On the Path of Eternal Strength.

Chapter 114: Chapter 112 Where the Arrow Broke

—Two.

The number fell over the Ring like a piece sliding into place.

Sebastián did not move yet. The arrowhead breathed once, not by verbal agreement, but by common necessity. His dark ARMEX left a dull red pulse over his chest and thighs; the suit still did not feel like a natural extension, but it was no longer an unknown burden. Behind him, Virka lowered her center of gravity a little more, the violet veins on her back lit like nerves beneath artificial skin. Zaira held the right flank with exact firmness, the silver and orange details of her ARMEX vibrating under the sea wind. Óscar closed the formation, eyes attentive, smile gone, his entire body placed at that point where he could see all three without interfering with the first impulse.

From the safe zone, Valentina held the backpack against her chest. Narka did not speak. The platform, the sea, and the silence already said enough.

—One.

The Ring awakened.

It did not explode. It did not roar. It only released a low vibration beneath the boots of the four, a shake so precise it seemed to first measure each one’s weight before allowing them to advance. Sebastián went out at the point. He did not accelerate to the maximum. He opened the run with contained strength, enough to mark the direction without dragging the group. Virka and Zaira pushed off on both sides, not behind him, not ahead, but at that exact angle where the formation began to look like a real arrow. Óscar followed in the center, one step farther back, reading the distance between shoulders, rhythms, and breaths.

The first alteration came before twenty meters.

The ground began to ripple.

The Ring’s plates rose and fell in a hydraulic sequence, imitating the swell of the sea striking beneath the structure. They were not high uneven levels, but they were enough to break the cadence of anyone running alone. Sebastián placed his foot on a plate that was descending and shifted his weight without stopping. Virka adjusted with a short step, almost feline. Zaira did not fight against the movement; she let the ARMEX read the incline and corrected with her hip. Óscar spoke from behind, without shouting.

—Common rhythm. Don’t chase the ground. Let it rise.

Sebastián barely shortened the length of his stride. Virka matched the interval. Zaira held the flank without trying to gain an advantage. The arrowhead did not open. The Ring answered with a low pulse, as if it had recorded the first adjustment and had decided it still was not enough.

At fifty meters, the floor changed level.

Three sectors rose at the same time: one in front of Sebastián, another beneath the left flank, and another behind Zaira. The formation could have broken there. Sebastián could have jumped alone. Virka could have slid along the edge. Zaira could have used an ARMEX acceleration to overcome the uneven level before the others. None of them did.

—Sebastián, short —Óscar said—. Virka, raise half an angle. Zaira, don’t fire yet.

The order arrived clean.

Sebastián loaded his weight and climbed the frontal sector with a dry impulse, without separating too much. Virka accompanied him from the left, gaining height with a low stride that did not deform the line. Zaira contained the acceleration her suit offered her and ascended with measured force. Óscar entered last, using the edge of the elevated sector to keep the tail of the arrow centered.

The Ring vibrated again.

Then came the deceleration pulses.

They could not be seen. They could only be felt. One plate braked Zaira’s right foot for a fraction. Another bit Virka’s heel. A third tried to hold Óscar back when the formation was already beginning to stabilize. They were not traps to knock them down. They were questions. Who would abandon the other when the rhythm broke?

Zaira was the first to feel the pull. Her body responded by experience, seeking to recover the lost speed with a brief impulse. The right flank moved half a step ahead.

A yellow line shone beneath them.

—Lateral rupture: nine percent —the system’s voice announced—. Formation valid.

Zaira clenched her jaw.

Not from shame. From record.

—Correcting —she said.

—Sebastián, half a step less —Óscar ordered—. Virka, close left. Zaira, return to line, don’t overcompensate.

The correction happened in three movements.

Sebastián shortened his stride without looking back. Virka closed the left angle, not to cover a failure, but to balance the geometry. Zaira returned to her exact place, accepting the adjustment with a seriousness that needed no defense. Óscar recovered the center behind them. The yellow line went out.

—Rupture corrected —the system said.

The sea wind came in stronger through the open edge of the field. Valentina released the air she had been holding without realizing it. Inside the backpack, Narka remained still, but his golden eyes were open.

The Ring tilted.

Not one section. The entire curve they were crossing.

The platform gave way toward the ocean side, held by the hydraulic mechanisms that descended to the lower bases. The horizon twisted. The sea appeared closer by the right edge, dark and enormous, while apparent gravity pushed the formation outward. The ARMEX boots sought grip on the inclined surface. The natural mistake would have been to fight against the slope. Sebastián did not. He drove his weight inward and held the point. Virka adjusted from the left, almost glued to the ground. Zaira used the experience of her suit to avoid skidding, distributing force between ankle, knee, and hip. Óscar changed the closing angle so the tail of the arrow would not slide toward the edge.

—Don’t straighten your body —Óscar said—. Straighten the formation.

The phrase was enough.

Sebastián leaned his torso with the slope, but maintained the direction. Virka corrected the height of her left shoulder. Zaira let the ARMEX absorb part of the torsion without giving it the complete decision. Óscar held the rear line, slower, more precise, forcing the group not to become four separate fights against the same ground.

The Ring held the incline for seven seconds.

Enough for their legs to burn.

Then it returned to level with controlled abruptness. No one fell. No one moved ahead. The arrowhead remained alive.

At one hundred fifty meters, the lanes appeared.

Four blue lines lit beneath their feet, one for each participant. At first they ran parallel. Then they began to separate, opening toward different sectors of the track as if the Ring were offering them individual routes that were cleaner, more comfortable, more logical. The trap had no teeth. It had order.

Zaira recognized it first.

—It wants to divide us.

Óscar smiled slightly, without joy.

—At last, a bad suggestion with good presentation.

—Ignore lanes —Sebastián said.

His voice was dry, but it reached everyone.

Virka needed no more. Her left flank abandoned the blue line without hesitation. Zaira did the same from the right. Óscar stepped outside his lane and centered the formation behind them again. The system let the blue lines keep opening, useless, beneath a structure that no longer obeyed individual routes.

Then the false openings appeared.

Lateral sectors lit up with green routes, clean, without ripple or uneven level, inviting the flanks to take advantage. Virka saw the first. Zaira the second. In a normal race, both would have served to gain ground. On that lap, they were hooks.

—Don’t open —Óscar said.

—I wasn’t planning to —Zaira replied.

Virka did not answer. She only held the flank.

The platform accepted the refusal with an immediate change.

A frontal pressure struck the formation.

The air became a wall.

It was not natural wind. It was a mechanical current, compact, fired from hidden ducts at the edge of the Ring. Sebastián received it first. The ARMEX creaked under the force, but his body did not move back. The pressure split against him and opened toward both sides. If Virka and Zaira left gaps, the blow would enter through the flanks and dismantle the structure. If Óscar lost distance, the tail of the arrow would split behind.

—Close —Sebastián said.

Virka moved half a step toward the central line, body low, the violet veins shining with greater force. Zaira did the same from the right, using the ARMEX not to advance, but to hold. Óscar reduced distance, placing himself behind the minimal opening the three left, like an anchor point so the pressure would not turn them into separate pieces.

For a few seconds, they did not seem to run.

They seemed to cross through something.

The current struck. The platform vibrated. The false lanes went out and lit beneath their feet. The hydraulic swell returned in short pulses, mixed with small level changes that sought to break the rhythm at the worst moment. But now the formation responded better. Sebastián did not run as if he were alone. Virka did not move ahead by instinct. Zaira did not compensate from pride, but from reading. Óscar did not direct like the owner of the formation, but like someone preventing the structure from forgetting its own shape.

The two-hundred-meter line appeared beneath them.

Not as a finish line. As a record.

—Tactical stability: seventy-eight percent —the system announced—. Formation valid.

Óscar released a brief exhalation.

—Could be worse.

—It can be better —Zaira said.

—That too.

The second half of the lap arrived without pause.

The Ring stopped testing them separately and began to combine everything. Plates descending while others rose. Pulses that braked one foot just as the platform tilted. False routes opening toward empty sectors. Hydraulic waves crossing from the sea edge to the center. No obstacle was lethal. None sought to expel them. That was the hardest deception: there was not enough threat to justify panic, but there was constant pressure to reveal who thought only of himself.

Sebastián understood it in his body.

He did not have to win. He had to allow the others to win with him.

He slowed when he felt the point stretching the arrow too much. He accelerated when the flanks had space to accompany. Virka began to read the level change before it finished rising, adjusting her position so Zaira could respond without losing the line. Zaira accepted that reading and turned it into useful advance, measuring the ARMEX’s acceleration as if each pulse were a tool and not a temptation. Óscar spoke less with every meter. At first he had given instructions. Afterward he only marked minimal corrections.

—Right.

Zaira adjusted.

—Center.

Sebastián corrected.

—Close.

Virka entered.

—Hold.

The four held.

From the safe zone, Valentina watched them without blinking. To her, the formation was no longer just an arrow. It was something trying not to break. A thing made of four different people learning to share the same edge of danger. She did not understand all the movements, or the Ring’s readings, or the system’s percentages. But she did understand one simple part: if one went alone, the others were left behind. If they all took care of one another, they advanced.

Narka spoke low from the backpack.

—That is what they must learn.

Valentina did not look away.

—To run together?

—To remain together while they run.

The last curve of the lap appeared before the four.

The Ring attempted one final separation. The plates beneath Virka and Zaira lowered at the same time, creating a lateral depression. Sebastián’s sector rose half a meter, and Óscar’s received a deceleration pulse. For an instant, the formation was on the verge of opening into three different heights.

—Do not jump alone —Óscar said, stronger this time.

Sebastián sank his foot onto the elevated plate and did not take advantage. He waited half a heartbeat. Virka came out of the left depression with a low impulse. Zaira emerged from the right with measured acceleration. Óscar broke the braking pulse with a short step and recovered the distance. Then, and only then, Sebastián pushed again.

The arrowhead crossed the final line of the first lap united.

Not perfect.

United.

The platform stopped moving. The lines beneath their feet went out one by one. The sea wind felt natural again, without mechanical pressure, without hidden push. For one second, only the four remained breathing inside their ARMEX, looking at the stretch they had just completed as if they had not crossed a track, but an idea.

The system’s voice arrived before the instructor’s.

—First lap completed. Formation valid. Tactical stability: eighty-four percent.

The instructor remained outside the Ring, with the communicator near his mouth.

—Acceptable —he said.

It did not sound like praise.

Nor like rejection.

Óscar let his shoulders drop a little.

—I think that, coming from him, counts as an ovation.

Zaira breathed deeply, without taking her eyes off the Ring.

—We’re still too open on lateral changes.

Virka looked at the platform beneath her feet.

—And slow to close.

Sebastián said nothing at first. He observed the final line, then the three of them, then the stretch behind them.

—Again —he said.

The instructor did not respond immediately. The Ring remained still, but the stillness no longer seemed like waiting. It seemed like contained hunger.

From the safe zone, Valentina held the backpack tighter.

The first lap had not made them faster.

It had forced them to understand that advancing together was another form of resistance.

The second lap did not begin with blind impulse.

It began with a shared decision.

After crossing the first line, no one asked for rest. The system had said formation valid, the instructor had said acceptable, and that word, dry as cold metal, was enough to make clear that the Ring did not consider them ready. It only considered them capable of continuing to be measured.

Sebastián remained at the point, with the dark ARMEX still beating in dull red over his chest. Virka held the left flank, low, silent, with the violet veins lit beneath the black surface of the suit. Zaira occupied the right, soaked in concentration, not doubt; her golden eyes had stopped looking at the circuit as a track and were beginning to read it as a language she had to master again from another logic. Óscar closed from behind, breathing calmly, but with sharpened attention.

The instructor spoke from the speakers.

—Second lap. Same objective. Greater demand. If you fall outside the Ring, you will be recovered and reinserted. Do not stop unless the system expels you.

The sea struck below, more present than before.

Valentina listened from the safe zone, with the backpack hugged against her chest. Narka did not move inside it, but his low voice reached only the girl.

—Now it will not be enough for them to advance together, Valentina. They will have to hold each other when the Ring tries to separate them.

The start signal did not have a long countdown.

Only a white light crossed the starting line.

The arrowhead advanced.

The first meters seemed like a controlled repetition of the previous lap. The ground rippled beneath them, the plates rose and fell in hydraulic swell, and small pulses tried to bite their rhythm. But this time the group responded faster. Sebastián did not drag the point. Virka closed her angle before Óscar had to ask for it. Zaira corrected a lateral braking without moving ahead, and Óscar only marked two words.

—Hold center.

They held it.

For a moment it seemed the Ring accepted that improvement.

Then the first wall appeared.

It did not rise like a frontal threat to be destroyed. It emerged from the ground with vertical cleanliness, tall, smooth, without cracks, placed exactly where an individual race would have chosen to break through or go around. The upper edge was too high for a comfortable jump without losing the line. The surface offered no grips. The message was clear: it was not a test of brute force, but of support.

Óscar understood it before they finished reaching it.

—Sebastián, base. Virka and Zaira, first. I close.

Sebastián slowed without stopping. He planted both feet in the zone before the wall, lowered his center of gravity, and extended his hands forward, not like someone asking for help, but like someone becoming a step. Virka arrived from the left and stepped on his palm with fierce precision. Sebastián propelled her upward. She passed the wall with a short turn and fell on the other side without breaking the flank. Zaira entered almost at the same time from the right. Sebastián’s impulse lifted her stronger than necessary, and she adjusted in the air with the ARMEX, landing one step wider than ideal.

—Right flank wide —the system marked—. Formation valid.

Óscar was last. He stepped on Sebastián’s support half a second late, not from clumsiness, but because the margin had narrowed after Zaira’s correction. Sebastián propelled him anyway, but Óscar landed with his knee lower than expected and had to recover with two short steps.

It was not a fall.

It was a defect.

—Slow recomposition —the system’s voice said—. Tactical stability: seventy-one percent.

Zaira looked ahead for an instant, without turning.

—My landing opened too much.

—And I closed late —Óscar replied.

—Keep going —Sebastián said.

They kept going.

The second stretch did not give them space to arrange their pride.

The ground divided into square plates, each one marked by a gray pulse beneath the surface. Some sank when a single weight touched them. Others remained firm only if two participants stepped almost at the same time. There was no clear signal of which were which until the instant before contact.

—Pair synchronization —Óscar said—. Point with closure. Flanks together.

Sebastián did not wait for an explanation. He slowed just enough for Óscar to enter his rhythm. Virka and Zaira matched lateral distance. The first double plate responded well: Sebastián and Óscar touched it half a heartbeat apart, enough to stabilize it. Virka and Zaira hit theirs at the same time.

The second did not.

Zaira stepped a fraction early. The right flank plate descended abruptly. Not much, but enough to sink her axis. Virka tried to compensate from the left, closing toward the center. Sebastián slowed. Óscar gave the correct order, but late.

—Don’t all correct at once.

The formation compressed awkwardly. Zaira recovered her leg with force, but the pull shifted her shoulder inward. Virka had to open again to avoid colliding with her. Sebastián lost half a meter of point by waiting. Óscar was forced to accelerate so he would not leave the tail behind.

The yellow line appeared again.

—Support mismatch: sixteen percent. Formation compromised.

The word compromised weighed more than the previous one.

They were not out. But they were no longer clean.

The Ring did not wait for them to fully understand the error.

It activated the lateral traction.

An invisible field grabbed Zaira’s ARMEX from the right side. It was not a blow. It was an enormous hand pulling the structure of the suit toward the outer edge. Zaira planted her foot, but the ground was still altered by the weight plates. Her body shifted half a meter out of line.

Virka reacted immediately.

She entered with shoulder and forearm, not to hit her, but to return her to the correct angle. The contact was dry. Zaira accepted the correction without resisting it. Sebastián slowed again, this time too much, so he would not leave the flankers separated. Óscar read the danger and shouted from behind:

—Don’t brake the point. Just close.

Sebastián corrected, but the delay was already written on the ground.

—Irregular frontal rhythm —the system marked—. Tactical stability: sixty-four percent.

Zaira breathed deeply inside the open helmet.

—It pulled me off axis.

—We saw it —Virka said.

There was no mockery in her voice. Only fact.

Zaira did not respond with wounded pride. Her eyes hardened because she was learning something she could not break with speed.

The Ring opened the next sector.

The magnetic discs appeared beneath their feet.

They were not circles visible from afar. They revealed themselves when the four stepped into the central zone: round plates hidden beneath the surface, each one trapping the ARMEX boots for an instant with exact electromagnetic force. The vibration climbed up their legs. The ground stopped behaving like ground and became mechanism.

Óscar saw it late, but not too late.

—Chain —he said—. Don’t fight alone. Chain now.

The first disc rotated to the left. The second, to the right. The third tilted while rotating, and the fourth released a backward traction. The Ring was not trying to stop them. It was trying to turn them into four different directions.

Sebastián extended his left hand toward Virka and his right toward Zaira. He managed to grab Virka by the forearm. He did not manage to take hold of Zaira properly. She was badly placed from the previous traction, one step wider, with her body still correcting its axis. Óscar tried to hook onto her from behind to close the chain, but his grip arrived late, barely catching a section of her ARMEX forearm when the disc beneath Zaira rotated in the opposite direction.

Virka held Sebastián.

Sebastián held Virka.

Óscar held Zaira.

But no one held the complete center.

The chain was born split.

Zaira was dragged first toward the right edge. Óscar pulled her to recover her, but in doing so he slipped out of his own axis. Sebastián tried to turn to reach them with his free hand, but the disc beneath his feet released a forward impulse. Virka, still linked to him, absorbed part of that pull, but she could not hold the three of them from only one side.

—Unstable rotation —the system announced—. Formation broken.

The Ring launched them.

It was not a clean expulsion. It was a brutal dispersion. Sebastián and Virka went out in an arc forward and to the left. Zaira and Óscar were dragged toward the right side, still half-linked. For an instant, the four tried to correct in the air, but there was no longer any formation to save. Only bodies, ARMEX, salty wind, and the open void between the platform and the sea.

Valentina stood up behind the barrier.

—Dad!

Narka did not come out of the backpack.

—Look, Valentina. They are not finished yet.

The impact against the water came in four blows almost one after another.

The sea received them with cold violence. The weight of the ARMEX sank their legs first, then their torsos. The foam covered the red, violet, orange, and golden lines for a second. There was no panic. All of them knew how to swim. All of them reacted. Sebastián emerged first, shaking water from his face, with the ARMEX draining liquid through the joints. Virka appeared a few meters away, black hair stuck to her face, red eyes fixed on the platform. Zaira broke the surface afterward, breathing hard, furious with herself before with the Ring. Óscar came out last, coughing once and pushing the wet hair away from his face.

—Well —he said in a hoarse voice—. That was less elegant than I planned.

Zaira looked at him from the water.

—You grabbed me late.

—You were badly placed.

—I know.

The answer came out dry, but not defensive.

Beneath the Ring, something activated.

Hidden platforms, folded until then under the waterline, began to rise from the lower side of the structure. They were not rigid, waiting for bodies. They had remained submerged, folded back and deactivated so they would not become a danger when falling. Only after detecting the participants in the sea did they deploy with a hydraulic hum, opening like rescue plates beneath the surface.

One by one, they emerged beneath them.

Sebastián placed one hand and climbed up without help. Virka jumped onto hers with a quick movement, letting the ARMEX drains expel water through the legs. Zaira pushed herself from the sea with controlled force and landed on the recovery platform with one knee supported. Óscar accepted the elevation more than fighting it, climbing as the mechanism carried him toward the level of the Ring.

The platforms rose until they were aligned with a lateral reentry zone.

The four stepped onto the Ring’s surface again, soaked.

Water fell from the ARMEX in constant lines, striking the dark gray floor and forming puddles that the system began to absorb through invisible grooves. No one spoke for a second. The sea roared below as if mocking them without a voice. The barrier of the safe zone remained firm. Valentina had her hands pressed against the backpack, eyes open, but she was not crying. She saw Sebastián standing. She saw Virka upright. She saw Zaira breathing with contained anger. She saw Óscar shaking water from his face.

They were wet.

Not defeated.

The system’s voice filled the field.

—Second lap failed. Main cause: chain rupture during magnetic rotation. Recomposition not completed.

The instructor remained silent a few seconds longer, letting the report do its work.

Then he spoke through the communicator.

—Reentry authorized. Analyze or repeat the error.

Sebastián looked at the magnetic disc zone, then at Zaira, at Óscar, and at Virka.

He did not say again immediately.

This time, the formation did not need impulse.

It needed to understand where it had broken.

The four remained on the Ring’s surface, soaked.

Water fell from the ARMEX in constant lines, ran down the plates, gathered in the joints, and disappeared through the drainage grooves opening beneath their boots. The system had already announced the failure. The magnetic rotation, the incomplete chain, the bad placement, the late grip. Everything had been recorded with a coldness that did not need to insult them in order to weigh.

Sebastián remained standing at the point where he had tried to hold the structure. Wet hair stuck to his face, and the red lines of his ARMEX flickered beneath drops of salt water. Virka was at his left, motionless, with the violet veins going out and lighting up irregularly while the suit expelled liquid through the connections. Zaira breathed through her nose, firm, but her golden eyes did not leave the sector where the formation had split. Óscar passed a hand over his face to remove the water, without smiling this time.

They were not injured.

That did not make the fall smaller.

The instructor did not approach the Ring. Nor did he raise his voice. He activated the communicator on his wrist, and his tone came out through the speakers with the same dryness as before.

—Get off the Ring. Go to the changing rooms. Remove the ARMEX for drainage and inspection. Dry yourselves, use spare clothes, and return to the analysis zone.

No one answered.

—You will not repeat in that state —he added—. And you will not repeat without understanding the failure.

The order was enough.

Sebastián turned first toward the lateral access. Virka followed him. Zaira advanced behind, still with the hard expression of someone who was not arguing with the error because she was already dismantling it inside. Óscar closed the group, with the calmest step, though his gaze remained low, calculating a sequence that had arrived too late.

From the safe zone, Valentina stood up a little.

—Are they not going to run anymore?

Sebastián looked at her as he passed near the barrier. Water was still falling from his suit, marking the floor in small dark circles.

—We are going to come back —he said—. Wait for us here.

Valentina nodded.

Inside the backpack, Narka spoke in a low voice, only for her.

—Do not worry, Valentina. Falling also teaches, if one knows how to look at where it broke.

The girl hugged the backpack tighter and looked back toward the four as they disappeared through the changing room accesses.

The gates closed.

The external field was left for a few moments with a different stillness. The Ring no longer vibrated. The circular platform remained flat, wet from the water the suits had left falling, and the sea kept striking below with its ancient patience. The hydraulic mechanisms held the structure without moving. The luminous lines of the circuit had gone out, but not completely; some were still breathing beneath the gray surface, as if the machine preserved memory of the fall.

The instructor remained in front of the Ring.

He waited until the changing room doors finished sealing. Then he lowered his gaze toward his communicator. He did not touch the main screen. He pressed a small side button, sunken into the casing, designed not to activate by accident.

The floor responded.

A few meters from him, a circular groove opened in the outer platform, outside the Ring. It was not large. Barely a clean technical opening, from which a low metallic device emerged, with three projector lenses turning in silence. The mechanism rose to the height of a small table and fixed itself with a dry click.

Then the screen appeared.

It was not a physical sheet. It was a digital surface suspended in the air, pale blue, crossed by white lines and red marks. First it showed the diagram of the Ring. Then, the path of the second lap. Later, four luminous points appeared over the image: red for Sebastián, violet for Virka, orange for Zaira, golden for Óscar. The points advanced in silence until the magnetic rotation sector.

The instructor did not explain anything yet.

He only observed.

The screen froze the exact instant before the rupture. Zaira appeared outside the ideal axis. Óscar was half a step late. Sebastián had one arm holding Virka and the other extended toward a space he could no longer reach. Virka held part of the tension, but not the whole. The system’s lines drew vectors, angles, delays, traction forces, and zones where the human chain had been born incomplete.

In the changing rooms, the process was fast and functional.

The wet ARMEX were removed and placed on drainage racks. The plates opened in segments, the internal fibers released salt water, and the practice cores were connected to cleaning and inspection modules. There was no long conversation. Only towels, contained breaths, spare dry clothes, and the weight of failure still clinging to every movement.

Zaira dried her hair roughly, but not from empty anger. Her mind was still in the turn, in the moment where her position opened the flank too much. Virka changed clothes without hurry, silent, reviewing the tension she had held with a single arm. Sebastián finished before the others, as always, with the same hard stillness of someone who did not confuse falling with ending. Óscar stayed for a second looking at his own hands before closing his fingers.

He had arrived late.

Not by much.

Enough.

When they returned, they were no longer wearing the ARMEX. They wore spare dry clothes from the institute, simple, dark, prepared for contingencies in the external field. None of them seemed more comfortable for being dry. The fall was still there, invisible, between them.

Valentina saw them come out and lowered her shoulders a little, relieved to see them intact. Virka approached the barrier first and touched the upper part with her fingers, a brief gesture for her. Sebastián passed beside her and stopped for an instant.

—We’re fine —he said.

Valentina looked at him.

—You fell a lot.

—Yes.

—But you are going to learn.

Sebastián held her gaze. Then he nodded.

—That’s what we have to do.

Óscar heard the phrase and released a short exhalation, almost a laugh without strength.

—The girl just summarized the whole session better than we did.

Zaira did not comment on anything. Her eyes were already on the screen.

The instructor was waiting for them beside the hologram.

He did not need to call them. The four placed themselves in front of him on their own, with the Ring behind, the sea beneath the structure, and the frozen image of their error floating in the air. The screen showed the failed chain as if the fall were still happening in a place stopped outside time.

The instructor pointed at the projection.

—Look carefully.

His finger did not touch the image, but a red line lit up over the point where Zaira had lost her axis.

—Here you stopped being a formation.

Then another line marked Óscar’s late grip.

—Here you tried to correct when the rupture had already begun.

A third line crossed the space between Sebastián and the right flank.

—And here the point wanted to hold more than it could reach.

The silence fell over them with more weight than the seawater.

The instructor lowered his hand.

—You are not going to repeat until you understand this.

The screen remained suspended in the open air, in front of the Ring, showing the truth of the fall without ornaments. The sea struck below. The red and white lines of the hologram illuminated the faces of the four.

They were no longer running.

Now it was time to learn why they had fallen.

__________________________________________

END OF Chapter 112

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