The lingering tension from the brutal argument down on the trail melted away into a silence far more suffocating. There were no more debates, no more banter, and even the sound of their footsteps felt entirely hollow against the steadily rising slope of the mountain. The horrifying hands that had briefly protruded from Dika's backpack somehow retracted back inside the tightly zipped pouch as they resumed their march, leaving Dika to walk in absolute, ashen-faced silence, refusing to look back over his shoulder.

The sun slowly slipped toward the west, leaving behind a dull, bruised orange hue trapped beneath the dense sea of fog. Just as dusk began to creep upward, their footsteps finally broke through the tree line and emerged into a reasonably spacious clearing cradled beneath the massive, towering wall of a rock cliff.

A weathered wooden sign with peeling paint greeted their arrival: POST 3.

"We're... we're at Post 3," Maya whispered faintly, her voice trembling with bone-deep exhaustion. She let her heavy backpack drop to the grassy earth and collapsed weakly onto a flat boulder, clutching her trembling knees.

Gani swept his gaze across the open clearing. A biting night wind howled past, carrying an alpine frost that cut straight through their pores. Without a word, Gani unbuckled his dome tent from his pack and began unpacking its contents.

"Come on, stop zoning out. We need to pitch our tents before night falls completely and the temperature plunges," Gani’s voice was flat, almost entirely devoid of emotion. Guilt and crushing physical fatigue had turned his tone glacial.

Without helping one another the way they had on the first day, they moved in a stiff, miserable silence. Rian and Dika grabbed a blue dome tent set, while Maya and Sita pitched a red tent a few paces away. There were no greetings, no jokes, and no laughter. The bond of friendship that had burned so warmly a week ago now felt shattered, splintered by raw fear and clashing egos.

"Feed the pole into this corner sleeve, Dik," Rian grumbled in a low voice as they worked on staking down the tent frame.

Dika, standing on the opposite side, gave a stiff, silent nod. He yanked viciously on a guyline, driving the metal stake into the sandy soil while casting nervous, suspicious glances into the dark, shadowy forest ringing the perimeter of the camp, as though terrified something was tracking them from the twilight gloom.

"All done," Rian muttered quietly once the blue dome tent stood firmly anchored. He glanced toward the neighboring tent. "Maya, Sita, is your setup secure?"

Maya poked her head out from the zipped flap of the red tent, her face etched with fatigue. "Yeah, Yan. Sita's already inside her sleeping bag."

"Good. Get inside your tents and rest," Gani chimed in, having just finished securing his own tent lines. "We need to sleep early because at 2:00 AM sharp, we’re launching our summit attack."

"Summit attack? Are you seriously still talking about pushing for the peak, Gan, after everything that went down today?!" Dika protested from the front of his tent, staring at Gani with a furrowed, disbelieving scowl. "We almost died, Gani! Sita nearly got dragged off by a ghost, and you're still obsessing over the summit?!"

Gani locked eyes with Dika, his gaze sharp and unyielding. "If we sit here waiting for morning and do nothing, we're just going to freeze solid into ice statues, Dik! The only viable descent route is on the other side of the peak or back down at the base registration post. What's your bright idea? Just sit here until we all starve to death?"

Dika fell silent, huffing an angry breath before ducking down and crawling furiously inside the blue tent without another word. Rian followed suit, sealing the fabric door tight from the inside and shutting out a world now plunged into pitch-black night.

Inside the cramped, dim tent, the air hung heavy and damp. Rian and Dika sat cross-legged opposite each other on thin foam pads, bundled in double-layered winter jackets.

"Yan... are you actually going to follow Gani up to the summit before dawn?" Dika whispered softly, his voice trembling within the enclosed tent. He pulled his knees tight against his chest, staring blankly at the tent floor. "I'm scared... I swear, I don't feel like we're ever making it off this mountain alive."

Rian exhaled a long breath, adjusting his water bottle. "We don't really have a choice, Dik. Gani's right—staying put out here without solid logistics is basically suicide. We need to clear this as fast as we can."

"But it feels like... something's watching us from out there, Yan. I've been hearing weird noises this whole time," Dika whimpered, terrified as he pressed his back hard against the corner of the tent.

"Stop listening for them. It's just exhaustion-induced paranoia," Rian countered, trying to sound reassuring even though his own heart felt entirely unmoored.

To break the tension and fuel their empty stomachs, Rian decided to step outside briefly to boil hot water using a mini portable stove on the porch area. Gani was doing the exact same thing outside his own tent.

The atmosphere in the open clearing of Post 3 that night was bone-chilling. Illuminated only by the dim, lowest setting of their headlamps, they cooked instant noodles inside a tiny nesting pot.

"Here, eat up so your core temperature stays up," Gani offered, handing a small plastic bowl of broth and noodles to Rian, then passing another toward Maya's tent.

Rian took the bowl. He blew gently on the steam, then lifted a forkful of noodles to his mouth.

Dika, eating near the entrance of his tent, instantly stopped chewing. "I swear... this tastes like absolute garbage. It tastes like dishwater—flavorless, ice-cold on the tongue, and just... weird."

"Just eat it and be grateful. We need the calories for tonight," Gani replied coldly, finishing his meal in rapid, silent bites.

Once that bleak, tasteless dinner wrapped up, their gear was packed away. At 9:30 PM, all tent lights were cut entirely. Inside the blue tent, Rian and Dika lay side by side in their sleeping bags, trying to force their eyes shut as temperatures plummeted toward freezing.

Time dragged by at a snail's pace. Exhaustion finally dragged Dika down into a heavy sleep, soon followed by the rhythmic, steady breathing of Maya and Sita from the neighboring tent.

Rian lay flat on his back over the foam mat, staring up at the pitch-black ceiling of the tent. His eyelids felt leaden, but his brain raced violently over the bizarre anomalies of the day—the antique matchbox in his pack, the horrifying phone photo, the whispering mist.

Suddenly...

Tap... tap... tap...

The sound of fingernails tapping in a precise, rhythmic cadence echoed against the outer fabric of the tent right beside Rian's head.

The tapping was soft, yet possessed a rigid, deliberate beat—as though someone, or something, was drumming their long fingernails against a glass windowpane.

Rian froze dead inside his sleeping bag. His heart hammered straight up into his throat. He didn't dare twitch a muscle, his eyes blown wide as he stared unblinkingly at the nylon wall inches from his face.

Tap... tap... tap...

The tapping stopped instantly.

Absolute silence clamped over the tent for several agonizing seconds, broken only by Dika's heavy snoring beside him.

Yet the very next second, right beside Rian’s ear—separated only by a razor-thin layer of tent fabric—he heard a heavy, protracted, labored breath reeking of wet earth and decay. The breath blew slowly, intimately close, as though an unseen entity had pressed its face flush against the outer wall of the tent, tracking every single beat of Rian’s terrified heart in the dead of night at Post 3.