Chapter 22 ( Sentient )

  When you're alone with no one else to rely on, you are the only one you can rely on. So for you to lose yourself... that’s the end of the line. That's why I was so freaked out by my sudden outburst. I had lost control of myself, and I had no idea why.

  I dropped from the fallen tree, landing silently on the damp earth after crossing the brook, and forced myself to continue. But my body felt wrong. My head was swimming, not with thoughts, but with noise. Every rustle of leaves, every distant chirp, every drip of water felt amplified, scratching at the inside of my skull. My skin crawled, a thousand tiny pinpricks of awareness warning me of dangers I couldn't see.

  I found myself sniffing the air, my head tilting back. It wasn't a conscious act. It was an instinct, a physical pull. I was hunting for something. My pace slowed, my posture lowering unconsciously as I moved past the drowned branches of the tree. I wasn't walking; I was stalking.

  It didn't take long. A sharp, coppery and metallic tang cut through the smell of wet earth. It made my mouth water. My human mind registered disgust, but it was a distant echo. The instinct was louder. I found myself creeping, my body now low to the ground, my steps unnervingly silent.

  I saw it: a large, six-foot bird, its vibrant plumage crushed beneath the fallen tree. One of the limbs had impaled it, and it was still breathing, a faint tremor running through its body. It was helpless.

  A wave of savage excitement radiated from my core. Food. Easy.

  I felt a profound disgust at my own reaction, but I couldn't stop. I was a spectator. I watched my own hand reach out, pinning the bird's struggling body. I watched my other hand grab its neck. I watched myself lower my head, my mouth opening, an animalistic urge to just tear into the raw, warm flesh...

  "SKREEEE!"

  A horn-like squawk ripped through the air. Another bird, its mate, dove from the canopy, swooping low over my head. The sound shattered the primal focus. It was so loud, so sudden, it was like a physical blow.

  My mind snapped back. What was I doing?

  Horror flooded me. I scrambled back, letting go of the bird, and just ran. I didn't care where. I crashed through bushes, vaulted over roots, and fled from the creature I had just been.

  I ran and ran until my lungs burned, not stopping until I collapsed in a heap, skidding across the forest floor. I was gasping, my heart hammering. I have to get a grip. I slapped my own cheeks, a sharp, stinging plop. My hand came away coated in something cold and thick. Blood. The bird's blood.

  I looked down at my hands, at the dark fluid and mud caked under my nails. Then I looked at the way I was sitting—crouched, not on my knees, but on the balls of my feet. And I looked back the way I had come, at the tracks I had left. They weren't just boot prints.

  I had been running on all fours. Again.

  "No, no, no..." I whimpered. A cold panic, far worse than any creature, seized me. This place was in me. "Get it out!"

  I knew now something was extremely, fundamentally wrong. I wasn't just acting like an animal; I was thinking like one. I focused on my core, my human mind screaming for control. I would purge this, burn it out. I tried to push my Arc through my body, a cleansing fire to kill whatever parasite, whatever influence, had taken root.

  But I'd made a terrible mistake.

  I was in the high-density zone. The moment I opened my core, my Gift of Infinity—the power I couldn't control—activated. It wasn't a push; it was a pull. Instead of expelling the foreign instincts, my Gift ripped the raw, ambient Arc from the valley into me in a tidal wave.

  And my Gift of Understanding—the power that let me process a creature's memories—kicked in, trying to process it all.

  My eyes widened in terror. This wasn't the Arc of one animal. It was the Arc of everything.

  I was deluged. My mind, my very being, was flooded with a million years of primal life.

  I felt the phantom agony of a deer's leg snapping in a rockslide. I tasted the bitter leaves of a den-mother herbivore. I heard the screeches of a thousand dying birds. I felt the hunger of the jaguar, the fear of the squirrel, the cold, patient mind of the spider.

  It wasn't information. It was a psychic avalanche of instinct. Eat. Flee. Hunt. Kill. Breed. Die.

  I dropped to my knees, my body convulsing. A scream tore from my throat, but it wasn't human. It was a guttural roar, a chitter, a shriek, all at once. My vision fractured. My mind—the me that was Kaliah, the person who remembered science and parents and a different world—was a tiny, flickering light. And it was being drowned.

  I felt that small light, my consciousness, shrink. It pulled back, cowering into a tiny, quiet corner of my own skull as the only way to preserve itself. I became a helpless witness. I watched through my own eyes as my body, now a vessel for the valley's will, pushed itself back up.

  I had devolved. I was a beast.

  The hunger was all that mattered. I found myself drawn back to the fruits and berries I’d found edible, feasting on them with a frantic, desperate energy. When I had my fill, I took the nuts I had left and, with animalistic cunning, buried them in the ground. I watched the forest around me as I did, my head constantly snapping from side to side, checking for threats, ensuring nothing saw where I hid my food.

  The smell of raw and rotten meat no longer disturbed me; it was a call to a meal. I could not stop myself from eating from a dead carcass I found. The raw, decaying meat hit my human-like digestive system, and my body rebelled. I threw it all up, and the sickness gave me the runs.

  But even that wasn't enough to break me free. The primal will was stronger than my body's weakness. I found myself only descending deeper. I fought off creatures with my bare hands, my body moving with a speed and ferocity I didn't recognize. When something bigger came, I didn't fight; I climbed, scrambling up trees with a desperate, familiar agility, to escape the predators that hunted me.

  Even that—the violent, physical rejection of the rotten meat—wasn't enough to break me out of the cursed state I found myself in. The primal will was stronger than my body's weakness. I found myself only descending deeper into the madness of the Arc.

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  The late summer days were a blur of green and noise. The "I" that was Kaliah was a prisoner, watching through my own eyes as "it"—my body—functioned on pure, raw instinct. It fought off creatures with my bare hands, my body moving with a speed and ferocity I didn't recognize. When something bigger came, it didn't fight; it climbed, scrambling up trees with a desperate, familiar agility to escape the predators that hunted me.

  The leaves turned from green to brittle shades of red and gold, crunching under my feet. The air grew sharp. The "it" didn't notice the beauty; it just knew the food was changing. It dug for roots, it chased down fat, slow-moving mammals, it buried nuts and seeds in a dozen places "I" would never remember, all driven by an animalian need to prepare.

  Then the first snows came. The "I" trapped inside—the Kaliah that remembered warmth and houses—felt a distant, piercing cold. But the body just shivered, its instincts adapting. It found a hollow log, dragged in dry leaves, and curled up, surviving. It hunted in the snow, its movements silent, its eyes scanning for the slightest tremor under the white blanket.

  The world was white, then grey, then muddy, and then, finally, the first fragile green of spring pushed through the thaw. I had survived, but "I" hadn't lived.

  And in that long, blurry winter, trapped in the dark, a terrible thought took root.

  Being trapped in my own body made me realize that my situation was not much different from how I already felt. Despite my indifferent attitude towards my trauma, I was very much so nothing more than a shell of my former self. How long had I been living on autopilot before now?

  I wondered if my descension into madness was actually a product of my intentional will. Maybe I wanted to be this way. It certainly felt easier like this. I had no worries, my life was much simpler. I was just surviving, just like before.

  As I thought about these things, that's when I truly began to lose myself. The "I" that was fighting, the "I" that was observing, just... let go. It was too tired. It was easier to drift. Days of my life would go by in the blink of an eye. The passenger fell asleep.

  It wasn't until "it" blundered into a territorial skirmish that I woke up.

  A group of baboon-like creatures, with light red faces and white fur, screeched and charged. My body screeched back. It fought them, killing two before the group retreated, leaving their dead. And as their Arc—hot, sharp, and different—flooded me, the passenger in my head was jolted awake.

  This was not the simple, primal Arc of a deer or a jaguar. It was complex. It was social. Through their memories, I saw flashes of crude homes, of cooperative hunts, of a society. They had goals. They had dreams.

  Did I?

  As I wondered about these things, my curiosity allowed me to start to better express my will. I found myself resonating more with these primates, as if their sentient energy gave my own consciousness a foothold. I felt a piece of myself returning, a sliver of control. The "I" was fighting back, armed with a new, more complex set of instincts.

  In my re-found curiosity, I began to inspect the Arc crystals I had been ignoring up until this point. They pulsed with a faint, internal light. Like my baboon counterparts, I fashioned my own spear. But rather than simple stone, I found a sharp, chipped shard of a green crystal and lashed it to a branch of dark, heavy wood I'd learned was strangely conductive to Arc. For the first time in months, I had not just survived—I had created.

  It was this new, fragile sense of self that led me to the human camp.

  My re-awakened curiosity drew me to watch them from the shadows. They sat around a fire, their voices low. One of them—the tall woman—let out a short, sharp laugh. They laughed. They enjoyed their time together.

  A profound ache started in my chest. That's what I wanted. I'd been so alone. For so long, I'd only had myself to rely on, and now I didn't even have that. A dream flickered to life: to study the Arc, like them. To find my troop, people who I could rely on and who could rely on me.

  But I knew then that my dream could never come true. The animal part of me, the part that still held sway, screamed DANGER. The primal instincts saw them as a threat. My fear, my animal-self, prevented me from getting close. They were dangerous to my kind.

  I was no human. I was just another beast of the valley.

  Still, I didn't feel the same boiling hatred for them that the baboons did. Maybe it was because I was different. I just... watched. I grunted—a low, animal sound I barely registered as my own—as I crept closer, my human curiosity warring with my animal fear. But then a new, simpler instinct took over. I was drawn by the wonderful smells of their food, a scent that made me salivate in hunger.

  At this time in particular, it was dark, but the light of their fire gave away their position. The "I" was screaming to stay back, to hide, but the primal hunger was overwhelming. I found myself unable to resist the call of my stomach and started sneaking towards their food, when suddenly a loud screech came from the opposite side of the camp.

  In an instant, the camp exploded into chaos. The baboon's screech was a signal, and the jungle erupted.

  The five humans snapped into action. I saw the tall woman with tied-up black hair ignite a thin, precise blue Arc blade. Beside her, the bulky, pale-skinned man roared, his own blade flaring to life—a thick, green bar of energy. The other three, clearly researchers, scrambled: a thin man fumbled with a data slate, a younger woman grabbed a medical kit, and the last man drew a small energy pistol, his hands shaking.

  Crude spears and clubs met glowing Arc. The tall woman was a blur of lethal grace. A baboon lunged, and her blue blade passed through its neck in a clean, silent arc. The two halves of the creature slid apart as it fell. I felt its Arc—a hot, sharp pulse—rush toward me, and a strange instinct, a compelling, primal urge, surged in my chest. Protect the troop.

  I found myself running, my own crude spear clutched tight. The wind rushed past my ears, and the world narrowed.

  The bulky man was like a brute, smashing his green blade through one attacker's shoulder. He bellowed in triumph and turned to dispatch another, his guard dropping for a fatal second. From his blind spot, a third baboon shot forward, leveling its spear not at him, but at the unarmed, pale-skinned researcher cowering behind him.

  I didn't think. Augmenting my body with the sudden rush of stolen Arc, I leaped. My small, feral form covered the distance in a single bound. I impaled, driving the glowing yellow crystal of my spear completely through the attacking baboon's chest. It choked, its own spear clattering to the ground an inch from the researcher's foot.

  The bulky man stared, his mouth open in stunned surprise, his combat focus broken. That's when another baboon, seeing me as the new threat, swung its spear in a wide, horizontal arc aimed at his exposed side.

  "HRAAAGH!" I snarled, a guttural, inhuman sound that was half-warning, half-challenge.

  It didn't stop. It growled back, its yellow fangs bared, and redirected its attack from the stunned man to me.

  I barely got my own spear up in time. It wasn't a block; I slapped its weapon away. The impact shivered up my arm, the wood groaning. Before it could recover, I lunged under its guard and stabbed, a low, visceral, upward thrust. I felt the spearhead crunch into its ribs and snap, breaking off inside the creature.

  Disarmed, but feeling another jolt of power as the baboon collapsed, I ripped the spear from its dying grasp. A wild, victorious 'Yak!' tore from my throat. The human camp, my new troop, was in chaos, and I was its feral guardian.

  I became a whirlwind. With each kill, I felt their energy rush into me, a hot, electric current that made me faster, stronger. I moved with an ease that wasn't my own, my small size a deadly advantage. I ducked under a swinging club, my new spear lashing out to sever its wielder's ankle. I scrambled over a rock, driving my spear down into the back of another. My passive Arc barrier flared to life as a spear I never saw coming glanced harmlessly off my shoulder, the wooden shaft shattering against the invisible force. I turned, my movements pure instinct, and cut the creature down.

  The fight stalled. I glanced over to see the tall woman decapitating another of the beast before turning to the remaining baboons—still a half-dozen strong—frozen. They stared at us—at me—this small, blood-soaked primate-thing that fought with the humans and tore through their kin.

  I seized the moment. I stood as tall as my small frame would allow, planted my spear in the bloody mud, and beat my chest with both fists. I let out a raw, dominant scream, a sound of pure, primal challenge that echoed through the clearing. This is my troop. This is my territory. Leave.

  My bluff had worked. The baboons, shaken by this unnatural display, looked at each other, barked in fear, and then turned as one, vanishing back into the jungle.

  The sudden silence was deafening. The adrenaline, the stolen Arc, the primal rage—it all evaporated in an instant, leaving me hollow. My legs trembled. The borrowed spear slipped from my grip. I dropped to one knee, then the other, and pitched fo

  rward, my face planting straight into the mud and the warm pool of baboon blood.