64 HOURS REMAINING / APPROXIMATELY 2 DAYS REMAINING
Vale pressed the sole of his boot into the damp, rotting loam of the forest floor. The silence here wasn’t peaceful; it was heavy, an eerie, suffocating weight that crawled across his bare skin like a fever. He tightened his grip on the small knife in his hand, the cheap plastic handle slick with his own nervous sweat.
Thank God I brought the knife, he thought, his chest heaving silently. Thank God I packed at least a little food
He moved like a ghost—or at least, he tried to. Every snapping twig sounded like a gunshot in the dead quiet. He was hunting, though he didn’t know what for. He was wandering blind, his small eyes darting frantically through the dense, alien canopy, searching for a target he couldn’t even name.
?[There. Look up.]
The voice rang inside his skull, sudden and cool. Vale’s eyes snapped toward a massive silhouette breaking the canopy. It loomed over the surrounding flora, a colossal monolith of a tree. Thick, ropy tendrils hung from its gargantuan branches, wrapping around the trunk like strangling veins. It looked uncannily like an Earth banyan, but twisted, amplified, and impossibly tall.
?[Yes. Cut them.]
He didn’t waste time questioning it. Stepping into the tree’s shadow, he used his small blade to saw through the vines, carefully harvesting varying lengths of the fibrous cords. Once they were stuffed into his pack, he pushed onward into the unknown, entirely dependent on the internal compass of the voice.
Forty meters ahead, the suffocating scent of copper and decay hit him.
A massive beast corpse lay slumped in a clearing. The forest had already thoroughly digested the kill, leaving behind only a lonely, gruesome fragment: a single, silver-furred hoof, still attached to a jagged splinter of shinbone, half-buried in a bed of fallen pine needles.
?"Tsk. Waste of time," Vale muttered, turning on his heel to make a sharp U-turn.
?[Oddball, where do you think you’re going? That is the thing.]
?Vale stopped, looking back over his shoulder in disgust. "What? Are you serious? This chunk of rotting meat is what you want me to find?"
?[Are you seriously getting squeamish now? There is no time for this. Just cut it out—and make sure you take a large piece of the bone.]
?Suppressing a gag, Vale stepped closer to the carrion, the flies buzzing angrily around his head. "Where should I even begin?"
?[Just follow my instructions. Move the blade three inches to the left...]
?He did exactly as she commanded. As usual, the voice scolded him sharply for every clumsy movement, every wasted second, and every minor mistake. Yet, he didn’t complain. Amidst the terror of this place, her nagging felt strangely grounding—almost like a mother scolding a reckless child. Finally, he wrenched the silver-furred trophy free.
?[I genuinely cannot believe it took you that long to manage such a simple task.]
?"I got it, okay? Okay... just stop," Vale panted, stuffing the gruesome bone fragment into his bag?Click.
?Vale froze. The bleak, sharp snap of a breaking branch echoed from the shadows directly behind him. Every muscle in his body turned to stone. He became a statue, his breath catching in his throat, his eyes wide with stark terror.
?Hey, he called out frantically inside his mind. What is it?
?[It is better if you do not look back,] the voice replied, its usual impatience vanishing, replaced by a subtle, lethal seriousness. [I am going to start a simple countdown.]
?’Then what?’
[Then run.] The voice was suddenly urgent, frayed with an irritation born of pure panic.
?Grrrrr... A low, vibration-heavy rumble rattled the fillings in Vale’s teeth.
?[One... two... three... RUN!]
?The moment the command slammed into his brain, Vale snatched his bag. His feet stomped hard into the dirt, kicking up mud as he drifted blindly around a thick trunk, throwing his body forward with everything he had.
?GHRRRRRRRHHH!
?A monstrous, deafening roar tore through the forest behind him, shaking the leaves from the trees. Vale didn’t dare look. Every time his instinct begged him to glance over his shoulder, the voice inside him whispered like a shield:
[Don’t look back. Keep moving.]
?He ran. But as the seconds ticked away, his boots felt as though they were filling with lead. His lungs burned, his throat parched, his stamina rapidly plummeting toward absolute zero. Behind him, the crashing of heavy brush grew louder. The apex predator was closing the distance, closing it fast.
?[Run! Do you want to die here?! After everything? Without achieving a single damn thing?!]
The words struck a raw nerve. Flashbacks of his daily life hit him in a chaotic hurricane—the humiliation, the relentless suffering, the mocking glazes of those who looked down on him. A surge of pure, spiteful adrenaline flooded his veins. He gritted his teeth, pushed past the agonizing ache in his thighs, and threw himself forward.
?Suddenly, the roaring of the beast was joined by another sound—a beautiful, rushing crescendo like a stream of crystalline water. A river was nearby.
?With his stamina entirely depleted, Vale’s body began to fail him. The beast closed the final pocket of space, launching its massive weight through the air, claws outstretched to shred his spine.
?[DON’T LOOK BACK!]
?Panting so hard he could barely draw oxygen, Vale ignored the warning. For the first time, he whipped his head around. All he saw was a nightmare of teeth, fur, and shadow descending upon him from above.
?Vale’s body trembled violently. Escape was mathematically impossible. But as terror buckled his knees, his foot slipped on the slick, muddy lip of a hidden ravine. His body swayed backward, collapsing into a steep, uncontrolled fall just as a massive, razor-sharp claw whistled through the air, missing his chest by mere inches.
?Man and beast fell down the cliffside at vastly different paces. Vale tumbled over and over, a ragdoll battering against rocks and roots until, with a violent splash, he hit the water.
?The freezing shock of the torrent instantly cooled his bruised, burning body. His consciousness wavered, but he forced his eyes open, fighting the panic.
The current was a roaring powerhouse, tossing him like a leaf, dragging him under. He thrashed, swimming backward against the crushing weight of the river, desperate to reach the shore.
?He couldn’t control his trajectory. He was drowning. Then, out of the churning white foam, a massive rock loomed in the middle of the river. With a final, desperate burst of strength, Vale reached out and slammed his hands into the stone, gripping a jagged crevice just in time to stop his descent.
?"Thank God," he gasped, literally kissing the wet stone for saving his fucking life.
Coughing up water, he dragged himself up, shivering violently as he stood atop the apex of the rock, trying to catch his breath. But the relief lasted only a heartbeat.
?The sunlight suddenly vanished
A massive, sweeping shadow fell over the rock, casting Vale into total darkness. He slowly tilted his head upward toward the sky.
?With a broken, exhausted groan of pure frustration, he muttered, "Now what is it?"