The walk back felt heavier.
The sun was sinking now, low and swollen against the horizon, casting long shadows that stretched like fingers across the dunes. The girls moved together in a loose cluster, arms full of scavenged goods—clothes, bottles, small comforts reclaimed from a dead city of sand. Their laughter still surfaced now and then, but it was thinner now, cautious, like glass ready to crack in his head.
Zero walked a few steps behind them.
He couldn’t explain the feeling crawling beneath his skin. It wasn’t fear,not exactly. It was awareness. A tightening that made him feel restless and itchy everywhere. The same sensation he had felt in the lab .
The desert had gone quiet.
No wind.
No distant echoes.
Just footsteps.
Too many footsteps.
“Stop,” Zero said.
The girls hal
