Kurai emerged from the tangle of dense growth like a wraith, the sinewy creature slung across his back. Its hide—nearly hairless, taut and glistening with mud and blood—testified to the lethal struggle that earned him today's meal. As he edged closer to the river's edge, he noticed smoke curling lazily upward, a thin gray column against the green gloom of the canopy. The reek of char and damp wood mingled with the wet, earthy scents of the jungle.
They'd managed to start a fire.
He crept nearer, senses still on alert. If he'd learned anything, it was that no refuge lasted long in a place like this. Yet, the scene before him, though crude, held a semblance of order:
Jace, the wiry man, knelt by a small ring of stones—likely gathered from the river's shallows—tending the flames.Theo, curls plastered to his forehead, stood watch near a large tree trunk, grasping a freshly made spear. Its head was a shaped stone strapped with vine—basic, but serviceable.Mira busied herself laying out broad leaves into a crude sleeping mat or bedding, while Elias neatly arranged their scarce belongings in a slightly drier patch of ground. Every so often, he cast wary glances around the jungle's perimeter.
Kurai gave a short, sharp whistle to announce his approach. Instantly, the group tensed—Theo raised his spear, and Jace nearly scattered embers in his haste to turn. Recognizing Kurai's form in the half-light, they relaxed, though the tension in their shoulders lingered.
"Back," Kurai said, voice clipped. He slid the corpse from his shoulders, setting it down with a wet thump. The others flinched at the sight—and smell—of the creature.
Mira's gaze darted between Kurai and the sinewy beast. "You… found it?"
"Something like that," he answered curtly. "There should enough food for all of us".
Jace grimaced, eyeing the nearly hairless carcass, its skin stretched over corded muscle. "Looks like something out of a nightmare," he muttered. "But if it's edible…"
Kurai nodded. "Better than starving."
Elias, the older man, furrowed his brow as he knelt to inspect the kill, mindful of the blood pooling beneath it. "We need to skin it, check its organs," he said, glancing sideways at Mira. "You're the closest thing to a doctor we have."
She swallowed hard but set her jaw. "I'll try."
Kurai wiped a streak of gore from his face with the back of his hand, fishing out a thin shard of rock and some fibrous vine from a pouch at his hip. "We'll do it away from the fire," he said. "Don't want this stench luring more beasts."
Jace gestured toward the ring of stones. "We tried to follow your advice—made some extra spears." He sounded both proud and apprehensive. "Figured we shouldn't stay unarmed."
Theo lifted his own makeshift weapon. "We've been taking shifts gathering wood. It's not much, but we're doing what we can."
Kurai flicked his gaze over their nascent fortifications, such as they were. "It's a start," he allowed. He pressed a hand to his side, where dried blood clung to torn fabric. The ache was a dull reminder of the prowlers' claws.
Mira noticed his discomfort and stepped closer. "You're hurt."
He waved her off. "A scratch. After we butcher this, you can look at it." He nudged the dead beast with his boot. "I'll show you how to carve it. Let's see if your medical knowledge spots anything off."
She braced herself, nodding. "Okay."
Elias and Theo gathered more vines to bind the carcass's limbs, while Jace selected a couple of flat stones from a small stockpile near the fire. Together, they hefted the sinewy corpse downriver, choosing a spot where the current would carry away some of the gore.
They settled on a muddy bank at the water's edge. A faint breeze stirred the leaf canopy overhead, but the humidity weighed heavily on them.
"We work fast," Kurai said, crouching over the fallen creature. He glanced at the dense foliage. "No telling what else smells the blood."
Elias mirrored his posture, wary of every movement around them. "Right."
Mira, her medical background driving her to observe carefully, hovered with a sharpened stone. She wasn't a fully fledged doctor, but she'd seen enough anatomy charts—and done enough first-aid practice—to handle the basics of a dissection. Jace and Theo kept their newly fashioned spears at the ready, eyes flicking to every rustle in the undergrowth.
At Kurai's signal, they began carving into the leathery hide. The task was painstakingly slow—the stone knife, ill-suited for such work, rasped against the tough surface, still eventually it pried open, one cut at a time. A wave of heat rose from the still warm flesh. Mira squinted, checking internal organs for obvious corruption or disease. She looked distinctly uneasy, but forced her mind into a clinical detachment. "No… overt sign of rot," she murmured, swallowing.
"We can try and somehow boil the meat. That should kill most… bacteria." Mira found the word out of place in this primeval setting.
Elias nodded. "Better than guessing."
They carved out chunks of muscle, discarding the foul-smelling innards. Red-brown blood and shredded tissue washed into the slow current, staining it for a few feet before the water carried it away. Kurai frowned at the sight. Even something as simple as blood in the river could bring trouble. This world had proven that time and again.
"Sun's moving," Elias remarked, glancing at the treetops. Sure enough, the angle of the dim light had shifted, shadows lengthening across the bank. They couldn't be far from late afternoon. Kurai silently took note, mentally retracing how he must have pushed north during the hunt, though he recalled veering east when he'd stumbled upon this group. It was difficult to be precise in a jungle where the sun rarely broke through the canopy, but he had to maintain some bearing.
"All right," Kurai said at last, lifting the largest chunks of raw meat onto a broad leaf. "We cook it quick. If it's bad, we'll know soon enough."
Back at the fire, Jace carefully tended the coals. Theo positioned stones to support a flat rock—a rudimentary cooking surface. Mira, her face smeared with streaks of grime, placed strips of sinewy meat atop it, the fat sizzling and spitting. Elias rotated his watchful gaze between the tree line and the camp, spear always at hand.
Kurai finally sank onto a makeshift log seat, exhaling as the tension in his body relented a fraction. The dull ache in his wounds pulsed in time with his heartbeat—reminder enough that he wasn't invulnerable. He also felt a subtle current of energy beneath his skin, that Aether thrumming in the background, ever-present since his kills. The brand on his hand seemed no more or less active, but he couldn't shake the sense that every life he took somehow fed that mysterious connection.
Mira approached with a damp cloth made from a torn piece of her shirt. "Let me see your injury," she said. This time, he didn't protest. As she dabbed at the dried blood, he grimaced. But her touch was gentle—she clearly knew more than the bare minimum about treating wounds.
While she worked, Jace cleared his throat. "Kurai," he began, voice hesitant. "We, uh… realized something weird. I'm from the U.S., Elias is from… well, somewhere else, and so on." He paused, eyes flicking to Mira and Theo. "We should all be speaking different languages. But we're not. It's like… we just understand each other."
Theo, chewing on his lip, added, "Back home, I spoke German. Well, mostly. But here? I don't even notice I'm not speaking it. We don't want to—uh—offend you by assuming anything. We just… we're all from different places."
Mira nodded, finishing her makeshift cleaning. "I was from Spain originally. My English is good but… not this good." She gestured around. "It's like something else is translating for us or something."
Elias shifted, clearing his throat awkwardly. "We didn't want to come across as prying or… or making assumptions about where you're from. We just can't ignore it."
Kurai blinked, the corners of his eyes tightening in mild surprise. The notion struck him as strange—he was certain he'd been speaking the tongue of his homeland. But these words, these references… "U.S.," "Germany," —he recognized none of them. Perhaps they were new provinces or kingdoms he hadn't heard of.
"I hear your words as if they're my own," he said finally, voice cautious. "But if what you say is true, maybe… something in this place forces us to understand each other."
Jace looked relieved that Kurai wasn't taking offense. "Exactly. It's bizarre. I've never heard of anything like it."
Kurai's jaw set. This world. Again, it twisted reality, forcing them into survival at the edge of comprehension. A brand and energy that rewarded kills. Creatures straight from nightmares. And now, a universal tongue that bridged countries—lands?—he'd never known. "We can't solve that riddle yet," he muttered, finally. "Focus on staying alive."
A hush fell among them. One by one, they nodded. Surviving the night mattered more than unraveling the cosmic strangeness that held them here. Still, the questions lingered in the silence, palpable as the thick jungle air.
Moments later, the first piece of meat sizzled against the stone, darkening at the edges. The aroma wasn't pleasant, but it promised nourishment. Jace gingerly used a scrap of bark to lift it free, blowing on the steaming flesh. "Guess we see if we keel over."
Elias gave a wry snort. "Small bites."
Kurai watched them taste the creature's flesh, lips thinning at their grimaces. He couldn't blame them; it looked unappetizing and smelled worse. But the alternative was starvation—or the half-human monstrosities.
There was no cold voice awarding more "points" for this small victory. Nonetheless, the Aether - this new energy - coursed through him like a second pulse. He exhaled, letting the tension drain. They had a fire, crude weapons, and now food—however questionable. They would endure one more night.