The storm raged on without pause, screaming through the jungle canopy like a living thing. Trees bent and groaned under the weight of the wind, their branches snapping in protest, leaves ripped free and sent spiraling into the void above. The rain battered the sea with unrelenting force, each drop a needle against the skin. Thunder cracked at erratic intervals, lighting up the soaked world with brief flashes of ghostly clarity.
I sat on a high branch, legs dangling, soaked to the bone but still, strangely, calm.
The monkeys surrounded me, clinging to branches and vines, unaffected by the storm. They moved with instinct, as if this weather was part of their lives, as familiar to them as sun and silence. One handed me a bunch of bananas, and I peeled them slowly, chewing with a steady rhythm. The fruit was sweet, overly so, but it gave me something warm in my belly.
The elder monkey approached. His fur was matted from the rain, and his movements were slow but deliberate. He held the familiar gourd in one hand and stopped before me. Without a word, he offered it. I took it, nodded once, and took a sip.
The wine burned down my throat, slower than before. The siphoning had stopped. The wine ball inside my chest remained quiet, no longer absorbing what I drank. This time, the alcohol entered my bloodstream, and I could feel the buzz hit quickly. I stopped after three gulps. Any more and I'd risk being too drunk to move.
The elder monkey pointed at me, then the gourd, his fingers closing into a fist then opening expectantly—a clear, unspoken question: What would I give in return?
I stood, handing the gourd back with a respect, and dropped from the branch to the wet forest floor below. The impact was soft, muffled by moss and soggy leaves. Without waiting, I turned toward the jungle and began to walk.
The rain had turned everything into a curtain of grey. Visibility dropped to nearly nothing, and every step I took was a guess. The foliage clung to me, vines catching on my arms, branches whipping against my legs. I chose a direction without logic, relying on chance more than sense. With the ground this wet, any tracks left behind would have already been washed away. There was no trail to follow, no signs to read. Just me and a storm that didn't care if I ever found my way back.
The light faded even more.
Lightning came in flashes, but the canopy above was too thick. Even when the sky lit up, the forest below stayed dark. All I had was the sound of thunder and the wet squelch of my boots. Not even the sound of storm came inside the forest.
Time became strange. I didn't know how long I walked. Minutes, hours—it blurred together.
Leeches and small insects began to latch onto me. I felt their presence before I saw them, the small tugs and pinpricks of pain as they sank into my skin.
But then something remarkable happened.
They didn't get the chance to feed.
The blood inside me stirred. Not gently. Not with warning. It lashed out, surged through my veins like boiling oil, and devoured the parasites in seconds. I watched, stunned, as a leech blackened and fell off my arm, shriveled and smoking slightly.
A first.
The blood had always been passive. But this? This was new. It was actively attacking threats now, not waiting for damage to be done.
Was it evolving? Was it showing its sentience?
I walked further, deeper into the green that had become black, until the slope beneath me changed. My foot slipped. Then the other. The ground vanished, turned to slick mud, and I began to slide.
I couldn't stop.
I slid down fast, the slope steep and sharp. Trees rushed past me, their trunks a blur. The wet earth scalded my arms and legs from the speed and friction. Branches cracked under me as I crashed downward, helpless to change course.
Then I flew—briefly—before landing hard in a pool of water.
It was cold. Silent. Deep.
I gasped, flailing to stay afloat, my limbs suddenly heavier than they had been moments ago.
Then something grabbed my leg.
It was fast. Too fast for me to react. A hand? A claw? I didn't know.
But it yanked.
I was pulled down into the dark.
There wasn't even a moment to think. The world flipped. Up became down. My breath escaped me in bubbles. My vision swam. The cold bit into my bones, paralyzing me.
Somewhere in the chaos, I remembered the pouch.
With fingers numbing fast, I reached down, found the two thermite grenades strapped at my waist, yanked the pins with one motion, and let them go.
My last thought before almost blacking out was simple.
Let this be enough.
Then the world detonated.
A surge of light and pressure shot through the water. A white-hot pulse of energy tore through the depths. The heat didn't feel like fire—it felt like air being forced into my lungs all at once.
The water boiled instantly.
I was thrown upward by the blast, shot toward the surface like a ragdoll in a cannon.
I broke through, gasping, coughing, vomiting seawater.
Every breath was raw pain, but I was alive.
I floated, dazed, as the rain fell harder. I couldn't see where I was.
But before I could swim, the pull came again.
The same grip, stronger now.
It latched onto both legs and dragged me down with monstrous force.
No warning.
Just raw power.
I reached for another grenade. This time, just one. I didn't have the time for another.
I pulled the pin but didn't release it right away. I held it tight, counting seconds in my head, even as my vision dimmed again.
One. Two. Three.
Let go.
The grenade dropped and sank.
Then it exploded.
The force was delayed by a fraction, but when it hit, it hurled me toward the shore like a skipping stone. I crashed into the muddy bank, skidding through shallow water and slamming into a tree trunk.
My body screamed.
My entire lower half was in ruins. My chest felt cracked. My limbs barely moved.
But I was on land.
Somewhere.
Somehow.
The blood surged again. A furnace under my skin. It roared to life, patching torn flesh, regrowing shredded muscle. Bones grew and snapped into place, tissues sealed. The pain made me convulse, but I was conscious.
The healing wasn't gentle.
It was furious.
My lower half was remade from the inside out. My chest realigned. Even the bruises faded as the blood scoured every inch of damage.
I gasped again, this time with less pain.
I was whole.
Barely.
But I had made it.
To shore.
--------------
The water hissed and popped as the thermite continued to burn, casting flickers of orange and white through the murky depths. Light danced across the surface like fireflies lost in a storm, illuminating just enough for me to see where I stood.
The shore beneath my feet was not sand. It wasn't even rock.
It was bone.
Massive, pale yellow bones. Ridges of rib cages large enough to crawl through. Vertebrae the size of barrels. They formed a twisted, sunken graveyard. A skeleton of something long dead but not forgotten by the land it had become part of.
In the faint light, I could see thick vines dangling down from the steep slope above. They trailed along the edges of the bone pile, swaying slightly in the wind that howled through the gorge. It wasn't close, but it was reachable. The slope was tall, wet, and treacherous. There would be no climbing it without those vines.
So I ran.
My feet struck the bones with quick, jarring steps. They cracked under me, old and brittle, but held long enough for me to cross. The blood in me burned, surging into my legs, accelerating every step. I could feel it reinforcing tendons, amplifying each muscle contraction. The world blurred as I pushed harder. Then I jumped, arms stretched wide, eyes locked on the vine swinging in the air.
My fingers were just about to grasp it when the water below exploded again.
A force seized my leg.
I was yanked backward mid-air, my jump interrupted violently. My shoulder cracked as I twisted in the air and slammed into the water with a splash that knocked the breath from me.
The cold hit first.
Then the pressure.
Then the panic.
I struggled, legs kicking, arms clawing at the water. The thing had me again, pulling me down with terrifying strength. My hand reached for my pouch out of instinct. I grabbed a thermite grenade, fumbled the pin, and just as I prepared to pull it—
The grip loosened.
The monster let go.
Just like that.
I broke the surface with a desperate gasp, my lungs heaving for air, throat burning from saltwater. I turned over, scanning the area as I swam to the nearest bone. Whatever was down there had seen the grenade. It recognized it from before. Understood what it could do. And it feared it.
I climbed back onto the bone pile, limbs shaking, water dripping from my body. The thermite in the water was dimmer now, sputtering, dying out. Soon I'd have no light at all.
I looked up at the vines again.
I didn't hesitate.
I ran to the far end of the bone mound and prepared to leap again. But as I raised my foot to take the first step, something in me froze.
A pulse.
My sixth sense.
It spoke in a language I didn't understand. Not words, exactly—but meaning. Urgency. Warning. Advice and scolding, all in one silent surge.
I stopped.
The sixth sense had returned. It had always been quiet. Subtle. Now it screamed.
I looked around.
The air buzzed.
Something behind me.
I turned and walked slowly, unsure of what I was even searching for. The bones creaked beneath my feet.
Then I saw it.
A bone unlike the others. Long. Wide. It stretched upright at a strange angle, half-buried in the pile. Its surface was smooth, clean. Untouched by age. It gleamed faintly in the dark.
I reached out, hovering my hand over it.
My sixth sense screamed.
This was it.
I grabbed the bone with both hands. It was enormous—easily ten meters long. Thick, dense, and curved like a fragment of a colossal limb. I braced for weight.
But it was light.
Impossibly so.
As if it wasn't bone at all.
I exhaled slowly, half in awe, half in disbelief.
Then I muttered to myself.
What the hell am I doing?
I didn't wait for an answer.
I picked up the massive bone in one hand and ran, the blood in me surging again to support the extra weight.
I felt nothing. Only urgency.
I jumped.
Caught the vine with my free hand.
It bent and dipped under my weight, but it held. My fingers wrapped tight, and I began to climb.
The bone was awkward. It threw off my balance. It scraped against the wall of the slope. But I didn't let go.
The vine reached all the way to the top. The climb was slow, difficult, but it was possible.
And I made it.
I hauled myself over the edge and collapsed in the mud, chest heaving. The bone rested beside me. Steam rose from my body as the blood inside repaired the strain.
I looked back over the edge.
The gorge had gone dark. The thermite was gone.
I stood up and turned.
I didn't know what path I was on now. But it led away from that place. That was enough.
I began running.
I kept the bone over my shoulder. It was still light. The air was colder here. The forest denser. Trees leaned in, their branches clawing like fingers.
Then I heard it.
The sounds of animals.
Low growls.
Circling.
They were stalking me.
I pulled two thermite bullets from my pouch, one for each hand. They were unstable. Meant for guns.
Thermite bullets weren't made for this. But then again, neither was I.
Eyes flashed in the dark.
A low snarl echoed nearby.
One of them lunged.
A tiger.
It burst from the underbrush in a blur of motion and muscle, leaping through the rain-soaked air, teeth bared.
I didn't dodge.
I raised my hand and let it bite.
The jaw closed over my arm with bone-snapping force. Pain surged. But my fingers, trapped inside the tiger's mouth, squeezed the bullet.
The casing cracked.
A flash.
Then fire.
The tiger's mouth erupted in a burst of thermite. It screamed—a terrible, guttural noise—as the fire spread across its head and shoulders.
It reeled back, letting me go.
My hand was shredded.
I called the blood.
It surged forward, closing the wounds, reforming tendons, knitting bone. I kicked the flaming beast back toward the trees, where others waited.
The fire lit the jungle.
More eyes.
More movement.
They didn't run.
They didn't fear the fire.
One tiger had fallen, and the rest stepped forward.
No hesitation.
This wasn't about hunger.
A jaguar slinked low, baring its teeth. Flora and Fauna below hissed. Even birds flapped in the canopy, stirred by the energy in the air.
I stepped forward.
So did they.
It was going to be a bloody fight.
I didn't welcome it.
But I didn't fear it either.
I cracked my neck, rolled my shoulders, and gripped the bone tighter.
Come on, then.
Let's see who survives.