Chapter 47: The Sleepless Sky
Petra’s eyes snapped open to the same oppressive darkness that had haunted her dreams.
Her body ached in ways that suggested deep, restorative sleep, the kind that came after exhaustion so complete it bordered on collapse. Every muscle felt stiff from lying on rough stone, her neck kinked from using her arm as a pillow. The sensation was achingly familiar, like waking after a full night’s rest in less than ideal conditions.
But the sky overhead, visible through gaps in the cave ceiling, remained that same unnatural black void it had been when she’d closed her eyes.
Petra sat up slowly, her hand instinctively finding her katana’s hilt. The fire had burned down to glowing embers, but the coals were still warm against her face. She’d expected... someone. The camp’s owner, perhaps. Or maybe even another academy survivor drawn by the smoke as she had been. The silence felt wrong after the desperate hope that had carried her here.
Instead, she was still alone.
The absence hit her harder than she’d anticipated. For three days, solitude had been a burden she’d carried with gritted teeth and stubborn pride. But those few hours of sleep beside someone else’s fire, surrounded by evidence of another human’s survival and ingenuity, had reminded her body what safety felt like. Now that safety was revealed as an illusion, and the loneliness crashed back over her like a physical weight.
’How long was I asleep?’ The question ate at her as she stretched cramped muscles. Her internal clock insisted she’d slept for hours, possibly a full day based on how rested her body felt. But the sky remained that same starless void, offering no reference points for the passage of time.
Without sun or stars or any natural rhythm to mark time’s passage, she had no way to know if minutes or hours or days had passed while she slept. The fire had burned down to embers, suggesting significant time, but fires could burn unpredictably in a place where even physics seemed negotiable.
What happened when time itself became fluid? When the normal anchors of reality shifted and warped under dimensional pressure?
’Did I sleep at all? Or did I just... exist in some suspended state while reality bent around me?’
The thought sent ice through her veins. She’d studied dimensional theory extensively, memorized every recorded case of spatial displacement. But the texts had always focused on the obvious dangers: hostile environments, dangerous creatures, the risk of being unable to return home. None of them had mentioned the possibility that time itself might become unreliable.
Petra forced herself to focus on immediate concerns. The camp’s owner was still absent, but the evidence of their presence remained. She examined the remaining monster cores more carefully, noting the systematic way they’d been arranged. Whoever had been here possessed both knowledge and patience—this wasn’t the desperate scavenging of someone barely surviving, but the methodical resource gathering of someone who’d found a way to thrive.
The realization should have been comforting. If someone else could survive and prosper in this nightmare place, perhaps escape was possible. But instead, it only deepened her unease. Where were they now? And why did she feel like she was being watched?
Petra gathered her courage and approached the cave entrance, katana drawn and ready. The Crimson Maulers should still be prowling outside, waiting for her to emerge. Three days of stalking through this battlefield had taught her that A-Class predators didn’t give up easily, especially when prey had taken refuge in such an obvious bottleneck.
But when she peered around the cave mouth, the Maulers were gone.
Not dead—gone. No bodies, no signs of struggle, no blood trails to indicate they’d been driven off or killed. The massive predators had simply... vanished.
In their place, pressed into the muddy ground near the cave entrance, were human footprints.
Petra’s breath caught in her throat as she studied the tracks. They were recent—the edges still sharp, not yet softened by the constant moisture that permeated this place. But they weren’t hers. The boot treads were different, the size slightly larger, the gait pattern unfamiliar.
Someone else had been here while she slept. Someone who’d managed to deal with three A-Class predators so quietly that she hadn’t even awakened.
The tracks led away from the cave in a straight line, purposeful and unhurried. No signs of flight or struggle, just confident steps heading deeper into the battlefield. Whoever had left them possessed either incredible power or incredible stupidity.
Petra followed the trail for several yards, her enhanced perception picking up details that ordinary humans would miss. The depth of the prints suggested someone carrying additional weight—equipment, perhaps, or salvaged goods. The spacing indicated a measured pace rather than urgent movement.
Most unsettling of all, the tracks seemed too clean. In a place where everything was covered in layers of decay and grime, these footprints showed no signs of the muck that should cling to anyone walking through this environment. It was as if whoever made them had been walking through empty air rather than a battlefield of rotting corpses.
A sound made her freeze—a voice, distant but growing closer. A human voice.
Petra’s heart leaped with hope and fear in equal measure. After three days of complete isolation, the prospect of human contact was almost overwhelming. But the rational part of her mind, the part that had kept her alive through academy politics and survival training, whispered urgent warnings.
Not everyone who’d been pulled through the rift would necessarily be friendly. The dimensional tear had been chaos, confusion, terror. Some people handled trauma by turning inward. Others turned predatory.
She retreated to the cave entrance, positioning herself where she could observe while remaining hidden. The voice was definitely getting closer—a single person, speaking in low tones. The words were indistinct but the cadence unmistakably human.
’Finally,’ she thought. ’Finally, I’m not alone in this nightmare.’
But even as relief flooded through her, Petra kept her katana ready. Three days in hell had taught her that survival meant being prepared for anything—even if that anything came wearing a familiar face.*****