I didn't hear the footsteps.
No one ever does when it's Kaela.
Just a shift in air, and then the softest motion—a presence behind me.
"You're out here again," she signed and mouthed at the same time, her hands moving with practiced ease.
Most of us don't speak aloud after dark. Not up here. Not with the Hollowed so close. Sound carries. Thought echoes. We all know that.
But Kaela always broke the silence just a little—for me.
I turned just enough to see her.
She wore that patched old jacket she found near the outskirts, the one with the faded red thread on the cuffs. Her scarf was slung loose tonight, exposing the thread of a necklace which I gifted her—the one she adores more than anything. Her short black hair stuck out from under the worn cap, goggles resting atop it like she'd just come off a scouting run. Moonlight caught in her amber eyes, the kind of glow that made her look like she belonged to some other world entirely—one less broken than this.
Even now, even here, she looked... steady.
Like the stories I used to write before everything fell apart.
Kaela was our runner—part scout, part scavenger. She knew how to move without being seen, how to return with things we forgot we needed. Thread, batteries, salt, sometimes hope.
"Couldn't sleep," I said quietly, though we both knew I hadn't really slept properly in years.
She didn't push. Just stepped forward and lowered herself beside me, knees tucked to her chest like she always did when she was thinking.
Her gaze drifted down the slope.
"You know they say the Hollowed can smell thought, not just blood," she signed, with a flick of her fingers. Her lips barely moved. "Maybe they're curious why one of us always sits above them."
I let out a small breath, somewhere between a smile and a sigh.
"If they are, they haven't made their move yet."
Her hands moved again, smooth and quiet in the low light.
"Or maybe they have, and we just don't understand what a move looks like anymore."
We sat there like that for a while.
Not needing to speak.
The world below shifted in its slow, unholy rhythm. The Hollowed didn't breathe like us, but the way they swayed—it felt like they remembered breath. Mimicked it.
"You know this isn't safe," Kaela signed, her gestures slower now, more personal. "Even the bravest in the camp wouldn't come up here after dark."
"Then I guess I'm not brave," I replied, fingers barely lifting. "Just… restless."
She gave me a look I knew too well.
"Restless people usually pace. You sit. You stare. And you never tell me what's actually on your mind."
I turned toward her. Really looking at her this time.
I didn't say anything.
Just leaned in—slowly, deliberately—and kissed her.
She didn't pull away.
And for a moment, the Hollowed below felt very far away.
----
Suddenly, a flicker of motion in the field below pulled both our eyes down.
One of the Hollowed—tall, skeletal, its limbs reinforced with crude plating and an exposed spinal rig—twitched. But not the usual kind of twitch. Not the spasms, the electrical ghosts that rattled through dead nerves like bad wiring. This was different – Intentional.
Its head snapped to the side. Then again. Then—slowly, disturbingly—it turned upward.
Toward the camp. Toward us.
I didn't move. Neither did Kaela.
"Did you see that?" she whispered, barely more than breath.
"Yeah," I murmured. My voice felt like it wasn't mine anymore. Just air in an empty shell.
Further down the ridge, another Hollowed copied the movement. Then another.
It spread—not like noise, not like a ripple—but like a thought shared between things that weren't supposed to think anymore. A silent chain of mimicry. A pattern breaking itself.
"They're... changing?" Kaela asked.
I didn't answer. I just tightened my grip on the satchel across my chest, feeling the hard edge of the chip through the fabric.
Whatever was happening out there — whatever the Hollowed were becoming — it wasn't part of the old cycle.
Something deep inside me stirred - cold and certain - and was telling me that they had just started watching us back.
----
We watched for a while longer—until the Hollowed stilled again, like the moment had passed, or maybe just paused.
Neither of us said anything after that. Kaela gave me a look, and I nodded.
We climbed down the ladder slowly, not because we were afraid—we were always afraid—but because something had shifted. The kind of shift you don't name yet. The kind you feel in your spine, hours before your mind catches up.
Back inside the library, the dim lanterns flickered behind thick cloth screens, and the air inside was thick. I stepped off the last rung and the ladder was groaning beneath me. Kaela followed quieter than usual but somehow every sound we made still felt too loud in the silence inside the library. Most of the camp was already asleep or trying to be with kids sleeping curled into their guardian.
We moved through the maze of shelves and old rugs until we reached our corner — what used to be a reading nook, before we made it ours — felt colder tonight. Blankets draped over old couches, and two cots pressed close under the old skylight, where moonlight sometimes bled through the dust. Crates of scavenged tech. Solar chargers buzzing faintly. Wires trailing like roots in all directions.
Kaela didn't say a word. She just curled up beside me, her back pressed into my chest, her fingers gripping the edge of my shirt like she was afraid to let go. I could feel her shaking—subtle, but steady. I wrapped an arm around her to hold her there and listened to her breathing even out, little by little.
"That wasn't normal," she said at last. Her voice was barely above a whisper, but it cracked like glass.
"You saw it too, right? You saw the way they moved. The... the way they looked back."
I nodded once.
"They've never done that before," she said. "Never. We've been here for years, Noah. I've charted their paths, and I know their patterns. But tonight…" She shook her head. "They looked."
Then her hand found mine. "Talk to me," she whispered. "Please. What are you thinking? What could this mean?"
"I don't know," I said finally. "But it's not just mutation. That was… signal behavior.
Reflexive. Coordinated. Deliberate." My eyes drifted to the far wall—where faded murals from another world still clung to the plaster, barely visible through the dust. It all felt distant like I was remembering something that hadn't happened yet.
Kaela went still.
"You think EVA's still active?" she asked quietly.
"What if…" she began, her voice barely holding. "What if this is just the beginning of something worse?"
I just stared at the rusted ceiling above us and traced the cracks like they meant something letting my thoughts spiral in silence. Maybe it was the beginning, or maybe the end never really ended. Maybe it just changed forms.
My own eyes stayed open for a while, locked on the ceiling above us. My thoughts still drifting, looping the image of that Hollowed—its stare, its twitch, its upward turn. I didn't know what it meant at least not yet but it felt like the beginning of something we wouldn't be able to walk away from.
Eventually before I could tell, the weight of it all pulled me under and the sleep came – the kind that feels like sinking – I let it take me.