Blood had become a second shadow.
Walking behind the walk of a shallow shadow blending into encroaching darkness, hidden between gnarly roots of trees centuries old.
He crawled, a dark, uneven line straining leaves, roots, stones—proof that something living had passed through here and was still, somehow, moving.
It was skin, bones, pieces of flesh clinging to a nervous system that was actively misfiring and passively shutting down with such excruciating detail, it could be nothing but engineered madness.
Xavier's body no longer belonged to him in any reasonable way.
In the way a crayon spread color, a bike was a force multiplier, and a drunk man could not walk straight, he—too—was following the natural progression that came with surviving excessively.
Death.
His body had become a collection of screaming points and dead zones stitched together by habit and a demon-like will—a Frankenstein's monster of his own making.
One leg refused to straighten—it was dead.
One arm trembled uselessly beneath him—broken in two places.
His ribs shifted when he breathed, grinding softly, like broken crockery—punctured lung, wheezing breaths.
He cried without sound.
It was the depth of tears to shed them without word, not by choice or instinct, just a simple lack thereof.
Sobs required breath he could not spare.
And even now, the wet, silent convulsions that wracked his chest and made his vision smear was a definite waste of water.
Tears mixed with blood on his cheeks.
He did not wipe them away.
He did not even notice them.
What were tears in a world devoid of sensations?
An extended fantasy emerged in the depths of his mind—in another world, where he had made the crawl, where the bear had passed him by, and where, by some miracle, he had survived long enough to taste meat once more.
But that was not this world.
All that existed in this world was the need to move forward—ever forward.
Crawl. Stop.
Breathe.
Crawl again. Stop.
Three deep breaths.
Crawl. Crawl. CRawl. CRAwl. CRAWl. CRAWL, CRAWL!
And then there was only crawling, nails digging in-between rocks, hoping and failing to that one patch of soft soil that would make the journey a little less bearable.
Jaw lolling as it dragged along with each pull and shimmy against the ground—no different from a worm moving at its own pace.
Fear had finally eclipsed pain.
Not the sharp, electric terror of a sudden threat, but the slow, suffocating dread of understanding how close death now was.
It followed him like a scent.
And ironically, it was an actual scent that made him all the easier to track.
Xavier could feel it at his back, patient, unhurried.
Waiting for him to stop.
He would not.
Even if the skin peeled away, he would not stop.
The camp emerged through the trees like a mirage—canvas slumped between poles, the low outline of the shelter he had built with hands that no longer felt like his.
Relief hit him so hard his vision cleared for a moment.
There was a sense of relief that came with home—and it was as brutal as it was deceptive.
Medicine. He thought.
He could see it already.
The pouch.
The crushed herbs.
The powders that burned when they touched skin.
The things that hurt but kept him alive.
Even poison would do now, if it bought him minutes.
Anyone else in his place would die but Xavier knew there was something unusual about his survival thus far, and he was banking on that weirdness to save him this time as well.
After all, the men in his family had a final grace upon death—hence he could find himself in this situation to begin with.
He dragged himself closer, teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached.
And then he saw it.
The puma sat just beyond the tent's edge, body relaxed, tail curled neatly around its paws.
Its fur caught the dim light, tawny and smooth, unruffled by violence. Its eyes followed him—not hungrily, not aggressively.
Watching. Waiting.
Their stare-off lasted for a couple of seconds before the puma broke eye contact, its stalking gait disappearing into the main tent, avoiding all the pitfalls and traps as if to prove a point.
Then, when it exited, there was a pouch clenched in its jaws—the desperately needed pouch of medicine which would either save Xavier or break him all the more.
Either way, it would be a lifeline or a more direct death.
Xavier stopped.
His heart stuttered, then raced.
For a terrible second, despair surged—but it broke strangely, bending into something else when the puma took a cautious step toward him.
A laugh bubbled up, raw and hysterical, catching painfully in his throat.
"You…" he whispered, voice shredded. But his meaning was clear—the gesture touched him.
Even in the brutal depths of whatever jungle he had been exiled by a cursed power inherited from his grandfather—even in the darkest places—someone would care about his life and death.
Someone he hadn't imagined. Hadn't hallucinated. Hadn't personified through sheer delusion and circumstances extrapolation.
Relief. Actual relief.
He lifted a shaking hand and pointed to the animal's jaw, as if telling it to hand him the pouch.
His gesture was clumsy, almost childlike.
"I'll die," his eyes said. "Unless—help me."
The puma did not move.
Somewhere—not close, at least a mountain away, but impossibly clear—someone spoke.
"Does he know?"
The voice was low, measured, carrying a faint cadence that did not belong to this place.
It was spoken in a language so divorced from what was familiar—yet, he could understand it perfectly, as if it was personally being whispered into his ear.
Xavier's head jerked, eyes darting wildly through the trees.
Another voice answered, softer, almost curious. "He doesn't. How could he?" she continued. "Cuddled in their cities of machines, believing the wilds are a world onto themselves."
Xavier's breath came in short, panicked bursts.
He laughed again, sharp and broken.
Hallucinations.
Of course. His mind was finally unraveling.
"He is not a predator," the second voice continued, thoughtful. "Try as he might. Mimic as they may. Surviving mountain falls and caving earth—yet failing to recognize what has been trying to kill them all along."
The puma's ears twitched, just once.
Xavier stared at it.
Something about its stillness began to feel wrong.
Predators paced.
They stalked.
They reacted.
This one sat like stone—his life-saving pouch in its mouth.
What, at first, appeared to be coal in the winter was starting to look a lot like—
"A predator will always be a predator," the first voice said.
Closer now.
Certain.
As if it wanted to be heard.
Xavier swallowed. His tongue felt too large for his mouth.
"Let us leave him to his fate," the softer voice said at last.
She sounded as if indifference was a person—with just a hint of disappointment in the sub-sonic range.
Footsteps crunched—distinct, deliberate—then faded, retreating in a direction Xavier could not place.
Uphill, perhaps.
Or farther than distance allowed.
Silence fell.
The puma remained.
Blood pooled beneath Xavier's chest, warm and slick. He felt dizzy, the world rocking gently, as if lulling him into a deep sleep.
That was when the animal started moving.
Left.
Then right.
Then left.
Its stalking gait grew more pronounced as one minute turned into two.
When it completed a full circle, placing the pouch on the side—something cracked inside of Xavier.
A terrible thought crept in.
Why kill something that is already dying? His mind echoed.
He laughed again, beautifully as if greeting a friend. "Fine," he whispered. "Thank you."
With immense effort, he reached out.
His fingers brushed fur with such intimacy it was as if he was caressing a lover. And not just any lover, a secret lover. The kind that pushed you to the brink of insanity.
Though, he was already past the brink.
It happened in an instant.
The puma reacted with its nature.
Its jaws opened and closed with shocking speed.
Xavier did not feel pain at first—only pressure, crushing and final.
Then sensation rushed in all at once, blinding.
Bone snapped.
His middle finger was gone before his brain understood what had happened. He stared, fascinated, as blood sprayed in a bright arc.
He imagined—absurdly—feeling it slide down the animal's throat.
It was amazing just how much blood was left in his body even after half-bleeding to death.
A sound escaped him. Not a scream. Something lower. Animal.
And then clarity struck.
This thing had never been his ally.
Not once.
Stalking from the trees, ambushes in the night, stealing his prey, attacking the goat only when both he and the animal was weakened enough to make an easy kill.
How had he romanticized everything was a mystery only the mountain could solve.
But that was the thing with life—everything, at some point, would become rationalizable.
The warmth he had felt before, the comfort, the imagined companionship—it had all been projection. Loneliness dressed up as trust.
Survival instinct misread as affection.
He laughed again, tears streaming freely now.
"Of course," he breathed.
The puma tightened its grip, teeth grinding.
Xavier did not pull away.
He pushed his hand deeper.
The animal bit harder, greedily, reflexively.
Xavier welcomed it. He shoved until pain dissolved into white noise, until his wrist disappeared past its jaws.
Then he grabbed its tongue.
The texture shocked him—slick, muscular, alive.
The puma thrashed, startled, but he held on with everything he had left. His other hand fumbled for the knife, fingers slick with blood, clumsy and numb.
When he stabbed, it was not clean.
It was ugly. Desperate. Wrong.
The blade went into the puma's face, sliding between bone and muscle.
The animal screamed, a sound so high and wet it made Xavier gag. Its eye bulged grotesquely, swelling against the pressure, veins spiderwebbing beneath the surface as if it might burst.
He stabbed again.
And again.
Blood coated his arms, his chest, his mouth. He tasted iron and bile.
The puma clawed at him wildly, ripping into his neck, tearing away a chunk of flesh. Warmth poured down his collarbone.
Xavier barely noticed.
Because he was no longer stabbing a puma.
He was stabbing Wolsi.
The realization came unbidden, sudden and devastating.
Every thrust carried years of unspoken hurt, every cut a memory twisted into rage—parents, lineage, school, Wolsi, Wolsi, Wolsi.
That night. The betrayal.
The quiet way everything had fallen apart while he had still believed in it.
"This is your fault," he sobbed, voice breaking entirely now.
The puma fought desperately, its body convulsing, claws shredding skin, but Xavier clung to it like a man drowning. He did not care if it killed him.
He wanted it to feel something before it ended him.
The animal's eye finally gave way, rupturing with a sickening pop. Thick fluid spilled down its face. Xavier gagged but did not stop.
He stabbed until his arm failed him.
Until his vision narrowed to a tunnel.
Until the puma's movements slowed, then stilled.
And even then, somewhere in the back of his mind, he said 'Ah. This is what I am capable of—' He could no longer distinguish the survivor from the thriver, the unfortunate soul from the depth of circumstances.
Most of all, he could no longer distinguish the man from the monster… if they were ever truly separate to begin with.
Man and animal collapsed together, tangled and slick, blood pooling beneath them both. Xavier lay gasping, chest barely rising, staring at nothing.
His death felt inevitable now. Comfortable, even.
At least he would not go alone.
They were two mountains away now when they stopped—the two figures stood on a ridge. The wind tugged at their dark hair, their upper-body, bare and sculpted, twinkled slightly in the sunlight.
Their crimson eyes narrowed… and they saw.
To anyone else, it would have been a soft glow, possibly mistaken for the glisten of moonlight off a waterbody. But they could see clearer, as if they were standing next to the glow that suffused Xavier's dying body.
She tilted her head, intrigued.
The other smiled, slow and thoughtful.
And far below, Xavier's breath shuddered, once… twice… then held? Or ended?