Chapter 5 - Drawn to the Pit

  Kain’s body reacted before his thoughts finished forming. Every muscle tightened at once—shoulders coiling, legs bracing, breath caught halfway in his chest. He didn’t raise his guard. That would invite the wrong response. Instead, he held still, tension packed into him like a spring pulled too far back.

  This was it.

  He counted positions without turning his head. The leader in front of him. Scarabs at his flanks. More behind. Too close to break cleanly. Too many angles to cover if it went bad all at once. His mind raced anyway.

  If they rushed, he’d pivot left—less space, but fewer bodies. If they grabbed, he’d drop low and drive through the nearest knee. If they hesitated— They didn’t move. Seconds stretched thin.

  The basin remained frozen, every Scarab still staring at him, the silence pressing down until it felt heavier than the heat ever had. Kain’s jaw clenched. He forced his breathing steady, even as his thoughts spiraled into contingency after contingency. This is how it starts, he thought. The pause before it all goes wrong. Then the leader roared.

  The sound was deep and commanding, cutting through the stillness like a signal horn. It wasn’t aimed at Kain. It wasn’t aggressive. It was a command. The effect was immediate.

  The Scarabs broke their stillness as one, tension dissolving from the basin in a wave. Bodies turned away. Movements resumed. Low sounds returned—short, purposeful, conversational in a way that made Kain’s skin prickle. Some went back to the water. Others resumed work he hadn’t noticed before, hauling, stacking, moving with practiced coordination.

  No one attacked him. No one even looked at him anymore. Kain let out a slow breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

  “…Huh,” he muttered quietly.

  The leader gave him one last glance—brief, unreadable—before turning away and walking toward the center of the settlement, as if the matter had already been decided. Kain stood there for another second, muscles still tight, waiting for the trick. It never came.

  Slowly, carefully, he let the tension ease from his shoulders.

  As Kain followed the leader deeper into the basin, the pattern became impossible to ignore. Every Scarab he passed bore burn marks. Some were thin lines etched across shoulders or forearms. Others were wide, uneven scars that warped the muscle beneath them, darkened patches where flesh had once blistered and healed wrong. No two were the same, but none looked accidental. The marks weren’t hidden. They weren’t treated like shame. They were worn openly. Like proof.

  The path narrowed as they walked, stone rising on both sides until Kain realized they’d entered a corridor formed by massive boulders. The rocks stood taller than him, stacked naturally into parallel walls that stretched forward like a hallway stripped of its ceiling. Light poured in from above, casting uneven shadows that shifted as they moved. That was when he saw the drawings.

  They were scratched directly into the stone—crude, uneven lines carved by claws or sharp tools. No perspective. No polish. Just story, forced into rock by repetition and intent. Some lines were shallow and faded. Others had been gouged deep, traced again and again until the grooves were unmistakable.

  Kain slowed without meaning to. On the left wall, a massive circular shape dominated the stone. A crater. Or something like one. The edges were jagged, ringed with figures packed tightly together—Scarabs, their shapes simplified but recognizable, carved shoulder to shoulder like an audience pressed into stone. At the top of the crater, elevated above the rest, sat a larger figure. Flames surrounded it. The fire wasn’t detailed, just sharp, chaotic lines radiating outward, enough to make the meaning clear. The figure sat on a throne carved into the rock itself, posture relaxed, observing everything below. Watching.

  In the center of the crater, two Scarabs faced each other. One stood upright, larger, arms raised. The other was smaller, carved on its knees, head tilted upward toward the throne. The lines around its body were broken, frantic, as if the artist hadn’t bothered to make it look whole. The next carving showed motion.

  Fire pouring from the throne above. A single, violent line cutting downward. The kneeling figure was struck—its shape warped, lines scattering outward—and in the following image, it was being cast out of the crater entirely. Kicked from the ring. Falling away from the circle, its body reduced to a rough outline tumbling into nothing.

  Kain’s eyes tracked the sequence slowly. On the opposite wall, the story continued. Scarabs were shown moving across open land in loose groups, their bodies angled forward, arms heavy with bundles. The ground beneath them was etched with faint lines—veins—leading toward the crater in the earlier drawings. At the edge of the stone circle, they knelt. Offerings were piled at the outskirts: clustered shapes carved again and again until their meaning became clear.

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  Pulsebark fruit. Laid down. Left behind. The Scarabs in the drawings turned away afterward, some continuing forward, others carved smaller, receding into the distance.

  Kain swallowed. The corridor wasn’t just decoration. It was instruction. A warning. Or a record. He walked on, eyes lifting from the stone as the boulders finally gave way and the open basin returned around them. The leader never looked back, never paused to explain. It didn’t need to.

  The story was already carved into the walls. And whatever sat on that throne of fire—

  Kain had a feeling he was walking straight toward it. The passage opened into a wide chamber carved directly into the stone. The space was alive with motion.

  Scarabs moved through it at a hurried pace, darting in and out of smaller tunnels that branched from the walls. Their arms were full—clusters of deep purple Pulsebark fruit cradled against chests, piled high enough that some nearly obscured their faces. A few dropped fruit as they ran, pausing only long enough to scoop it back up before disappearing again.

  The energy in the room was tense. Focused. The moment the leader stepped into view, everything accelerated.

  Scarabs that had been moving quickly broke into full sprints. Those lingering near the walls snapped upright and cleared paths without being told. The low background sounds of movement sharpened into something more urgent, like a routine kicked into a higher gear.

  Kain noticed a group standing apart near the far corner of the chamber. They weren’t carrying anything. They weren’t running. If anything they were chilling.

  The leader’s gaze flicked toward them. That was all it took. The group straightened immediately, shoulders squaring as they moved in unison toward an object resting against the stone. It was a cart—or something close to one—shaped from solid rock, its surface rough and uneven but unmistakably functional. There were no wheels.

  Just a heavy stone platform with raised edges, overflowing with Pulsebark fruit stacked high enough to threaten collapse. Each Scarab took a position at a corner where wheels might have been. They crouched, Gripped, And lifted together.

  The cart rose smoothly, the weight clearly substantial but manageable for them. The fruit shifted but didn’t spill, settling into the stone cradle as if it had been shaped to hold it. Without a word or signal, they fell in behind the leader.

  The Scarabs carrying the cart moved with practiced coordination, steps matched, posture steady. Others peeled away from the chamber’s activity to follow, while the rest returned to their frantic gathering as if nothing unusual had happened.

  The leader turned toward an opening on the far side of the chamber—opposite the one Kain had entered through—and walked without hesitation. The cart followed. So did Kain.

  And as the chamber disappeared behind them, it became clear this wasn’t preparation for survival. It was preparation for presentation.

  The moment they crossed the threshold, the sun hit him.

  Not warmth—heat. Immediate and oppressive, pressing down on his skin harder than it had at any point since he’d woken in this world. The air felt thicker here, heavier, as though the land itself held onto the heat and refused to let it go.

  Kain squinted against the glare and kept walking. They moved for hours.

  The terrain flattened as they went, the stone beneath their feet growing smoother, darker, scorched in places as if it had been burned again and again over time. The Veyra veins beneath the ground grew brighter with every mile, their glow no longer subtle or restrained. Thick lines of light pulsed beneath the surface, branching outward with purpose instead of wandering aimlessly.

  Then it came into view. The crater. It tore into the land like a wound that never healed. Massive. Circular. Its edges rose high and steep, forming a natural coliseum carved straight from the earth. From its center, Veyra lines erupted outward in every direction—brilliant, blazing paths of light that radiated across the land like spokes from a wheel.

  This wasn’t just an intersection. It was an origin point. The glow here was overwhelming, bright enough that it painted the underside of the clouds and cast long, warped shadows across the stone. Heat rolled up from the crater’s depths in heavy waves, carrying with it sound.

  Roars. Hundreds of them. Layered voices echoed from far below, rising and falling in uneven bursts that made the air vibrate. They weren’t screams. They weren’t cries of panic. They were alive. Anticipating.

  Kain slowed without meaning to, his eyes locked on the immense structure ahead.

  Whatever this place was—

  Whatever waited inside it—

  It wasn’t hidden. It was celebrated.

  The Scarabs stopped. All at once. The sudden halt rippled through the group like a cut signal. The ones carrying the stone cart froze, then lowered it to the ground in practiced unison. The weight hit the scorched stone with a dull, solid thud. Without hesitation, they turned.

  The Scarabs who had been ferrying fruit abandoned the load and began moving back the way they’d come, breaking into a quick, purposeful pace. Others followed, peeling away from the formation in small clusters, their attention already shifting away from Kain and toward the distant settlement behind them.

  Only the leader remained. He stood at Kain’s side, broad frame still, posture firm. He looked at Kain once—direct, assessing—then turned his gaze toward the crater ahead.

  He did not step forward.

  He did not gesture.

  He did not follow.

  That was the line.

  After a moment, the leader turned away and started back toward the others. The rest fell in behind him naturally, the group reforming without instruction as they retreated, their presence receding in steady, controlled movement.

  Kain was left alone. He stood there in the open, the heat rolling off the crater ahead of him, the echo of distant roars vibrating faintly through the ground beneath his feet. The Veyra veins burned bright around the massive structure, their light pulsing like a heartbeat that had no intention of slowing.

  Kain looked at the crater. Then he realized something that caught him off guard. He was smiling. Not wide. Not reckless. But real.

  His pulse had quickened. His muscles felt light, coiled with something that wasn’t fear. Anticipation settled into his chest, sharp and unmistakable.

  Excitement. The realization made him huff a quiet breath through his nose.

  “…Huh,” he murmured. He glanced once over his shoulder at the retreating Scarabs, then back at the crater that dominated the horizon.

  Did he actually want this?

  Did some part of him want the fight waiting down there? The thought didn’t scare him. If anything, it felt familiar. And that might have been the most unsettling part of all.