Chapter 6 –

  The campfire crackled. No one spoke.

  The jungle had stopped pretending.

  No breeze. No birds. Just… silence.

  Selena stood, back to the flame. Arms folded. Eyes low.

  “This place isn’t natural. And it’s not cursed.”

  She turned.

  “It’s a prison.”

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  No one interrupted her.

  She stepped closer, firelight glinting off her eyes.

  “I didn’t want to say it before. I wasn’t sure. But now… I know.”

  She glanced at Zariin, Ishro, Myla. Even Nerro.

  “We’re not here by accident. None of us.”

  Myla looked down, hands curled tight.

  “I was taken when I was ten. Fell asleep in my city’s healing temple. Woke up in roots.”

  Ishro nodded slowly.

  “Our monastery sent us to test a realm gate. I stepped through… alone. That was sixty years ago.”

  Grinsh scoffed, eyes dark.

  “I remember the ocean. I remember… pain. Then roots. That’s it.”

  Zariin didn’t speak.

  Tesska leaned against her blade.

  “Everyone who ends up here’s got a hole in their memory. Time don’t move right. Days feel like years. Years like blinks.”

  Rell sat still.

  His fingers curled into the dirt.

  [THOUGHTS]

  Selena. Said she been here twelve.

  Twelve.

  She was eight.

  Now twenty.

  He clenched his jaw.

  [THOUGHTS]

  That mean… I change. But they don’t.

  Selena looked at him. Just once. Long enough to see his eyes widen.

  She nodded.

  “You’re not like us, Rell. You grow.”

  He didn’t answer.

  Didn’t know how.

  Zariin finally whispered.

  “If it’s a prison… then who is the warden?”

  No one had an answer.

  But the vines?

  They twitched.