The river wasn't safe.
None of them believed it was. But it was at least something—a barrier, a resource, a breath of space between them and whatever the hell was crawling through the dark behind the trees.
Caleb crouched at the edge of the water, watching the surface shimmer in unnatural hues of blue and green. The fish weren't like any he knew—long, eel-like bodies with translucent fins and wide, flat heads. Some of them even had barbed tails that pulsed faintly with light. They were strangely beautiful.
"Drink it?" Hana asked, crouching beside him.
"I'd rather boil it," Caleb muttered. "If we can start a fire."
"We could try friction," she said, pulling out two flat stones she'd picked up earlier. "Or maybe see if anything burns without poisoning us."
Nearby, Mo was already experimenting. He had stripped bark from one of the less glowing trees and was stacking it with fibrous moss and thin twigs. "Back in our world," he said dryly, "this'd be called camping. Here? Feels like preparing for war."
"Because it is," said Jalen. His dreadlocks were damp with sweat, and his left arm was bound in a strip of cloth, stained dark with blood. He didn't flinch. "We need fire before night. If this place even has night."
"It does," Danielle murmured. "That thing we saw out there in the fog? It moves like a predator, but it doesn't chase during this light. My guess? It hunts in the dark."
"How do you know?" Alya asked, voice low.
"I don't," Danielle replied. "But notice how alien this place is, everything here is tuned to a rhythm. We can't assume Earth's logic applies."
A silence settled again.
Then Caleb stood. "We need to talk about what happened. About how we got here."
The others slowly gathered—ten in total now, from what had been over a thousand. Survivors. Or victims. It wasn't clear yet.
Jalen nodded. "Yeah. good idea."
They sat around the pile of unlit tinder, eyes guarded, posture tight.
"I'll go first," Caleb said. "I was in my apartment. Power cut out. I remember... light. Not like lightning-brighter. Everything froze. Then I woke up here."
"Same," Hana said. "I was outside, near the coast. The sky tore open. People were screaming. Then... nothing."
"I was in a hospital," said Alya. "Visiting my uncle. He didn't come with me. I thought it was a hallucination."
One by one, they shared their stories.
Some were at home. Some in transit. A few in crowded places. One man claimed he'd been in a coma—had been, for nearly a year—and woke up here, walking, breathing.
"What does it mean?" Mo asked. "Is this some kind of test? Purgatory? Experiment?"
Caleb didn't answer. No one did.
"We need to find other survivors, there must be plenty of gro-"
Then, from the shadows near the treeline, a voice called out.
"Help! Please—someone!"
The survivors leapt to their feet.
A woman stumbled into view, her coat torn, face smeared with dirt and blood. Behind her, three other figures followed—limping, panting, wide-eyed. They looked like they'd been running for hours.
"Help us!" she cried again. "It's coming!"
Caleb and Jalen rushed forward and helped them down the slope. Hana checked one of the men's pulse while Alya began dressing a deep gash on the woman's thigh.
"Calm down," Caleb said. "What happened?"
The woman sobbed. "We were in a cave. Found it by accident. Thought it was safe. But... it wasn't empty."
Her voice cracked.
"There was something already there. It didn't make noise. Didn't move until the second night. We lost four people. It just... pulled them into the walls. Like the rock swallowed them."
Caleb's jaw tightened. "Did it follow you?"
"I don't know."
"It did," said one of the new men, eyes wide. "I saw it. It was watching. The walls bled light. And then—it stood up."
He shook his head violently, as if trying to purge the memory.
"I don't know how to fight that."
"You don't," Jalen muttered. "You run."
Danielle looked thoughtful. "We need a pattern. A map. These creatures—they all respond to different things. The one in the mist hunts sound. The cave one hides, pretends to be part of the terrain. There must be more."
"There are more," said the woman. "We passed something... wrong. A field of dead trees. Everything was ash. But the ground kept shifting. We couldn't tell if it was wind or something underneath."
Mo spat into the fire pit. "We're surrounded."
"No," Caleb said. "We're inside. Like rats in a maze."
Hana turned to him. "So we need a way out."
"Or a way forward," Danielle added. "If we're in their territory, we survive by learning the rules. These things—maybe they're territorial. Maybe they fear something bigger. We observe. We adapt."
"Observe with what?" Jalen asked. "We don't even have knives."
"We make them," said Caleb. "Spears. Clubs. Fire. Traps, if we can."
Danielle nodded. "And we record everything. Start a log. Symptoms, behaviors, geography, creature types."
"I'll keep the log," Alya volunteered. "I've got a notebook in my bag. It's water-damaged, but usable."
"Good," Caleb said. "From now on, nothing dies without us learning from it."
A slow wind passed through the trees.
Not a natural breeze. It felt... drawn in. Like the forest itself had inhaled.
The survivors fell silent.
The light dimmed. Ever so slightly.
Danielle whispered, "It's starting. The shift."
"What shift?" Hana asked.
"Night," she said. "Or whatever passes for night here."
From deep within the forest came a low groan. Like stone grinding against bone. Far off. But moving closer.
Jalen stood and grabbed a thick branch. "We light the fire. Now."
Mo struck flint on stone. Sparks. Again. Then again.
Finally—flame.
It flickered weakly at first, but then the moss caught. Blue light turned orange. Warmth flickered across their faces.
A scream split the woods. Not human. Not animal.
Something in between.
Caleb stood beside the fire and looked into the dark.
Come on then, he thought. We're not prey anymore.
Not without a fight.