The jungle didn't wait. it never did.
The moment the world snapped back around them— sand under their hands, choking heat, the cursed smell of rot — the ground answered with a roar.
Shadows split. Trees bent.
Beasts came.
The first was a wolf, except wolves didn't have six legs, didn't glow with veins of fire, didn't split their jaws into three screaming mouths. It lunged so fast the sand cracked under it's weight.
Vordi slammed into it before it reached them, coils wrapping like chains. Bones cracked. Black blood spurted hot across the sand.
But Kail's stomach sank. She knew better by now. They never came alone.
Branches splintered as more poured out. Lizards with ridges of spines taller then her shoulders, eyes red and molten. Insects as big as horses, legs clacking, mandibles snapping branches like twigs. Their wings buzzed so hard the air turned to knives.
The smell hit next — rot, sulfur, blood baked in the sun. Kail gagged, then cursed. "Oh come on. Seriously?? Of course it's bug season now."
"They don't stop," Aiden said flatly. He was already moving, blade flashing silver as he split an insect's head clean down the middle. Black ichor sprayed his cloak, dripping in thick strands.
"Then we dont stop either!!" Kail shouted, raising her blades.
"You'll burn out." His voice was calm, too calm, as he stepped past her, cutting down a wolf that had lunged low.
"I'll burn out later!" Kail snarled, stabbing a lizard in the throat. "Right now I'm burning them!"
The fight erupted.
One insect shrieked, wings slicing. Kail ducked and rolled, sand filling her mouth. Her blade tore through it's thorax with a wet crack. Hot innards gushed over her arms, burning.
"Ugh god! why do monster guts always smell like microwaved ass!?" she spat, wiping slime from her cheek with the back of her wrist as she twisted to take another swing.
"Focus!!" Aiden barked, voice sharp like his blade. He sank his sword into a wolf's chest, ripped it free, and spun, pushing another beast back with a brutal kick.
"I am focused! On not vomiting while stabbing!!" Kail yelled, yanking her blade free from a lizard's hide. The rim of her vision fluttered; sweat stung her eyes.
A spined lizard slammed into Aiden, claws carving a line across his shoulder. He grunted, teeth bared, and shoved the creature away. He moved with a cold, efficient rhythm — kill step kill — but everytime his boot hit the sand he left a small smear of red.
"You good??" Kail hollered, stabbing at an insect that dove at her face.
"Been worse," he said, throat working.
"That's not comforting!!" she muttered, and ducked under a snapping mandible.
Lizz hurled a rock at an insect. It bounced off and skittered away, annoyed, but not dead.
She screamed. "I'm so useful!"
"Rocks?? You're a one-woman pebble barrage," Kail shot back, kicking a beast aside to make room for Lizz to scramble free.
"It's all I've got!!" Lizz cried, breath ragged and eyes wild.
"Then throw harder you idiot!!" Kail snapped, her own arms shaking.
"You two—less screaming!" Aiden barked, but his voice cracked with strain.
"Shut up, Batman!" Kail yelled back. "We're allowed to scream, we're being eaten alive!!"
Vordi shrieked, coils lashing, slamming one wolf so hard into the ground it's spine snapped audibly. Green flames licked from her fangs and set a patch of underbrush ablaze. For an instant the night glowed emerald; sparks floated like stars.
They took a second— a tiny, arrogant second— of thinking maybe they could push through. Maybe they could carve out a safe pocket. Maybe the monsters would hesitate.
The ground trembled.
It wasn't just claws now. It was something beneath.
The earth split open as something enormous uncoiled itself. A centipede the size of a tower, plated in chitinous armor, slithered into the clearing. Its segmented body coiled like a living wall; its hundred lengths clicked, a sound like doors slamming in hell. Eyes littered its head, milky-pale and unblinking. Its mandibles snapped a whole tree like a twig.
Kail's chest tightened. "Nope. Cancel this adventure. I want a refund."
"Don't stop moving," Aiden ordered.
"Do you see that thing??!"
"Yes."
"Then why do you sound calm?!"
"Panicking wastes energy."
"Okay well then I'm wasting energy! A lot of it!!"
The swarm descended.
Beasts tumbled over beasts; the air became a blizzard of claws and teeth and buzzing wings. Kail sliced, stabbed, spun. Each movement cost her something. Every limb felt like it belonged to someone else, her muscles rebelled, trembled, but she just kept swinging.
One insect latched onto her forearm, it's mandibles grinding into her skin. She screamed, shoved a blade up, and the point punched through it's head. The thing fell back with a disgusting sucking noise, spraying black goo across her shirt.
Pain was constant now: a hot white line across her ribs where a talon had scraped, a dull ache in her shoulder, numb fingers from gripping too tight. Her lungs were fire.
"Kail!!" Aiden roared. He'd been pushed back, cut off, and for a heartbeat she thought he was gone. Then he reappeared, blade flashing like lightning, and hauled her up by the arm. "On your feet!"
She spat sand, coughed blood. "Good to see you—back from wherever you disappear to when I need you."
"That's not the time for jokes."
"Then don't save me," she shot back, voice hoarse. They both knew she didn't mean it.
Lizz was down on her knees now, still trying to fight with a broken branch like that would do anything. A wolf pinned her, it's breath hot on her neck, teeth grazing her collarbone.
She thought about home—pizza boxes, cheap posters, that shitty dorm room she used to complain about—and the thought made her furious. She didn't want to die with that being the last thing in her head.
"No. Not like this," she whispered.
Her hand lifted. Her chest burned like a fuse had been lit. A thin thread of heat sparked up her arm, like lightning but slower, heavier. She pushed.
The wolf faltered, body glitching, like reality itself was tripping over what it was. The fur flickered, scales shimmered where there shouldn't be.
Kail froze, blade raised. "Holy—Lizz, what did you just—"
"I don't know!!" Lizz screamed, tears cutting through dirt on her face. Her body buckled with the effort. "It's— it's leaving me!"
The glow in her eyes guttered. She slumped sideways, blood spilling over the sand.
The beasts smelled weakness. They howled and surged forward, claws raking, wings buzzing.
"Hold them!!" Aiden snapped, planting himself between the swarm and the girls. His blade swung in a rhythm like it was the only thing keeping him upright.
"You're bleeding out!!" Kail shrieked, slashing at an insect that nearly took her head off.
"So are you!!" he shot back.
"Shut up, Captain Obvious!!" she snapped, but her eyes were wet. She kept swinging, kept screaming, even though her arms felt like they'd snap out of their sockets.
Vordi lashed out, tail slamming one beast against a tree so hard it cracked the trunk in two. Her coils writhed, green flames dripping from her fangs, hissing across the sand like acid. For every three she crushed, five more came spilling out of the trees.
"GET OFF HER!!" Kail bellowed as a wolf lunged at Lizz's leg. Her blade found its neck and the thing yelped, black blood splattering her. She dropped to her knees beside her friend, panting, hands shaking as she pressed against the wound.
Lizz's face was pale, her lips moving but no sound came out. Kail's throat burned. "Don't you dare quit on me, Lizz, don't you f***ing dare."
Behind them, Aiden staggered as a beast slammed into him. He cut it down, but his footing slipped. Kail turned, saw blood running down his chest in thick sheets.
"Stay UP!!" she screamed at him, dragging him by the arm as another lizard lunged.
"You die," she hissed at him like it was an order.
His eyes flicked to hers, and for once, his voice cracked too. "Not yet."
They kept fighting.
The air was claws and screams and heat and buzzing wings. Every swing of a blade was heavier than the last. Every second felt like the last one they had.
And then the ground split again.
The ground split again, deeper this time, like the island itself was cracking apart just to let the nightmare through.
And it came.
Bigger than the cliffs, bigger than anything they'd seen yet. Its body was stone and molten glass fused together, every step sparking heat into the sand. Eyes like burning furnaces dotted it's massive head, all of them blinking in different rhythms. When it opened it's mouth, rows of teeth ground against each other, grinding so loud it shook the air like an earthquake trying to scream.
Kail's legs gave out. She hit the sand on her knees, hands still clutching her bloody blades. "No. No no no no. Nope. I quit. This is above my pay grade."
The roar shattered the jungle. Trees bent backwards, birds fell from the sky like stunned toys, and even the other monsters seemed to freeze, bowing low to the thing like it was their king.
Aiden stood. Bleeding, swaying, but still stood. His blade trembled in his grip for the first time, but he raised it anyway. "Stay back," he said, but his voice was thin, tired.
Vordi hissed, coils tightening. Steam curled from her mouth. She looked so small compared to the colossus, but she still squared herself in front of Kail and Lizz.
"Why does it always get worse!?" Kail yelled, voice breaking. She wiped blood and sweat from her face with her sleeve, smearing red across her cheek. "Like—we don't even get five minutes to breathe??"
"Because it wants us broken," Aiden said, and he didn't look away from the monster towering above them.
Kail let out a broken laugh, the sound more like a sob. "Well congrats, mission f***ing accomplished."
Beside her, Lizz twitched. Her eyes fluttered open, hazy, her lips moving. She saw it all—the monster, Aiden bleeding, Kail screaming, Vordi ready to burn. Something in her chest cracked, but it wasn't bones. It was something deeper, something she'd been holding back without even knowing it.
Her hand lifted. Just barely, trembling like a dying flame.
"Kail…" she whispered, voice shredded.
"I'm here!" Kail pressed her hand against Lizz's shoulder, eyes wide, tears mixing with grime. "Don't you dare leave me, okay? You don't get to check out now. Not when we're—"
And then it happened.
For one impossible second, the world shimmered around Lizz. Her eyes glowed like molten gold. Wings unfurled behind her in light only she could see. Fire flared at her fingertips, hot enough to burn through the air itself. A phoenix, screaming inside her chest, ready to tear its way out.
Kail's breath caught. Aiden froze. Even Vordi stilled.
And then—
Her arm dropped.
The glow blinked out like it had never been there.
Her eyes closed.
"No no no no no—" Kail shook her, shaking so hard her voice cracked into nothing. "LIZZ!!"
But her chest didn't rise.
The monster above them raised a limb and slammed it into the ground. The shockwave tore through the sand, spraying it into the air like water.
Everything turned black.