Bai didn't move at first. He remained curled on the damp stone floor of the cave, his shoulders shaking with quiet, jagged breaths. The absence of the others felt like a physical weight in the small space, making the air feel thinner than it actually was.
Leon watched him for a long moment, feeling a dull ache in his own chest that had nothing to do with his bruised ribs. He wasn't a leader, and he certainly wasn't a hero, but the silence was becoming unbearable. He reached down and gripped Bai's shoulder, his fingers digging into the thick fabric of the man's dirt-stained hoodie.
"Bai, stand up," Leon repeated. His voice was steadier this time, though the back of his throat felt like it had been scraped with sandpaper. "We can't stay in this cave forever. If we stay here, we're just waiting to starve or for something else to find us. We have to move."
With a heavy groan, Bai finally uncurled himself. He wiped his face with the back of a grime-covered hand, his eyes red and swollen. He looked around the empty cave as if hoping Jax or Yooha would suddenly step out from the shadows, but there was only the cold rock and the distant, rhythmic dripping of water.
He stood up slowly, his knees popping in the quiet air. He was a large man, but in that moment, he looked incredibly small.
"Where are we even going, Leon?" Bai asked. His voice was thin and trembling. "Those people... they flew. They just flew away. How are we supposed to find a town in a place where people can do that? We don't even know which way is out."
"I don't know," Leon admitted, stepping toward the mouth of the cave. "But standing still is the only way to guarantee we don't find anything. One step at a time. That's all we can do."
They stepped out of the cave and back into the alien world they had been dropped into. The forest was even more intimidating in the full light of the morning.
The sun, or whatever light source existed above the thick canopy, didn't provide a direct golden glow. Instead, the light filtered through the massive, translucent leaves in shades of teal and soft violet.
The trees with the iridescent blue bark were even more massive than Leon had realized. Their roots were thick as ancient serpents, coiling over the ground and creating natural walls that forced them to take a winding, indirect path.
The ground was covered in a thick layer of blue-tinted moss that felt like walking on a wet sponge. Every step Leon took felt heavy. It felt as though the atmosphere was dense with an invisible energy that his body didn't know how to process.
He remembered the pressure the water-man had exerted just by standing there, and he wondered if this forest was simply filled with a weaker version of that same force.
'I have no talent,' Leon thought, his hand brushing against the rough, cold bark of a tree. 'That's what they said. One in billions for the others, but for me? Nothing.'
He pushed the thought away. Thinking about what he didn't have wouldn't help him find water.
They walked for hours in a silence broken only by the crunch of dead vegetation and the occasional, high-pitched chirp of a hidden creature.
The hunger was starting to become a sharp, biting thing in Leon's stomach. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since they had eaten, and his body was beginning to flag. Bai was in worse shape, his breathing heavy and labored as he struggled to navigate the uneven terrain.
"Leon, look," Bai whispered, pointing toward a cluster of low-hanging bushes.
The bushes were covered in small, spherical fruits that glowed with a faint, inner golden light. They looked like oversized pearls. Leon approached them cautiously.
He didn't know anything about botany in his own world, let alone this one. He picked one of the fruits, feeling its smooth, cold skin. When he squeezed it, a thick, sweet-smelling juice oozed out.
"Wait," Leon said as Bai reached for one. "We don't know if they're poisonous."
"I'm starving," Bai moaned, his hand shaking.
"So am I but dying of thirst because your throat swelled shut is worse," Leon countered.
He took a tiny bit of the juice on his finger and dabbed it onto his tongue. It tasted like honey mixed with something sharp, like ginger. He waited for ten minutes, sitting on a root while Bai watched him with wide, desperate eyes.
When his tongue didn't go numb and his stomach didn't cramp, he took a small bite of the flesh. It was firm and watery, providing a burst of hydration that made his head clear slightly.
"It seems okay," Leon said.
They ate slowly, wary of overindulging. The fruit didn't fill them, but it took the edge off the hunger and provided enough moisture to keep them moving. As they ate, Leon looked around for anything they could use for protection.
The fact that their friends had been taken so easily suggested that they were the weakest links in the food chain.
Near the base of a fallen tree, Leon found a branch that had snapped off. It was made of the same blue-barked wood, and it was surprisingly heavy. It felt more like a length of iron pipe than a piece of timber. He tried to snap it over his knee, but it didn't budge.
"We need weapons," Leon said. He looked at the jagged rocks near a small stream they had encountered earlier. He picked up a flat, slate-like stone and began to rub it against the end of the blue branch.
It was slow, tedious work. For over an hour, Leon sat in the blue moss, grinding the stone against the wood. The wood didn't shave away easily like pine or oak.
It peeled off in thin, metallic-looking strips. Slowly, the end of the branch began to taper into a rough, uneven point. It wasn't a masterpiece, but it was sharp enough to puncture skin if he put enough weight behind it.
He handed the first spear to Bai and began working on a second for himself.
"Why bother?" Bai asked, staring at the crude weapon. "If another one of those flying people comes, this won't do anything."
"It's not for the flying people," Leon said, his eyes focused on the stone in his hand. "It's for whatever lives in the bushes that can't fly. We can't fight gods, Bai. But we might have to fight a wolf."
By the time the second spear was finished, the light in the forest was beginning to shift toward a deeper purple, signaling the end of the day.
They hadn't found a town. They hadn't even found a trail. All they had found was a forest that seemed to go on forever and a realization that the world didn't care if they lived or died.
Leon stood up, leaning on his new spear. His muscles screamed in protest, and his jaw still throbbed from Jax's punch, but he forced himself to look forward.
The trees ahead seemed to grow closer together, their branches intertwining to form a dark tunnel.
"The light is fading," Leon noted, looking at the glowing mushrooms that were starting to shine brighter as the canopy darkened.
"We need to find a place to hunkered down for the night. Somewhere off the ground if we can."
"I can't climb with these legs," Bai whispered, looking at his own heavy frame.
"Then we find a hollow log or another cave," Leon said. "Come on. We keep moving until we can't see our hands in front of our faces."
They pushed deeper into the thicket, the sound of their own breathing loud in the evening air. Every shadow looked like a crouching beast, and every rustle of the wind sounded like a whispered command.
Leon gripped his spear until his knuckles turned white, his eyes scanning the blue-tinted darkness for any sign of a clearing.
"Leon," Bai whispered suddenly, stopping in his tracks. "Do you hear that?"
Leon went still. At first, there was nothing. Then, a faint, rhythmic thudding reached his ears. It wasn't the sound of a heart; it was the sound of something heavy hitting the earth, far off in the distance.
"Is it a town?" Bai asked, hope blooming in his voice.
"I don't know," Leon said, squinting into the gloom. "But it's coming from the north. We should start looking for a town, or at least whatever is making that noise."