For most of the first hours of the journey, Ka'z remained distracted. The forest stretched endlessly around them, with towering trees blocking most of the sunlight and thick vegetation forcing the group to constantly adjust their path, but Ka'z barely paid attention to the scenery.
His thoughts kept returning to the cave entrance and, more specifically, to Za'r's face when he left. He could still remember the worry in her eyes and the way she had tried to stop him. The memory left an unpleasant weight in his chest that he couldn't simply ignore.
He knew he had handled the situation badly. The problem was that Ka'z had never been good at handling conflict.
Back on Earth, he had spent most of his life keeping everything inside. Whenever something hurt him, he withdraws and distanced himself rather than confronting the problem directly. It wasn't a habit he was proud of, but it was deeply ingrained in him, and reincarnation had not magically erased years of behavior.
