The jungle went quiet after sunset.
Too quiet.
Finn crouched by a pile of damp wood, striking a spark over and over. "Come on. Just catch already—"
Snap.
He froze. The sound came from the treeline. Something moving slow. Heavy. Wet.
Lira sat cross-legged nearby, trying to wring water from her hair. "If I die of a cold after surviving that farm-animal-from-hell, I'm haunting you."
"Shut up," Finn hissed. "Listen."
Another snap. A dragging sound. Something sliding through the mud.
Finn's throat went dry. "It's back."
Lira blinked. "What's back?"
Then the smell hit them—rotting meat, river muck, and burned fur.
The thing stepped out of the dark.
The bear-cow-gorilla was worse now. Half its fur gone, the skin beneath flayed open to raw muscle. One arm hung broken, the other clawed the ground for balance. Its cow skull was split down the middle, one horn shattered, the other glinting in the firelight.
It opened its jaw. Blood poured out, thick and black.
"Yup," Lira whispered. "Definitely back."
---
Finn grabbed a broken branch. "Run when I say run."
Lira frowned. "Can't we just talk to it? Maybe it's misunderstood."
The monster let out a gurgling roar that rattled their bones.
"Yeah never mind," she said.
Finn threw the branch—it hit the monster in the snout. It didn't even blink.
It charged.
---
They bolted through the underbrush. Lira tripped on a root, face-planting into a bush. The monster's claw slammed down an inch behind her, splattering mud and worms.
Finn turned back. "LIRA!"
"I'm fine!" she yelled, her voice muffled by leaves. "Just hugging nature!"
The monster lunged again—
—and its claws got tangled in the same vines that had trapped the beehive earlier.
It thrashed, roaring, ripping itself free—leaving strips of skin hanging from the vines like wet rags.
Lira popped up from the bush, pale and shaking. "Oh… oh gross…"
"MOVE!" Finn grabbed her and pulled her deeper into the jungle.
---
They stumbled into a clearing—a small wooden shrine half-buried under roots. Ancient, forgotten.
Finn gasped for air. "We'll hide there. Quietly."
Lira followed, eyes wide. "Quietly? Like, 'don't breathe' quiet or 'pretend-we're-dead' quiet?"
"Both!"
They ducked inside. The shrine was cramped and reeked of mold. Something inside had long since rotted—bones stacked in the corners, skulls half-melted with wax.
The wind died.
The jungle stopped breathing.
Then—drag… drag… drag…
Finn's heartbeat thundered in his ears. The sound circled the shrine. The creature was outside.
Through a crack in the wall, Lira saw it crawling past—on all fours now, dragging its broken arm, eyes glowing faint orange. It stopped. Sniffed.
Its nose twitched toward the door.
Lira's frill twitched too—right as a mosquito landed on it.
"Don't you dare," Finn mouthed.
Lira's eye twitched.
"Don't—"
SMACK!
Her reflex hit. The frill puffed out, smacking into a stack of skulls.
The skulls toppled.
CRASH!
The monster roared and smashed through the shrine wall.
---
Finn tackled Lira to the ground as the creature's claws tore through the air above them. He rolled, grabbed a bone shard, and stabbed it into the monster's eye. Black blood sprayed across the floor.
It screamed, the sound splitting the night.
Then something cracked—the rotten ceiling beam snapped and fell, crushing half of the monster's skull beneath it.
The shrine collapsed around them. Dust and smoke filled the air.
Finn coughed, dragging himself free. "You okay?"
Lira stumbled out, covered in soot. "I think I lost some brain cells…"
Finn looked at the ruins of the shrine. The beast was gone. Only blood remained, black and steaming.
"Do you think it's dead?" he asked.
Lira blinked. "You're asking me? I thought you were the logical one!"
Finn groaned. "I need a vacation."
But somewhere deep in the forest, far away yet somehow too close—
came another low, wet moo.