Morning arrived without announcement.
No alarms. No schedules. No gentle transitions. Light simply spilled over the forest and demanded attention. The waterfall changed its voice as the sun climbed—less violent, more constant, like breath settling into rhythm.
Melina realized she had slept.
Not rested—endured sleep. Her body had curled in on itself, instincts overriding habit. When she opened her eyes, the first thing she did was look at her hands.
Still clean.
Still untouched.
Still wrong in this place.
Boris was already standing, watching the humans across the clearing. They had not left during the night. They had not built shelter either—only gathered closer to the rock wall where the wind cut less sharply.
"They didn't freeze," Melina said softly.
"No," Boris replied. "They know where to stand."
She followed his gaze.
One of the men crouched near a pile of stones—ordinary rocks, unremarkable to the untrained eye. He lifted one, weighed it, discarded it. Picked another. Turned it in his palm.
Melina frowned. "What is he doing?"
"Selecting," Boris said. "Not randomly."
The man struck one stone against another.
Crack.
A sharp fragment split free.
Melina flinched at the sound. It was too sudden. Too final.
The man examined the edge, dragged his thumb across it. Blood appeared almost instantly. He stared at it, curious, then sucked the thumb into his mouth.
Melina recoiled. "No—don't—"
"He's testing it," Boris said, though his voice tightened. "Edge sharpness. Pain response."
The man smiled.
Not joy. Recognition.
He struck again. And again.
Fragments collected at his feet—some useless, some promising. He discarded without frustration. There was no attachment yet. Only outcome.
"This is how they learn?" Melina asked. "By cutting themselves?"
"Yes."
She swallowed hard. "In my world that would be considered reckless."
"In theirs," Boris said, "it's data."
The man handed the sharp fragment to another. No instruction. Just transfer.
The second man pressed it against a strip of hide, pulling experimentally. The stone tore through flesh with ease.
They both made sounds—short, sharp, approving.
Melina felt her stomach turn.
"They don't sterilize it," she said. "They don't clean the wound. They don't even wipe the blade."
"They don't know they should."
The stone passed through several hands. Each tested it differently. Cutting bark. Scraping bone. Pressing into meat left from the night before.
Blood mixed freely—human and animal, indistinguishable.
Melina backed away instinctively. "This is a nightmare. Cross-contamination everywhere."
Boris didn't look at her.
"This," he said, "is a breakthrough."
She stared at him. "Don't say that."
"I'm not praising it," he replied quietly. "I'm naming it."
One of the humans—shorter, broader—used the stone to pry open a bone. Marrow glistened inside. He scooped it out with his fingers and ate it immediately.
Melina gagged. "Raw. Just—raw."
"They don't have fire," Boris said. "Not yet."
"Then they don't have safety."
"They have tolerance."
Melina watched another man wipe the stone clean by dragging it across grass, then tuck it into a strip of hide tied loosely around his waist.
A tool.
Carried. Remembered.
"Do they understand what they've made?" she asked.
"No," Boris said. "They understand what it does."
The group began to disperse, each taking part of the morning with them. One scraped mud from skin using a flat stone. Another used a jagged edge to trim something from his foot—dead skin, maybe a thorn embedded too deep.
No hesitation. No caution.
Pain was not a warning here. It was information.
Melina wrapped her arms around herself.
"They're hurting themselves constantly," she said. "Small wounds, all the time. Infections would be inevitable."
"Yes."
"So why aren't they all dying?"
Boris was quiet for a moment.
"Some are," he said finally. "You're only seeing the ones who survived yesterday."
That answer settled heavily between them.
A woman approached the water with a stone bowl—rough, uneven, barely holding shape. She dipped it carefully, slower than the others who drank directly.
Melina leaned forward. "She's learned."
"Yes," Boris said. "She's watched someone get sick."
The woman sniffed the water before lifting it to her lips.
Melina felt something twist inside her chest. "Trial and error."
"Without understanding cause."
A man knelt near the edge of the clearing, striking stone against stone again—imitating the first. His fragments were worse. Crude. Too thick. He cut himself deeply.
This time, the reaction was different.
Others turned. Watched.
Blood flowed freely.
The man pressed dirt into the wound.
Melina gasped. "That will make it worse."
But the bleeding slowed.
The group murmured. Not in alarm. In interest.
A rule began forming.
Boris closed his eyes briefly.
"Wrong conclusion," he said.
Melina's voice trembled. "But it worked."
"For now."
They stood there, invisible witnesses to the birth of technology—unwashed, unsanitized, learned through pain and carried forward without explanation.
"This is how they live," Melina said. "Every day like this."
"Yes."
"And it doesn't bother them."
Boris looked at her.
"It bothers us," he said. "That's the difference."
The sun climbed higher. The humans moved on—tools in hand, blood drying on skin, curiosity satisfied for the moment.
Melina exhaled shakily.
"I don't know how long I can watch this," she said.
Boris didn't answer.
He was already recording.