raise it yet. Maybe we could talk our way out of this. Maybe she'd let us go if we convinced her we weren't a threat.

The girl's eyes swept over us, taking in our weapons, our injuries, the way we stood. Then her gaze focused on Hoshino, and I saw her expression change. She'd noticed something—the way Hoshino held herself, maybe, or the careful way she moved, protecting her injured ribs. Whatever it was, it made the girl's grip on her spear tighten.

"You have a core," she said. It wasn't a question.

"No," I said immediately, keeping my voice calm and level. "We don't. We're looking for one, same as you."

"You're lying." She took a step closer, the spear's point aimed at Hoshino's chest. "I can see it. The way you're moving. You're protecting something."

Hoshino's hand drifted unconsciously toward her side, and I cursed internally. The girl saw the movement and took it as confirmation.

"Give it to me," she said, and now I could hear the desperation bleeding through the aggression. "I need it. I can't die here. Please”

"We don't have one," I repeated, but she wasn't listening anymore.

"Please," she said again, and there were tears running down her face now, mixing with the dirt and blood. "Please, I just need—"

She lunged.

The spear came at Hoshino fast, aimed at her chest, and I moved without thinking. I threw myself between them, my dagger coming up to knock the spear aside. The weapons collided with a sharp crack, and the impact jarred up my arm hard enough to make my teeth rattle.

The girl was stronger than she looked, or maybe it was just that desperation gave her strength she wouldn't normally have. She recovered quickly and came at us again, this time aiming low, trying to get under my guard. I dodged to the side and felt the spear point whistle past my ribs, close enough that I felt the air move.

"Lane, RUN!" Hoshino shouted behind me, and I heard the pain in her voice. She wanted to help, but her injury made her a liability in a fight like this.

I could have run. The girl was focused on me now, trying to get past me to Hoshino, to the core she was convinced we had. If I ran, I could lead her away, give Hoshino time to escape, save myself and let Hoshino handle whatever came next on her own. It would be the smart thing to do. The logical thing. The thing that would maximize our chances of at least one of us surviving.

I didn't run.

Instead, I drove my shoulder into the girl's chest while she was overextended from her last strike. The impact knocked her backward, and she stumbled over a root and almost fell. I used that moment to grab Hoshino's arm and pull.

"GO!" I shouted, and we ran.

The girl chased us for maybe fifty yards, screaming incoherently, before she either gave up or lost us in the dense forest. We didn't stop running for another ten minutes after that, crashing through undergrowth and barely avoiding obstacles until we finally collapsed behind a cluster of ruins that looked like they'd been there long before the Trials began.

I sat with my back against cold stone, gasping for air, my heart hammering against my ribs. Beside me, Hoshino was breathing hard, one hand pressed against her injured side, her face twisted in pain.

When she'd caught her breath enough to speak, she looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite read.

"You could have left," she said quietly.

The words hung in the air between us. We both knew she was right. I could have escaped. Should have, by every logical calculation.

"No," I said. "I couldn't."

Hoshino opened her mouth like she wanted to argue, then seemed to think better of it. Instead, she just nodded slowly, and I saw understanding in her eyes. She knew what I meant. She'd have done the same thing for me, and we both knew it.

That was the difference between us and people like that girl, I thought. Or maybe it wasn't a difference at all. Maybe we were just lucky we hadn't been pushed quite far enough yet. Maybe give us a few more days, a few more desperate situations, and we'd cross lines we'd promised ourselves we never would.

I pushed the thought away and focused on catching my breath. We didn't have time for philosophy. We had less than two days to find a core, and we'd just wasted precious time and energy running from someone who didn't even have what we needed.

We needed to get back to hunting.

We found the Morph an hour before sunset.

The light was already starting to fade, turning the forest into a maze of long shadows and uncertain shapes. We'd been moving carefully through an area where we'd heard sounds earlier—the distinctive wet growling that Morphs made, mixed with what might have been fighting. Following sounds was risky, but we were running out of options and running out of time, so we followed anyway.

We found it slumped against the base of a massive tree, its breathing labored and wet like its lungs were filling with fluid. Even from a distance, I could see that something had torn one of its arms off completely. The limb was just gone, ripped away at the shoulder, leaving a ragged wound that was still bleeding sluggishly. Its legs were mangled too, bent at angles that looked wrong even for a Morph, barely functional enough to support its weight.

Someone had fought this thing. Someone had won. And then, for whatever reason, they'd left it here to die slowly instead of finishing it off and taking the core.

The Morph's faceless head turned toward us as we approached, that gaping hole in its skull opening and closing with each labored breath. It tried to push itself upright against the tree trunk, its remaining arm scrabbling weakly at the bark. For a moment it almost managed to stand, but then its ruined legs gave out and it collapsed back down, too damaged to do more than survive.

"Lane," Hoshino whispered beside me, her voice tight with a mixture of fear and desperate hope.

I knew what she was thinking because I was thinking the same thing. This was what we'd been looking for. An injured Morph, weakened enough that we might actually be able to kill it. A chance at a core. A chance at survival.

So why did my hands feel so heavy? Why did the dagger in my grip feel like it weighed a thousand pounds?

The Morph shifted slightly, its remaining arm reaching toward us. Not attacking—it was too weak for that. Just... reaching. Like it was trying to communicate something, or ask for something, or I didn't know what. The gesture looked almost human, and that made everything worse.

This thing had been human once. Days ago, weeks ago, whenever its crystal had failed or it had been exposed to the poisoned air for too long. It had been someone with a name and a family and a life, and now it was this—a broken, dying monster that we were going to kill because we needed what was inside its chest.

"We have to," Hoshino said quietly, and I could hear that she was trying to convince herself as much as me.

I knew she was right. We didn't have a choice. This was survival, and survival meant doing horrible things and living with the consequences afterward.

I stepped forward, raising my dagger.

It fought.

Even broken and dying, even with only one arm and legs that barely worked, it fought like its life depended on winning. Maybe some part of it still understood what was happening. Maybe some fragment of whoever it used to be was still in there, screaming at the unfairness of surviving the transformation only to be killed for spare parts.

I tried not to think about it. I focused on the mechanics of the fight—dodge the clumsy swipes of its remaining arm, watch for openings in its defenses, strike at the weak points where flesh met flesh instead of the armored sections that would turn my blade. The Morph was slower than the ones we'd fought before, weakened by blood loss and injury, but it was still dangerous enough to kill us if we got careless.

My dagger found flesh, and the Morph shrieked—that horrible high-pitched sound that was too human and not human enough at the same time. It tried to grab me with its one arm, claws extended, but I dodged to the side and struck again, this time aiming for the soft tissue under its jaw.

The fight felt like it lasted forever, but it probably only took a few minutes. Eventually the Morph's movements became slower, more desperate, until finally it stopped fighting altogether and just slumped against the tree, its breathing ragged and shallow.

I stood over it with my dagger raised, looking down at what I was about to do. The Morph's faceless head tilted slightly, that hole opening and closing one more time. Then it went still.

Dead.

I'd killed it.

I stood there for a moment, breathing hard, my hands shaking around the dagger's grip. This was the second Morph I'd killed, and it still felt wrong. Still felt like murder, even though I knew intellectually that these things weren't really human anymore, that they were dangerous and had to be destroyed.

Knowing something intellectually and feeling it emotionally were two completely different things.

"Lane," Hoshino said softly, pulling me back to the present.

Right. The core. That's why we'd done this. That's what made it necessary instead of just cruel.

I knelt beside the corpse and began to cut.

The extraction was easier this time, now that I knew what I was looking for and how to find it. I made the initial incision down the center of the Morph's chest, trying not to think too hard about the texture of its flesh or the heat that radiated from inside its body cavity. My hands moved mechanically, following the steps I'd learned from our first kill—cut through the skin, push aside the organs that didn't matter, find the rib cage and break through it to reach what was underneath.

The core was nestled between the ribs, glowing with that cold blue light that seemed to pulse in rhythm with nothing. It was the size of my fist, smooth and organic-looking, shaped vaguely like a heart but wrong in ways that made my eyes hurt if I looked at it too long. The veins connecting it to the surrounding tissue were thick and fibrous, and I had to saw through them carefully to avoid damaging the core itself.

When I finally pulled it free, the glow intensified for a moment, pulsing brightly, then settled back to its steady rhythm.

We had a core.

One core, out of the two we needed.

I held it up so Hoshino could see, and for the first time in days, I saw her smile—a real smile, not the forced optimism she'd been trying to maintain. The relief on her face was almost painful to see because it reminded me how close we'd come to failing, how close we still were.

"We did it," she said, and her voice was thick with emotion. "Lane, we actually did it."

I looked down at the core in my hands, at the dead Morph at my feet, at the blood staining my clothes and hands. We'd done it. We'd murdered a dying creature and torn out its heart so we could use the power inside. We'd become exactly what the Trials wanted us to be—killers willing to do whatever it took to survive.

The realization should have felt worse than it did. But mostly I just felt tired.

"We need one more," I said, wrapping the core carefully in a piece of cloth from my pack. Even through the fabric, I could feel its cold weight. "This gets us halfway there."

Hoshino's smile faded slightly, but she nodded. "Then we find one more. We can do this."

I wanted to believe her. I wanted to feel the hope and determination that she was trying to project. But all I felt was exhaustion and a growing certainty that we were going to have to make more impossible choices before this was over.

Still, I stood up and shouldered my pack, feeling the core's weight settle against my back.

"One of us should use it," Hoshino said quietly.

I looked at her sharply. We'd discussed this before, sort of, but never directly. The cores we found were supposed to be our ticket out, not tools we'd use while we were still here.

"You should take it," Hoshino continued, not meeting my eyes. "You're faster than me, smarter in fights. If you had power, we'd have a better chance of getting that second core. I'd just slow you down anyway, with this—" She gestured at her injured ribs.

"No," I said, more forcefully than I intended.

"Lane—"

"We can't use these, Hoshino. If we consume the cores and gain powers, we have to become Custodians. We have to go through their training programs, fight their battles, become part of their system. That's not why we're here."

"We're here to survive—"

"I promised my uncle," I interrupted, and I heard my voice crack slightly on the words. "I promised him I'd participate in Easy and then come home. No powers. No training. No becoming one of them. I'm not breaking that promise unless I absolutely have to."

That was true.

It was also only half of it.

The other half was harder to say out loud, so I didn't. But it was there, sitting quietly underneath the promise like a second floor — the fear that had been building since I'd first held the core in my hands and felt its cold weight and understood what it represented.

Power meant change. Not just physical change, not just the mutation risk they'd warned us about in the briefing. It meant becoming someone the system could use. Someone with abilities they'd trained and catalogued and pointed at problems. Someone who couldn't walk back into an ordinary life because ordinary life no longer had a place for what they'd become.

My parents had been ordinary. Crystal expiration, two years ago, gone. But they'd been themselves until the end. They hadn't been reshaped into something the government owned.

I didn't know if that mattered.

I just knew that consuming this core felt like a door I couldn't walk back through. And I wasn't ready to close off everything on the other side of it. Not yet. Not unless there was truly no other choice.

Hoshino stared at me for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then, slowly, she nodded.

"I promised my brother the same thing," she said quietly. "That I'd come back. That I'd just get the protection for our family and then come home and be normal again."

She paused.

"And I'm scared of it too," she added softly. "The power. I didn't want to say that."

"Me neither," I said.

We looked at each other, two desperate girls holding stolen power that we were too afraid to use.

"We keep them," I said finally, making the decision for both of us.

"We get the second core. Then we go to the beacon, show them what we have, and get out. If something happens before then—if it's genuinely life or death—then we use them. But not before. Agreed?"

Hoshino nodded. "Agreed."

I tucked the core deeper into my pack, positioning it carefully so the cold wouldn't press directly against my back. The weight was significant, both physically and metaphorically. We were carrying our survival and our potential damnation in the same bundle.

We needed to find that second core soon. We were running out of time, and I could see that Hoshino was running out of strength. Her injury was getting worse, no matter how much she tried to hide it.

One more core. One more kill. Then we could leave this nightmare behind.

I just hoped we'd live long enough to make it happen.