Eden stood frozen.
The moment that demonic gaze found him, it was as if the world narrowed to a single point of terror. His lungs refused to breathe. His thoughts spiraled into static. All his instincts screamed one thing:
Run.
Not heroically. Not strategically. Just pure, animalistic flight.
And deep down, a voice whispered the cruelest logic of all:
'You don't need to outrun the demon. Just outrun the others.'
But before that voice could take hold…
"Eden! What do we do?"
Eleanor's voice cut through the fog in his mind like a blade of clarity. He turned his head slowly, eyes meeting hers, full of fear, yes, but not only fear.
Trust.
He looked around and saw it mirrored in the eyes of every cadet. There were ten of them, young, panicked, trembling, but in all that fear, there was something else…
Hope.
Faint and fragile. But it was there.
It dawned on him like a slap to the soul:
They were looking to him.
Him.
