Ethan ripped the branch from the dead beast's throat as he turned to run.
The wood came free with a wet sound and a spray of dark blood. Shorter now, splintered at one end, rough enough to tear skin—but it was something. The clearing vanished behind him as he plunged into ferns and moss and low branches that slapped his face. The two beasts followed, their bodies heavy enough to make the ground shake with each stride.
He cut hard between two trees, trying to force them into single file. One of them adjusted without slowing, veering wider to keep its angle. The other took the tighter line, crashing through brush, tusks flashing in the wrong light. Ethan felt the coordination immediately—not human, not clever the way people were clever, but practiced the way predators were practiced. One drove him where it wanted. The other waited for the mistake.
His ribs screamed as he pushed speed. His bare feet hit a patch of rock slick with moss and he nearly went down. He windmilled, caught himself on a trunk, tore more skin off his palm, and kept moving because stopping meant being pinned.
He aimed for terrain that could do work for him: fallen logs, dense brush, trees close enough together to make charging difficult. He darted over a root lattice, jumped a shallow dip, and glanced back just long enough to see the lead beast hesitate, picking its footing, while the second used the pause to swing wide and angle toward his flank.
He swore under his breath and changed direction again, cutting toward a low ridge where the ground rose and the undergrowth thinned. If he could get elevation, if he could force them uphill—
A tusk caught him from behind before the thought finished.
It didn't punch deep. It scraped along his side, a ripping line that tore shirt and skin and left white-hot pain in its wake. Ethan gasped, breath snagging, and the beast's momentum shoved him forward. He stumbled, hands flailing, and hit a tree shoulder-first. The impact rattled his ribs and made his vision spark.
He spun, bringing the jagged branch up, and the second beast slammed into the space he'd been standing a heartbeat ago. It hit the tree instead, snorted, then pulled back with a shake of its head.
Ethan didn't wait for it to reset.
He drove the splintered end of the branch toward its face. The beast jerked back, tusks lifting, and the wood scraped along bristle and hide without finding anything soft. The animal lunged again, faster now, and Ethan stepped sideways to put the tree between them.
It didn't work the way it had with one.
The first beast was already moving around the other side.
They were trying to bracket him.
Ethan's mind grabbed for the familiar comfort of patterns—angles, spacing, timing—and he felt the same dangerous pull as when he'd stared into the blue-veined leaves.
He forced his attention into a narrower tunnel: next step, next breath, next move.
The beast on his right charged, trying to slam him into the trunk. Ethan darted left and felt the other one cut him off, body lowering, tusks ready to hook. He didn't have room. He didn't have space. He had a stick and the thin, brutal understanding that he was running out of options.
The left beast lunged.
Ethan tried to jump back and his foot hit a loose patch of moss that slid under his weight. His balance went. He dropped to one knee. The beast's shoulder clipped him and he rolled, ribs screaming, the stick almost tearing from his hands.
Something struck his forearm—teeth or tusk, he couldn't tell—and pain flared down his arm to his fingers. Not a deep bite. A tearing scrape that made his grip weaken and his hand feel suddenly clumsy. The stick nearly slipped. Ethan clenched harder and felt wetness on his palm, warm and immediate.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Then the world shifted.
Not outside him. Inside.
The sound of the beasts didn't disappear, but it moved farther away, pushed back to make room. The pain didn't vanish, but it stopped being a wave and became information: cut on forearm, scrape on side, ribs compromised, breathing limited. The forest sharpened. The spacing between trees became obvious. The beasts' angles snapped into clean geometry.
Ethan's thoughts sped up and flattened at the same time, emotion pushed to the edges. He recognized the state without naming it. He didn't have the energy for labels. He only had the advantage it gave him: time, in tiny slices.
Two predators. One leads. One flanks. They commit when I turn. They want me pinned to a trunk or on the ground. I can't outrun. I can't keep circling.
He needed a plan that ended this.
His eyes flicked to the branch in his hands. Longer than his arm, cracked near the center, weak. If he could break it into something stiffer, something with a sharper end—
He rolled to his feet in one motion that made his ribs howl and ignored it. The right beast charged again. Ethan stepped in instead of away, using the tree trunk as a shield for half a beat, and jammed the stick across the animal's tusks to redirect its head. Wood creaked. He shoved down hard, then ripped the branch upward with all the strength he had left in his arms.
The branch snapped.
Now he had two pieces: one short and thick, one longer with a jagged break.
The left beast surged in the instant it saw him “weaken,” and Ethan used that expectation against it. He pivoted, drove the shorter piece forward to the side of its head—hard enough to make it recoil—and then stepped in close, too close for tusks to hook clean.
He buried the jagged end into the soft space under its jaw.
The beast jolted. A wet choking sound came out of it as it thrashed. Ethan didn't pull the stick out; he shoved it deeper with both hands, bracing his feet against slick moss and forcing his weight through his shoulders. The animal buckled, legs scrambling, then collapsed sideways, dragging Ethan with it.
He ripped the stick free as it went down, staggered back, and snapped his head toward the second beast.
It was already charging.
Ethan didn't try to dodge. There wasn't time.
He planted his feet and lifted the longer broken piece, hands spaced apart for leverage, the jagged end facing forward. His injured forearm screamed at the pressure of gripping. He kept his grip anyway.
The beast lowered its head and committed.
Ethan stepped slightly off-line at the last moment—just enough that the tusks didn't catch his hip—and drove the spear forward into the center of its chest as it hit him. The point bit. The weight of the animal didn't stop. It slammed into him with full mass, and the force drove Ethan backward.
He skidded over moss. His heels caught on a root. He fell.
The beast landed on top of him, partly impaled, its body thrashing, tusks scraping the ground inches from his face. Ethan's ribs detonated with pain as the impact crushed him into the earth. His vision tunneled. He tried to shove the beast off and his injured arm almost failed him. He used his other hand instead, pushing at bristled hide, teeth clenched so hard his jaw shook.
The ground under him gave way.
It wasn't a gentle collapse. It dropped.
Ethan and the beast fell together through a layer of moss and rotten wood into empty space, and the world flipped. Stone flashed. Dirt showered down. Ethan hit hard on something solid, then rolled, then hit again, his head snapping against rock.
The beast's weight shifted off him as it crashed into a broken slab nearby, the impact heavy and final. Ethan's breath left him in a single brutal burst. His ribs stopped negotiating and started rioting. He tried to inhale and got nothing for a second that felt endless.
Then air came back in a thin, ragged pull.
He lay on his side in darkness broken by thin seams of light above—cracks where the ground had split, roots dangling through the gaps. The smell changed down here: cold stone, damp earth, something old.
His body tried to shake. He couldn't tell if it was cold or aftershock.
He heard movement.
The beast was still alive long enough to scrape at stone, to drag its weight once, to make a wet sound that faded into a final shudder. Then it went quiet.
Ethan stared at the ceiling of roots and broken soil, blinking slowly. His fast-brain state flickered, tried to hold, then started slipping as exhaustion hit. Pain surged back in fuller color. His forearm throbbed. His side burned. His ribs felt wrong in a way that made breathing a negotiation, and he knew he needed to move but his body wasn't listening.
He forced himself to turn his head. Stone blocks surrounded him—ruins, half-collapsed, carved surfaces slick with moss. A corridor that had become a pit. A place that had been buried and forgotten and had just swallowed him whole.
His vision blurred. He tasted copper. He tried to push himself up and his arms failed.
Something flickered in front of his eyes—letters, bright for a split second, then stabilizing. Holding longer than before.
[QUEST COMPLETE : REWARD]
Ethan tried to focus on it. Tried to make his brain hold the words. He didn't get the chance.
The edges of the ruin tilted. The thin seams of light above smeared into streaks. The last thing he felt was the cold stone under his cheek and his own breath catching, uncertain.
Then everything went out.
?
THE WEAVE — SURVIVOR TRACE (Fragment v0.08)
(first lethal contact… effects occur before explanations)
=====================================================================
IDENTITY
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Ethan [CONFIRMED]
Origin Label: UNMOORED [UNCONFIRMED DISPLAY]
Species: Human [SELF-ID]
=====================================================================
CORE ARCHITECTURE
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Cores: UNFORMED (0/9)
Class: UNFORMED
=====================================================================
THE WEAVE (INTERNAL STRUCTURE)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Meridian Weave: [NO READ]
Vitae Weave: [NO READ]
Nodes: [LOCKED]
Node Map: [LOCKED]
=====================================================================
ATTRIBUTES
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Strength: [?????????] [UNREADABLE]
Agility: [?????????] [UNREADABLE]
Endurance: [?????????] [UNREADABLE]
Perception: [?????????] [UNREADABLE]
Intellect: [?????????] [UNREADABLE]
Will: [?????????] [UNREADABLE]
Presence: [?????????] [UNREADABLE]
Luck: [?????????] [UNREADABLE]
Fate: [?????????] [UNREADABLE]
=====================================================================
CONDITION (PHYSICAL STATE)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- bite pressure (forearm) [ACTIVE]
- claw rake (side) [BOUND]
- shock / fatigue [ACTIVE]
=====================================================================
INVENTORY (CARRIED)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- %????? authority seeding (Soul-Quarantine) [UNAPPRAISABLE]
ERROR: REJECTING
=====================================================================
AUTHORITY / SOULBOUND OBJECT
---------------------------------------------------------------------
????????????????????
????????????????????
=====================================================================
NOTABLE EVENTS
---------------------------------------------------------------------
- Predator Attack, Escape. Unconscious
=====================================================================
