Silence.
It was the kind of silence that felt suffocating. The kind that pressed down on him like a weight, heavy enough to squeeze the air from his lungs.
His head throbbed, his body ached. He wasn't sure when he had woken up, only that the world was sluggish when he came to be, his thoughts a jumbled mess. He felt around, trying to make sense of where he was.
He was lying on damp earth, his back pressed against something rough, tree bark. The massive trunk loomed over him, its roots sprawling like the grasping digits of something ancient.
As his senses sharpened, noises started to reach him. He took a deep breath as he focused, trying to make anything out.
A distant chirp.
The rustling of unseen creatures in the thick underbrush.
A whispering noise—chatter? No, not human. Something else. Something incomprehensible.
Then came the groan. Deep. Long. A sound that vibrated through the trees, reaching the distant canopy high above. A sound too big to belong to anything he could see, only that the leaves above the canopy shuddered and swished about.
His breath hitched, and his fingers dug into the dirt as he tensed. His heart hammered against his ribs as he slowly got up, his eyes now scanning up around him. The forest was massive, overgrown in a way that felt primordial, untouched. The trees stretched impossibly high, their dense canopies blotting out the sun, leaving only thin beams of light that speared through the dark. The air was thick, humid with the musk of rain and rot, like something old and alive.
He couldn't see what made that sound. He didn't want to.
His muscles were tight, coiled, ready to spring at the next noise, yet he kept himself composed as he slowly walked around the soft mossy forest floor. He hated this. Hated the way his skin prickled, the way his body flinched at every chirp, every shift in the undergrowth. The paranoia of something beyond the darken shrubbery watching. Waiting.
He hated that he was scared.
But more than that, he hated the fact that the fear, it was merely survival, not weakness. This world was beyond his understanding, beyond his strength.
"C'mon, pussy! Where the hell is my money?"
The words came sudden and sharp, yanking him backward—out of the dark, out of the trees, into something else.
A house. A tall boy standing in front of it, voice raised, a sneer twisting his face.
The little rat really thought he could slip away from this?
"Boss, I don't think he's home," one of the three cronies muttered. "It's only been two days. Maybe he'll—"
"Maybe he should've stuck with the agreement!" the boss snapped. "He needed it done soon. We got it done. We gave him two days. Now it's time to pay up."
"I know, but I think—"
"You don't think," the boss cut in. "You make damn sure no one screws you over."
He let out a sharp breath, his eyebrows furrowing in frustration. The job wasn't even that hard—just a couple of playground bullies. But his reputation was on the line. Years spent playing the perfect student, clawing his way back into his teacher's good graces, rebuilding what he'd nearly thrown away. And now, it was all at risk. Over this. Over some coward who couldn't handle his own problems.
He tried to make the price as ridiculous as possible, thinking it would scare the rat off. But no. The idiot had agreed, like a fool.
And now he wasn't paying up.
It was certainly a cause for concern. The rat was nothing but a coward, but cowards were dangerous in their own way. They ran when things got rough. Screamed when someone cornered them. Talked if something enticed them.
If the rat decided to open his mouth...
No. He wouldn't get the chance.
There was an easy solution.
All he needed to do was give him a good scare.
He heard stomping—heavy, deliberate. The kind that made the earth hum beneath his feet. Instinct kicked in, and he ducked behind a cluster of thin, wiry trees. He pressed his back to the rough bark, holding his breath, listening.
The forest was calmer now, but calm didn't mean safe. It never meant safe. Already, three different monsters had chased him through the underbrush. Clawed things. Things with too many legs and not enough eyes. Only luck and desperation had kept him alive.
How long had he been here? Hours, maybe. It was hard to tell with the way the light filtered through the canopy—just streaks of gold piercing the darkness, never enough to truly mark the passing of time.
How long ago was—
"Please!" His voice, choked and ragged, echoed in his mind. "Don't do this! Just stop!"
The memory hit him like a blow. He nearly stumbled as memories washed over his last crisis. His last death. He gripped his head as he tried to shake the memory away, but was there, it happened. He died. Not just died, got maimed and torn to shred. To something unrecognizable.
He pressed a hand to his arm, fingers digging into skin as if expecting to find the old wound there. But there was nothing. No scars. No proof of what had been done to him. Just the echo of it, raw and sharp, living in his bones.
He felt the tears burned in his eyes. He was completely trapped in this nightmare, unable to shake it off, unable to outrun.
He growled low under his breath, forcing himself to focus. Taking several shaky breaths to steady his waning spirit. No. That wasn't important. Not now.
What mattered was figuring out how the hell to survive.
Not thrive. Not conquer. Not escape. Just survive.
That was all.
Yet look at him now, crouched in the shadows, hiding like a rat. Living off scraps, chewing on half-rotten fruit left behind by animals smarter and faster than him.
It was pathetic. It was unbecoming.
He wasn't meant for this. Didn't deserve it.
But deserving didn't matter anymore. Only what he could take.