Alpha remained in bed for three days.
The woman who had found him was named Lian. She lived alone at the edge of the village, surviving by gathering herbs in the nearby hills. She was not cruel, but neither was she kind. She fed him thin porridge, changed the bandages on his wounds, and spoke very little.
"You were found near the river," she said once. "If I hadn't gone out that morning, you would have died."
Alpha listened in silence.
His body was weak, far too weak. Every attempt to sit up left him dizzy, his vision swimming. It was a fragility he recognized instinctively, even though he had no logical reason to.
This body won't last, he thought.
The thought came naturally, without fear.
On the fourth day, he tried to walk.
The moment his feet touched the floor, pain flared through his leg. His knee buckled, and he collapsed back onto the bed, gasping for breath.
Lian frowned. "You're in no condition to move."
"I have to," Alpha said hoarsely.
She studied him for a long moment, then sighed. "Stubbornness will kill you."
Alpha did not answer.
Somehow, the words felt less like a warning and more like a statement of fact.
As his strength slowly returned, Alpha began to help with small chores: gathering firewood, sorting herbs, and carrying water in small amounts. He moved with caution, always aware of his body's lingering weakness.
Even so, trouble followed.
One afternoon, while he was drying herbs in the sun, a sudden gust of wind knocked over the basket. The herbs scattered into the dirt.
Lian stared at the mess.
She did not shout. She did not strike him. She only shook her head.
"You have bad luck," she said quietly.
Alpha lowered his gaze.
Later that day, he cut his finger while chopping vegetables. The wound bled more than it should have, and by nightfall, it throbbed with a dull pain.
The next morning, one of Lian's herb patches was trampled. Judging by the tracks, a wild boar had bypassed the other gardens and gone straight for the most valuable plants.
Lian looked at the damage, then at Alpha.
"This didn't happen before you arrived," she said.
Her voice was calm, but something in the atmosphere had shifted.
That night, Alpha lay awake listening to the wind.
A single misfortune meant nothing, but together, they formed a pattern he could not ignore. It felt as though an unseen hand was adjusting the world—just enough to push every event in the wrong direction.
On the seventh day, Lian asked him to fetch water from the river.
The path was short, safe, and used daily by the villagers.
Alpha hesitated, then nodded. "I'll go."
He reached the river without incident, filled the bucket, and turned back.
That was when the ground beneath his feet gave way.
It wasn't a landslide or an obvious trap—just a small section of earth, weakened by the rain.
Alpha fell.
The bucket shattered. His body struck stone. Pain exploded through his side.
He lay there, staring up at the gray sky.
Rain began to fall again. Not heavily, and not enough to alarm anyone. Just enough.
As water soaked into his clothes, a cold realization surfaced: This isn't a coincidence.
His chest tightened.
He did not know why or how, but he understood one thing with terrifying clarity: The world itself was nudging him toward suffering. Toward death.
Alpha laughed softly, the sound rough and broken.
"So that's how it is," he murmured.
The rain washed over him, indifferent.
Somewhere far beyond his sight, something ancient turned another page, and waited patiently for the next entry.