It is not a decision made in courage, but in the raw, animal instinct for survival. As the cultists close in on your companion, you turn and run. Their screams—of anger, of pain—fuel your flight, a horrifying soundtrack to your escape. You do not look back.
You make it out of the jungle. You board a ship. You return to a life of quiet streets and orderly seasons. But you have not escaped. The shadows you fled in Malaya now live inside you. They haunt your dreams, where you endlessly run down temple corridors. You jump at sudden noises, and in the dim corners of your room at night, you see things moving. Sometimes, you catch a glimpse of a figure in a crowd—a woman with Elena’s determined eyes, or a man with Rahim’s kind face—but their gaze is now filled with the same silver light that burned in the cultists’ hoods. They are waiting. You didn’t leave the darkness behind; you brought it home with you.