An hour had passed since the trio's harrowing encounter with the ghouls. Having finally broken through that suffocating, mist-choked valley, James and Sylvia pressed forward into the deeper wilderness. Miracle remained completely out of commission, dead to the world and slung securely over James's back like a fragile sack of flour. Without their green-haired psychic to read the self-inking parchment or dictate their steps, the two younger experiments could only wander aimlessly through the endless corridors of pine.
High above the canopy, a pitch-black raven was watching their journey from a distance. But Sylvia briefly stopped and turned towards its direction but the raven didn't look surprised but more amused than flew off.
"Careful"Sylvia nagged, her fingers tightly tugging at James's makeshift cloak. He had just tripped over a hidden branch, almost dropping Miracle into the deep snow.
"Yeah, I know! Get off my back!" James huffed, his cheeks flaring hot and red from a mix of exhaustion and irritation. He violently hitched Miracle's smaller, eight-year-old frame higher up his spine to secure his grip. "If you're so scared I'm gonna drop him, why don't you carry him?"
Sylvia pouted aggressively, crossing her arms over her winter wraps. She tried to squeeze her features into a harsh, tight grimace, a deliberate, clumsy imitation of the exact, weary expression Miracle.
"You big… You stronger," she stammered, glaring at him. "Don't drop Miracle. Needs sleep. Dumbass."
James's jaw tightened. He wasn't about to let a comment like dumbass slide from a girl who spent half her day talking to bushes. Digging his boot into a fresh drift, he aggressively kicked a spray of frozen snow straight into Sylvia's face, cutting off her glare and leaving her sputtering and whining as she wiped her eyes.
James rolled his eyes, letting out a heavy breath that billowed into the freezing air like white smoke blasting out of a chimney. He adjusted his hold on the little psychic and looked over his shoulder. Seeing Miracles face all soft and quiet was weird. He was used to the guy walking around with a tired, frustrated, deadpan, or thinking expression.
The long, grueling march through the drifts finally began to wear their young legs down to the bone. Seeking a brief reprieve, they stopped near a massive, rotting tree whose thick roots twisted out of the snow like frozen serpents. James carefully slid Miracle down, letting his limp, exhausted body rest back against the rough, cold bark. The moment he settled, the moon-sapped pinecone hung around Miracle's neck pulsed with a soft, rhythmic, green-gold hum. It radiated a gentle, localized heat that actively kept the creeping Alaskan frost off his skin.
James leaned against a lower branch, staring up at the bleak, gray sky. When he spoke again, his voice dropped its standard aggressive, defensive edge, sounding remarkably small.
"Hey," he muttered, his fingers clenching beneath his cloth wrap. "You think it's true? The stuff out there?"
Sylvia stopped poking at the frozen moss. She tilted her head, her messy orange hair falling over her shoulder as she blinked, processing his words. "Out... there?"
"Yeah out there." James said, clenching his fist beneath his cloth wrap. "Ms. Sandra always told me and Juliet stories about it. Big places where people live, places where people treat us well and won't hurt us or put us in cages."
Sylvia looked down at her bare feet, kicking small chunks of packed snow into the dirt. Her fragile mind instantly flashed back to the clinical horror of the facility—the sterile white walls, the heavy leather straps, the massive needles, and the terrifying, masked faces of the scientists. Shivering, she looked back up at the towering pine trees, the vast open sky, and the crisp winter air.
Her small face softened into an expression of absolute, quiet certainty. "No cage," she whispered, her voice incredibly soft but entirely sure. "Miracle say we free. Get good place to sleep… Good food."
"Good food." James muttered. His mind drifted back to the secret treats Mrs. Sandra used to bring him and Juliet from the outside. He still wondered why the fish Mrs. Sandra brought tasted so much better and different from the regular fish Miracle cooked.
Shaking the nostalgic fog from his head, James stood up straight and pulled his deer cloth tight across his bare chest. "Alright, I'm going to go hunt for some meat."
Sylvia's face instantly tightened with sheer panic. She scrambled to her feet and jumped directly in front of him, throwing her arms wide open like a human wall. "NO! STAY!"
"What do you mean, no?" James snapped, his blonde eyebrows knitting together in immediate frustration. He was running on a short fuse, and he felt like he was going to accidentally scorch this girl if she kept pushing his buttons.
"Protect together!" Sylvia insisted, stomping her foot as she pointed aggressively at Miracle's limp, snoring form. "Miracle needs sleep. And protecting."
"I'll be fast! No food means no strength." James argued back, throwing his hands up. "Look at him, plant girl. He's weak and tired right now. When he wakes up, his belly's gonna be empty. Empty belly means weak power. I gotta get meat so he can be strong enough to keep going!"
Sylvia bit her lip, looking from James to Miracle. She hated the idea and being alone, but James had a good point but…
"Make food…" She used her powers to grow some plants but none of them had any fruits making her confused.
"See!" He folded his arms with a smirk on his face and tried to throw some snow at him but he dodged it. He actually glad that didn't work as he preferred meat over the stuff she grew
"You… hunt fast," she finally conceded, her striking green eyes shimmering with a heavy, protective worry. "Hunt fast… Be careful. No get lost."
"I'm a dragon! Nothing out in these woods can beat me!" James boasted proudly, igniting his right fist in a sudden burst of teal flames. The bright, colorful display caught Sylvia off guard, causing her to let out a small, bubbly giggle that broke her tense expression, confusing him. "So, can you do that thing and ask the forest where the closest food is to make this faster?"
Sylvia's giggle died down, replaced by a deep, frustrated frown. She closed her eyes, trying to press her senses into the surrounding earth, but her mind met nothing but a cold, empty void. Ever since yesterday, the whispers of the woods had gone completely silent. It was like the forest's life force was lingering right on the edge of her awareness but refused to speak to her.
"Quiet…" Sylvia answered, shaking her head softly.
"Fine, no big deal. I can track down food fast by myself anyway," James huffed, refusing to let the setback dim his pride. Digging his toes into the frozen earth, he channeled a localized burst of heat into his calf muscles and launched himself forward, rocketing into the thick trees at blistering, superhuman speed.
Sylvia let out a long, shaky breath. Pulling her knees to her chest, she sat down directly beside the green-haired psychic, gripping her custom wooden bow tightly in her small hands. Her eyes remained locked on the tree line, hyper-alert and ready to guard Miracle from anything that crawled out of the dark.
With James
After forty-five minutes of sprinting blindly through the dense thickets, James was rapidly losing his mind. His initial confidence had entirely vaporized, replaced by a volatile, burning rage. He hadn't spotted a single rabbit, a stray bird, or even a basic mountain goat. His patience was gone, and his empty stomach was screaming.
"ARGH! Why can't I find anything!" he roared into the empty woods. Infuriated, he ignited his hand with teal sparks and punched directly into a nearby pine tree, his physical strength easily shattering a gaping hole cleanly through the trunk.
wiped the splinters from his skin and pushed forward.
A few minutes later, his draconic, red-shifting eyes caught a sudden anomaly in the landscape.
James dropped to his knees, his jaw dropping slightly as he stared at a series of massive markings stamped deep into the snow drifts. "Wow… they're huge!" he marveled, running a hand along the edge of the indentation. His mind instantly flashed back to their early days in the forest , remembering the practical tracking stuff from Miracle and had told them that large marks meant a large animal, and to James, a large animal equaled a massive, filling meal for the camp.
Not wasting another second, he sprinted ahead, following the deep, heavy trail through the thick brush. But the moment he burst through a dense line of briars into a wide, open clearing, the tracks stopped completely.
Confused, James ducked behind a low bush to survey the area. Out in the center of the clearing, two massive male deer were aggressively headbutting each other, their heavy antlers violently slamming together as they fought for dominance. James blinked; these animals were certainly big, but they definitely weren't large enough to make the mountain-sized footprints he had been tracking across the valley.
But his confusion quickly melted away into a hungry, wicked grin. The deer were exceptionally healthy, thick-furred, and best of all, their frantic thrashing had caused their elaborate antlers to become completely, hopelessly entangled. They were stuck together, rendering them completely defenseless. James licked his dry lips; they were going to be eating good tonight.
THUD
Before James could leap out from the brush, the ground beneath his feet groaned. The snow compressed violently, and a deep, low-frequency vibration shook his legs. The sudden, heavy pulse sent a cold wave of primal panic straight through his chest.
The two tangled deer instantly went stiff. Their eyes rolled back into their heads in absolute terror, and the entire forest became dead silent.
THUD
Another massive step shook the clearing, making the very air feel thick, heavy, and suffocating. The gray fog rolled in rapidly, and a giant silhouette stepped out from the dense treeline.
The creature stood over 16 meters tall, its heavily muscled frame looking like a moving mountain of weathered charcoal, petrified wood, and jagged gray stone. Its face was cast in deep shadow by a heavy brow, but its yellow glowing eyes burned through the mist with an insatiable hunger.
It was the monster known as the Goo-Teekhls.
(Looks like this)
The monster halted its heavy steps, locking its gaze onto the trapped deer. It began walking toward the struggling animals, who tried desperately to untangle themselves, but it was entirely useless.
"HEY! I SAW THEM FIRST!"James roared, boldly stepping out of the bushes with his fists clenched tightly.
The monster stopped slowly tuning its massive stone head down to look at the blonde boy. James didn't waste any time as embers surrounded his body engulfing himself in his teal flames and blasted towards it.
BOOM!
The monster stopped, slowly turning its massive stone head down to look at the blonde boy. James didn't waste a single second. Sparks erupted across his skin as he engulfed his entire body in brilliant teal flames and blasted straight toward the titan.
BOOM!
He landed a heavy, flaming fist directly on the monster's chest. The impact caused the giant to stagger back just a single step, leaving a blackened, slightly charred mark on its stone skin. With an annoyed grunt, the beast swatted the dragon boy away like an irritating bug. The heavy blow sent James flying back to the ground. He skidded violently through the dirt and snow before aggressively rolling back up onto his feet.
"I'm not done yet!" He yelled, thrusting his arm forward and shooting a massive jet of teal fire straight at the creature's face.
The intense heat caused the monster to flinch and grunt in real pain. It quickly brought its left arm up to shield its glowing eyes. Seeing the opening, James poured more power into the attack, increasing his output. The high-density fire began to aggressively melt away the stone and charcoal layers of the monster's protective arm.
In a blind rage, the giant raised its massive right leg high into the air. James smirked confidently; he was well out of range of a direct stomp, so he stubbornly kept the heat turned up, determined to burn through the creature's defenses completely.
But the moment the monster's heavy stone foot slammed back down into the earth, it didn't just step—it unleashed a devastating concussive shockwave straight through the bedrock.
The explosive radius rippled outward, tearing the frozen soil apart and violently knocking both James and the entangled deer clean off their feet. James lost his grip on his flames, rolling uncontrollably through the snow drifts until he slammed hard against a thick pine trunk. The immense force of the impact caused the ancient hardwood to split apart with a deafening crack. James collapsed into the mud, coughing violently as his chest heaved. His internal organs felt like they had been violently rattled right against his ribs, his breath catching in his throat.
Opening his bloodshot red eyes, he saw the massive stone monster running angrily toward him through the parting fog, its remaining arm raised to crush him. James scrambled on pure instinct, throwing his body desperately to the left a split second before a titanic foot stomped down, pulverizing the crater he had just occupied into fine powder.
James didn't even have time to register the pain as the monster kept up its relentless onslaught, trying repeatedly to squash him into the earth. The dragon boy was significantly faster, using small, precise bursts of fire from his hands and feet to propel himself out of harm's way like a dodging missile. He launched quick fireballs back at the titan, but the unrefined blasts were doing minimal damage, simply angering the beast further.
Enraged by the boy's agility, the Goo-Teekhl ripped two massive pine trees straight out of the earth and hurled them like javelins. James ducked and twisted mid-air, letting the logs whistle past his ears, before propelling himself straight toward the monster's head. Channeling every ounce of momentum, he landed a blazing teal kick directly into the center of the titan's right yellow eye.
The eye exploded in a shower of black sparks, and the monster let out a deafening roar of mixed pain and fury. James landed back on the snow, a cocky, triumphant smirk pulling at his lips. He thought he finally had the monster on the ropes, just like the simulated target beasts the handlers used to throw into his combat cage back at the lab.
However…
VROOOOOM.
A deep, sickening hum rumbled directly from the center of the giant's massive chest. It wasn't a sound that could be heard with human ears—it was a horrific, low-frequency psychic vibration that rattled straight through James's bones and hit his brain like a physical sledgehammer.
In an instant, a suffocating wave of primal, supernatural terror locked his muscles in place. His heart began to hammer wildly against his ribs, his throat tightening as his breath hitched completely. For a terrifying second, the gray Alaskan sky and the towering stone monster blurred together, completely replaced by the nightmarish memory of the cold laboratory floor and the dark, sadistic shadow of Gregory looking down to torment him.
"Move! Stupid, move!"James screamed at himself internally, his jaw locking so hard his teeth cracked.
The Goo-Teekhl didn't give him a single second to break the psychological hold. Sweeping its massive, remaining stone arm in a wide arc, it swatted James straight into the sky, before reaching up, grabbing his small frame mid-air, and violently slamming him down into the dirt. The ground cracked deeply beneath the impact, and James collapsed on his side, hacking up a dark spray of blood.
Seeing that the little dragon boy was completely grounded, the deep fissures along the titan's weathered, charcoal skin began to glow with a dull, sickly purple light.
With a wet, tearing sound, a massive, swirling cloud of dark insects erupted from the cracks in its petrified flesh. Hundreds of thousands of supernatural, life-draining mosquitoes flooded into the clearing, instantly turning the gray ice-fog into a solid, suffocating wall of buzzing black hunger.
James's brown-shifting eyes widened in sheer horror. "G-Get up!" he roared, his panic flaring as he tried desperately to ignite his body and run, but his physical form was still heavily under the paralysis effect and the brutal strain of the last impact.
The black swarm descended on him in a flash. Initially, the standard parasites couldn't bypass his dense, tougher dragon scales. But as they swarmed over his face and chest, the insects began to violently merge together, forming larger, mutated variants with jagged, glowing red pincers that managed to tear directly into his skin.
It didn't just hurt; it felt like thousands of icy straws were plunging straight into his core, violently dragging his energy, his physical stamina, and his draconic fire right out of his veins. With every passing second they bit into his flesh, his brilliant teal sparks began to dim, his limbs grew incredibly heavy, and his life force began to drain away.
Across the clearing, the stone monster let out a deep, satisfied rumble. The dark gray ash over its ruined eye began to recede as the eyeball regrew, and its incinerated left arm began to pull back together out of the dirt, utilizing the stolen energy from the swarm to rapidly regenerate its broken stone flesh.
James dropped to one knee, his chest heaving heavily as the black mass of insects completely blocked out his vision. His inner flame was sputtering, dying out. His stomach was entirely empty, and the parasites were stealing the very last of his biological fuel. But deep within his chest, his stubborn will to survive refused to yield. Clenching his fists, he forced a raw surge of adrenaline through his veins, breaking the psychological hold of the paralysis spell and exploding in a localized torrent of fire that scorched the immediate layer of mosquitoes to ash.
Not wasting the chance the Goo-Teekhl moved towards James intending to finish him off and make a meal out of him along with the deer.
James gritted his teeth but began to hear Miracles' annoying snarky voice echoing in his going back to the new ways to use his fire that he had been practicing for the past few days.
"Refine it…" James grunted through his bloody teeth, his red-shifting eyes burning with a desperate, hyper-localized heat. "I'll… refine it!"
"Eat this!" he yelled, his voice cracking with pure fury.
Thrusting both palms forward, he didn't unleash a wide wave. Instead, he focused entirely on condensing his remaining flames into a hyper-focused, thin beam of pure draconic heat. It was infinitely harder to execute with his palms than his fingers, but the desperation fueled his focus. The dense, blinding teal beam zipped across the clearing with a violent, deafening hiss.
It struck the creature's charging ankle dead-center.
The Goo-Teekhl's petrified skin wasn't just charred; this time the extreme, hyper-compressed temperature melted straight through the ancient stone armor in a fraction of a second. The solid rock instantly turned to bubbling, boiling gray slag, exposing the soft, glowing charcoal embers underneath.
The sixteen-meter giant let out a high-pitched, metallic shriek of genuine agony as its support crumbled. Losing its balance completely, its massive frame tilted forward, and the titan face-planted heavily into the frozen ground, throwing up a massive wave of dirt, snow, and shattered ice.
Keeping up the brutal aggression, James leapt high into the air, charging up every ounce of energy he had left. The remaining embers floating around his skin began to shimmer violently like little stars, his internal body heat increasing to such a severe point that intense plumes of white steam evaporated off his flesh, and his dragon scales glowed blindingly bright.
"RAAGHHH!!"
With a mighty, chest-heaving huff, he unleashed a massive, swirling tornado of teal fire directly from his mouth, engulfing the fallen monster's entire body. The high-density draconic breath weapon detonated upon impact, causing a colossal explosion and a crater triple the monster's size.
James fell heavily to his knees, panting as dark spots began to invade his vision. His stomach groaned with severe, agonizing hunger, and his muscles trembled from absolute exhaustion.
Through the roaring flames, the fallen titan let out a low, gurgling rattle in the mud. Its yellow eyes began to flicker and dim, its massive charcoal body starting to stiffen and calcify as it faced absolute death.
"Yeah… stay down, you big rock," James wheezed, wiping a thick streak of soot and blood from his cheek. He weakly lifted a trembling hand, preparing to finish things once and for all with a final fire blast.
But the apex predator wasn't finished.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
Before James could release the fire, the monster's entire sixteen-meter stone shell violently fractured from the inside out. It didn't just break—the creature deliberately detonated its own physical vessel, exploding into a terrifying, suffocating cloud of burning embers and millions of supernatural mosquitoes.
The sheer, impossible volume of the swarm turned the clearing pitch black in an instant, a solid wall of an estimated one hundred million buzzing insects surrounding James and blotting out the gray winter sky completely.
"Ah! Get off me! No!" James screamed, his voice instantly swallowed by the overwhelming, deafening drone of a hundred million wings.
The massive swarm descended on his young body like a solid, crushing weight, pinning his arms firmly to his sides. Hundreds of thousands of needle-like mouths plunged into his skin simultaneously, completely bypassing his durable scales through sheer numbers. The pain was absolutely blinding. James could literally feel his life force, his stamina, and his very blood being aggressively dragged out of his veins to fuel the collective.
His knees buckled under the weight, crashing back into the snow. His vision began to darken from the edges, his body turning icy cold as the parasites drank everything he had left to regenerate their fallen master.
Miracle… Sylvia…
James's thoughts started to fracture as his chin hit the cold snow. Through the swirling, black mass of bugs, his mind drifted back to the cave. He thought of Miracle's soft, quiet face while he slept, and Sylvia holding her bow tight to watch over him, waiting faithfully for his return.
'If I die here… I can't let these tiny bugs beat me.'
A deep, animalistic roar tore out of his throat, overriding the primal fear, overriding the exhaustion, and overriding his empty stomach.
"I'M A DRAGON!" James howled into the dark mass of bugs.
He didn't try to aim. He didn't try to control the output or refine the shape. He unlocked every single barrier inside his chest, letting his raw, uneducated draconic blood take absolute control of his vessel.
FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!!!
James exploded into a colossal, blinding pillar of brilliant teal fire. The massive column of draconic heat shot straight up into the sky, towering high over the tree canopy and instantly burning the gray ice-fog to absolute nothingness. The extreme, suffocating temperature cooked the entire clearing in a fraction of a second.
The hundred million mosquitoes didn't even have time to pop. The solid wall of black insects was instantly reduced to fine, white ash, vaporized completely by the pure density of the teal flames. The pillar of fire roared for three solid seconds, melting the snow for fifty yards around him and turning the frozen earth into bubbling, blackened mud.
When the flames finally snapped shut, the clearing was completely silent. The giant was gone. The mosquitoes were gone. Nothing remained but a massive circle of melted, steaming earth and a heavy rain of white ash drifting down from the sky like warm snow.
James stood in the center of the mud, his clothes completely torn to shreds, his bare chest heaving as white steam rolled off his skin in heavy waves. His red eyes slowly softened, turning back to their natural brown color.
"A-Argh," he grunted in severe pain and exhaustion, forcing his trembling legs to keep him upright. Suddenly, his brown eyes shot open in absolute realization.
"I FORGOT ABOUT THE DEER!" he shrieked.
He frantically looked around the smoking clearing, sniffing the air. Among the overwhelming scent of ash and sulfur, his nose picked up distinct traces of raw blood. Thanks to all the hunting they've done over the past week, his senses had grown quite accustomed to the scents of different wildlife. Following the trail, he found both of the animals near the edge of the blast zone their bodies already dead and heavily mangled by the giant's early attack.
"Meh, good enough," James muttered, shrugging his shoulders. At least he didn't have to spend any more of his nonexistent energy killing them, but he realistically didn't have the physical strength to carry both massive carcasses back to the cave.
"Hmm… Maybe eating a bit won't be bad," he reasoned, patting his growling stomach as he moved toward one of the dead deer. It wasn't like he was going to eat the whole thing just a quick meal to restore his fuel. He was entirely sure Sylvia was going to be fine waiting for just a little bit longer.
With Sylvia
The soft, rhythmic snoring that had drifted from Miracle's nose just minutes ago had vanished, replaced by a sudden, freezing air pressure that caused the hairs on the back of Sylvia's neck to stand up. The moon-sapped pinecone around his neck remained warm, but the shadows dancing across the cave walls began to warp, stretching toward the entrance.
"James…" Sylvia whispered into the dark, her voice trembling.
She stood protectively directly in front of Miracle's sleeping frame, her small boots digging into the dirt floor. She held her custom wooden bow raised, an arrow notched firmly against the string, but her hands were shaking slightly as she gripped the wood. Her knuckles turned white from the strain, an eerie, primal vulnerability cracking through her usually innocent demeanor.
The silence grew heavy, suffocating, and absolute.
Out from the pitch-black brush of the forest shadows, the creature finally began to emerge. It didn't make a sound—no crunching snow, no snapping twigs—moving with an eerie, weightless silence that defied its massive size.
It was a low-slung, monstrous shape creeping forward on all fours. Its leathery skin was a bruised, hairless midnight-black, and its massive, predatory red eyes burned through the gloom with an insatiable, ravenous hunger.
"GRRR!"
The hairless death-hound halted at the perimeter, its jaw splitting open to reveal rows of jagged teeth slick with thick saliva. Its glowing red eyes locked hungrily onto the two children, its gaze fixating with absolute malice directly on the sleeping, defenseless form of Miracle.
Sylvia's breath hitched, her fingers trembling on the bowstring as the monster bared its fangs in the dark..