Abruptly, I stopped and looked around. I had no idea how long it had been since we left the trailer – twenty minutes, maybe thirty? A loud chime from a tall red-brick building's clock tower marked the hour. Ten o’clock. In front of us lay a bustling intersection. On a small square in front of what appeared to be an administrative building stood a proud pedestal displaying three identical, faceless figures. The only thing that distinguished these shadows were their characteristic attributes: the crown of two rings on the head of the Ruler, the sword in the hands of the Commander-in-Chief, and the Book held above the head of the Heavenly Ambassador.

“Unity is the key to immortality” – the central paradigm of the rule of the Three.

And anyone who dared to criticize this paradigm, who questioned the Three or their divine right to power, would vanish – becoming just another sudden victim. If you stood against the monarchs, you’d disappear, erased by the Reapers.

“Are you okay?” Sam spoke for the first time during this entire walk. I felt his attentive gaze on me, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the sculptural representation of the immutable monarchs. Which of our Three are they? The Eleventh? “You don’t look great, to be honest.”

“Thanks for your honesty,” I replied with a smirk, turning toward a modest but long building with walls made of darkened glass.

A cyclist whizzed past, nearly knocking Sam and me over. Dort, swearing loudly, flipped the guy the bird, to which I just sighed heavily and shook my head.

“They’ve lost their damn minds!” Sam growled, adjusting his hoodie. “Let’s go!”

The building, consisting of a basement and a first floor, was larger inside than it appeared from the outside. Scattered throughout were various shops, from pharmacies to souvenir stores. The basement housed a hypermarket and a luxurious bookstore (at least, the sign reading “Best in the City” set certain expectations). Air conditioners hummed at every turn, and I greedily inhaled the cool air. The shopkeepers, not quite fully awake, yawned lazily behind the counters, enjoying the sparse number of customers and visitors.

What had happened in the hospital was fading away, beginning to seem like a fabrication or a feverish delirium, and although I still clearly remembered every second, every sound, everything was gradually sinking into a smoky haze of memory, becoming less and less real. The mundane rhythm of life here, outside the hospital walls, dulled the anxiety, allowing certain details to slip away, but…

But for a moment, it was as if I was thrown into a dead loop of old and new memories. My heart painfully slammed against my ribs, fluttering wildly, and it took a considerable effort to push back the creeping panic and suppress the pain. I shuddered slightly, shaking my hair. Unconsciously, I squeezed my left wrist. Sam glanced at me, concerned, but without saying anything, he headed toward the staircase leading to the basement. I followed him.

“Come on, get a grip, Steph,” Dort said quietly over his shoulder. “I agree, it wasn’t a pleasant sight… But still, it’s for the better, right? We found some great material. We can turn it into gold. Isn’t this what we wanted?”

“Yeah, I guess so…” I muttered hesitantly, frowning. My gut was screaming at me, but I couldn’t figure out what exactly it was trying to warn me about. Glancing at the grocery store, I felt a lump rising in my throat. “You go ahead and grab some snacks. I think I’ll check out the bookstore instead.”