The air outside the academy wall had a different taste, one that Eric could feel on his tongue as he pushed himself up from the damp ground, his knees sinking into the soft loam. The stone had already seamlessly sealed behind him, as if the passage he had just crawled through had never existed. For a moment, a cold spike of panic shot through him - what if Bastion changed his mind, what if he couldn't find his way back? But Eric pushed the worry aside, knowing it would do nothing to fill the gnawing hunger within.
[HUNGER LEVEL: 32%]
The number was a silent scream in his mind, climbing faster out here, away from the academy's dampening fields. It was as if the curse could smell his freedom and was straining at its leash, desperate to be unleashed.
