He hated this mask.

Hated it with a burning, eternal passion that had flared the moment he saw it, sitting neatly in Lara's gloved hands with that too-sweet smile on her face.

"You get the deer," she'd said, like it was some great honor.

The deer. Of all things.

His companions had tried not to laugh. One of them had been assigned a fox, another a badger, and poor Ansel had received an owl mask so oversized it made him look like a lost carnival puppet.

But of course, Lara had said it with her usual deadpan gravity, as if this absurd disguise held ancient significance.

"These masks will attune you to the region's temperament," she'd claimed, like some self-important mystic high on her own incense. "Trust me, they would make things easier. And they make sure you aren't tracked after you've done something."

He'd argued. Naturally. Argued until her stare made the tips of his ears feel cold. Which didn't take much, but Lara was still a nice boss.

And now here he was, armed with the ever-reliable "you'll be fine, trust me" insurance.

Wearing a deer skull made of polished, lightweight bone and delicate horns that snagged on every damn branch. One wrong turn of the head and he'd end up headbutting a tree.

Brilliant planning.

Still, he supposed Lara wasn't entirely wrong. The deeper he moved into the forest, the more unreal it became.

His breath fogged differently here. The silence was dense. The sort of hush that wrapped around your ankles and climbed up your spine. And the mask… well, it did help in some way. He could sense things. Threads in the air. The shift in light. The tug of something old beneath the soil.

That's what had brought him here.

He wasn't here for strays, nor was he here for monsters. He was tracking two women—both powerful, both elusive.

Eleyn Drakonis. The Flame Witch of the battle of two continents. And Seraphis, he didn't know much about her, but Lara had said to be extremely careful of the two. A presence related to them had been felt near the Flux Zone. The traces were faint, but undeniable. He had reached the place only after the zone was destroyed, proof that they were armed to the teeth.

How else would people destroy an age-old flux core?

He was supposed to find their trail, do some disturbance, and vanish before anyone noticed. Nothing more.

And yet… he had found something else.

At first, he thought it was a crumpled statue resting in the crook of the trees. It barely moved. A lean but distorted shape, face half-obscured by deep scars, posture riddled with fatigue. Broken. Hollow. It was something that didn't feel human.

He'd thought it might be a remnant, or worse, a malformed curse left behind by the Zone.

So he watched.

Long limbs coiled behind mist. His candleflame eyes narrowed behind the skull mask.

The thing stirred. A flick of movement, slow and deliberate. Then the glint of metal.

Golden pistols.

That's when the doubt set in.

He'd seen many things emerge from ether-bent ruins. Creatures without names. Aberrations that sobbed like infants and walked like men. But this… this had shape. It had restraint. That rasping voice didn't scream in tongues or hiss in pulses, it spoke.

"If you're thinking of attacking me," it had said, "make sure you do it from behind."

He didn't move.

He didn't dare to. Something had already frozen him in place.

The instant he stepped forward to strike, just to test it, he felt it.

That gaze.

Not from the boy. No, this was something else entirely.

A pressure. Heavy. Ancient. Not watching from the trees, not crawling through the underbrush. Watching from above. Like the sky itself had narrowed its focus and pressed its full weight on his shoulders.

It wasn't the crushing force of a predator's presence, or the malicious anticipation of a spiritual trap.

It was… disappointed.

As if daring him to make the wrong choice. As if silently warning, This one is mine.

Not as a prey but as a being under their protection.

He had fought monsters that screamed with void-touched mouths, survived firestorms in Wyrmgrave, escaped ambushes from within dreams, but he had never once been warned like this. Not by a voice. Not even by killing intent. Just their presence, their simple gaze.

He took a step back.

Then another.

The boy didn't pursue. He simply watched—tired, steady, unbothered.

A broken silhouette, barely standing, held together by ether and stubborn will.

Yet guarded.

He retreated into the mist without a sound. The air lightened as he moved. The pressure eased, the leaves no longer shivered beneath invisible tension. The gaze had released him.

He didn't stop until the deer mask no longer pulled at his breath.

Only then, deep within the forest's safer folds, did he pause. Fingers reached up to the mask. He wanted to tear it off, to throw it against a rock and spit curses at Lara until she turned him into a toad or worse.

Instead, he breathed.

Deep. Ragged. Careful.

Then he took out a journal from beneath his cloak. The pages were covered in charcoal ink and strange circular glyphs, glowing faintly with residual ether.

Field Report – Observation #047Time: Unknown. Light inconsistent.

Subject: Male. Approximate age unknown due to scarring. Short. Armed with twin pistols. Presumed heavily damaged from recent flux exposure.

Behavior: Wounded, but self-aware. Cognition intact. Responds to threats. Did not attack.

Notable Traits: Heavily shielded by an unknown force. High-level sentient gaze—external. Not self-generated. Possibly divine-class.

Conclusion: Not Eleyn. Not Seraphis. But connected.

Action Taken: Disengaged. Logging as an anomaly. Returning to quadrant north.

Personal Note: I don't get paid enough for this shit.

He closed the journal with a flick and tucked it away.

He would follow Lara's orders. For now.

But that boy…

He wasn't just broken. He wasn't just left behind.

He was being watched—and in this world, the only things worth watching were either destined to die soon… or to change everything.

And he had a sinking feeling this one was the second kind. Or he was wrong about the being that watched this boy.