Beside her, Dan exhaled deeply, a sound heavy with irritation. He rubbed the back of his neck before stepping forward, his boots crunching the snow as he passed her.

  “It’s just a river, Liz. Don’t act like a child just because you’re scared.”

  He hadn’t even finished when

  Thwack!

  Liz’s small fist landed lightly on his head, but hard enough to pain a little.

  Dan rubbed the sore spot as he frowned. “What did I do now?”

  “You know what you did,” Liz snapped, folding her arms tightly against her chest. Her cheeks puffed, and she turned her face sharply away from him with a stubborn Hmph!

  Dan, however, didn’t stop walking. His steps were intentional as he strode forward, ignoring the sting of her glare. The river rippled beneath his boots, each step pressing faintly into the surface before bouncing back into place. He walked ahead without looking back, his dark coat brushing behind him in the breeze.

  Ron, Jett’s younger brother, followed calmly at his side. His frame looked steady, his gray coat of beast-pelt swaying with the same familiarity as someone who had passed this river at least once. So to him, walking on water was nothing strange.

  For Dan, it was something else entirely. He didn’t need to prove anything, he already knew he could. Yet as he moved forward, a faint smirk tugged at his lips. Leaving Liz behind wasn’t just about crossing the river. It was about teasing her, nudging her pride where it hurt most.

  He knew better than anyone, Liz feared water. The thought of crossing a vast stretch of it left her tense, her confidence crumbling beneath that emerald glare she so often wielded. If he left her here long enough, maybe she’d swallow that pride and ask him to come back. Maybe she might even plead...

  And when she did… Dan thought with a quiet hum of satisfaction, a sense of payback filling his chest as he heard Jett's voice calling out to Liz and Emma who were still standing on the snow layered land and have yet to walk through the river,

  Emma waved her hand in reply to Jett, signalling that she's about to come along,

  After that she glanced at Liz who seemed to be lost in thought while staring at the water,

  “Liz.”

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  The sound of her name pulled her from the fog of her thoughts. Slowly, Liz turned her gaze, finding Emma’s unique white eyes fixed on her. There was a sharp stillness in Emma’s stare, like a reflecting of the moon across frozen glass.

  Emma tilted her head slightly, her silver-white hair shifting against the fur lining of her coat. “Aren’t you curious,” she asked softly, “how it’ll feel when you step onto the river?”

  Liz’s answer came without hesitation, flat and matter-of-fact. “I’ll drown. That’s for sure.”

  The bluntness in her tone pulled a small laugh from Emma. It wasn’t mocking, it slipped out naturally, like a breath she couldn’t hold back. “Well, I know that,” Emma admitted, her lips curving faintly as the cold wind brushed across her cheeks. She stepped a little closer, eyes still locked onto Liz. “But that’s only the normal outcome. What about the abnormal? The one that belief carries?”

  Her voice lingered in the cold air, steady, carrying something more than logic, something deeper.

  Emma’s gaze softened, and her voice lowered, almost a whisper. “Just like Jett said… 'you just have to believe in yourself that you can do it'... It doesn’t need to be real, or even possible. You just have to accept it as your own truth, even when there’s no proof.”

  Liz didn’t speak. She only stared, her emerald-green eyes faintly reflecting the shifting ripples of the river ahead.

  Emma’s words did not stop there. She took in a deep breath, her expression calm. “You only need to be convinced inside. To hold even the smallest faith in yourself. That’s enough.”

  Her words trailed off calmly, carrying a weight that seemed too heavy for Liz to understand at the moment,

  Turning away from Liz, Emma faced the river. Her coat swayed with her steps as she walked forward. The icy ground crunched beneath her boots, each sound carrying across the silence of the shore. She stopped at the edge, staring at the deep blue water that stretched endlessly before them, glimmering faintly under the pale sky.

  Her shoulders rose and fell with a sharp exhale, mist curling from her lips into the cold air. She closed her eyes for a heartbeat, gathering a strength that wasn’t physical but inward, a quiet, unshaken belief.

  Then... she stepped.

  Tap!

  Her boot pressed against the water’s surface. Ripples spread gently, shimmering under the faint gray winter light.

  Tap!

  Her second foot followed, and again, the river rippled, but held. She stood there, calm, her silver hair shifting in the faint breeze, her eyes steady.

  Behind her, Liz’s lips parted slightly, though no words came out. A sigh slipped instead, carried away with the wind. “So I’m the only one left…” she murmured, her voice so faint it seemed like she wasn’t speaking to anyone at all.

  But the voice barely left her as sudden rush of memory flooded her head, tearing through her mind unbidden.

  Her breath hitched as flashbacks of a past long buried, broken and incomplete, forced their way upon her sight....

  Screams. Sharp and endless rang in her ears. The sound twisted around her skull, clawing into her. She stumbled, her knees buckling as she fell hard into the snow. Her hands flew to her head, clutching tightly, her nails biting against her scalp as a child came into her view, a small silhouette, no older than a year, sitting alone on a broken landside. The child’s body trembled, soft sobs spilling from lips she could not see clearly.. Behind the child stretched a sea, pitch black, writhing. It wasn’t water, not truly. It shifted, mutated, collapsing into deformed shapes that devoured one another, crashing down as though suffocating something within, making everything around it meaningless.

  Even the red moon in the equally hollow sky above was drained of meaning, as though its presence was nothing but an afterthought against that devouring sea.

  Liz’s body shuddered violently. She pressed harder against her head, her fingers digging, though no scream escaped her lips.

  Not a single sound.

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