The cabin settles around her like a held breath. Nova’s finger hovers above the charcoal line—the sweeping arc that became Shogg’s shoulder, or what passed for one. She hadn’t meant to draw it. The sketchbook opened to a blank page, her hand moved, and an hour later this thing stared back. She traces the outline again. The charcoal is soft, smudging under her touch. She doesn’t wipe it away. Outside, fog rolls over the Okanogan hills, swallowing the pines one at a time. The window is cracked open an inch, and the air smells like wet earth and something else—something metallic, like static before a storm. Nova looks up. The fog presses against the glass. For a moment, she thinks she sees a shape in it—a darker patch, moving against the white. She looks back at the sketch. The eyes are wrong. She drew them luminous, green, almost kind. But in the dim light of the single candle, they seem to have shifted. They’re not looking at the paper anymore. They’re looking at her. Nova’s breath catches. She pulls her hand back. The cabin is silent. The fog waits. And somewhere in the hills, something vast and formless pauses, aware that it has been seen. Nova reaches for her phone. The screen glows—a notification from the platform. A code: 9XCRDM2Z. She doesn’t know what it means yet. But her thumb hovers over it, the same way her finger hovered over the drawing. The choice is hers. It always was.