The Game Begins
1073 Words
Eywa POV
The restaurant is too warm.
At least, that is what I tell myself at first. The air feels heavier than it should, thick with conversation and movement, with the clinking of glasses and the low hum of voices layered over one another until everything begins to blur at the edges. It presses inward in a way that makes it harder to focus, harder to separate one sound from the next, harder to stay present.
Or perhaps that isn’t it.
Perhaps the problem is simpler than that.
I sit back slightly in my chair, my fingers resting against the cool surface of the glass in front of me as I watch the man across the table. He is talking, he has been talking for a while now, and I am trying, I really am, to follow the thread of what he is saying.
Something about work.
Or a friend.
Or a story that clearly matters to him in a way I cannot seem to connect with.
His expression shifts as he speaks, animated, open, easy. There is nothing guarded about him, nothing restrained, nothing carefully measured beneath the surface. He fills the silence without effort, without hesitation, as if conversation is something that simply happens when he wants it to.
It should feel normal.
It should feel comfortable.
Instead, it feels like sitting in the wrong place entirely.
“…and then we ended up staying way longer than we planned,” he says, smiling.
I nod, because that is what is expected.
“That sounds nice.”
It does not.
Not really.
My attention drifts despite myself, sliding past him toward the window. Outside, the night stretches dark and quiet, the faint outline of trees visible beyond the soft glow of the streetlights.
The forest is out there.
Not far.
The thought settles in more firmly than it should.
“You okay?” he asks.
I blink and pull my focus back to him.
“Of course.”
“You just seem a little distracted.”
A small pause follows.
“I’ve had a long day.”
“That hunter thing, right?” he says lightly. “Still don’t really get why you’d pick something like that over something normal.”
Something in my chest tightens, just enough to register.
It is not anger.
Not quite.
More like irritation, edged with something I cannot immediately name.
“It suits me,” I say.
He studies me for a moment, as if trying to understand something that does not quite fit into the version of me he expected to meet tonight. Then he smiles again, easy and uncomplicated.
There is nothing wrong with him.
That is the problem.
There is nothing that pulls.
Nothing that demands attention.
Nothing that sharpens the world around him just by existing in it.
My fingers tighten slightly around the glass.
Without meaning to, my thoughts drift back to the forest. To the quiet tension beneath the trees. To the way the air had shifted the moment I knew I was being watched.
To gold eyes in the dark.
To the moment I stepped just a fraction too close... I exhale slowly and force the thought away.
This is pointless.
“I should go,” I say, already reaching for my jacket.
He blinks, surprised. “Already?”
“I have an early start.”
That part, at least, is true.
The air outside feels different immediately.
Cooler.
Sharper.
I draw in a slow breath as I step away from the restaurant, the noise fading behind me with each step. The city never truly goes quiet, but compared to the enclosed heat of the place I just left, it feels almost peaceful.
Still, it is not enough.
The restlessness lingers.
A low, persistent tension sits just beneath my skin, refusing to settle, refusing to dull, as though something in me has already decided where I should be and is waiting for the rest of me to catch up.
I start walking without thinking too hard about the direction. My feet carry me down the street, past the last of the lights, past the places where the city still pretends to be awake, toward the edge where buildings begin to thin out and darkness gathers more naturally.
Toward the trees.
It is not a decision.
Not exactly.
More like a pull.
A quiet, steady urge to move, to leave the contained, structured world behind and step into something that feels more real.
By the time I reach the forest, the tension in my chest has sharpened into something clearer.
Focus.
The moment I cross beneath the trees, it shifts again.
The air changes.
Cooler still.
Cleaner.
The sounds settle into something familiar. Wind through leaves, distant movement, the subtle rhythm of the forest breathing around me. My shoulders ease before I consciously allow them to.
This is where I think clearly.
This is where everything makes sense again.
I move deeper without hesitation, letting instinct take over where conscious thought had begun to falter. The ground beneath my feet feels different here, more stable in its unpredictability, more honest, as though the earth itself demands less pretending than the world I just left behind.
Alive.
For a few minutes, I do not look for anything.
I just move.
I let the quiet settle.
I let the restlessness burn off.
And then I see it.
A mark in the soil, just ahead.
Faint but deliberate.
I slow and crouch, studying it more closely.
A track.
Fresh.
Too fresh to have been here long.
My fingers hover just above it, not touching, but close enough to trace the shape, the depth, the direction without disturbing it.
A wolf.
Moving quickly.
Not hiding.
My gaze lifts, following the line it carves through the trees.
Straight.
Clear.
Obvious.
A slow, knowing smile pulls on the corner of my mouth.
“Again,” I murmur softly.
This is not coincidence.
It was not the first time, and it will not be the last.
I rise smoothly, my hand adjusting near the blade at my side as my focus sharpens into something precise and familiar. The irritation from earlier fades. The emptiness. The distraction. All of it clears, replaced by something cleaner.
Purpose.
He is out here.
Close.
And this time, I am ready.
I step forward, following the trail deeper into the forest.
And somewhere ahead of me, I know he is already watching.
- Writer
