Chapter Seven: "The Abandoned Camp"
Yusuf no longer knew how much time had passed since the waves had swept him to this place.
At first, he had measured the days, counting them precisely, storing them in his mind like someone hoarding food for a coming famine.
But the sandy walls of his memory began to erode with each sunrise that resembled no other, with each sunset that strangled the light so slowly it seemed to prolong his torment.
The days began to intertwine like the roots of the trees beneath his feet, each resembling the other until it became difficult to distinguish yesterday from the day before, or to remember how many times he had tried to catch a fish from the river before giving up.
Days were no longer measured by the sun alone. But by the hunger that gnawed at his stomach morning and evening, by the fear that clung to his back like a shadow never leaving him, by the constant search for any trace indicating that another human foot had trodden this ground before him.
Every morning he woke to the same hope: that today would be different. That the forest would reveal a secret to him, or that the wind would carry a human voice to him, or that his steps would finally lead him to something that was not trees, not earth, not mute, unyielding stones.
And every evening he slept on the same disappointment: the forest as it was, the silence as it was, the solitude as it was.
He walked for hours each day, not knowing where he was headed, not knowing whether he was advancing or moving in an endless circle.
He had chosen a direction at the beginning and stuck to it, hoping the forest would eventually end, that he would reach its edge, another shore, anything. But the trees multiplied before him the further he advanced, as if they increased in number to tell him: there is no way out.
Sometimes he would stop to catch his breath and ask himself in a faint voice: "Am I truly alone in this place?"
And his silence was the only answer.
---
One day — he could no longer remember which day it was, perhaps the fifth, perhaps the seventh — as he was making his way between intertwined trunks and branches that hung like exhausted arms, as he pushed through dry branches that cracked under his fingers with a dry snap like the breaking of bones, he stopped suddenly.
Something was different.
It was not the sound that stopped him, nor the smell, nor even the strange sensation that always accompanied him — that there were eyes watching him from among the shadows. It was something else, something he had not grown accustomed to in the past days.
A scent.
A scent not of the forest. Not the smell of damp earth, nor mold, nor decaying leaves, nor even the river's smell, which he now knew well. It was a different smell. The smell of burning.
He stopped in his place, raised his head, and turned his face in every direction like an animal searching for the source of danger.
He inhaled deeply, and his senses confirmed what he had suspected: there was fire. Or there had been fire. The smell was faint, nearly faded, as if it had remained suspended in the air long after the fire had died.
He took a step. Then another. His heart beat faster than it had in recent days. It was not fear; it was something else, closer to hope.
He advanced between the trees, his eyes scanning everything around him: a leaning trunk here, a cracked rock there, a dense shadow that seemed to hide something. Each step quickened his pulse, and each step brought him closer to the source of the scent.
Then he saw the clearing.
A gap in the forest, a place where the trees had stopped crowding as if afraid to advance further. Sunlight seeped through there, piercing the dense green canopy to illuminate a patch of earth in a pale golden color.
And in the middle of that illuminated patch was what stopped his breath.
Tents.
Torn, worn tents, some collapsed upon themselves like ancient bones unable to bear their own weight, and others still standing on bare wooden poles that resembled the ribs of a skeleton.
Yusuf froze in place for a moment, his eyes slowly widening. He felt a strange emptiness in his chest—not fear, not hope anymore, but absolute astonishment. Everything inside him said: there. There is a trace. There is life. Or there was life.
He took a step. Then stopped. Then advanced again.
His knees trembled from something he had no name for. All the days he had spent alone, all the silence that had nearly killed him, all the questions that had echoed in his head without answer—all of it condensed in his chest suddenly and made him feel as if he was about to burst.
— "Finally…" he whispered to himself, his voice hoarse, barely escaping his throat. "Finally…"
The camp was small. Four or five tents at most, scattered irregularly around a circle of stones in the center.
The fire lit by its inhabitants long ago had left only a memory: black, crumbled charcoal, cold ash scattered by the wind, and some small bones scattered here and there.
Blackened iron pots, darkened from heavy use, were stacked beside one of the tents, some tipped on their sides as if their owner had left them in haste. Strips of worn fabric hung from wooden pegs, remnants of tangled ropes lay on the ground.
Yusuf stood at the edge of the camp, not yet entering. He looked at everything with eyes that could not believe what they saw.
He stepped into the camp, and the gravel beneath his feet cried out like an old alarm. He expected someone to emerge from one of the tents, to hear a human voice saying something—anything. But no one emerged. And he heard only the silence of the place, heavier than any sound.
He approached one of the tents. He pushed the torn fabric aside cautiously and bent to look inside. It was empty. Only bare earth, some dry straw, and a worn mat. The smell of mold was strong, nearly stinging his nose.
He moved to the next tent. The same thing. Emptiness. Silence. The smell of time.
In the third, he found a torn bag. He knelt and opened it carefully, as if it might explode in his face. Inside: scraps of fabric, a piece of a broken clay pot, and remnants of dry bread that turned to dust between his fingers when he touched it.
He sat on the ground in the center of the camp, near the circle of dead ashes. He extended his hands toward the cold charcoal as if wanting to warm himself by a fire that was not there.
— "Were you here?" he asked in a faint voice, knowing no one would answer. "Where did you go?"
His voice echoed off the empty tents, off the trees surrounding the place, off the sky that did not care. It echoed back empty, hollow, as if the place mocked his solitude, as if it were saying to him: look, there were humans like you, and where are they now?
He sat there for a long time, not moving. He looked at the cold ash, at the scattered small bones, at the torn tents that no longer protected anyone. He thought: were these people like him? Had the sea washed them here? Had they suffered like him, feared like him, eaten strange fruit and drunk from the metallic-tasting river? Then what happened to them?
A question circled in his head without end: where did they go?
---
He was still sitting there, lost in his thoughts, when he felt it.
He did not hear its footsteps. He did not see it approach. But he felt it. A strange sensation crept up the back of his neck like cold breath, making him stiffen in place.
He raised his head slowly.
At the other end of the camp, between two collapsed tents, someone stood.
Yusuf froze. He did not move. Did not breathe for a moment. His eyes widened as he tried to understand what he was seeing.
It was a man. Or what remained of a man.
His body was emaciated to the point of gauntness, as if skin had adhered directly to bone with no flesh to fill the space. He wore a torn, worn robe, a thick rope wrapped around his waist in place of a belt. His feet were bare, caked with dirt, and traces of old blood still clung between his toes.
His hair was long and disheveled, hanging over his face like worn curtains. His beard was unkempt, thick, hiding the lower half of his face. But his eyes—his eyes were what terrified Yusuf most. Bulging eyes, abnormally large, gleaming with a strange luster unlike that of any ordinary human.
The man stood there, not moving. Staring at him.
Yusuf felt his heart nearly leap from his chest. He wanted to say something, to ask, to scream, to speak, to do anything. But his tongue was heavy, and his feet were rooted to the ground as if they had grown roots.
The man did not move either. He merely stood there, examining him with his bulging eyes, his head tilted slightly to the side like someone studying a strange thing he had never seen before.
Then he smiled.
A slow, strange smile, his lips parting to reveal yellow, decayed teeth, some missing. But what was terrifying about the smile was not its appearance, but what lay behind it: a look unlike that of someone meeting a stranger after long solitude. No warmth in it, no curiosity, not even hostility. A different look, deeper, as if he saw something in Yusuf that Yusuf himself did not see.
A long silence. Then the man opened his mouth.
A sound emerged like a broken, jerky chuckle, then he coughed long and hard, as if his throat refused speech. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, glanced at Yusuf fleetingly, then whispered a fragmented sentence, barely intelligible:
— "Swallowed… the sea… the stranger."
He laughed suddenly, a short, dry laugh, then fell silent. He raised his trembling hand and pointed at the camp's tents, at the bones, at Yusuf himself, moving his lips silently as if speaking to someone he could not see.
He took one step forward, then stopped. He stared at the ground for a long time, then suddenly raised his head and looked at the sky through the branches, and let out a sudden, muffled, faint cry, then laughed again.
Yusuf recoiled. He clenched his fists.
The man suddenly sat on the ground, near the cold ash, and sat cross-legged, and began playing with the ash with both hands like a child, turning it over, scattering it on himself, grabbing a handful and bringing it close to his face as if smelling something no one else could.
He whispered fragmented words, sometimes raising his voice slightly then lowering it.
He stopped. He looked at Yusuf with wide eyes and spoke in a different voice, as if another person:
— "Beware of yourself, young man…"
Then he returned to whispering, faster this time, as if reciting an incantation he himself did not understand.
He extended his hand to the ground, picked up a handful of cold ash, and let it fall slowly on his head, laughing silently.
Then suddenly he fell silent.
He sat completely still, not moving, his eyes wide open and his gaze vacant. He remained like this for minutes, until Yusuf whispered in a trembling voice:
— "You… are you human?"
The man did not answer. He only turned his head very slowly, a mechanical movement, and looked at him. A long look, then he took something from his pocket—an old, worn piece of paper, folded several times. He raised it before Yusuf's face, waved it once, then calmly tore it into small pieces and began eating them, piece by piece, smiling.
Yusuf gasped. He stepped back involuntarily.
The man finished eating the paper, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, then whispered in a strange, childlike voice:
— "Human?"
— "The shadows… ate them."
He pointed at the scattered bones, then at Yusuf, and repeated:
— "They eat… everyone… then they fall silent."
He sat there, silent, staring at Yusuf without blinking. His bulging eyes gleamed in the dim light as if they did not belong to a sane man.
---
The man did not speak for a long time.
He sat there, sometimes moving the ash with his fingers, sometimes raising his eyes to the sky through the branches like someone waiting for something that never came. Sometimes he would suddenly laugh without reason, then fall still as stone.
He did not seem to want to escape, nor to want to stay. He was simply there, a part of the abandoned camp, a piece of worn furniture forgotten by its owners.
Yusuf watched him. He was afraid of him, but he wanted to stay. After all these days of solitude, this man—no matter how mad—was the first human he had seen since opening his eyes in this world.
His eyes never left the man, studying his movements, listening to his ragged breaths. His mind worked quickly, trying to find an explanation: was he a survivor like him? Or a wandering madman?
But he found no answers.
Finally, he asked. His voice was faint, hesitant:
— "And me… what will happen to me?"
The man raised his head very slowly. He looked at him for a long time, then tilted his head to the other side, as if he had not understood the question. He pointed his finger at Yusuf, then at the ground, then began drawing circles in the ash with his finger, never raising his eyes.
Then he stopped suddenly. He raised his bulging eyes, looked at him with a heavy gaze, and whispered:
— "You will become…"
He paused. A sound like dry barking:
— "Nothing."
He gave a short, staccato laugh, then coughed for a long time, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and returned to drawing circles in the ash.
Yusuf gasped inwardly. He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.
Damn this bastard. He thinks I'll become mad like him.
He wanted to ask: what do you mean? But the question did not come out. The man had submerged himself in his own world, whispering incomprehensible words, sometimes raising his head to let out a faint cry toward the forest, then falling silent again.
They sat there.
Wind passed through the torn tents, emitting a faint whistle like a distant moan. The leaves above them stirred, and shadows began to lengthen as the sun tilted. The place was quiet, very quiet, as if time had stopped at this moment.
Yusuf sat, not moving. He looked at the man who no longer seemed aware of his presence, submerged in his silence and delirium.
He looked at his clenched hands, then slowly relaxed his grip.
He sat there until darkness began to creep between the trees, and the man sitting opposite him did not move, and the forest around him was silent, waiting.
Suddenly, the old man vanished.
---
End of Chapter Seven