The dreaded sense of wrongness was like the paranoia that had seeped deep into his metal body for the decades, the centuries that he had spent on the move, hiding, running, suddenly swelled several-fold. It dispersed as quickly as it came, but never completely vanishing, a lingering sense that draped over him like a mantle, an unease that clung to his very being.

I don't like this, Felspring whispered within the comm of his helmet. Something's happened. Something's not right. They were hardly words that needed to be said. They both knew each other well enough to know what the other thought.

He was on the move now. He had to move, had to... It was more of a sensation than an actual directive, but put into words it would have made no sense to him. He had stared at his hands as though he could see through the worn gloves he wore, and yet they were somehow not enough, the helmet he wore was not enough. They'd know.

They can't know.

They won't know.

He moved quietly through the woods- when did they enter the woods? Were they not in the city? but it seemed that no amount of cover drove away that feeling, that sense of being watched, and the strange light, that great Eye could still be glimpsed through the snarl of twisting tree limbs. It was distracting enough that his attention drifted, the silence he had born in his favor broken by a single misstep, the offending twig easily crushed beneath his boot. He had not initially meant to stalk anyone, but the atmosphere made him tense.

He heard the movement ahead, Felspring noting that the figure had picked up speed somewhat. "Wait-" he started to call out, stopping himself just before he adjusted the volume of his tone, as though something seized his circuitry, an irrational decision to stay silent gripping him.

Do not give yourself away, it seemed to warn, and it wasn't the voice of his Ghost, but it felt like his own.