──────⊹⊱Leaving Acadia

Morning came without color. It always did.
The sky was a pale, uncertain gray, the kind that never decided whether it would storm or clear.

Opaque light filtered through the haze in thin sheets, flattening everything it touched. Shadows didn't stretch anymore. They just existed. Faint and close to the ground, like they were too tired to move.

I woke before the others. Not because I meant to. But because something in me wouldn't let me stay asleep. I laid awake through the night, my eyes wide open even though the oil lamp had long since burned low. Sleep refused to come. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Neoa's small, hollow face.

The wind had moaned all night, pressing against the bone-and-hide walls like it wanted in. Even with the heavy furs up to my chin, the cold still found its way through the layers, the Static didn't care what day the old calendars once called it.

Ender's breath, steady and heavy on the other side of the small space, already asleep. He could do that-shut everything off when the decision was made. I envied him for it. My mind kept turning, picking at the edges of what Elder Miral had said, what Neoa had whispered, and what it all might mean when we stepped beyond the windbreaks for real.

Our life here wasn't hard. Not to me. It was simply life.

For a long moment, I lay still beneath the furs, listening. Acadia had a sound to it in the mornings. Low, steady, familiar. The crackle of small fires being coaxed back to life. The scrape of tools against wood or bone. The quiet murmur of voices, softened by walls and distance.

Today...it was different. Quieter. Held.
Like everyone was waiting for something they didn't want to happen.

I pushed the furs back and sat up slowly. The cold bit immediately, sharp and familiar, wrapping around my shoulders and slipping into the spaces between breaths. Frost had crept along the inside of the hut during the night, tracing thin white veins across the walls.

I saw that Ender was already awake too.

He sat near the entrance, back straight, hands moving steadily as he checked the bindings on his spear. The bone tip caught what little light there was, dull and worn but still strong. He didn't look up when I moved, but I knew he'd heard me.

"You should've slept longer," he said. His voice was quiet. Careful.

"I tried," I answered.

That wasn't entirely true. I hadn't tried very hard. Sleep had felt... like being careless. Like stepping away from something important.

Ender tightened the last knot and gave the spear a firm pull, testing it. Satisfied, he set it aside and reached for the bundle beside him-our supplies, wrapped tight in layered cloth and sinew. "We leave soon," he said.

Not if. Not maybe. But soon.

The word settled between us. I nodded, though he wasn't looking.

Across the hut, Gage shifted under his furs with a low groan. "If this is another 'before the day even pretends to show up' start, I'm going back to sleep."

"You're not," Ender said.

Gage rolled onto his back, squinting up at the ceiling. "Worth a try."

Michi was already awake too, though he lay still, eyes open, staring at nothing. It looked like he hadn't slept at all either. There was a tightness in his face I hadn't seen before, something quiet and unsettled. He caught me looking and gave the smallest shake of his head.

Not now. I understood.

Emilee pushed herself up next, her hair sticking out in every direction beneath her hood. She blinked once, twice, then forced a small smile. "Couldn't sleep either?" she whispered, settling beside my blankets, she smelled faintly of smoke and the herbal paste we used to fight frostbite.

I shook my head. "Too many thoughts. Like the drifts-piling up whether I want them to or not."

No one answered.

Her smile faltered for a second. We sat in silence. Outside, the wind howled louder, and I imagined it stretching the distance between our hut and the Temple even farther, just to mock us.

I looked down at my hands. They were shaking. Just slightly. I curled them into fists. This is happening, I told myself. The thought didn't feel real. I wondered how someone as fragile as Neoa could survive even one night beyond the settlement? How could any of us protect her when the Static had already swallowed so many stronger people? I touched the scrap of paper in my pocket again. The words felt warmer than they should have in the freezing hut.

The stars are not so far as they seem.

Maybe, when we stepped out with Neoa, the distance would prove the old books wrong. Or maybe-just maybe-it would prove them right in a way none of us could imagine yet.

We walked out into the clearing together.
The cold hit harder outside. The wind had picked up overnight, carving thin lines across the surface of the snow, reshaping drifts into unfamiliar angles. The huts crouched low beneath their coverings, smoke trailing weakly into the gray sky.

People were already awake.

Watching.

No one called out. No one approached.
They stood in small clusters, wrapped in furs, their faces half-hidden but their eyes unmistakable. Some looked away when we stepped into view. Some didn't. Those were worse.

I felt their gaze on us-on Ender, on Gage, on Michi, on Emilee and then-on Neoa.

She stood near Miral's hut, smaller than I remembered from the night before, her frame nearly swallowed by the layers wrapped around her. Miral stood beside her, one hand resting lightly at her back-not holding, not guiding. Just... there.

Dasha and Kerac stood just behind her. Neoa didn't look at the people. She didn't look at us. She looked north. Always north.

Neoa's parents hugged her tightly, making their goodbyes as stoic as possible. Miral turned as we approached. "You're ready," she said. It wasn't a question.

Ender nodded once. "We have what we need."

Miral studied him for a moment, as if measuring something deeper than supplies or strength. Then she reached into the folds of her coat and drew out the leather wrap that held the tiny discs. Even covered, they seemed to disturb me with something I couldn't hear but could feel.

She held them out.

Ender didn't take them immediately.

His gaze flicked to Neoa. Then back to Miral. "What happens if we're wrong?" he asked. It wasn't doubt, not exactly. It was something heavier.

Miral didn't hesitate. "Then you will learn that too."

Ender's jaw tightened. Slowly, he took the bundle. The moment his hands closed around it, something in the air shifted. Not visibly. Just enough that I noticed. Just enough that I wondered if anyone else did.

Miral's eyes moved to me. "For her," she said quietly.

I nodded.

Neoa turned then. For the first time that morning, her gaze left the horizon. It moved over us, one by one.

Ender.
Gage.
Michi.
Emilee.
And then-
Me.

"You're late," she said. There was no fear in her eyes. No hesitation.

Gage blinked. "We just got here."

Neoa shook her head slightly. "No," she said. Her voice was soft. Steady. "You're late."

A strange ripple passed through me. I didn't understand it. But I felt it.

Ender exhaled sharply. He adjusted the pack on his shoulders and stepped back, looking at the group. "We move together. We don't split. We don't run ahead. We
don't-"

Gage raised a hand. "Yes, yes, don't die, don't disappear, don't do anything interesting. Got it."

Ender shot him a look.

Gage grinned, but it didn't reach his eyes.

Michi rose to his feet, adjusting the strap of his gear. "Which direction?"

Ender didn't answer right away. He looked at the horizon. At the Temple. It sat there, as it always had. Dark. Unmoving. Unreachable.

For a moment, I thought he might say something else. That he might hesitate.
That he might change his mind.
Instead, he said it.

"North."

We walked.

No one said goodbye. Not out loud. But I felt it in the silence behind us. Each step away from Acadia felt heavier than the last, like the ground itself was reluctant to let us go. The sounds of the settlement faded slowly-the low murmur of voices, the crackle of fire, the scrape of daily survival.

Until there was only wind. And the soft, steady crunch of our boots. I didn't look back. Not at first. I didn't want to see the distance stretching already. Didn't want to know if it had started.

But after a while-I couldn't help it. I turned.
Acadia was still there.

Smaller than it should have been. Closer than it felt. I swallowed hard and faced forward again.

The Temple waited at the edge of the dark horizon. Still unchanged. Still unmoving.
And still looking, unreachable.

We walked for what felt like hours. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn't. Time didn't behave the way it used to. Not that I remembered how it used to behave. I had never been any further away from Acadia than the frozen lake where we fished. I only knew that it felt different now-longer in some places, shorter in others.

Like something was pulling it unevenly.

"Still looks the same," Gage muttered. No one answered. Because he was right.

It did.

We all stopped. Not because we meant to.
Because something in all of us seemed to reach the same point at once.

Ender turned slowly, scanning the horizon behind us, then back ahead. His brow furrowed. "We should be closer."

Michi shook his head slightly. "We are."

Ender's voice sharpened. "Then why doesn't it look like it?"

No one had an answer.

I stared at the Temple. At the dark shape against the white. Trying to measure it. Trying to feel it. But something inside me resisted. Like trying to hold onto a thought that kept slipping away.

"It's the same," Emilee said quietly. "Exactly the same."

The words settled heavily between us.

Gage kicked at the snow. "Then we're not moving."

"We are," Ender snapped.

"Then prove it."

Ender didn't respond. Because he couldn't.

The wind shifted. Just slightly. I felt it brush past my face-and again-that sound. That almost-not-there difference. Like something beneath the world had turned.

Neoa stepped forward.

No hesitation. No pause. She walked past all of us. Toward the horizon. Toward the Temple.

I watched her feet. Watched the way she moved. The snow didn't crunch the same under her. I was sure of it.

"Neoa," Ender called.

She didn't stop.

"Neoa."

Still nothing.

Gage took a step forward. "I'll get her-"

"No," I said, louder than I meant to. They all looked at me. Even Ender. I swallowed, my heart racing. "She's... she's not lost," I said.
The words felt strange in my mouth.
Uncertain. But also-right.

Neoa slowed. Then stopped. She turned slightly, just enough to look back at us. At me.

The wind moved again.

Soft.
Shifting.

And for the first time since we left,
something changed. Not the Temple. Not the distance. Something else.

Something I couldn't name.

Neoa tilted her head, listening. Then she said, quietly-almost gently. "It's quieter now," she paused for a shallow breath.

And then-as if answering a question none of us had asked; "It knows we started."