"How were you able to hang in the sky like that? As if an invisible string held you?"
Kazuki's voice was thin, reedy against the backdrop of the falling rain. He stayed on the porch, his hand white-knuckled around the doorframe. He didn't move toward the boy. He watched him as if the child he had raised for six years had suddenly become a stranger in a familiar coat.
Kenjiro took a step back. The mud sucked at his boots. He felt the residual cold on his shoulder, the phantom pressure of a hand that had felt like frozen iron. He looked at the scorched patch of earth where the shadow had stood. The steam was already vanishing into the damp air.
"You mean you didn't see it?" Kenjiro asked. He didn't blink. His heart was still hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs, but his face remained a mask of preternatural stillness. "The tall thing. At my back."
Kazuki's left brow furrowed. He stepped down one stair, the wood groaning.
"What tall thing? There was nothing but you and the fall you didn't take."
Kenjiro looked at the dark treeline. The silence from his father was more chilling than the shadow. If the man who stood ten feet away couldn't see a ten-foot specter of armored malice, then the specter didn't belong to this world. It belonged to the mark on his wrist. It belonged to him.
"Nevermind," Kenjiro said, his voice dropping an octave. "I was just lucky. Caught my balance."
Kazuki stared at him for a long beat. The suspicion didn't leave his eyes, but he exhaled, the tension leaving his shoulders in a slow, visible slump. He walked forward, ruffling Kenjiro's damp red hair, though his touch was hesitant. He bent down, eye-level with the boy.
"You know what, Kenjiro?"
"No. What?" Kenjiro asked. He glanced at the sun, or what was left of it behind the clouds. The market was already in full swing; his mother would be waiting for the crates.
"The day we went to the river bank. The one deep behind the woods."
Kenjiro sifted through the fog of his memory. He saw the grey rocks, the rushing white water, the smell of damp moss. "Yes. I remember."
"I was a fool. I left the rifle and the herbs resting on the rocks when the storm picked up. I need you to retrieve them."
Kenjiro felt the exhaustion in his marrow. His mother's stall was a long trek in the opposite direction, and the crates wouldn't move themselves. But he saw the way his father looked at the woods—a subtle flinch in his gaze. Kazuki was afraid of that part of the mountain.
"I'll go," Kenjiro said. "Tell Mom you sent me."
"I will. But Kenjiro—stay on the path. Don't linger near the caves."
Thirty minutes later, the village was a memory.
Kenjiro stood in the center of the wooden bridge spanning the gorge. The air here was different. It was stagnant. No birds chirped. No insects hummed in the tall grass. The wind had died a sudden death, leaving the trees standing like skeletons against the grey sky.
He crossed the bridge, his boots rhythmic on the slats. He reached the river bank where the water churned over jagged obsidian rocks. On a flat shelf of stone sat the long-barrel rifle and a satchel of mountain herbs, soaked but intact.
He slung the rifle over his shoulder. The weight was comforting, a solid piece of steel and wood. As he turned to leave, a low rumble started in his gut—not the earth, but hunger. He hadn't eaten since dawn.
Movement flickered in the brush across the clearing.
A deer, thick-necked and heavy with meat, stepped into the open. It was a prize that would feed the family for a week. Kenjiro didn't think about his age. He didn't think about the recoil. He leveled the rifle, the wood smooth against his cheek, and sighted the beast.
He pulled the trigger.
The kick was a hammer-blow to his six-year-old shoulder, spinning him half-around. The shot went wide, whistling through the pines. The deer bolted, a streak of brown and white toward the treeline.
Kenjiro didn't curse. He sprinted.
His legs moved with a mechanical precision, his lungs burning but holding steady. He knew the geography of this slope. He took a jagged shortcut through a ravine, sliding under low-hanging branches, his eyes locked on the direction of the fleeing animal.
He reached a limestone outcropping and slid behind it. He rested the barrel on the rock, his breathing shallow, his finger hovering over the guard.
The deer appeared. It was moving at a full gallop, panicked. Kenjiro tracked the front legs. He didn't aim for the heart; he aimed for the movement.
Crack.
The rifle barked again. This time, he absorbed the shock. The bullet found its mark, shattering the foreleg. The deer tumbled, its momentum sending it sliding across the forest floor with a wet, heavy thud.
The echo of the shot rolled through the valley, shattering the silence. Far above, crows erupted from the pines in a black cloud.
Kenjiro stood, wiping a smear of grease from his forehead. He walked toward his kill, the rifle held at his side. He reached the beast and hauled it over his shoulders—a weight that would have crushed a teenager, yet he only grunted as he adjusted the load.
Then the earth moved.
High above the clearing, tucked into the face of the mountain, was a cave mouth that looked like a jagged wound. The vibration started there. A low, guttural roar emerged from the dark, carrying a wave of heat that smelled of rotted meat and ancient musk.
The heat hit Kenjiro's face, nearly knocking him back. He dropped the deer, his hand flying back to the rifle.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The footsteps weren't human. Each one made the pebbles on the ground dance. A shadow stretched out from the cave, long and distorted, blocking the meager sunlight.
A massive hand, covered in coarse black fur and tipped with grey, hooked claws, gripped the edge of the cave. The stone crumbled under the pressure. A head emerged—wide, flat, with eyes like glowing embers and teeth the size of daggers. It was a Kong, a mountain dweller that the village elders only spoke of in whispers over low fires.
"What the—"
Kenjiro didn't finish. The beast let out a roar that shredded the remaining silence, the sound waves visible as they rippled through the air.
The Kong lunged. It didn't climb down; it dropped, the ground exploding under its weight fifty feet from where Kenjiro stood. It rose to its full height, twenty feet of muscle and malice, blotting out the sky.
Kenjiro didn't run. His hand moved to his wrist. The tattoo of the thousand souls was pulsing, a dull, rhythmic heat that matched the beating of his own heart.
The air around the boy began to thicken. The shadow beneath his feet didn't move with the sun. It stretched forward, toward the beast, growing taller and wider.
Kenjiro raised the rifle, but he knew the lead wouldn't be enough. He felt the cold pressure returning to his shoulder.
"If you're going to help," Kenjiro whispered to the air, "now would be a good time."
The Kong raised its massive arms, a shadow falling over Kenjiro that felt like the end of the world.