Collapsing hard onto the dusty earth of the gateway—which had suddenly morphed into a lattice of human bones—Maya’s breath caught in her throat. The overpowering stench of graveyard soil and iron-rich dried blood wafting from the drops landing on her shoulder churned her stomach into violent knots. Shrieking hysterically, Maya scrambled backward with violent tremors, fleeing the living, horrifyingly pulsing structure of the archway.

"Maya! Are you okay?!" Rian panicked, lunging forward to haul Maya back to her feet. Rian’s own face was as white as paper, his eyes blown wide as he stared at the solid rock wall now completely sealing off their only exit.

Gani, Dika, and Sita formed a tight protective huddle behind Rian. The lively chatter and gamelan melodies of the traditional market abruptly plummeted into absolute, deafening silence within a fraction of a second.

Dozens of market patrons who had been wandering past moments before halted their steps in unison.

No more laughter. No more bartering banter.

Maya gripped Rian’s jacket sleeve so hard her fingernails bit painfully into the fabric. Her lips trembled violently as she pointed out across the market square with a dirt-smeared right hand.

"Yan... Gani... look... look at them..." Maya choked out, hot tears streaming down her freezing cheeks. "This place... this isn't a rest stop... we walked straight into their nest..."

Gani swallowed hard over a bone-dry throat. He swept his gaze across the vendor stalls lining the narrow aisles of the phantom market. Beneath the dim, greenish-blue glow of the oil lamps, the sight unfolding before them shattered all boundaries of human logic.

Dozens of "human" market-goers stood rigidly in place. Maya was right—they didn't move like normal people. Their feet hovered a few centimeters above the dirt path without touching the ground, making not the faintest whisper of a footstep as they drifted. Their faces were deathly pale, devoid of life, their blank white eyes blown wide and staring unblinkingly straight ahead.

"Oh God... all of them... they aren't alive..." Dika whimpered in a fractured, hopeless voice. His legs turned to jelly, nearly sending him collapsing back into the dirt. "What kind of place did we wander into...?"

"Don't look into their eyes! Keep your eyes front!" Gani commanded with a raspy voice he forced to sound authoritative, even though every joint in his body shook violently under the crushing weight of terror.

Maya couldn't tear her gaze away from the vendor stalls lining their left side. Goosebumps erupted across her skin, sending a freezing jolt racing from the soles of her feet straight to her skull.

Atop the rotting, decades-old wooden tables, the items on display were nothing like a normal market. There were no fresh vegetables, no fruit, no warm meals. Neatly arranged across those stalls were piles of weathered, ancient hiking backpacks from decades past with shredded, rotted fabric; thick mountaineering jackets crusted with dried, blackened bloodstains; moss-covered climbing boots; and antique digital watches with shattered glass faces, their hands frozen permanently at 3:17 AM.

"Gani... those items..." Maya whispered in a choked gasp, pointing toward a stack of ruined backpacks at a nearby stall. "Those... those are the packs belonging to the senior climbing team reported totally missing on Mount Aruna twenty years ago... that jacket... that watch..."

"Cut it out, May! Don't look at them!" Rian interrupted frantically, grabbing Maya’s shoulders to force her face away. Rian felt a crushing weight of guilt and profound horror pressing down on his chest. "We need to find another way to break through that rock wall! Gani, help me push this boulder!"

Gani stepped up instantly, pressing both trembling palms against the solid rock wall sealing the gateway, and shoved with every last reserve of muscle left in his body.

"Push, Yan! Help me!" Gani roared.

Rian released his grip on Maya for a split second, rushing over to press his weight against the unyielding stone alongside Gani. Yet the stone wall didn't budge a millimeter—dense, freezing, and hard as solid-cast iron fused directly into the mountain cliff.

"It's no use, Gan! This rock is solid, it's like it's impossible to break through!" Rian yelled in frustration, his breath coming in ragged, panting gasps.

"Then what are we supposed to do?! Turn into mummies out here?!" Dika shrieked hysterically, slipping over the edge of sanity. He hammered his fists against the rock wall until his knuckles split and bled, feeling no physical pain whatsoever beneath the suffocating blanket of terror.

Amidst the blinding panic consuming the small group, Sita—who had stood frozen beside Maya—gently tugged on Maya’s jacket hem.

"Maya... look over there..." Sita whispered flatly, pointing straight toward a vendor stall directly before them.

Maya turned her head reluctantly, following Sita’s gaze.

Behind the wooden table draped in a tattered black cloth, an elderly female vendor sat hunched over. The woman’s face was deathly pale, her skin a withered, ashen gray, and her eyes hidden beneath the shadow of a filthy cloth hood. There was no expression on her face—blank, cold, and macabre.

The old vendor slowly raised her head. Her neck emitted a loud, cracking krrrck sound, as though her bones were being forced out of alignment.

She whipped her head a full 180 degrees to lock her gaze onto Maya, staring at the girl with pupil-less, pitch-black eyes radiating pure, unadulterated malice.

Maya held her breath tight, her entire frame flash-freezing, unable to twitch a single inch beneath that lethal gaze.

The vendor parted her cracked, bleeding lips. She stretched her mouth into a wide, impossibly distended grin—so wide that the corners of her lips tore open all the way to her ears, exposing a row of razor-sharp, blackened, moss-covered teeth.

In a soft, raspy whisper carrying a double-layered acoustic resonance that echoed directly inside the skulls of all five of them, the woman spoke:

"What would you like to buy, dear? ...Will you pay for it with your friend's life?"