The first hunt happened on the twelfth day.

  Jurgen woke Skuggi before dawn by tapping his boot. No words, just a gesture, two fingers walking across his palm, then pointing into the trees. Signaling pulling bow to indicate: Hunting… Come…

  Torsten was already awake, checking the string on a bow he'd carved from ash wood. Aionel stood near the fire's remains, keeping watch while the others slept.

  Skuggi followed them into the forest. The ground was soft with old needles and decomposing leaves. Every step he took sounded like breaking bones to his ears, but Jurgen and Torsten moved without sound. Their feet found the spaces between branches and avoided the spots where frost had made vegetation brittle.

  Skuggi tried to mimic them. Stepped where they stepped. His boot came down on a stick anyway. The crack echoed.

  Jurgen stopped walking. Turned. His face said everything his voice couldn't.

  Torsten crouched and gestured for Skuggi to do the same. When Skuggi squatted beside him, Torsten pointed at the ground.

  "See that?" His voice was barely a whisper. "That's a game trail. Deer use it. We don't walk on it… We walk beside it, in the brush, where our tracks mix with everything else."

  "Why?"

  "Because if we leave boot prints in the mud, someone might follow them back to camp. Or worse, someone might report us for poaching. Most of this forest belongs to jarls or local lords. They don't take kindly to people hunting their game without permission."

  Skuggi looked at the trail. It was barely visible, just a slight depression in the earth where countless hooves had passed over years.

  "So we hide that we were here."

  "Exactly." Torsten pointed to a spot twenty feet ahead where a tree had fallen across the trail. "We set the trap there. Make it look natural. Deer jumps the log, gets caught, panics. If anyone finds it before we do, they see an animal that got unlucky. Not a trap."

  Jurgen was already moving toward the fallen tree, pulling a coil of thin rope from his pack. He gestured rapidly at Torsten, fingers flying through a conversation Skuggi couldn't follow.

  Torsten translated. "He says we should use a snare, not a deadfall. Snares are quieter when they trigger, and we can dismantle them faster if we need to run."

  They spent the next hour setting up. Jurgen fashioned a noose from the rope, attached it to a bent sapling that would snap upward when triggered. Torsten disguised the trigger mechanism with leaves and small branches. Skuggi watched every movement, cataloging the process.

  When they finished, the trap was invisible. Skuggi could stare directly at it and see only forest floor.

  "Now we wait," Torsten said. "Find a spot downwind, stay quiet, don't move unless you have to."

  They settled into positions behind a cluster of birch trees. Jurgen pulled out a strip of dried meat and chewed it slowly. Torsten closed his eyes but didn't sleep, just rested.

  Skuggi tried to stay still. His body didn't cramp the way he expected it to. Didn't protest being held in one position for an extended period. After thirty minutes, Torsten shifted his weight and grimaced. Jurgen rotated his shoulders. Skuggi felt nothing.

  Another modification. Another way the lab had changed what his body needed, making his ligaments extensively flexible, yet the symbiote probably had something to do in it.

  The sun climbed. Light filtered through the canopy in scattered shafts. A bird landed on the fallen log, pecked at the bark, and flew away. Small insects moved through the air in spirals.

  Then hoofbeats. Soft, rhythmic. Getting closer.

  Jurgen's hand moved… a sign Skuggi didn't know. But he understood the meaning from context. Stay still.

  A deer stepped into view. A doe, lean from winter, moving with the careful wariness of prey animals. She paused at the log. Sniffed the air.

  Skuggi's breathing slowed without conscious thought. His heartbeat dropped to something barely perceptible. Another thing the lab had done… control over involuntary responses, giving out zero presence of his self.

  The doe jumped.

  The snare caught her back leg mid-leap. The sapling whipped upward. The doe's body jerked sideways, suspended by one limb, and she started thrashing immediately. Her free hooves kicked at air. Her head twisted, eyes rolling white.

  Jurgen was already running. He had a knife in his hand, moving fast and low. He reached the deer, grabbed her head to steady it, and cut her throat in one motion. Blood sprayed across his arms. The doe's struggles weakened, stopped.

  Torsten stood and started dismantling the trap mechanism. "Skuggi, help me get her down."

  They worked quickly. Cut the rope, lowered the body, checked the surrounding area for anything that looked out of place. Jurgen signed something.

  "He says we need to gut her here," Torsten translated. "Can't carry full weight back to camp. Too obvious if someone sees us."

  They opened the deer's belly. The smell hit Skuggi immediately… copper and iron and something organic and wet. Jurgen's hands moved inside the cavity, pulling out organs, setting them aside. Some they kept heart, liver. Others they buried in a shallow scrape.

  When they finished, the three of them carried the carcass back toward camp using a pole threaded through the legs. Torsten and Jurgen took the front and back. Skuggi carried the middle, where most of the weight concentrated.

  It should have been heavy. Should have made his shoulders burn after the first mile.

  It didn't…

  The second hunt happened three days later.

  This time, Egil came with them. He wanted to check for signs of boar… dangerous to hunt, but their meat lasted longer when smoked properly.

  They found tracks near a stream. Deep impressions in mud, four-toed and cloven. Fresh enough that water hadn't filled them yet.

  "Big one," Egil said. He put his hand in the track. His palm didn't cover it. "Maybe three hundred pounds."

  Torsten frowned. "That's too big for a snare."

  "We don't snare boar anyway," Egil said. "We drive them into a kill zone. Set up spears, make noise to flush them out, let them impale themselves charging at us."

  Jurgen signed rapidly. Torsten watched, then shook his head.

  "Jurgen wants to try anyway. Says if we can get it to chase us toward a steep embankment, we can funnel it into a pit trap."

  "That'll take hours to dig," Torsten said.

  "We've got hours."

  They found a spot where the land dropped away sharply into a ravine. Spent the afternoon digging a pit at the top of the slope, covering it with branches and leaves. Set up a path of least resistance that would guide a charging animal directly toward it.

  Skuggi helped dig. His hands didn't blister the way Torsten's did. Didn't cramp like Egil's after an hour of work. He just kept scooping dirt, throwing it aside, going deeper.

  Torsten noticed. He stared at Skuggi's palms when they took a water break.

  "You should have blisters."

  Skuggi looked at his hands. The skin was reddened but intact.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  "I don't get them easily."

  "No one digs for three hours straight without blisters."

  Skuggi had no answer that wouldn't raise more questions, so he said nothing while raising his shoulders in a carefree way while tilting his head to the left, giving off the same vibe with his expression.

  When the pit was ready, they spread out. Jurgen went downwind to flush the boar toward them. Egil and Torsten positioned themselves on either side of the pit with spears made from sharpened branches. Skuggi stayed behind a tree, watching.

  Jurgen's job was to make noise without getting gored. He started by throwing rocks, banging sticks against trees. Then he appeared at the edge of the clearing, waving his arms.

  The boar came out of the underbrush like a boulder rolling downhill.

  It was bigger than Egil had estimated. Easily four hundred pounds, with tusks that curved up from its jaw like scythes. Coarse hair bristled across its back. Its eyes were small and mean and locked onto Jurgen.

  Jurgen ran. The boar followed, grunting, picking up speed.

  Skuggi saw the problem immediately. The boar wasn't following the path they'd prepared. It was cutting at an angle, heading straight for the tree where Torsten had positioned himself.

  Torsten saw it too. He braced his spear, planted his back foot.

  The boar hit him before he could set the spear properly. Knocked it aside with its head, kept charging. Torsten went down, rolled, came up with his knife drawn.

  The boar turned. Focused on Torsten now instead of Jurgen.

  Skuggi moved without thinking.

  He left the tree and sprinted across the clearing. The boar's attention snapped to him… new target, closer, easier. It pivoted, lowered its head, and charged.

  Skuggi didn't have a weapon. Didn't have a plan beyond getting between the boar and Torsten.

  The boar closed the distance in seconds. Skuggi sidestepped at the last moment and felt the rush of air as its body passed. He reached out and grabbed one of its back legs as it went by.

  The boar's momentum jerked him forward. He held on, let his body swing with the force, then planted his feet and pulled.

  The boar's leg snapped. The sound was like a branch breaking underfoot. The animal screamed… a high, horrible sound and collapsed onto its side.

  Skuggi didn't let go. He moved up the body, avoiding the thrashing tusks, and got both hands around the boar's thick neck.

  Then he twisted.

  The vertebrae separated with a wet crunch. The boar went limp.

  Skuggi stood, breathing hard, hands covered in coarse hair and dirt. His shoulder throbbed where the boar's momentum had jerked it, but nothing felt torn or broken.

  He turned around.

  Torsten was on the ground, staring. Egil had frozen mid-step, spear still raised. Jurgen stood at the edge of the clearing, mouth open.

  From above them, in a tree Skuggi hadn't noticed anyone climbing, Kalf's voice drifted down. He had been hiding away from their presence, surprising everyone, but the real surprise came after the realization of what Skuggi had done.

  "Did... did you just break its neck?"

  By the time they got back to camp with the boar, the story had already spread.

  Kalf had run ahead, too excited to wait. By the time Skuggi, Torsten, Egil, and Jurgen arrived dragging the massive carcass, everyone was standing.

  "Show us," Hilde said immediately. "Kalf says you twisted its neck like wringing out a rag."

  "He killed a four-hundred-pound boar with his bare hands," Kalf said. He was practically vibrating. "I saw it. It charged Torsten and Skuggi just... just grabbed it and broke it."

  Aionel walked a circle around the boar's body. He crouched, examined the twisted angle of its neck. "This shouldn't be possible."

  "I was there," Torsten said. His voice was flat. "It happened."

  "How?" Materlyn asked.

  Skuggi looked at the surrounding faces. Curiosity, disbelief, and a thread of fear underneath. He'd made a mistake. Drawing attention to what he could do, how strong he was… that created questions he couldn't answer without revealing things he didn't understand himself.

  But they were waiting for a response.

  "I got lucky," he said. "It was already off-balance from the charge. I just... took advantage."

  "You snapped a boar's spine," Egil said. "That's not luck. That's something else."

  Bjorn, who'd been quiet until now, laughed. It wasn't a comfortable sound. "Maybe he's blessed. Touched by the gods."

  "Or cursed," someone muttered in the back, away from the focus.

  Freia appeared at the edge of the group. She'd been gathering firewood, her arms full of branches. She dropped them and looked at Skuggi, then at the boar, then back at Skuggi.

  "Does it matter how he did it?" Her voice cut through the speculation. "We have meat for a week. That's what matters."

  Aionel nodded slowly. "She's right. Skuggi saved Torsten from becoming food for ravens, and now we're not going to starve. However he did it, we benefit."

  The tension didn't disappear, but it eased. People started moving again. Materlyn began organizing the butchering. Hilde started a fire. Signe brought out the knives they'd keep sharpest for this kind of work.

  But Skuggi caught the looks they threw at him when they thought he wasn't watching. Sideways glances. Reassessments.

  He'd become something other than just the person leading them. Now he was something unknown. Something potentially dangerous.

  For the next three days, people joked about it. Bjorn started calling him "Boar-Slayer." Kalf reenacted the scene for anyone who'd listen, using increasingly exaggerated gestures. Torsten and Egil kept trying to twist thick branches with their fingers, grunting with effort, failing every time.

  "It's impossible," Torsten said on the third night. He sat by the fire, arms crossed. "I've seen men try to break a boar's neck. It doesn't work. The muscles are too thick, the bones too strong."

  "Maybe he's just stronger than normal men," Signe suggested.

  "No one's that strong."

  But Skuggi was. That was the problem.

  He sat away from the fire that night, letting them puzzle over it. Let them build their theories, divine blessing, hidden training, some quirk of birth. None of them would guess the truth.

  That he'd been made in a place that didn't care about whether you were dead or alive. That his body had been altered in ways he was still discovering. That strength was the least strange thing about him.

  Freia found him after the others had gone to sleep. She sat on a rock nearby, not speaking at first.

  Finally: "They're going to keep asking."

  "Let them ask."

  "Eventually they'll want answers."

  "I don't have answers to give them."

  She pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around them. "You could lie."

  "I could."

  "But you won't."

  Skuggi looked at her. "Would you believe me if I did?"

  She smiled, just barely. "No. I'd know."

  They sat in silence for a while. An owl called from somewhere in the darkness. The wind moved through branches overhead, sent a scatter of pine needles to the ground.

  "You're not normal," Freia said. It wasn't a question.

  "No."

  "Are you dangerous?"

  He thought about that. About what he'd been designed to do in the lab. About the things he was capable of when he stopped holding back.

  "Yes."

  "To us?"

  "I don't know yet."

  Most people would have moved away from him after that admission. Put distance between themselves and a threat.

  Freia stayed where she was.

  "At least you're honest," she said.

  She stood and walked back toward camp. Skuggi watched her go, then turned his attention back to the forest.

  Somewhere out there, in the world beyond these trees, people were fighting wars and serving gods and building societies he didn't understand. He was learning, piece by piece, hunt by hunt.

  But tonight, he'd learned something else: his difference would always set him apart. No matter how useful he made himself, no matter how carefully he integrated into the group, he would always be the person who could break a boar's neck with his bare hands.

  The person who wasn't quite human.

  He'd have to decide what to do with that.

  “???????? ??? ???????... ?????? ???? ?? ???????? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ?? ?????????...”

  “Monsters are mirrors... showing only the darkness we refuse to see in ourselves...”

  How was it??