Chương 104: 41.Flare 41-1

We'd been cutting southeast along that dry root ridge for under fifteen minutes when my HUD finally rendered the local terrain into something resembling human language. They called it the "official shelter route." What it looked like was the Academy had politely curated two different flavors of dying for us. One path ran north-northeast, straight through a low-lying flood basin to the nearest official rest station. Good news: fast, short linear distance.

Bad news: that basin lit up on thermal like a corpse with a fever, and the canopy around it was full of unnatural shadows. Carnivorous insects love wet heat, and this planet's rainforest had taken "wet heat" and elevated it to malicious art. The other path cut west, around a rock-cut ravine, then linked to a second rest station. Longer route, harder ground, but with two narrow choke points perfect for ambush—or for people to die in very neat lines. I crouched behind a buttress root and dimmed the HUD display.

Sweat tracked down my jaw into my neck guard, itching like someone was deliberately filing my throat with ants.

"Stop," I said quietly. Jess slid up first, half-crouched on my left, still holding the metal panel she'd stripped from her pod. The scrape on her leg had stopped bleeding; her mouth hadn't.

"So, Frost 01—are we picking the premium tomb with beds and showers, or digging our own peasant hole?"

"Keep that up and I'll bury you at the entrance as a good-luck charm," I said, tilting the HUD so they could see.

"Two official points. Close one's northeast, far one's past the western ravine. Question isn't whether to go—it's whether we can get inside, close the door, and stay alive long enough to matter." Harvey dropped to one knee, scanned it once, and delivered his verdict.

"Close point will be packed. More water, more bugs, more people. Door locks for seventy-two hours—go in too early and you're sawing your own legs off." Maki moved closer, sweat darkening her temples, voice still that perfectly measured monotone that made me want to check if someone had set her cadence with a ruler.

"Entering an official shelter early forfeits our mobility for the next seventy-two hours," she said.

"Given the midterm scoring structure, the Academy isn't providing beds and showers out of charity. The official rest stations are almost certainly scoring nodes—which makes them conflict hubs." I glanced at her sideways. She was right. Very right. Right enough to get under my skin. What made it worse was the note from Aki Kushima still sitting in my pocket. —After every use, official shelters receive resupply within twelve hours. Love you too. In someone else's hands, that was intel. In mine, it felt like a curse.

Because it meant one thing: the shelters weren't just resupply points. They were junctions. People would come, supplies would move, and logs would almost certainly be updated. The Academy had tossed meat into the center of the cage, wired the bars with cameras, and told us to throw ourselves at it. I shoved the prickling feeling down and looked at the three of them.

"Frost 01, decision," I said, using the most obnoxious tone I had—and the most appropriate one right now.

"We do not race the first shelter." Jess let out an "oh" with the tail end pitched like she was scraping someone's skull with the back of a knife.

"What a shame. I really wanted to watch other teams punch each other's teeth out over a mattress."

"If you're that interested, we can watch from a distance later," I said, sliding the map south.

"We follow this dry ridge and dig our own hide first. Criteria: leeward, hard ground, nothing hanging overhead, no sweet-smell water sources nearby. Distance from official points stays in the zone where we can re-approach, but no one finds us by accident." Harvey nodded, so cleanly he barely passed for human—more like a talking multitool.

"Works. Survive first, then compete." Maki added: "If our hide can survive the first Purgation Gale, we effectively keep an extra card. We can decide on the official station afterward." Jess shoved the metal panel back through her strap and grinned.

"Fine. Poor-man's hole it is. Frost 02 has no objections." I looked at her and deliberately paused half a beat.

"No objections means shut up and work," I said.

"Frost 03, forward security—watch for vines and sweet sources. Frost 04, terrain and wind, pick the spot. Frost 02, find anything hard enough to brace the opening—roots, panels, whatever. I want answers in three minutes."

"Copy, Frost 01," Harvey said first.

"Copy," Maki followed. Jess came last, still wearing that punchable smile.

"As you command, oh noble Queen of Holes." I ignored her. When people were still willing to obey, you didn't complain about posture. This place would turn anyone who cared about etiquette into polite jerky. We'd pushed south for less than two hundred meters when the rainforest's smell started to change. The sound dropped first. Not quiet—dirty quiet. Like the whole forest had grabbed itself by the throat. No calls, no wingbeats, nothing. Even the distant metal-scraping insect whine cut out in segments.

Then came the wind. The hot, wet air that had been glued to our skin started moving—not in a good way. It felt like someone had cracked an oven door, letting out a test draft of heat before pressing the whole thing into your face. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Maki stopped first, head tilting up.

"Vines are retracting." I saw it too. Those dark red Strangler Pyre-Vines that had been hanging like dead snakes were peeling back to the trunks, their surface sweating glossy gel, like they also knew the outside was about to turn into a boiler and were wrapping themselves up first. The ferns on the ground were folding shut. A cluster of massive Maw-Ferns reluctantly pulled their mouths closed, tooth-edged leaf rims grinding against each other with a sound that made my molars ache. Cold ran down my back.

Not because of temperature. Because: fuck. My HUD snapped to red. [WARNING: THERMAL EVENT PRECURSORS CONFIRMED] [ATMOSPHERIC CONVECTION SPIKE] [PURGATION GALE FRONT FORMED] [ESTIMATED MAIN HEATFRONT ARRIVAL: 00: 19: 43] The broadcast cut in right after, cold as a dead man reading the time.

"Attention, all first-years. Ultra-large Purgation Gale anomaly detected advancing. Repeat, ultra-large Purgation Gale anomaly detected advancing. Estimated duration: four hours. All teams are to immediately enter shelter or establish field heat cover. Main heatfront arrives in twenty minutes. Failure to complete sheltering within the time limit will be at your own risk. Academic Affairs, out." I almost laughed. At your own risk. Coming from Academic Affairs, that was as polite as an obituary.

"Frost 01?" Harvey looked at me.

"Orders stand," I said immediately.

"Find a spot. Dig." Jess snapped her head around.

"We're not going to the official station?"

"Right now?" I tossed her the HUD feed.

"Nearest station is seven minutes straight-line—if there are no insects, no vines, and no one in the way. You want to also assume the headmaster grows a conscience and throws in air conditioning?" She clicked her tongue and shut up. Good. Mouthy is fine; suicidal is not. Maki was already pointing right-front.

"There. Half-collapsed hardpan behind that root cluster. Natural cavity below. Leeward, stone roots on the side—can be reinforced." Harvey took one look and moved.

"Good enough. Frost 03, cut the entrance with me. Frost 04, clear the leaf layer, avoid anything that smells sweet. Frost 01, perimeter and time."

"Move!" The next ten minutes felt like someone had stuffed my lungs and brain into hot mud and stirred them with a stick. Harvey used an entrenching tool and pod metal to break up the hard layer, fast enough to make it look like this wasn't his first grave. Jess dragged out loosened soil and leaf rot, cursing the Academy, the planet, the Federation, and fate in roughly that order.

Maki smeared repellent around the entrance lip in a clean ring, then pulled out thermal sheeting and anchor pegs, hands moving with surgical precision. Not the passionate kind of competent. The scalpel kind. Cold, exact, and vaguely unsettling. I watched the perimeter, eyes flicking between trees and HUD, and chopped through a thin hanging vine with my line-cutter. Only after it dropped did I realize it wasn't a normal vine. The cut end bled translucent gel and a faint sweet smell.

"Shit—Frost 03, back a step!" Jess reacted fast, kicking backward. A heartbeat later, a patch of shrubs that had been curled tight suddenly snapped open—not leaves, but a dense mass of black-shelled larvae, writhing toward the cut vine like the sweetness had yanked them awake.

"That is fucking disgusting," Jess said, punting a layer of leaf rot over the squirming mass. Harvey didn't look up.

"Don't kick. Vibration draws other things."

"Say that three seconds earlier and I'd be more grateful."

"Use your brain three seconds earlier and I'd be less tired." I almost applauded. Good. Still alive, still enough energy to hate each other.

"Shut up and move," I said, watching the countdown.

"Eleven minutes." By the time the hole was barely big enough to jam four people into, the wind had shifted again. Not blowing. Pressing. The air felt like a giant invisible hand was shoving it all one way. Heavy thuds rolled down from the top canopy in layers, like some invisible train was grinding through the forest. The HUD flashed new numbers. [EXTERNAL TEMPERATURE: 48. 9°C] [EXTERNAL TEMPERATURE: 53. 4°C] [HEATFRONT ADVANCING]"Final check before we go in," I said at the lip, compressing my words.

"Frost 02, structural?"

"Will hold," Harvey said.

"Four hours won't be fun, but it won't cave instantly."

"Frost 04, seal?"

"Two layers thermal sheeting, one mud seal. Finger-width vent. If external temperature spikes further, we rotate air exchange manually."

"Frost 03, anyone on our tail?" Jess cocked her head, actually listening, expression serious for once.

"Two teams running behind us, left-rear. Fast. And—" She didn't finish. A scream knifed through the forest. Short, high. Not the theatrical kind. The kind that only happens when heat and fear squeeze the air straight out of someone's lungs. Then nothing. Nobody said a word. Because anything you said at a time like that sounded like praying over a pot of meat stew. Useless and obscene. I drew in another breath of boiling-wet air. My throat felt like someone had sanded it.

"Everyone in. Now." Jess wedged a metal panel against the entrance as a second barrier. Harvey backed in last, bracing a short support strut against the interior. Maki yanked the thermal sheeting down and the world snapped dark, only a strip of crooked grey-red light leaking through the vent. I stole one last look outside. The forest was changing color. Not the bright flare of fire. More like everything had been rinsed in a higher tier of heat in advance.

Trunks darkened, leaves curled inward, air in the distance warped like melting glass. In my ear, Academic Affairs sounded calm enough to be criminal.

"Main heatfront arrival countdown. Ten, nine, eight—" The hole was too cramped. Four bodies, four sets of kit—sweat, mud, metal, repellent, all mashed together. Like someone had crammed a dorm, a workshop, and a body bag into one barrel and sealed the lid. Jess was to my right, shoulder pressed into mine. She muttered under her breath, "Frost 01, if you called this wrong, I'm biting you first when I'm a ghost."

"Survive long enough to be a ghost first." Harvey pushed on the support strut again, voice flat as a nail.

"Shut up. The Gale's here." Maki pressed a small packet of treated salt water into my hand, tone still level.

"Team lead, take a sip. Your throat will give out first." I took it. My fingers brushed the back of her hand. Not cold—just steadier than mine. Annoying as hell. I poured the stuff into my mouth. It tasted like watered brine with a side of metal. [EXTERNAL TEMPERATURE: 71. 2°C] [EXTERNAL TEMPERATURE: 96. 8°C] [MAIN HEATFRONT CONTACT—] The next second, the whole world felt like it had been slapped by something enormous and invisible. A dull WHUMP. Not an explosion—the air itself hitting us.

The thermal sheeting ballooned inward. A constant shriek rose outside, the sound of the entire forest jammed into a red-hot forge and bent until it screamed. The soil shook. Stone roots vibrated. The support strut above us groaned with a note that went right through my teeth. I dropped lower, hand braced against the wall, and forced my voice out.

"Frost 01 calling. Everyone report."

"Frost 02, conscious. Supports holding."

"Frost 03, alive. Mood catastrophic."

"Frost 04, nominal. Vent is holding. No adjustment yet."

"Fine," I said. My throat was already grating, but I kept the tone steady.

"Next four hours, nobody loses it. Frost 03, you're on external audio. Frost 02, eyes on supports. Frost 04, time, water, air. Everything else—" I wiped my face with the back of my glove and bared my teeth.

"Everything else goes to the Federation's benevolence and whether our luck's thick enough." Jess laughed once in the dark, short and rough as a blade scraping steel.

"That sounds more reliable than the Federation." Outside, the firestorm started to really roar. And for the first time, it wasn't the roster, or the roll call, or some instructor that had us jammed this close together. It was the fact that if anyone failed here, the other three would cook with them. I leaned my back against the heating wall, watching the HUD numbers climb, listening to the Purgation Gale burn through the Evaporation Forest layer by layer. Perfect.

First day of Forest School and Team 144 didn't get a grade. We got slow-cooked.