By dawn, Goss's breathing had turned ragged. He shivered beneath a damp blanket of bark-fibre, sweat sticking his hair to his forehead. The cut on his leg had darkened overnight. The veins around it had bloomed into a sickly shade of greenish-purple, spreading out like roots beneath his skin. The jungle hadn't just infected him, it had claimed him.
Naera crouched beside him, carefully peeling away the soaked wrap. The stench was worse now, sweet, rotting, unnatural. She didn't flinch, but her eyes tightened. She rinsed her hands with rainwater, then pressed her fingers gently around the boil, feeling its heat.
Thomund hovered nearby, arms crossed, his brow furrowed. "It's spreading fast."
"We need to lance it," Naera said, her voice soft. "Soon."
"And then what?" Lira asked from the fire, her voice tense but low. She sat stiffly, still favouring her injured leg. "Lancing relieves the pressure, but it doesn't fix the rot."
Eloin, sorting through their dwindling supplies, shook his head. "We boil everything we can, and it's still not enough. The jungle's eating us alive."
Silence settled over the group. The air in the clearing felt heavier, sour. The vines had crept in closer, twitching at the edges of the camp, as if drawn to the suffering. A low mist coiled around the base of the trees, strange and thicker than it had been before.
"We can't just let him die," Thomund said finally.
"No one's saying that," Raif replied, his voice tight.
"Then what are we saying?" Goss croaked, his voice strained. "That I'm next? That I'm the first to go?"
"You're not dying," Raif snapped, sharper than he'd intended. He stepped away from the fire, pacing with clenched fists. "We just need something we haven't tried."
"Like what?" Eloin asked, his voice bitter. "We're scraping fungus and dirt together and calling it medicine."
"We don't know enough," Naera murmured, her hands hovering over the wound. "It's not just infection. It's the jungle. It's inside the wound."
Lira scoffed, frustration flickering in her eyes. "Of course it is."
Raif turned, his glare cutting through her. "Then we need to find something the jungle hasn't corrupted."
"Where?" Lira snapped. "We've barely searched past the trees."
Naera's gaze drifted to the vines curling by Goss's foot. Her eyes narrowed.
"Burn them," she said.
"What?" Thomund frowned.
"Now. The vines."
Lira grabbed a smouldering stick and limped over, jabbing it into the creeping tangle. The vines recoiled, hissing and retreating like worms from sunlight.
"They like him weak," she muttered. "They're waiting."
Goss's chest heaved as he fought for breath. "I don't want to die. Not like this. I don't want-" He stopped, choking on his words, eyes glazed as he tried to sit up.
"Breathe," Thomund said firmly, kneeling beside him. "Look at me. You're still here."
Raif moved closer to Naera. "There's got to be something."
Naera's gaze didn't leave the wound. "There was a flower."
Raif leaned in, his voice low. "What?"
Naera's hands slowed, but she didn't respond immediately. "Blue-centred petals. My mentor used them to treat rot. High branches. Old trees." She met Raif's eyes. "We need it."
"I'll go," Raif said, his tone resolute.
"Not alone," Eloin added, stepping forward.
Raif nodded, a weight lifting slightly from his chest. At least he wasn't going by himself. Without another word, the two of them disappeared into the jungle.
Naera leaned closer to Goss, gently cleaning the wound again, speaking softly to herself, or to him, maybe both. "He screamed for two nights. We had nothing clean. My master boiled thorns. Said it was the only way. We cut deep. He lived… but never forgave us."
Her voice was flat, unwavering. Her hands didn't shake.
Goss blinked, trying to focus. "Why tell me this?"
"So you know pain doesn't mean it's over."
Goss tried to laugh, but the sound was more like gasping for air. His body shuddered with the effort, but his mind was frantic. He could feel it coming, fast and heavy. Lira had seen death's door and had been saved just in time. But Goss, he felt like his time was running out.
"W-will you… will you burn my body?" His voice trembled, but for once his eyes were steady. Naera leaned in close, and Lira's posture stiffened as she listened.
"If that is what you wish."
The words were oddly comforting to Goss. He nodded slowly. He wanted his body to be burned, not left for the jungle to take. To be claimed by fire, not rot.
With a tremor in his hands, he grasped Naera's. It was small, but it was enough. A man prepared for death.
Raif and Eloin moved through the jungle, the air thicker than usual. Even just outside the clearing, the trees pressed in closer, their shadows heavy. The air smelled like wet decay, and the humidity was stifling. They carefully stepped around snarling roots, feeling the ground shift beneath their feet.
"I was a stonecutter's apprentice once," Eloin said quietly.
Raif glanced at him. "That so?"
"Stone didn't shift underfoot. Didn't try to kill you."
Raif huffed a short laugh. "I did something with numbers. Ledgers. Orders. Maybe shipping."
"You're good at keeping people together."
"I'm good at pretending to be."
Eloin looked at him, his gaze steady. "Still counts."
Raif let out a long sigh. He didn't feel like a leader. He hadn't felt like one in days. It seemed like one terrible situation after another. Sure, they stuck together, but it was more out of necessity than unity. They were stuck in a jungle that wanted to kill them, with only each other to rely on.
They spotted it ten minutes later, a delicate blue-centred flower growing high on a leaning tree. It was within the boundary Raif had noticed on the first day. Lucky? Maybe. But he didn't think about it too much. Climbing the tree, he began to notice something odd. Some trees had no vines wrapped around them at all. This one in particular, with loose bark and reddish lines running along its trunk, was always free of vines. Raif wondered if there was a connection but couldn't put his finger on it.
Once at the branch, he hooked the flower with a split stick and pulled it loose. The flower felt warm in his hands. It was unlike any flower he'd ever seen.
"It's different," he muttered.
"But close," Eloin said, watching carefully.
As Raif began to descend, movement caught their eyes across the glade. Something low, loping. Watching.
A deer. Or something that used to be one.
Its antlers were warped, twisted. Its eyes glowed faintly. It didn't run. It watched. Then, without warning, it disappeared into the trees. Raif blinked, unsure if his mind was playing tricks. Lack of water, food, and sleep could do that to a person, but he wasn't the only one who saw it. He glanced down at Eloin, who was shaking his head.
"We're not hunting that," Eloin said.
Raif hesitated, looking at the creature's retreating form, then at the flower in his hand. "We might have to."
"No," Eloin said firmly. "We don't even know what that thing is. For all we know, it could be another monster. We've already encountered enough things that can kill us. We don't need to seek out another."
Raif nodded slowly, his mind weighing Eloin's words, but his gaze kept drifting back to the deer. It was the first 'animal' they'd seen that didn't seem like a predator, though it didn't look much like an animal at all. It might be their chance to find food. Real food. Something that could help them recover.
Back at the clearing, Thomund crouched beside Goss, checking his temperature with the back of his hand. "Fever's bad. Putting rainwater on him might make it worse. Hang in there, Goss."
"No point sitting around, even if I'm limping," Lira muttered. "I'll keep burning the vines."
Naera ground a dried root into powder with a stone. She worked in silence, only occasionally glancing at the trees. Her eyes flicked to the ground, then back to the foliage above. She was always watching. Always waiting for something. She had seen what the jungle could do. And she was curious.
Thomund broke the quiet. "We need to talk about food."
Lira looked at him. "We're low."
"Beyond low," Thomund replied. "We're drying bark and chewing roots. It's not enough."
"I can push further tomorrow," Lira offered. "Southward."
"You can't walk ten minutes without leaning on something," Thomund said.
"Then someone else goes. Doesn't have to be me."
"Too risky," Naera said. "We haven't mapped anything. Everything past the edge is guesswork. Even with Raif and Eloin going for the flower, it's risky enough. But since they've moved in that direction, maybe we can start there instead of south."
"I don't care," Lira said, her voice flat. "We die if we don't eat. Might as well try."
"Then we die carefully," Thomund muttered.
Thomund knew rushing in blindly was a bad idea. But time wasn't on their side. Every day they got hungrier. Weaker. They couldn't afford to wait much longer.
They were still arguing when Raif and Eloin returned, mud-splattered and breathless.
Raif held up the flower. "Got it."
Naera took it with trembling hands. She crushed a petal between her fingers, sniffed it, then nodded once.
"Close enough."
Quickly, she tore off the petals one by one, crushing them with a rock, adding a few drops of boiled water to make a paste. She took a tiny amount, licked it, and closed her eyes. After a moment, she nodded again, then turned to Goss.
Kneeling beside him, she applied the paste to the wound, murmuring under her breath. It wasn't a chant. Just memory.
"You're going to feel burning," she said flatly. "That means it's working."
Goss's eyes were unfocused, wild with fear. "This isn't going to work. You're just-just guessing-"
Naera didn't look at him. "Once, I treated a boy who burned half his foot running through coals. His father made him do it as penance for stealing food."
She pressed the mixture to his wound.
"He screamed for twenty minutes. When he passed out, I cleaned the burn, cut away the skin, and packed it with mud soaked in bark oil. I didn't sleep for two days. He lived."
Her voice didn't change. Her hands were steady, almost gentle.
Goss blinked. "What... happened to him?"
"I never saw him again," she said.
No anger. No sadness. Just the facts.
The fire crackled behind her. Lira watched with tight lips, while Thomund busied himself burning back the vines that were creeping in. The rest of the group stayed silent, as if afraid speaking too loudly would bring disaster.
Eloin stepped up beside Raif. "She's the only one who knows how to treat this. But she's also part of whatever this place is becoming."
Raif didn't answer at first, then quietly asked, "You think it's changing her?"
"I think it's changing all of us," Eloin replied.
"It's working," Thomund breathed.
Raif nodded slowly. "We bought time."
Goss slumped, dazed but conscious. "Still hurts."
Naera met his eyes. "That means you're alive."
[Challenge Complete: Treat the Infected][+3 KE][Total KE: 74 / 100][Next Upgrade: LOCKED][Required: 100 KE]
No one cheered. But no one cried either.