The air was thick with the stench of blood, sweat, and the crackling remnants of fire. The camp, once alive with hope, now lay in ruins. Bodies scattered across the ground—ours and theirs—were the silent witnesses of a fight that had consumed us all. The clash of blades, the growls, the screams—it was over. For now.
I stood at the center of it all, my chest heaving, my breath coming in shallow bursts. The adrenaline was still coursing through me, but it was beginning to ebb. The sharp edges of the pain in my side, my leg, and my chest began to creep back in, and I could feel the fatigue starting to settle in my bones. But it didn’t matter. I didn’t care about the cuts, the bruises, or the blood. What mattered was the stillness that had fallen over us.
What mattered was that we were still
