As the group walked through the dense jungle the boy couldn’t help but pull out the notebook he packed in his bag. He jotted down entries and journals for each strange creature they came across. The forest was filled to the brim with strange looking oddities and the boy wanted nothing more than to observe them. Though the others in the group weren’t as keen to stay and study them.

  “Doc,” Wrighty muttered from a few steps ahead, “you know we’re not on a sightseeing tour, right?”

  The boy didn’t look up. His pencil scratched rapidly across the page as a cluster of bulbous, translucent insects drifted past the canopy overhead, their wings refracting the light into dull rainbows. Woah, interesting.

  “Those aren’t insects,” the boy said flatly. “They don’t flap. They contract.”

  Wrighty slowed. “Ok…”

  Gravel clicked his tongue and motioned for them to keep moving. “Eyes up, folks. Jungle don’t care how curious you are.”

  The boy closed his notebook reluctantly and slipped it back into his bag. Still, his eyes continued to flick from tree to tree, ground to canopy, cataloguing everything automatically. Vines pulsed faintly beneath the bark they wrapped around. Mushrooms the size of helmets bled a slow blue sap when stepped on. Somewhere deeper in the brush, something large shifted its weight too heavy to be a bird, too deliberate to be prey.

  Knell limped closer to the center of the group, her head tilted slightly as if listening to something just beyond the others’ range. “We’re being followed,” she murmured.

  Sheath scoffed. “By what? Your imagination?”

  Knell didn’t respond.

  Five raised a hand, and the group halted instantly. The boy noticed immediately how naturally they obeyed. No argument. No hesitation. Even Gravel stopped without comment.

  Five crouched, brushing his fingers against the soil. “Tracks,” he said quietly. “Fresh.”

  Wrighty leaned over his shoulder. “Big?”

  Five paused. “Multiple.”

  Shiela shifted slightly in her harness. “Are they close?”

  “Close enough,” Five replied.

  The boy scanned the undergrowth. Nothing moved.

  “Why haven’t they attacked?” the boy asked.

  Five glanced back at him. “Because they’re assessing the situation—deciding if we are worth it I’d assume.”

  That answer sat heavy in the air.

  Gravel straightened. “Alright. Formation changes. Chop, you take point. Wrighty, rear guard. No noise we don’t need.”

  Wrighty spun his staff once and grinned. “Music to my ears.”

  The boy tightened the strap of his bag and felt his ribs flare again, sharp and punishing. He ignored it. As they moved forward once more, the jungle seemed to lean inward. Leaves brushed too close. Roots shifted beneath their feet.

  The boy glanced back once. The way behind them was already gone. The boy suddenly felt anticipation settle in his chest.

  Gravel started barking orders to people.

  “Snow, take position in the middle and prepare your bow. Eerie stay silent and hidden and protect the flanks. You, boy, Take the front with Five, I will back y’all up.”

  They boy hesitated, then sighed and moved to the front of the group. He pulled out his own weapon from his bag, a solid wooden club. The boy didn’t know why he chose this weapon but it felt right. Five walked up by his side with a pair of axes in his hands. The boy noticed that Shiela wasn’t on his back anymore. He looked around to see where Five placed her before seeing her sitting in a tree above them. When did he do that? The boy couldn’t understand how he found the time to do that so quickly.

  He shook off his confusion as he heard noise coming from the shrubs in front of him. It was the sound of growling and claws scratching across the ground. There was a pack of them.

  “Here they come, prepare yourselves,” the boy spoke as he got into a fighting stance with his grip tightened on his club.

  Five followed suit and held his axes in hand gripping them tightly

  In a flash several misshapen canines jumped out the foliage. Their eyes were hungry and a low deep growl came from their mouths. The canines surrounded them and slowly crept closer.

  The boy looked around taking notes of the danger. They outnumber us by a great amount. His eyes moved across each canine before stopping at one. This one was by far the biggest and it bared its teeth snarling at them. It must be the leader of the pack.

  The boy’s gaze stayed locked on the largest of them. It stood a head taller than the others, its body warped in uneven proportions. One foreleg was thicker than the rest, muscle bulging unnaturally beneath matted fur, while the opposite leg dragged slightly, claws scraping against stone. Its three eyes were brighter than the others, burning with a sharp, alert intelligence.

  The boy swallowed. “Don’t move,” he said quietly.

  Wrighty shot him a sideways look. “You got a plan, Doc?”

  “Observations,” the boy replied. “Plan comes after.”

  The canines began to circle. Their movements weren’t frantic. They weren’t rushing. They were probing, stepping forward one at a time, retreating, watching for weakness. One snapped its jaws inches from Chop’s leg, testing distance. Another crept closer to Snow, its nose twitching as it caught her scent.

  “Five,” the boy muttered, not taking his eyes off the leader. “They’re herding us.”

  “I see it,” Five replied calmly.

  The leader let out a low bark. Instantly, two of the smaller canines lunged.

  “Now,” the boy said.

  Everything exploded into motion.

  Wrighty spun his staff in a wide arc, the weighted end crashing down into the skull of the first canine with a dull, sickening crack. The creature didn’t even yelp. It dropped instantly, its body folding in on itself like wet cloth.

  Snow loosed an arrow. It punched clean through another canine’s shoulder, pinning it briefly to a tree before it tore itself free, shrieking.

  Chop charged forward with a roar, swinging his cleaver in a brutal downward motion. The blade hit deep, splitting one of the creatures nearly in half. Knell was behind him cutting up the canines with a long makeshift scythe. Gravel picked up a rock but hesitated and quickly put it down instead opting to pull out a small sword he carried on his belt.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Sheath cut through several with ease as his sword glided across their skin. He cut their heads clean off like a knife cutting butter, but one snuck behind his gaze and prepared to pounce from his blind side.

  Eerie appeared from the foliage without a sound, his movements sharp and precise. His dagger slid cleanly across the creature’s throat before it even had time to snarl.

  Sheath glanced back, surprised.

  “Didn’t see you there,” he said, impressed.

  Eerie didn’t answer. He was already gone again, melting back into the chaos, eyes dull and unfocused as he struck down another canine just as quietly.

  The boy continued to observe as everyone made their moves. His grip tightened on the wooden club. He didn’t swing wildly. He waited. One of the canines broke from the circle and rushed him head-on. The boy sidestepped at the last second and brought the club down hard on its spine. He felt the impact travel up his arms, jarring, painful, but effective. The creature collapsed, legs spasming before going still. Another lunged. Then another. The boy moved mechanically, striking joints, crushing skulls, aiming with precision rather than strength. Each blow was calculated and efficient.

  But something strange happened.

  As the fourth canine fell, the boy felt something. Not on his skin instead it was inside his chest. A cold weight pressed against his ribs, coiling around his lungs like fog. His breath hitched for half a second, just long enough for the next canine to nearly reach him.

  Five intercepted it, spear flashing as he drove the point straight through its throat. He wrenched the weapon free and glanced at the boy. He felt it again as another creature died nearby. It felt like a residue.

  The leader snarled, louder now, more desperate. Its pack was thinning, bodies littering the ground in dark, steaming shapes. It lunged.

  Not at the boy, at Wrighty.

  “Wrighty!” the boy shouted.

  The leader slammed into Wrighty’s side with terrifying force. Wrighty was thrown backward, skidding across dirt and roots before slamming into a tree. His staff went flying.

  “Dammit—!” Wrighty groaned, scrambling to his feet.

  The leader didn’t give him time. It reared back, jaws opening impossibly wide.

  The boy moved without thinking. Pain screamed through his ribs as he closed the distance, but he ignored it. He swung the club with everything he had, bringing it down on the creature’s neck at an angle meant to break rather than bruise.

  The club slammed into the creature but did not have the effect the boy expected. It made a loud noise and the impact shook through the boys body.

  Still, the leader staggered but it didn’t fall. Its eyes locked onto the boy, and in that instant, as it bared its teeth and lunged. The pressure inside the boy surged.

  The pressure burst behind his eyes.

  It had a sound but , not really, just impressions. Raw and unfinished. Panic. Violence. Desperation.

  It was overwhelming, like standing too close to something loud and unseen. The boy staggered, breath hitching as the sensation crashed through him and vanished just as quickly. The jungle seemed to darken at the edges of his vision. He didn’t understand what was happening.

  The boy swung again. This time, something followed the blow. Something inside shifted when the club connected.

  The boy couldn’t see it clearly, only feel it, as if the air itself recoiled. The leader let out a shriek, not of pain, but of terror. Its body collapsed mid-lunge, limbs going slack as if something vital had been ripped away.

  Silence followed.

  The remaining canines scattered, retreating into the undergrowth with panicked yelps. The boy stood frozen, chest heaving, the club trembling in his hands. The sensation faded. He dropped to one knee, gasping.

  “What… was that?” Wrighty panted, staring at the fallen leader.

  No one answered immediately.

  Five watched the boy closely, eyes narrowed, thoughtful.

  Gravel broke the silence first. “Alright,” he muttered. “Everyone still breathing?”

  A few strained confirmations followed.

  Shiela’s voice came from above. “Doc?”

  The boy looked up slowly.

  “I’m fine,” he said though he realized, distantly, that it was a lie.

  As he pushed himself back to his feet, his gaze drifted to the bodies scattered across the clearing. They didn’t look the same anymore. Something lingered around them, faint and heavy, like smoke that only he could see.

  The boy swallowed. He didn’t know what he’d just done. As bodies of the canines continued to linger that smoke. The boy kept his eyes trained on them. He had the urge to touch it to take it.

  Wrighty jumped to his side and hugged the boy. “You did it Doc! I don’t know what you did, but you did it!”

  The boy stayed silent as Wrighty lifted him off the ground hugging him. That was strange. The boy cleared his thoughts as the rest of the group walked towards them. Wrighty finally set him back down, still grinning like he’d just watched someone win a fight against a god.

  “Dude,” Wrighty said, breathless, slapping him on the shoulder, “that was insane. You dropped it like it was nothing.”

  The boy couldn’t find an answer.

  His eyes were still locked on the bodies.

  Snow lowered her bow slowly, her gaze flicking between the fallen canines and the boy. “That wasn’t just a hit,” she said. “I’ve seen things get smashed before. That… wasn’t normal.”

  Gravel stepped forward, crouching near the leader’s corpse. He nudged it with the toe of his boot. The body didn’t respond.

  “Neck’s broken,” Gravel muttered. “Chest too. Like something collapsed it from the inside. “He looked up at the boy. “What exactly did you do?”

  The boy swallowed.

  “I hit it,” he said. “I know I did.”

  “But?” Gravel pressed.

  The boy hesitated. The words stuck in his throat. How do you explain something you don’t understand yourself?

  “It felt like… something was gurgling,” he said finally.

  That earned him a few uneasy looks.

  Wrighty’s smile faltered, “gurgling how?”

  The boy looked down at his club. There was no blood on it. No cracks. Nothing to explain what had happened.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I didn’t swing harder. I didn’t aim better. I just don’t kn—”

  He stopped.

  Because that wasn’t true either. Something had moved when he struck. Not in the air. Not in the wood.

  Inside him.

  Eerie stood a short distance away, his posture slack, eyes still fixed on the corpse. “I heard it scream before you even hit.”

  Sheath frowned. “Yeah. Like it realized something too late.”

  Shiela’s voice came from above. “Doc.”

  The boy looked up. She was still perched in the tree, hands gripping the bark.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “I think so,” he said.

  He wasn’t sure why he lied.

  As the group gathered their bearings, the boy’s attention drifted back to the clearing. He looked at the bodies of the creatures, a faint haze clung to them, barely visible, like heat distortion in cold air. It curled and twisted lazily, pulling inward, toward him. His chest tightened. He was extremely curious. His fingers flexed without him realizing it.

  Wrighty noticed. “Hey,” he said softly, stepping closer. “You with us?”

  The boy snapped his hand back to his side and forced himself to look away from the bodies.

  The haze thinned almost instantly, dissolving into nothing.

  “I’m fine,” he said, too quickly.

  Gravel straightened, scanning the jungle. “Whatever that was, ain’t matter right now. We outta leave this area.”

  Sheath slid his sword back into its sheath. “Agreed. This place feels… dangerous now.”

  They moved out, leaving the clearing behind. No one spoke for a while. The jungle slowly resumed its sounds, but it felt wrong now. The boy felt uneasy. What was that?

  Wrighty eventually broke the silence. “So,” he said, trying to sound light, “you gonna start doing that all the time now?”

  The boy stared ahead, his thoughts tangled and heavy.

  “I don’t think it was a choice,” he said.

  The group continued to walk for hours, treading through the thick jungle and collecting any supplies they thought would be safe or useful.

  Five had put Shiela back on his back and walked with her as the group walked deeper into the jungle. The boy couldn’t help but study him. After the incident he had been getting questioned the whole walk so far. Everyone asked him questions, but not Five he hadn’t really asked anything when it happened. The boy appreciated it in a way.

  Gravel finally halted at a clearing before clearing his throat and setting down his bag.

  “Let’s stop here for now, it’s gettin’ dark and we need some time to setup our supplies.”

  He gave the boy a glance before finishing his statement, “we can talk o’er dinner, really start to explain ourselves.”

  Five smiled lightly.“Yes, that sounds excellent. I was hoping to continue our talk from before.”

  The boy sighed, This is probably going to be about me, isn't it?

  The group settled down as everyone helped set up as the nighttime rolled around.

  This is going to be one annoying night, the boy mumbled to himself.