Round 256

The room’s light pulsed once, harsh and wrong, like a heartbeat that wasn’t meant to be seen. Abby staggered back, her fingers closing around the sybian’s cool surface without thinking—breaking the distance rule, but it was instinct before conscious thought. The pedestal’s inscription flared brighter, its letters bleeding into each other at the edges, and she blinked hard against the sting in her eyes. “For those who would flee, not find.” The words echoed inside her skull even though she hadn’t spoken them aloud. The walls stopped their breathing game for a moment, hanging suspended mid-expand like a paused heartbeat, and she could feel something watching through them—waiting to see what she’d do next. Three hours until Silra was gone. Two hours if she fucked up this moment.