The mist was everywhere.
It swallowed the world whole, turning lamdmarks into ghosts and the sky into a memory. Angram had learned that on the second day. At first he had believed there was an edge to it. A border. A place where the fog thinned and the world returned.
There wasn't.
The white sea stretched endlessly in every direction, swallowing distance, sound, and hope alike. His feet pounded against uneven stone.
Run.
Run.
Run.
That was all he knew anymore. His lungs burned.His stomach twisted painfully from hunger. His throat felt raw from thirst. Every breath hurt. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, swollen and discolored from an injury sustained days ago. Every jolt sent needles of pain shooting through his shoulder.
The world around him appeared as a blurry haze because had not slept in... he did not know how long.
Still he ran.
The fog pressed against him from all sides, thick and damp and cold. Shapes moved within it. Humanoid shapes. Monstrous shapes. Shapes that had no names because nothing that looked like that should exist. Tall silhouettes stood motionless in the distance, watching him with heads tilted at impossible angles. Others crawled across the ground on too many limbs.
Some resembled beasts.
Others resembled people who had forgotten how to be people. He saw them in glimpses.
A hand with too many fingers.
A mouth that opened sideways.
A cluster of eyes blinking in unison.
Their gazes pressed against his skin like brands. The pressure of their hunger was a physical weight, crushing down on his shoulders, his chest, his mind. The weight of their attention.
Watching.
Waiting.
Measuring.
Like wolves observing a wounded deer.
Tears streamed down his cheeks. He did not bother wiping them away.The tears came silently, mixing with the sweat and grime on his cheeks.
He was terrified.
Every second.
Every minute.
Every hour.
Terrified.
He wanted his mother.
He wanted his father.
He wanted his village.
He wanted to wake up and discover none of this was real. Instead he stumbled through an endless nightmare. He could not afford to stop running. He had learned, in the days since his exile, how to make his Presence small. How to shrink the weight of his soul until he was barely there, a whisper in a world of screams. It was the only reason he was still alive.
Another gaze brushed against him.
It was different from the others. Sharper. Colder. It did not hunger—it calculated. It locked onto him and did not let go. Angram was too terrified to notice.
A shape appeared behind him.
Large.
Fast.
Moving through the fog quicker than Angram could move. His breath caught.
'It found me.'
Panic exploded inside him and he pushed harder.The thing behind him accelerated.
The sound of claws scraping stone echoed through the mist.
Closer.
Closer.
Closer.
"No..."
His voice cracked.
"No no no no no—"
His foot struck empty air and the ground vanished.The chasm swallowed him whole. He fell, his scream echoed through the fog as rough stone rushed upward. He tumbled down the rocky slope, his injured arm striking stone, and the pain was white-hot, blinding. He screamed. The sound echoed through the darkness, unanswered.
CRASH.
More pain exploded through his body.
His injured arm struck first.
Something cracked.
Angram let out a wail that tore itself from the bottom of his lungs.He rolled across the rocky floor, clutching his arm as tears flooded his eyes.
Then silence returned.
Heavy.
Oppressive.
Through the agony he looked up to see that the beast appeared at the edge of the chasm. Angram froze.
It was massive.
Its body was thrice the size of a wolf. Its skin looked stretched too tightly across its frame. Bones, its ribs and spine protruded visibly beneath pale flesh. Its eyes glowed a sickly yellow, no pupils.
No intelligence.
Only hunger.
Its mouth—its mouth was wrong. Too wide. Too full of teeth. Teeth that had been designed for crushing, for tearing, for consuming.
The creature stared down into the chasm.
Angram's blood turned cold. The beast knew he couldn't run.
It knew.
The realization broke something inside him.
He was tired.
So tired.
His body hurt.
His stomach hurt.
Everything hurt.
Maybe...
Maybe this was enough.
Maybe he couldn't do it anymore.
It leaped and landed a few yards away from him. Its claws scraped against stone. Coughing out a growl, it began approaching.
Angram's shoulders slumped as a sob escaped him. He wanted to go home. He wanted—
The beast pounced on him, and the world became pain.
Teeth sank into his shoulder. Claws raked across his chest. He felt his ribs crack, his flesh tear, his blood soak into the hungry earth beneath him. He could not fight. He could not run. He could only lie there, pinned, helpless, dying.
A gaze.
The same gaze he had felt before when he was running. This one wasn't hungry but...curious? Evaluating?
Then it began to withdraw.
As if deciding he wasn't worth watching.
As if he had already lost.
The feeling should have meant nothing. But something inside Angram rebelled.
'No.'
His father hadn't raised him to die here.
His mother was waiting.
The village was waiting.
He wasn't done.
His hand closed around the stone dagger his father had given him. The blade was small, barely sharp, but it was all he had.
He stabbed the beast in the neck.
The beast snarled and leaped back. Blood poured from the wound, but it was shallow. The creature shook its head, confused more than injured.
Angram was emanciated. Weak. His attack had barely drawn blood.
'It doesn't matter.'
He remembered his father's lessons. The hunts they had gone on together. The way his father had taught him to be patient, to be precise, to be relentless and unyielding.
Consistency kills.
Not strength.
The beast lunged again.
Angram did not dodge. He could not. Instead, he raised the dagger and stabbed the same spot. The same wound. Same strike.
Again.
And again.
And again.
The beast tore into him.
Claws ripped flesh.
Teeth crushed muscle.
It dragged him across stone. Angram barely remained conscious, his arm screamed and is vision blurred.
But he did not stop.
The beast's blood covered his hands. The dagger slipped in his grip. He tightened his fingers and stabbed again. The world became pain.
Pain and blood and desperation.
The beast itself slowed.
Its movements became sluggish. Its snarls became whimpers. Its weight pressed down on him, heavier and heavier, until finally— the beast staggered. Its legs trembled.
Then it collapsed.
Dead.
Silence returned.
Angram lay beneath the corpse, gasping for breath. He could not move. He could not think. He could only feel the warmth of the blood seeping into his wounds. His vision darkened.
He was starving.
...Starving...
His body was consuming itself. He could feel it—the slow, desperate burn of his own flesh being used as fuel. The beast's flesh was warm. Without thinking, without hesitation, instinct took over.
He bit into the beast.
The taste was foul—iron and rot and something else, something that burned going down. He almost vomited. Then he bit again.
And again.
And again.
Because living mattered more than dignity.
Because surviving mattered more than disgust.
Because dead men couldn't go home.
He did not stop. He tore chunks from the corpse and swallowed them whole.
'I will survive.
I will see my village again.
I will—'
Darkness swallowed him.