The pea came to rest against the toe of Finn’s trainer. It was pale green and faintly frosted, half-thawed already, leaving a tiny wet star on the lino where it had stopped.

He didn’t move, and for a long beat, didn’t breathe.

’Nyx.’

The word in his head was so quiet he wasn’t sure he’d actually pushed it across the bond.

’Bearer.’

’Don’t move. Don’t speak aloud. Don’t breathe through your mouth.’

To her credit, she didn’t ask why. Her body, which had been in the middle of leaning forward to inspect the punctures on the wall, simply... stopped mid-motion, the way a cat stops when it hears something a person can’t.

The rebar in her hand did not even tremble.

The fungi dimmed. Not the brief flicker of before. This time the silver light on the shelves dropped by half and stayed there for two full seconds, the freezer aisle plunging toward something close to dark, the punctures on the wall sliding out of view as though someone had drawn a curtain across them.

Finn did not move his head, but he moved his eyes.

The dimming was not uniform; it travelled.

The fungi at the far end of the aisle had gone darkest first, and the ones nearer the freezers had followed half a heartbeat later.

The ones directly above him, on the shelf to his right, were dimming now, even as the far end was already brightening again, a slow ripple of shadow rolling along the aisle in his direction, like a hand being passed underneath a row of lanterns.

The hand was about ten feet away. His skin went cold from the inside out.

The forum thread had not mentioned this. None of the alpha testers had ever said the fungi reacted.

They’d talked about the wound pattern, the audio cues, the hunting behaviour, but not one of them had stood in a real infested supermarket aisle long enough to notice that the things growing on the shelves did not like having a Verge Stalker walk under them.

He had about three seconds to decide whether the pattern was real, or whether he was going to die because he’d seen a face in the clouds.

He watched the next ripple. Far end, dim; middle, dim; above him, dim; behind him, dim.

’Behind me.’

It had passed under him, and it was now between him and the entrance.

Finn did not let the realisation reach his face. He let his eyes drift to the shelves on the opposite wall, the side facing away from where the ripple had gone, and made his expression that of a man considering whether to crouch and inspect blood.

’Nyx.’

’Yes.’

’It’s behind us. Two metres. Maybe less. Don’t look. Don’t even shift your weight.’

She didn’t answer right away. Then, very dryly, in the only register she could manage at this volume:

’Wonderful. And here I was, worried the day might pass without incident.’

’Glad one of us is enjoying this.’

’Life is more enjoyable once you learn to look at things from a different perspective, Bearer.’

’Please focus.’

’As you wish.’

He pushed past the small, traitorous warmth her voice always managed to set off in him, and got to it.

’The fungi track it. They go dark when it passes under them. That’s our radar.’

The silence stretched longer this time. He felt her processing it, felt her actually running the implication, and despite everything a small part of him registered a flicker of pride at the speed she did it in.

’Can you see them from where you stand without turning your head?’

’Some of them.’

’Then we have a sense it does not know we have.’

’That’s right.’

’Good. What do we do with it.’

That was the question.

A Verge Stalker, in the beta, had never been beaten by a solo player below level fifteen. The pinned thread was very specific about that.

It had a stealth value somewhere in the high twenties, an ambush damage multiplier that turned anything with under three hundred HP into wall art, and an aversion to bright light that was the only reliable counter.

But they were currently in a building with no working overheads, where the only ambient illumination was the same fungi the thing was using as its hunting ground.

What you were supposed to do with a Verge Stalker, according to the alpha testers, was leave the dungeon, come back at level fifteen with a party of four, and bring a torch.

’Bearer.’

’Working on it.’

’Work faster.’

’You’re very supportive in a crisis, has anyone ever told you that?’

’I have been told I am an excellent motivator, yes.’

He was about to tell her off for distracting him when the sound came.

It came from two aisles over. A footstep, light and hesitant, then another, the rustle of nylon against nylon, someone breathing through their nose and trying to be quiet, doing an indifferent job of it.

Someone from the camp that had followed them in, probably. The way the smarter ones in the crowd had clocked Finn going through the trolley wall and decided that wherever the boy with the kitchen knife went was probably worth a look.

The fungi above the aisle two over flickered, and Finn felt the ripple change direction. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

The pattern of the dimming swung, very smoothly, away from him and toward the new sound. Three rows of fungi went dark in a curve, then the next three, then the next.

It was fast once it had a target, faster than anything that quiet had any right to be. Finn watched the trail of darkness move down the parallel aisle in a single, gliding breath, and felt his stomach turn over.

Then came a soft thud, a single cut-off gasp, not even a full word, just half a sound swallowed before it could become one.

After that, nothing. It became silent.

The fungi above the kill site stayed dim for a long moment, the way a candle’s wick keeps glowing red after the flame has gone.

Finn closed his eyes for one second, then opened them.

’Bearer.’

’I heard.’

’...We could leave.’

He could feel her hoping he’d say yes. The aisle they were in had a clear run to the doors, the Stalker was occupied, and they could be back at the trolley wall inside a minute.

They didn’t owe whoever had followed them in a damn thing. They hadn’t asked to be tailed, hadn’t invited company.

He could already picture it: the clean exit, the shape of his own back retreating between the tills, Nyx beside him, healthy, intact, and the voice in his head that would say you did the sensible thing.

He thought about it for one full second, then he did the maths.

The Stalker was feeding now, and monsters when feeding were very briefly, less alert. The pinned thread had been very clear: the only window in which a Verge Stalker could be engaged with anything resembling odds was the eight-to-twelve seconds immediately after a successful kill, while it processed prey.

If they ran now, before they could make it to the doors, the Stalker would register their absence and follow. Verge Stalkers tracked by scent and air displacement, and they did not, ever, lose a trail they had locked onto.

He let that thought sit for half a second longer than was comfortable, then moved past it, because the only realistic way out of this aisle alive was through a corpse the Stalker was still chewing on.

’Nyx.’

’I am listening.’

’We’re going toward it.’

’...Bearer.’

’Not to save them. They’re already gone. We’re going because the kill site is the only window we get. It’s distracted with its meal. There won’t be a better moment, and there won’t be a second one.’

She was quiet for a moment. Then, in a tone that had gone very level.

’Understood.’

He almost apologised to her for it, but held back.

’Shadow Step,’ he said. ’Soon as I give the word. You come up behind it from the freezer side, where the ashwood roots will mask your shape against the wall. Don’t engage. Just be there. I’ll come around the other end of the aisle from the front. It’ll see me first. When it commits to the leap, you hit it from behind with everything Endurance and Intelligence will give you. Aim for the eyes if it has any. The throat if it doesn’t. I don’t know which it’ll be.’

’And you, Bearer?’

’I’ll be the thing it leaps at.’

’Ah. The classic Bearer plan. Always so elegantly reasoned. Always with you as the bait.’

’It works.’

’It works once. Then we run out of you.’

’Nyx—’

’You haven’t fully recovered from the fight with the Hollow Knight. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.’

She was right. He let out a single, almost-soundless huff that might have been a laugh in better circumstances.

’I have fifteen Agility. I just need to not be where it lands.’

’Bearer, that is not—’

’It’ll be alright, Nyx. Trust me.’

She didn’t argue further. He felt her draw a long, slow breath through the bond, felt her put the protest down, and then her presence beside him went taut and clean, the way it had gone before the Hollow Knight.

’On your signal.’

He moved.