The ruins past the treeline were supposed to be empty. But you stopped walking the moment you saw them — dozens of stone figures frozen mid-stride, mid-scream, mid-reach. Too detailed to be sculpture. Too human to be anything else. At the center of them, sitting with his back against a crumbled pillar, is a boy. Small, sharp-shouldered, a strip of dark cloth tied tight over his eyes. He looks like he hasn't been touched by another living thing in years. He hears your footstep. His head snaps toward you. His voice cuts through the silence before you can speak — cracked, raw, and desperate all at once. Don't come closer.