The forest no longer slept.
He moved as fast as his broken body allowed, dragging one leg while using the stick for support, each step sinking into the damp soil. The rough bark bit into his palm, but he couldn't stop. Behind him, the ground shuddered again, and the distant rustle of trees falling told him that the creature was closing in. His breath trembled in the cold air, sharp and shallow, every inhale scraping his throat.
"Think… just think…" he whispered, forcing his panicked thoughts into order. The pain in his leg screamed for him to rest, yet the deeper instinct told him that stopping meant death. He strained his ears, feeling the faintest quiver of the earth beneath him, the vibration spreading like ripples on water. The creature was heavy, massive, and close.
This! This should work!
He hid behind the roots of a giant tree, chest pressed to the moist ground, his stick still clutched tight. Every sound etched itself in his mind, the faint slide of mud, the flutter of leaves, the slow tearing of bark in the distance. "Five spots…" he muttered weakly. "If I can move between them in a circular motion… I would determine its characteristics!"
A low rumble echoed across the forest floor, deep enough to make his bones shiver. His hands tightened around the stick. It's getting closer, I need to move fast!
A sharp pain lanced through his skull again, like something inside him had been forced awake. This strange thing again! Arghhh!!
The pounding dulled, replaced by a cold, frightening clarity. The forest spoke to him through tremors and echoes, a symphony of vibrations painting a world without light. His breathing steadied; his heartbeat slowed, deliberate.
Before testing the creature, he tested the forest. He picked up a multiple pebbles and flicked randomly until it hit a big rock nearby. Tack. The sound bounced between the rocks, scattering into soft, fading echoes. He listened carefully, timing how long it took before silence returned. The canopy above muffled distant noises, but the forest still carried sound well enough to travel. He noted it, stored it, and waited. "It's loud enough..."
He could feel the monster's steps through the ground, slow and uneven thuds, each one sending faint shivers through the soil. He waited for the gap between them, when the forest itself held its breath. Then he threw another stone toward a distant tree, calculating the perfect moment so that the noise stood out clearly between the creature's steps.
Nothing happened.
No shift in movement, no change in vibration. The monster hadn't heard it.
He frowned, sweat sliding down his temple. "It didn't notice?" he whispered under his breath. That wasn't right. Everything alive in this forest would've flinched from that sound... everything except this thing.
The realization crawled into his mind like ice. It can't hear!
He pressed his hand to the ground again, feeling the faint, wet drag of something heavy moving closer, slow and deliberate. Whatever it was, it hunted not with eyes but with other senses he had yet tested entirely!
His plan was working, not perfectly, but enough to give him control. The monster was slow, dragging its heavy body through the undergrowth, its movements wet and sluggish. He could use that, in fact, he's already doing it. The terrain was uneven, the forest thick with roots and trees that could hide him, block him, confuse his pursuer. If it couldn't hear, then its other senses were all it had.
He shifted his weight carefully, his injured leg screaming with each step. The stick pressed deep into the mud as he moved toward the second hiding spot, a hollow beside a large fallen trunk covered in moss. He took slow, measured breaths, counting the distance by the tremors in the ground. Every step from that creature was a heartbeat... one he could read, predict, and use.
In the second spot, he focused. The strange state he was in still lingered, sharpening everything! He could feel the faintest quiver of the earth, hear the slightest flutter of a leaf. He was not just hiding; he was testing!
Before leaving the first spot, he had torn a strip from his clothes, the part beneath his arm where his scent was strongest. He left it hanging on a branch, an offering for the monster to chase!
If it went for his first hiding place, then it meant it could only track by scent and had no intellect. But if it did not, if it followed the trail instead, it meant something far worse! Even so, he had already prepared for that!
The five spots were not just random hiding places. They were five distinct strategies he had created while running for his life! Each time one failed, he would move to the next, collecting data from every outcome. Every failure was another advantage, another lesson!
He giggled like an innocent child. "Now... we wait... hehehe..."
Now he waited, crouched low, hand pressed to the dirt. The ground began to tremble... slowly at first, then heavier, stronger. It was heading straight for the first spot. The moment it reached it, a guttural crash split the silence as the creature shredded through the brush.
A grin broke across his face, cold and defiant.
"I see everything!" he laughed, voice breaking with exhaustion and adrenaline, an emotion unfamiliar to him yet natural! "Hahahaha!"
The irony stung like lightning through the dark. A blind child claiming to see. But in truth, he did. He understood the rhythm, the pattern, the logic. The hunt had changed. He wasn't the prey anymore.
Now that he had figured out the creature's behavior, he forced himself to stay calm. The forest shook with its rampage, trees snapping like bones, heavy thuds echoing in every direction. He could hear it tearing through the brush, smashing anything that dared stand in its way. That chaos was his chance!
He crouched low, one hand clutching the stick, the other pressed to the trembling ground. Every step he took sent a sting of pain through his leg, but he moved anyway. Slowly. Quietly. The vibrations from the creature's movement became his rhythm, each quake marking the seconds he could use to slip away unseen.
The sound of water reached his ears again! A distant rush, steady and calm amid the destruction. The river was his only refuge in this lonely forest, well... not really as he is being accompanied by a monster!
He tore another strip from his clothes, rough fabric scraping against his skin, and tied it to a low branch. Then another. And another. Each piece carried his scent, each one placed at a calculated distance from the last. A circular pattern, just wide enough to confuse even a predator like that thing.
The air was thick with the smell of mud, sweat, and blood. His breath came in uneven bursts. Still, he moved on, leaving behind fragments of himself like breadcrumbs. When the creature came, it would find his scent everywhere, chasing ghosts through the forest until it lost itself completely!
He stopped for a moment, leaning against a tree, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. "Let's see how smart you really are," he muttered, voice barely audible. Then, with one last deep breath, he pushed on toward the river.
He steadied himself against a tree, his breathing ragged. His mind was clearing, but his body was breaking down. The strange power within him flickered like a dying flame. Every heartbeat echoed in his skull, a dull throb of pain that blurred thought. He could barely stand now, leaning on his sharpened stick for support.
His stomach twisted again, the emptiness gnawing through his focus. Starving here would be no different from dying to the beast. Death was still death.
He forced his senses open... his nose, his ears, the tremor beneath his feet. Amidst the mix of wet earth, moss, and rot, a faint sweetness drifted through. Fruit, maybe. Food. Or poison. Either way, it was a chance.
He excitedly muttered, " sniff, This—this smell!"
Dragging himself toward the scent, he found a cluster of low trees, their branches heavy with hanging bulbs of something soft. He touched one, feeling the smooth skin, the faint stickiness of sap. He couldn't see the color, couldn't tell if it was ripe or deadly.
So he thought.
If I can't see it… I'll feel what feeds on it.
He tore another strip from his sleeve and wrapped it tightly around his hand... thick enough to guard from stings, thin enough to still sense movement. Slowly, he placed his palm against the trunk, waiting.
Minutes passed. Then, the faint tickle of tiny legs brushed over the fabric. Ants. Many of them. Crawling from the base of the tree, over his hand, then onto the fruit. None hesitated. None fell. None recoiled.
That was enough.
If it were poison, they'd avoid it or die.
He reached for the fruit again, pressed it gently to his lips. The scent was sharp but not acidic. He tasted a drop of its juice, waited, then another. His throat didn't burn. His head didn't spin.
"…Good enough," he whispered.
He bit into it, the flesh fibrous and sour, but it filled him. The pain in his gut eased slightly. A weak smile crossed his face, almost childlike.
Still, he kept the sharpened stick close. If his gamble was wrong, if poison took him, or if venom crawled through his veins...
he'd end it before the pain could.
He watched himself like a scientist watching an experiment. Every tiny change in his body became data. He put a hand to his throat and counted heartbeats, felt the rhythm in his temples, measured the way his mouth filled with saliva, noted the hollow ache that rose and fell in his gut.
A millisecond twitch here. A slow, spreading warmth there. He breathed shallow and timed each inhale and exhale. If poison was working, his body would tell him... dizziness, numbness, a burning behind the eyes, a sudden weakness in the limbs. He waited and watched those signals with the same cold attention he used to read vibrations in the earth. Minutes stretched. An hour crawled by. The fruit burned his tongue with sourness, but the symptoms did not arrive. A strong toxin would not wait this long. He told himself that was enough to keep moving!
At the same time he listened. The monster's pattern never changed; it was still moving, circling, rustling its way through the forest. The thuds grew less sharp and more sluggish. The long pauses between strikes lengthened. It was tiring. He marked each beat, each fading vibration, calculated distances from the delay between sound in the air and the tremor in the soil.
The conclusion was the same as the feeling in his bones: it had not left the area. Sunrise was coming. He had to choose: fight now and risk everything, or vanish and force the hunt into daylight on his terms. He forced himself up, braced his stick into the mud, and decided. He would move downriver, to a quieter stretch about two kilometers away, hide in the farther bend of the stream, and let the coming light help him set a trap. Every step would be slow, careful, deliberate. Survival was a calculation. He would not gamble on luck. "Luck doesn't exist for me," he said quietly. "And it never will."
---
By the time he reached his destination, his body screamed for rest. The sun was already high, its light spilling through the canopy in scattered gold. The sound of the creature had long faded into the distance, lost among the rustle of leaves and the steady murmur of the river.
He followed the stream's trail until he found a quiet spot by the water's edge. The fruits he had gathered hung from the makeshift cloth pouch slung over his shoulder... one end tied so he could still use his left hand to grip his stick, the other clutching the small bounty he had fought to find. Sitting down with a weary sigh, he began to eat.
Munch! Munch! Munch!
The sweetness was faint and sharp, but to him, it was enough. Each bite felt like a victory, no matter how small. The acidity burned his empty stomach, twisting it with pain, yet he kept eating, savoring the fullness that dulled the ache of hunger.
Burp!
The sound escaped his lips, not from satisfaction but from the sharp sting of acid rising in his throat. It wasn't fullness that caused it... it was his body rebelling against the sudden flood of food after so long in hunger and acid reflux. Even so, that single burp carried a strange comfort. Pain or not, it meant he'd eaten his fill… at last.
When he finally stopped, the fatigue he'd been suppressing came crashing down. His limbs felt heavy, his mind hazy. Still clutching the stick, he leaned against the trunk of a large tree and listened to the soft trickle of the river, the whispering leaves above, and the distant hum of life.
For the first time in what felt like forever, he allowed himself to rest. The pain, the remaining hunger, the fear.... they all blurred into silence as his breathing slowed. Beneath the shade of the tree, with sunlight peeking through the leaves and warming his face, the boy drifted into uneasy sleep.