The ruins offered scant shelter, just broken walls and half-toppled pillars, jagged edges like teeth biting at the sky. The air was cool now, the heavy heat of the jungle easing into damp night. Shadows thickened in every corner, where vines twisted like ropes.
The survivors made camp anyway. A circle of weary bodies, backs against stone, eyes hollow. The forest had gone still.Not peaceful still but the kind that presses against your ribs, waiting for something to break it.
Erik sat a little apart, knife across his lap, eyes fixed on the shadows beyond the firelight. He'd taken first watch without being asked. His jaw was set like stone, every muscle taut, as if he expected the jungle itself to leap at them.
Maya lay curled near the wall, eyes half-closed. But she wasn't sleeping. She kept glancing at the fire, at others and at J. Quiet and thoughtful.
And Ravi… he sat hunched with his back against a crumbling pillar, staring into the fire. His face was pale and gaunt, his hands twitching restlessly on his knees. Hours passed but Ravi did not sleep.
J stretched, rubbing his shoulders.
"Be back in a bit," he muttered. "Nature calls."
He grabbed a stick from the fire with the end still glowing with orange flame and wandered off into the trees. His easy whistle faded with distance.
Ravi stared at J as he left the camp.The soft rustle of leaves swallowed J's footsteps until only silence remained. Ravi's jaw tightened.
His fingers clenched and unclenched. His thoughts twisted tighter with every passing second.
The clown hasn't killed a thing. Not one. Everyone else bled, fought and risked their lives. He just… dodges, trips and make jokes.
He got that wolf core by accident. The walls fell on it, and somehow he walked away with the prize. He's useless. He's weak. But he always lives. Jealousy festered, sour and sharp.
Every time that idiot smiled, everyone looked. Every joke, every laugh even Maya's eyes followed. But him? Nobody noticed him.
He looked down at his trembling hands the faint light glowed beneath the skin, his Glowmark flickering weakly like a dying ember. It was pathetic. He was pathetic.
But not anymore.
If J was gone… maybe the group would finally listen to him.Maybe Maya would look at him, not through him.His hand closed around the handle of the knife he'd scavenged. He rose quietly, step by step, followed the path that J took.
J stood near a crooked tree, the flame-stick planted in the dirt beside him. His back was turned, head tilted toward the canopy.
He wasn't humming just standing there, silent. The firelight threw long shadows across his face.
Ravi stepped closer, every crunch of leaf sounding like thunder in his ears.
He could almost see it, Maya looking at him differently. Erik listening to him instead of the clown.
He raised the dagger, both hands shaking.
One step closer then another.He lifted the blade high aiming to kill.
"...You sure about that?" J asked softly.
Ravi froze.
J's voice carried no fear just calm.
He didn't turn around.
"If you're gonna stab me," he said, "at least don't do it while I'm trying to take a leak. Bad timing, man." Ravi's breath hitched.
"You..... you think this is funny?" His voice cracked. "You're not special! You're just lucky! Everything is just a joke to you."He lunged.
J turned at the same instant. The world blurred the firelight flashed, shadows twisted and somehow J was inside Ravi's reach. J was fast he didn't know how but instincts guided him and he let his body go with it.
He grabbed Ravi's wrist. The dagger turned.
A heartbeat later, Ravi's own blade sank into his chest. Ravi stumbled back, eyes wide.
He looked down at the handle jutting from his ribs blood blooming across his shirt. His mouth opened like he might say something but nothing came out.
J's hand was still on his wrist.Slowly, he let go. Ravi crumpled to the ground, the faint glow under his skin flickering… then fading.
For a long moment, the only sound was J's breathing. The burning stick hissed, its flame guttering in the damp night air.
J stared at Ravi's body, at the knife, at the stillness. He couldn't even tell how it happened he'd just moved. He crouched down beside him. His face was pale, eyes wide and distant.
He reached out, hesitated, then pulled the dagger free and wiped it against the grass.
The blood didn't come off easily.He looked at his hands they were shaking. Then they weren't that scared him more.
"Guess luck runs both ways," he whispered. The words came out dry, humorless.
He pushed the dagger back into Ravi's belt maybe out of guilt, maybe because he didn't want to own it.Then he dragged the body off the trail, covering it with ferns and mud.
When he turned back toward camp, the fire-stick had nearly gone out. He carried it anyway.
Back at camp the fire had burned low. Erik was asleep against the tree, blade still in hand. Maya sat awake, staring at the embers.
J approached quietly, dropping the charred stick beside the fire. "Forest plumbing's the worst," he joked weakly.
Maya didn't answer. Her eyes flicked towards him then down his arm, to the faint dark stain near his wrist. Her expression didn't change, but her power stirred as an Empath she felt a faint pulse of cold awareness.She knew then and there.
He saw it in the way her lips parted slightly, then closed again but she said nothing. Just turned back toward the fire.
J sat down across from her, pretending not to notice. He warmed his hands, even though they weren't cold.
"We should move early tomorrow," he said quietly. "Before the rain hits." Maya nodded once. Neither looked at eachother again.
Later, when she'd finally fallen asleep, J stared into the coals until they blurred into nothing. His hands brushed against the spot where Ravi's blood had dried.
He whispered to the night, "Still think I'm the fool, huh?"
The forest said nothing. Only the faint hiss of dying flame answered him.
He smiled the kind that wasn't happy and leaned back against the tree.Eyes open, waiting for morning.
End