A year slipped by like a shadow across the canopy.
By then, I moved through the jungle without thinking—feet finding roots before my eyes did, body bending around branches, ears catching the smallest shift in the leaves. The old man said I was finally learning.
He made me rune gears especially the rune bow. It pierces the target effectively
He gave me rules.
Never go near the temple.
Be home before sundown.
And never—ever—pick a fight with something that thinks. An intelligent being
I did not question.
I had seen enough.
---
The island wasn’t just ours.
Voices sometimes drift through the trees—clicks, growls, broken syllables that almost sounded like language. Some creatures built shelters. Some hunted in packs. Some… watched.
But nothing compared to the Barak.
I saw one up close once.
Four arms, each holding a weapon carved from bone and metal. Ash-gray skin stretched tight over muscle. A mask fused to its face, And spike in its back, moving like they had minds of their own.
“Barak,” the old man called them.
Because that was all they ever said.
Barak.
Barak.
Barak.
---
One afternoon, I watched one fight.
A centimor—towering, armored, all blade and chitin—clashed with it in a clearing. Steel rang. Limbs tore. Blood sprayed across the leaves.
Neither backed down.
Neither screamed.
They just kept going.
Until both stopped moving.
I stayed hidden long after the flies came.
---
“They don’t talk,” the old man said that night, sharpening his blade. “Not like us.”
I remembered the first time we met one together.
I had stepped forward, hands raised, voice shaking. “We don’t want trouble—”
The old man moved past me.
Steel flashed.
He pointed his blade straight at the Barak.
An invitation.
The creature stilled… then trembled.
Not with fear.
With excitement.
I had mixed emotion
So i asked "Why do this thing seem happy?"
“They live for it,” he said. “The hunt. The fight.”
“What if you run?”
The old man didn’t look up.
“You don’t.”
They fought.
And he killed it
He told me about a duel once.
A pig-like creature—massive, walking on two legs, tusks like spears—fought a Barak.
The pig lost an arm.
It ran.
The forest exploded with sound.
Barak.
Barak.
Barak.
They came from everywhere.
They didn’t stop until nothing was left of it.
“Half their kind joined the hunt,” the old man said quietly.
I didn’t ask what happened to the rest of the island that day.
And the Barak weren’t the worst.
Plants that swallowed you whole.
Flowers that smiled before paralyzing your limbs.
Ants the size of houses, their legs cracking the earth as they moved.
Rabbits with fangs that locked into flesh and tore it away.
And the ape.
I saw it once.
It vanished.
Then it stood behind me.
It didn’t attack.
But I ran anyway.
---
“This place,” the old man muttered one night, staring into the fire, “is hell.”
I believed him.
---
There was one thing I never spoke about.
Deep in the forest—
A doll.
It didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t breathe.
But every time I passed it…
I felt watched.
---
That evening, the sky was already bleeding into orange when I turned for home.
My sack was full of herbs.
Too late, I thought.
He’s going to kill me.
Then—
“Ethan.”
I froze.
The voice was wrong.
Familiar.
But wrong.
I turned slowly.
And my chest tightened.
“...Darren?”
He stood there.
Just like I remembered.
Same face. Same eyes.
Same voice.
“You’re alive,” he said, stepping forward.
I nocked an arrow.
“Stop.”
He flinched.
“Ethan, it’s me—”
“Don’t move.”
My hands trembled, but the bow stayed steady.
“I buried you.”
The words came out dry.
Flat.
“I saw you die.”
He swallowed hard. “I don’t know how. I woke up on the beach. There are others—survivors. We’ve been waiting—”
“Then why are you here?”
He hesitated.
Just for a second.
“To find you.”
The forest went quiet.
Too quiet.
My heart started pounding.
“Drop to the ground,” I said.
He nodded quickly. “Okay. Okay.”
He lowered himself slowly.
Everything looked right.
Too right.
The sun dipped lower.
Shadows stretched.
“Let’s go,” he said softly. “Follow me"
I followed.
One step.
Two.
Three.
Something felt wrong.
“When you enter the forest, Were you attacked?” I asked.
No answer.
“Darren.”
He kept walking.
“Stop.”
Nothing.
My chest tightened.
“STOP!”
The arrow flew.
It punched through his leg.
He dropped.
Then—
He laughed like a maniac.
Slowly, he turned his head.
His face… sagged.
Skin peeling.
Eyes sinking into rot.
A smile split too wide.
“Shiiiiit—!”
I ran.
Branches whipped my face.
My lungs burned.
Too late.
Something dropped in front of me.
I skidded to a halt.
It was—
A monster in my nightmare
A mass of black flesh.
Eyes. Too many eyes.
All staring.
All laughing
All blinking.
“FRIEEEEND—”
Its voice cracked, stretching, twisting.
“WHY… ARE YOU RUNNING?”
I couldn’t move.
My body is locked.
A tentacle lashed out—
---
“Boy.”
The old man stepped inside the hut, tossing his gear aside.
“Fetch water. Boil it.”
Silence.
He frowned.
“Boy?”
Nothing.
The fire crackled.
Unanswered.
His chest tightened.
---
Twenty years ago—
Blood covers his body.
Not his.
Never his.
He ran.
Something behind him.
Something laughing.
A light burst in his hands.
A stone.
It burned.
The creature screamed.
Flesh recoiled.
He lived.
Because of that stone.
Back in the present, his grip tightened.
“No…”
He grabbed one from the wall.
The stone protected his house for 20 years
It pulsed faintly in his palm.
The air shifted.
He was already moving.
The forest screamed.
He followed it.
And then—
He saw you.
Frozen.
A black mass looming over you.
A strike about to land.
The old man didn’t hesitate.
He leapt
Higher than any man should.
Steel cut through air—
—and severed the tentacle mid-swing.
He landed hard, rolling once before rising.
Blood dripped from his blade.
He rested it over his shoulder.
His eyes locked onto the thing.
A slow grin spread across his face.
“Hello there… you bastard.”
The stone in his hand began to glow.
“It’s been twenty years.”
The creature shrieked.
The forest trembled.
He stepped forward.
“I came to settle things.”
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