As dawn crept across the horizon, Kai finally allowed himself a weary sigh of relief. The darkness had tested his courage, but morning's arrival felt like a gentle promise of safety.
By noon, refreshed yet famished, Kai ventured into the sprawling forest. Sunlight pierced through emerald canopies, illuminating plants with petals that shimmered like tiny jewels, while distant birdsong whispered secrets through the leaves.
After wandering along winding paths and listening to the murmur of hidden streams, Kai stumbled upon his first delicious meal.
It stood roughly the size of a boar, though lower, sturdier, with muscular limbs flexing beneath its broad frame. Thick plates of bark-like armor overlapped across its body, each scale glinting faintly in the scattered sunlight—giving the mesmerizing illusion of living wood in motion. Its heavy footsteps rustled like fallen leaves, blending seamlessly with the forest around it, as if the creature itself had risen straight from the woodland floor.
"I wonder what they call this"
It stopped. Lowered its head. Dug at the earth with tusk-like teeth.
"That's meat." Said kai with a glimmer in his eyes
He scanned the terrain. No slope. No cover. He'd have to get close — and get lucky.
Kai stepped out from the tree line. Silent and Precise.
Twenty feet.
Fifteen.
Ten.
Kai launched forward.
The creature reared back with a sound like grinding gravel, and in a blink, it was gone — barreling through the brush like a landslide. Trees snapped as its tail whipped around with a thunderous crack, smashing into a rotted stump and obliterating it.
Kai ducked, rolled, and came up running.
"Alright, its not slow. Got it."
He gave chase.
Kai surged forward, the thrill of pursuit flooding his veins. Roots reached to snag his feet, but he leaped gracefully over them, sliding effortlessly beneath low-hanging branches. He ricocheted off sturdy tree trunks, momentum carrying him fluidly from one agile movement to the next. Through it all, his breath remained steady, rhythmic—a controlled anchor amidst the wild rush of adrenaline.
The beast was fast — not graceful, but truly relentless.
It reached a stream and vaulted it without stopping, the impact on the other side shaking the ground.
Kai landed seconds later, tucked into a shoulder roll, came up low — eyes scanning.
There.
It had paused to catch its breath. Wide flank exposed. Steam rising from its back.
Kai threw his knife.
It bounced off the armor with a dull ping and dropped into the mud.
The creature turned.
One glowing eye caught the light.
Then the tail swung.
THOOM.
The ground cracked. Leaves blasted upward. Birds scattered from the trees in every direction.
Kai stumbled back, coughing.
The thing charged into the thickets and was gone.
He stood there, chest heaving, knife nowhere in sight.
Then he exhaled. Laughed once.
"Yep. That's fair."
He turned around and started back through the trees, shaking his head.
"If I ever eat one of those, I'm roasting the tail first."
...
...
...
Sitting by the river, kai is eating some harvested fruit that he had found in the area. Drinking straight from the river.
"I cant beleive im suffering doing some shit I never wanted....You hear me you stupid god, wait till i get my hand on you."
The light Glimmered overhead — not quite golden yet, but warm.
The forest had stopped feeling endless and started to feel like a maze with rules Kai was slowly learning.
He moved through it like a shadow with weight.
Careful steps. Light touches. Everything had a sound. Everything had a smell.
He passed through a grove of thick-rooted trees whose trunks twisted like ropes, each one humming faintly with stored heat. When he pressed his hand to the bark, it felt like stone left in the sun too long.
Further on, he spotted a pool with water clear enough to show the sky twice — once above, and once beneath.
Small lizard-like things swam near the surface, but dipped under the moment he stepped too close.
He jumped across a fallen log — landed smoothly — then paused.
A field of short purple stalks stretched out ahead, each one swaying in perfect rhythm in the wind.
He saw birds — but none he could name.
Some had feathers that trailed light like paintbrush bristles, while others flew in spirals, not straight lines. One perched on a branch, stared at him with a too-human eye.
The afternoon shadows stretched longer now.
Time to move again.
He brushed dirt off his hands and stood up.
-NIGHT TIME-
Night fell slow.
No stars.
Just a thick layer of cloud hanging over the forest like a held breath.
Kai sat in a shallow nook at the base of a tree, pulling the last strap on his satchel tight. Every item he'd gathered — the books, the mushroom, all packed, ready to move.
But something felt… wrong.
He paused.
Held still.
The wind had changed slightly.
Cooler. Stiller. Like it didn't want to move.
Not dead quiet — but close.
The kind of silence that left too much space for sound.
They were details no ordinary human could perceive, a silent clue to the hidden changes reshaping Kai from within.
He glanced up.
Trees swayed gently.
But not all of them.
One branch — off to his right, maybe twenty paces out — was still.
Perfectly still.
His hand slipped slowly to the hilt of his blade.
No movement. No sound.
Then — a flicker. Just at the edge of his vision.
He stood, slow. Cloak already fastened, breath shallow.
No footsteps. No breathing.
Just motion — quick, deliberate — like someone who knew exactly where they wanted to be.
He backed toward the clearing's edge, eyes scanning, muscles tight.
Another flicker.
Not an animal.
Too smart and Too quiet.
Something exhaled — barely audible — maybe three trees ahead. Or behind.
Kai had no clue, and frankly, he didn't care to find out.
"Yeah, nope," he muttered, heart already halfway home.
"Can't exactly make it home if I'm dead."
And with that profound realization, Kai ran.
The forest erupted around him — branches whipping past his face, roots clawing at his boots. Leaves tore at his skin as he crashed through the underbrush, every instinct screaming.
Behind him — footsteps.
Fast ones.
Not stumbling. Not blind.
Tracking.
---
A blade slashed through the air — Just a hair behind. He ducked just in time. It shaved a lock of hair from the back of his neck.
He didn't look back.
Didn't need to.
Whoever—whatever—was chasing him hadn't come just to frighten or threaten.
They had come to finish the job.
---
He veered left, jumped a fallen tree, rolled mid-air and came up sprinting — almost slammed into a low-hanging branch, ducked beneath it without breaking stride.
His lungs burned.
His ribs ached.
But his legs didn't stop.
Think. Move. Adapt.
He angled downslope, using gravity to pick up speed.
Behind him — that same rhythmic pursuit. Almost four-legged. Or maybe two with claws.
The forest blurred — trees racing past like spears.
A narrow ridge came into view. One wrong step and it was a fifty-foot drop into dark brush.
He didn't slow.
Didn't hesitate.
He jumped.
He landed in a roll that should've shredded his back, but he moved through it, came up on both feet in a blink, body coiled like a spring.
"That… shouldn't have worked."
No time to think.
Behind him, the pursuer leapt — fast, low, brutal.
Kai didn't run.
He exploded.
His legs surged beneath him, feet hammering the forest floor with impossible force. Each stride stretched farther than the last — faster, sharper, like the trees were pulling past him instead of the other way around.
Roots he would've tripped over earlier, he now vaulted with ease.
A slope he should've slid down, he cleared in a long, arcing leap — his cloak barely brushing the treetops.
Branches whipped past, but none touched him.
His body moved before he could think, muscle memory layered over instinct, amplified by something else…
Adrenaline?
No.
Something deeper.
He turned hard, sprinted across a fallen tree like it was solid ground, and launched again — this time farther than he'd ever jumped in his life.
Ten feet. maybe twelve.
He landed in a low crouch.
No pain.
Only momentum.
---
"What… is happening to me?"
He didn't stop.
Just ran harder.
Pushed until the burn in his lungs turned electric.
Pushed until the silence behind him finally broke.
The pursuer?
Falling behind.
He smiled. Just barely.
"Keep going."
His boots hit the edge of a gully. A full drop. No time to measure it.
He jumped anyway.
"Cleared it."
Landed in a run.
His heart thudded like a war drum, his mind racing.
He should've collapsed.
but he didn't.
When he finally stopped, it was behind a boulder near a small stream, chest rising and falling fast — but not panicked.
His body still vibrated with that strange, burning rhythm.
Like something inside him had -unlocked-, and wasn't ready to fade yet.
"I'm stronger than before…"
"But why now?"
He looked at his hands.
They were shaking.
But not from fear.
From energy.
He barely had time to blink.
A blur moved through the treeline — not footsteps this time.
Impact.
Something slammed into the side of his jaw with the weight of a collapsing mountain
CRACK.
His head whipped sideways.
The world spun.
His knees buckled.
And suddenly the ground was in his mouth.
He tasted blood.
Felt it pulse in his ears.
His vision blurred — trees twisted, upside-down, sky flickering like someone had shaken the stars loose.
"what.....was, that!"
He tried to rise, but his limbs didn't respond all at once — they lagged behind like they weren't sure if this body still belonged to them.
He spat, coughed, staggered.
And then—he saw the figure.
Emerging from the brush.
Not fast. Not charging.
Just -walking-.
Deliberate.
Broad-shouldered. Masked. One hand still clenched, blood smeared across the knuckles.
No sound.
No warning.
Just power.
Kai stumbled back, barely upright. One eye already swelling shut.
The figure said nothing.
Did nothing.
Just kept approaching, step by step — like a predator that already knew it had won.