By nightfall the forest had grown thick and heavy, as if even the air inside it was turning dense. The firelight ended in a sharp line. Beyond it there was only darkness and silence. Something cracked somewhere in the distance. Dan turned sharply.

  "Either I am losing my mind, or that tiger really had friends," he said out loud, just to drown out the sound of his own breathing.

  He picked up a thick branch and began thinking how to fasten the stone tip to it.

  "If I tie it… I need something like a rope. Bark? Dry grass? Sinew? Come on. Sinew?"

  He glanced at the carcass lying not far away.

  "Not the best option. But I have had enough blood for today."

  By the time darkness settled, he had something that almost looked like a spear. A sharp stone tied with strips of bark fiber to a straight shaft. It held poorly, but it was better than nothing. He drove it into the ground beside him and sat closer to the fire.

  "Tomorrow I look for shelter," he muttered. "A cave would be perfect. Or at least something with a roof."

  His eyes kept closing, but his body refused to relax.

  "If they come at night… the fire has to burn. Without fire I am dead."

  He stood up and went to gather fallen branches. An hour later a pile of dry wood lay beside the fire. Feeding the flames one branch at a time, he made sure the heat would last until morning. Then he sat again, held the spear against his chest, and tried to close his eyes.

  The fire crackled less and less. The coals breathed quietly. The shadows around him grew thicker, almost solid. It felt as if the forest itself had frozen in place.

  He did not sleep. His body begged for rest, but his mind would not release its grip on the fear. Everything around him seemed to listen to his breathing. He could almost feel it physically, as if the forest itself were alive and slowly drawing breath before a jump.

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  A sharp click sounded to his left.

  He tensed instantly and gripped the spear. He did not think of himself as ready for a fight, but he had no intention of dying without resistance.

  Silence.

  The kind that hides not peace, but presence.

  He felt a gaze.

  The feeling was familiar. It was the same sensation you get when someone points a weapon at you. You do not see it yet, but you know. Like pressure between the shoulder blades. Like someone else's breath just barely there.

  He slowly turned his head.

  Darkness. Only faint reflections of firelight.

  And suddenly two lights.

  At the height of human eyes. Too high for an animal. Too low for a bird.

  He froze.

  The glimmer disappeared.

  He did not know how much time passed before he managed to breathe again.

  The night dragged on slowly. Sleep crept closer like the exhaustion after a long fight.

  Then suddenly another place. Or another layer of the same world.

  The darkness thickened, like melted wax pouring into his eyes. There was no sky, no ground, no horizon. Yet he could feel everything. Space. Movement. The breathing of something enormous.

  It was looking at him.

  He saw no eyes, but he felt the gaze with his whole body. Before him was not a creature, but something else. It had no shape. Inside it flowed sounds, smells, flashes of color. Every shade scraped painfully across his mind.

  Images flickered through it. чужие, but strangely familiar. An old man by a fire. A child holding a fern leaf. A woman singing without words. The memories were not his, yet they pushed into his mind as if they had always lived there.

  "You will be an instrument," said a voice without sound. The words entered his mind like cold metal.

  "Do not ask. Do not try to understand. Act."

  The world trembled. Sounds began turning into shapes. A pattern flashed before his eyes as if burned onto the inside of his eyelids. He could not hold it, but he knew it mattered. Something remained inside him, deep down, like a planted command.

  "Understanding is poison. Forget so that you may remember."

  A flash. White like death. He screamed, but there was no sound.

  He woke.

  The forest. The fire. The damp chill of morning.

  He lay still for a long time, staring at the gray sky where dull light filtered through the treetops. His head throbbed. The dream, if it had been a dream, left a heavy feeling inside him, as if something чужое still lived under his skin.

  His thoughts returned to the simplest questions. Where am I? Why am I here? What do I do now?

  He chased those questions all day like a scratched record. Again and again.

  But no answers came. Only a dull feeling remained, as if someone beyond the visible world was watching him, waiting for him to make the first move.

  Everything faded into exhaustion. His thoughts stretched out, broke apart, lost their meaning. Even the fear that had sat inside him all this time retreated and dissolved into apathy.

  "In the morning," he breathed out. "I will figure it out in the morning."

  If I live that long.