Chapter 4 Ghost Flag

I finished popping Lyra's shoulder back into place. She sat there without making a sound, just stared hard at the ground and breathed through her nose real slow. Her face stayed tight, sweat dripping down her temples. I watched her jaw clench and unclench. Damn, she was tough.

"Does that feel better?" I asked, wiping my hands on my shirt.

She rolled her shoulder once, winced, then nodded. "It will do. We need to move. Staying here is stupid."

We started north through the low parts of the Ashfields. Lyra set a quick pace. She moved smoothly, eyes always scanning. I stayed close behind.

"Those things keep looking at you," I said, pointing at some hunched creatures in the distance. Their heads followed her. "But not me. Why?"

Lyra glanced sideways. "What kind of question is that?"

"A specific one," I replied. "I stepped closer to them twice. They did not even twitch. Do they avoid registered classes or just not see me at all?"

She kept walking but slowed a bit. "You notice too much. Most new people just run and scream."

"I am not most people," I said. My legs burned from the ash pulling at my boots. "Tell me about this place. Aethon, right? How does it all work?"

Lyra let out a short breath. "Fine. The System runs everything here. When you turn sixteen, it gives you a Class. Swordmaster, Mage, whatever. It hands out skills, ranks you on the Registry. Cities, wars, life itself, all decided by your rank. The Ashfields? This is the trash pile. They dump criminals, the Classless, and people who cause problems. No towns. No rules. Monsters come back every two days. Everything wants you dead."

I nodded, matching her steps. "And the System decides who lives?"

"Pretty much," she said. She rubbed her bad shoulder as we walked. "You ask good questions. Sharp ones. How long have you been in Aethon anyway?"

"About eighteen hours," I told her.

She stopped dead. Her good hand grabbed my arm tight. "Eighteen hours? You are lying."

"I am not," I said, looking her straight in the eyes. "I woke up face down in ash. No welcome message, no nothing. Just pain and confusion. I know it sounds crazy."

She let go and stared at me. Her eyebrows pulled together. She looked me up and down like she was seeing me for the first time. "Then how are you still alive? Most last less than a day."

I spotted a group of sleeping creatures ahead, piled up like rocks. "Watch this." I walked right through the middle of them. My boots crunched the ash. One creature snorted but none woke up. I stepped out the other side and turned back. "See? I think my Null status hides me from the System and everything it controls. Including them."

Lyra's mouth fell open a little. She took a step closer, eyes wide. "I've never seen a Null do that before. How?"

"Have you seen many Nulls?" I asked, watching her face.

She paused. Her fingers tightened on her sword. The pause felt heavy. "No," she finally said. "Not many." She started walking again, but I could tell she was thinking hard.

We kept going until we hit a rocky outcrop with good views and only two ways up. Lyra stopped. "This works." She pulled out some hard bread and dried meat from her pack and broke off pieces. "Here. Eat."

"Thanks," I said, taking it. We sat at angles, backs to the rock, watching the empty plains. The ash stretched out gray and endless.

"You share food with a stranger?" I asked between bites.

She shrugged her good shoulders. "You fixed my arm. And you are not trying to kill me. That counts for something here."

I chewed slowly. "Tell me more about the danger. You mentioned purge squads earlier?"

Lyra nodded. Her face got harder. "Registry hunters. They get paid good coin for every Null they end. They carry hounds, System devices. They ping Null signatures up to two kilometers away. Like radar."

My stomach dropped. I set the bread down. "So every time I open a System window, even just to read something, it sends a signal?"

"Yes," she said. She looked at me carefully. "You have been opening them?"

"I have. But I can stop." I closed every glowing panel in my vision. "How long since my last ping?"

She checked her own panel. Her lips pressed together. "Seven minutes."

"Good," I said. "Seven minutes of quiet. I need to make that permanent. No more accidental pings."

I sat there for a while, thinking out loud. "Hiding is my normal state. I just have to stop touching the menus unless I really need to. Every active read breaks it. Passive existence does not. It is like a bug in the code I can use."

Lyra listened, rubbing her shoulder again. Pain showed in the way she held her body stiff. "So your big survival plan is to not exist at all?"

"I've had practice," I said with a dry laugh. "Back home I spent years building worlds like this on a screen. Now I am stuck inside one with no manual. It is frustrating as hell. Every step feels like I am one mistake away from dying for real."

She almost smiled. "You talk like a madman. But it makes a strange kind of sense."

We sat quietly for a moment. Then Lyra went completely still. Her eyes flicked to the side. Her face turned pale. She gripped her sword until her knuckles went white.

"What is it?" I asked quickly.

"The purge squad split up," she whispered. "Four went west."

My heart started pounding. "And the other two?"

Her jaw tightened hard. She stood up fast, sword ready. "They are following our trail. Three hundred meters south. Coming this way."

I jumped up too. My knife felt useless in my grip. "Your arm is not ready for this fight."

"Is fine," she snapped. But I saw the sweat on her forehead and the small flinch when she moved. It hurt her badly. She looked at me, eyes serious. "Stay behind me. I will handle the combat. You stay hidden."

"I cannot just hide while you bleed," I said. Frustration burned in my chest. I hated feeling this weak.

The sound of heavy boots crunching ash came from the south. Two armored shapes appeared over the ridge. One held a glowing device that pointed right at us.

"Null confirmed," one hunter growled with a nasty smile. "This one is ours."

Lyra stepped forward with a grunt of pain. I stayed at her back, mind racing for any trick.

Then the ground shook hard under our feet. A deep rumble rolled across the Ashfields. All the monsters nearby started screaming at once. Not at us, at something waking up right below.

A new red message forced into my vision even though everything was closed.

[ERROR CASCADE DETECTED. PURGE PROTOCOL ESCALATED. MULTIPLE ENTITIES RESPONDING.]

The hunters charged with weapons raised. But the real nightmare broke the ground behind them, huge, twisted claws bursting upward, bigger than anything we had seen. The earth split open with a roar that shook my bones. Lyra's eyes went wide with shock.

"Run!" she yelled, but it was already too late. The thing from below was coming straight for all of us.