The blade sliced across the neck, and the body in his hands tensed and twitched violently, its small body trembling in a way disproportionate to its size, as if trying to unleash the last remnants of its life. Warm, foul-smelling liquid dripped into his mouth as the quivering gradually subsided and finally ceased. Asa squeezed the mountain rat relentlessly, indifferent as the contents of its stomach were forced out. Only when the final drop of body fluid trickled down did Asa release the twisted, deformed rat, extending his tongue to lick the blood from the corners of his mouth.
"I don't want to die."
The scent of blood rose from his stomach. His throat involuntarily let out a low growlâdeep, distant, ambiguous, and long-lasting. It seemed less like a sound from any organ and more like an echo from some fold deep within his soul.
He remembered this kind of sound. At the age of three, he had hidden in a tree, watching several hunters in the village corner an injured wolf. The wolf's low growl had sent a shiver through himânot out of fear, but because it resonated with some deep string in his soul. Since then, he had been obsessed with understanding the language of animals.
Now he understood that the sound had no real meaning. It was simply the cry of life in the face of death, a release born from a powerful survival instinct and an almost maddening animalistic drive.
Three days of living on raw food and blood, combined with extreme tension and physical exhaustion, had brought him to his limit. The looming threat of death and his intense desire to survive had almost transformed him into a wild beast. Fortunately, reason still governed his every move.
Asa was fully aware of the gap between his abilities and those of the hunter pursuing him. He clearly remembered how, in a single moment, two infantrymen from the third squad had their heads smashed open like watermelons. The only advantage he had now was his understanding of the hunter's intentions.
The chaser wasn't rushing to catch him. This wasn't a chase to kill. The chaser didn't want to get close too quickly and risk getting hurt in a desperate fight with a cornered animal. This was a huntâa prolonged pursuit to exhaust the prey with fear and relentless fleeing, only to strike when the hunter was completely confident, to kill him as easily as squashing a mouse and cut off his head. Both the hunter and Asa knew that, whether due to physical limitations or lack of survival skills in the swampy forest, he could not shake the pursuit.
Over the past three days, Asa had feigned the desperate flight the hunter wanted to see, and his physical strength had declined rapidly, just as it would in a true frantic escape. Without fire, he had no proper food. Eating raw meat from any animal in the swamp of lizards was suicidal, as the parasites inside could be lethal to the human body. Instead, he could only seek out a few non-poisonous insects to eat. While the blood of animals provided some minor replenishment, it was nowhere near enough to compensate for the sweat and energy lost through heavy exertion. The lack of salt and food had pushed him to the brink. Now, the elaborate deception he had laid over the past three days needed to be concluded with an action executed without the slightest mistake.
With some good fortune, Asa soon found three non-poisonous worms among the grass and bushes nearby. Each was about the size of a finger, writhing vigorously in his hand. He pinched their heads and slowly squeezed them until green waste was forced out. Too much force would rupture their bodies and waste the valuable nutrients inside, while too little wouldn't expel all the potentially toxic excrement. It was a delicate art, one Asa had mastered over the past few days.
The tender worm flesh quickly became a thick paste in his mouth, the slimy, bitter taste clinging to his tongue like the swamp's humid air stuck to his skin. Asa carefully chewed, using his tongue to search through the mush for any larger pieces, ensuring that the entire worm was broken down into the smallest digestible parts. Every drop of nourishment was preciousâfuel for survival, hope to keep going.
Using his knife, he dug a hole about a foot deep in the ground and buried the mountain rat's corpse. Over the past three days, whenever he killed an animal, he would use what little energy he had left to bury its body.
He strapped his knife to his back, inspected himself carefully, flattening every protrusion in his clothing. Like a cautious sentry climbing onto a narrow watchtower, he gingerly stepped onto the mound of dirt covering the rat, crouched down, and slowly lay prone, inching toward a nearby pool of dirty water like a massive, distorted worm.
He focused all his attention on this ungainly motion, carefully controlling each muscle in his body, ensuring he remained pressed against the ground without leaving any visible traces on the soft mud. Any uncontrolled or uncoordinated movement could undo three days of meticulous planning.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before sliding into the chest-deep water without causing a single splash. The weight of the knife kept him from floating up as he moved through the silt at the bottom, heading in the direction he had memorized. This pool led to a temporary stream formed by the rainy season. He had come here deliberately, specifically choosing this terrain to bury the bodyâeverything was according to his plan.
There was a slight sting in several spots on his body as leeches latched onto him. Asa ignored them. They would let go after feeding, and pulling them off prematurely might leave their suckers behind, risking infection. Right now, the most important thing was to get as far as possible before surfacing for air again.
He reviewed each detail from earlier in his mind. No mistakes. A surge of joy welled upâhe was on the verge of escaping. The only concern now was whether the rat's body would rot quickly enough to emit a strong enough odor before the hunter arrived.
"I just need a stroke of decaying luck."
Asa prayed fiercely as he moved through the sludge formed from decaying matter, like a carrion lizard slithering through the muck.
In the rare afternoon sunlight, filtering through the swamp's canopy, the ground, still wet, transformed the fragmented sunlight into a shimmering veil that hung between the leaves and the earth. In this stiflingly humid curtain, life in the swamp thrived in a rapid cycle of growth and decay, so fast that even the rotting process seemed vibrant.
The hunter watched quietly as a large group of scavenger lizards eagerly tore apart the mountain rat's corpse. He hated the sticky stench of these ugly creatures, which overwhelmed his sharp sense of smell. A larger lizard triumphantly seized the carcass and scurried away, with the others immediately following suit, disappearing into the forest, leaving behind only a dug-up pit and a mess of tracks.
By human standards, this prey was impressiveâfast, agile, strong. The hunter was interested, confident he could kill him in a direct confrontation.
But just being confident wasn't enough. This wasn't a battlefield; it was a hunt. He needed to turn confidence into certainty. Since yesterday, the prey's tracks had grown weaker and more unsteady.
Now the hunter felt sure he had the upper hand.
But this prey was strange. Although it was clearly being pursued, its tracks didn't show the chaos and desperation typical of a hunted animal. Despite the weakness in its steps, there was an odd sense of resolve, something more than mere escape.
The trail had been well hidden over the past three days, but the prey had made a foolish mistakeâit kept burying the corpses of animals it had drained of blood. This was counterproductive; the lizards would dig up the bodies to feast on the rotting flesh. All the hunter had to do was follow the scent of decay carried by the swarm of lizards.
The prey's irrational behavior and this stupid mistake seemed vaguely connected, though the hunter couldn't quite make sense of it. Still, it didn't matterâonce he caught up, killed the prey, and severed its head, there would be nothing left to puzzle over. No animal could escape his pursuit in these swampy woods. Of this, the hunter was absolutely confident. Absolutely.
But then he was stunned to discover that the trail ended there, with no trace leading in any direction.
The air was thick with the stench of swamp lizards. The hunter knelt down, examining the ground for the slightest clue. Despite the chaos caused by the lizards fighting over the remains, his keen senses and extensive experience still managed to pick up traces of the prey's movements. A slight limp, but no signs of panic. There were no signs that the prey had retraced its steps. It had merely wandered around the bushes, likely searching for food. The hunter could even deduce that the prey had found its first mealâa wormâbeneath two ferns. The footprints there were deeper at the front, indicating a shift in balance as the prey bent forward. But beyond that, there was nothing. The tracks stopped abruptly at the freshly dug pit where the corpse had been buried.
This was beyond the hunter's vast knowledge, accumulated through his tribe's long tradition of tracking and hunting. He tried to link the cluesâescape, concealment, and the gradual weakening of the prey. But his mind, trained by instinct more than logic, struggled to make sense of these new elements. When he realized he was stepping into a strange trap, one laid out just as the fugitive had intended, uncontrollable rage flooded his thoughts.
A lizard waddled back, sniffing around the dirt pit, hoping to find some leftovers. But it immediately became the target of the enraged hunter's fury. The large body flew high into the air with a single violent blow and fell into the muddy swamp, sending a torrent of filthy water and mud splashing in all directions. Along with the muddy water, a few leeches, bloated and sluggish from their feast, were thrown onto the shore, struggling clumsily to return to the water. The hunter noticed them, picked one up, examined it closely, then crushed it with a pop, tasting the fluid that oozed out. A sinister expression appeared on his face, one that other species would not understand.
Lying close to the ground, the sharpest nose on the entire continent finally distinguished a trace of the scent it had been searching forâamidst the stench of lizard slime and the decay of the earth. The scent led toward the stagnant pool.
He had to tear the heart out while it was still beating, shred the warm, pulsating organ with his teeth, and swallow it along with the freshest blood, turning the cunning essence inside it into his own power.
The head must remain undamaged. He would slowly extract the brain from the eye sockets and devour it, skin and strip the flesh, then call upon the finest craftsmen to grind the skull. This perfect trophy could be placed in the ancestral tomb, as a tributeâa further testament to the hunting prowess his tribe took pride in.
"You are my prized prey."
A long-forgotten excitement surged through the hunter's body as he ran, a sensation he hadn't felt since the days of his youth, when he chased after the most beautiful female of his tribe.