The flower was gone. Crushed. Mud-smeared. A smear of pink and white half-buried in the soil where he'd landed.
Bruce didn't look back at the house. Not once.
He limped down the stone path with both arms wrapped tightly around his thin, dirt-caked torso, his breath shaking like the wind through dead leaves. His ribs ached where the man had shoved him. His knees were scraped. His shoulder throbbed.
But none of it hurt as much as the silence inside his chest.
He made it halfway through the field before he started talking again. Not to anyone. Just out loud. To himself. To the night.
"I didn't do anything wrong," he muttered. "I brought a gift. I was polite. I smiled."
His lip curled—not in anger. In disbelief.
"They didn't even ask who I was."
A cold gust of wind stirred the grass around his ankles. He pulled his ragged cloak—stitched from flannel, vines, and what used to be a pillowcase—tighter around his shoulders. His breath fogged in front of him.
By the time he reached the treeline, his voice had hardened.
"Fine," he said. "They don't want a neighbor? Then I'll be something else."
He pushed through the brush and began the slow, familiar climb back toward his cave. His steps were slower now, not from pain—but because something in him was shifting. Something fundamental.
He no longer felt like someone passing through the forest.
He felt like he belonged in it.
He reached the cave as the moon hung low behind the clouds. The golden glow of the Light Stones welcomed him, soft and steady. His moss mat was still there. His tools, carefully laid out on the bark slab beside the wall, glinted faintly.
But it all felt… insufficient now.
He didn't want a home anymore.
He wanted a fortress.
He walked to the back wall, where his chalky drawings and growth measurements were scratched deep into the stone. With one hand, he brushed aside a hanging bundle of dried leaves and uncovered a clear spot.
Then, slowly, he picked up a stick of charcoal and carved into the stone:
NEVER AGAIN.
Below it, he drew a small flower. Simple. Five petals. Slightly wilted.
He stared at it for a long time.
Then, beneath that, he carved something else:
They won't let me in. So I'll build something better.
He stood back.
Then dropped to the ground and began his nightly routine—thirty knuckle pushups, followed by squats with his stone pack.
But tonight, he didn't count out loud.
He was thinking.
Plotting.
The cave needed more rooms. More storage. A smoke tunnel. And insulation. And weapons. He'd build wooden spears and carve new stone blades. He needed a shovel. He'd make one from a plank and a branch.
He needed food reserves. Better walls.
If the Redfield mansion was a palace of cruelty, then his cave would be a temple of will.
A place where no one would ever be turned away again.
But first—it had to be strong enough to survive.
He paused mid-squat, sweat dripping from his chin. The Light Stones pulsed behind him like small stars.
He muttered, "I'll make it so good even they'll want to live here."
And then, with a flicker of guilt he refused to acknowledge, added:
"But they won't be allowed."
He stood, walked to the flower he'd carried home—muddy, broken, but still faintly glowing. He placed it on a moss pillow near the wall.
He whispered to it: "You'll get your own room, alright? And a door. And real walls. Not like theirs."
He looked at the flower one last time.
And smiled.
Not with hope.
With promise.
Bruce woke before dawn.
Not that he'd slept much. The ache in his side from the Redfield man's shove still lingered, but it didn't slow him down. Pain was a companion now. Something to acknowledge, then train around.
The cave was cold, the stones damp under his bare feet, but the glow of the Light Stones hummed with gentle warmth. The garden was still asleep—leaves curled inward, moss blanketed in dew. Everything felt still. Except him.
He rolled his shoulders, took a breath, and whispered: "Time to upgrade."
The day's goal was simple.
Make the cave into something no one could laugh at.
First came the shovel.
He selected a broad, flat piece of bark he'd peeled from a storm-felled tree the week before. It had good flex, but enough stiffness for scooping. He lashed it to a curved branch using twisted vine and clay cordage hardened near his fireless firepit.
He tested it in the soil.
It buckled. Cracked.
He grunted and rebuilt it.
Two more failures. The third one held.
He named it "Shovel 1.0: Redemption."
Then he began to dig.
Not straight down. He knew better than that.
He expanded the back of the cave first—removing loose stone and compacted dirt with careful, methodical scrapes. Every scoop was placed into hollowed logs lined with moss, dragged to the surface, and dumped far from the entrance to keep the soil from piling too high and blocking airflow.
His fingertips bled by mid-morning. He wrapped them in strips of bark soaked in cooled plant sap. It wasn't medical-grade gauze, but it worked.
By the end of the first week, he'd doubled the size of the garden chamber.
Next came storage.
He created little pots from tree bark softened in boiling water, pressed around stone molds, and sealed with pine resin. Lids were made from curled bark and tied shut with thin roots. He stacked them on shelves made from flat stones wedged into crevices along the wall.
He now had containers labeled (with crude scratched symbols) for:
Mushrooms
Dried moss
Stones that "looked cool"
Food "probably still edible"
Tiny tools
Mystery items ("...just in case")
He created a small niche near the entrance for emergency gear: a fire-starting kit, extra twine, his strongest stone blade, and his wooden hammer carved with the letters B-01.
Then came the blueprints.
Scratched with charcoal across a smoothed-out patch of cave wall was a diagram. Crude. But organized.
The layout included:
The Core Room – for Light Stones and meditation
The Forge – for stone shaping and tool repair
The Nest – his sleeping alcove, now padded with fresh moss and insulated with pine needles
The Pantry – with shelves of gathered roots and bark strips
The Tunnel Project – a winding route deeper into the mountain he had just begun clearing
He didn't know where it led.
Didn't care.
He called it "The Depths."
Because that's what the Redfield man had told him he belonged in.
Finally, came comfort.
He wasn't proud of it.
But on the seventh day, after setting his last pot in place and catching his reflection in a puddle, Bruce quietly carved a new seat from stone, lined it with moss, and placed it beneath a curtain of vines he had braided by hand.
He looked at it. Sat on it. Wiggled a little.
It was… soft.
He didn't say anything.
But later that night, he whispered to the wall, "Comfort is strategic. You don't want to train with a sore ass."
At the entrance, just above the moss curtain he'd made to keep in warmth, he scratched a title into the stone.
"Fort Iron Root."
Underneath it:
"Strong Alone. Untouchable Together."
He didn't know what that meant yet.
But it felt right.
He placed his hand on the rock. Closed his eyes. Breathed deep.
This wasn't just a hideout anymore.
It was the first step toward becoming someone people had to respect.
A fortress of bark, stone, silence, and stubbornness.
And it was only the beginning.
It started with a rabbit.
A little thing—gray-brown, twitchy-eyed, missing part of one ear. It sat outside the cave entrance one morning like it had always been there, chewing calmly on a patch of moss Bruce had been cultivating for insulation.
He watched it from behind a curtain of vines.
At first, he considered throwing a rock.
Not out of hate. Just instinct. His stomach growled. Rabbit was meat. Warmth. Protein. Tactically valuable.
He crept forward, silent as fallen snow, stone in hand.
Then he met its eyes.
It didn't bolt.
Didn't twitch.
It just sat there, staring at him like it knew.
Bruce crouched.
He stared back.
"…you're not scared of me?"
The rabbit blinked. Chewed.
Bruce lowered the stone.
He sat cross-legged on the ground, cold dirt pressing into his knees, and the rabbit just… kept eating. Calm. Peaceful.
And for the first time in weeks, Bruce didn't feel entirely alone.
Over the next few days, more followed.
A pair of raccoons appeared one dusk, skittering past the garden entrance and knocking over one of Bruce's storage pots. He nearly stabbed them both with a stick before one of them brought it back. Dropped it. Nudged it forward.
"...Is that an apology?"
The raccoon blinked.
"Right. Apology accepted. Don't touch the carrots."
They became regulars. Sometimes they stole. Sometimes they left things—pebbles, shells, a half-eaten acorn Bruce chose to believe was a peace offering.
A squirrel began nesting just above the main chamber, in a ledge Bruce had once considered turning into an arrow storage zone. He let the squirrel keep it. Named him Private Nutley.
A bird nested in the entrance vines.
A fox started curling up just outside the door at night.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, Bruce knew:
This wasn't normal.
Something about the Light Stones—the warmth, the quiet, the pulse—they were doing this.
Calling.
Healing.
Soothing the forest like they had soothed him.
He built feeding stations. Hollowed logs with moss lining. Fresh water in bark bowls. Small spaces in the corners for critters to sleep.
And when he sat down to eat his own meager handfuls of berries and bark-broth stew, he made sure to share.
Not because he was soft.
But because they'd earned it.
"If you're gonna live here," he muttered one night, watching the raccoons curl up beside the squirrel in the warmest corner of the wall, "you pull your weight. No freeloaders."
The squirrel rolled over.
Bruce softened.
"…But maybe not tonight."
Then came the test.
A cold night. Hard wind. Hunger biting like frost in his bones.
And a rabbit. A different one. Plumper. Unfamiliar.
It wandered too close.
Bruce's fingers tightened around a sharpened stone.
He could do it.
One strike.
Cook the meat. Wrap the pelt. Trade it, maybe, if he ever needed to.
He approached.
It didn't run.
He raised the stone.
And stopped.
Its eyes were just like the first rabbit's.
Calm.
Trusting.
Like it knew him.
Bruce let the stone fall.
He knelt. Exhaled. And whispered, "Damn it."
He never tried again.
Instead, he turned fully to the forest for resources—plants, bark, stone, fungus. He made thread from stripped fibers. Rope from braided grass. Cloth from woven leaves. He stitched it all with needles made from thorn and bone.
He made tunics, cloaks, wraps—anything to cover his too-small body.
He stopped thinking about eating the animals.
Started thinking about how to protect them.
Maybe… even lead them.
He'd survived alone.
But now?
He was building a community.
A quiet one.
A weird one.
But his.
By the end of that season, Bruce no longer felt like a lost soul hiding in a mountain.
He felt like a guardian.
He wasn't part of the forest.
He was the one it came to when it needed shelter.
And though he didn't smile often, that thought warmed him better than any fire could.
The water was cold.
Lake Mansfield shimmered beneath the pale afternoon sun, its surface reflecting silver where the wind brushed across it. Bruce stood knee-deep near the shore, his legs skinny and pale, half-covered in silt and moss. The bark-wrapped tunic clung to his frame like a soggy rag. His arms trembled slightly as he raised the wooden spear overhead, eyes locked on the fish below.
He'd been practicing for days.
Watching. Waiting. Missing.
Today, he was certain he'd land one.
"Timing. Form. Commit to the lunge," he muttered under his breath. "You're a man. You can do this."
He struck.
The spear slipped through the water, slow and clumsy. It hit nothing. Again.
The fish darted away like it was mocking him.
Bruce cursed under his breath, sloshed back to shore, and flopped onto a flat rock, panting and dripping. His hair stuck to his face in a tangled curtain of sweat, mud, and shame.
Then—footsteps.
He froze.
A shadow crossed the rocks beside him.
"Wow," a boy's voice said. "You really suck at this."
Bruce sat up slowly.
An older boy stood a few steps up the trail, golden-haired and shirtless, his bare chest rising and falling from a jog. His shorts were clean. His boots were scuffed but well-kept. He looked like a painting of a young Spartan. Confidence radiated off him like heat.
He was maybe eight. But he held himself like someone older. Someone used to winning.
Bruce scowled. "Go away."
The boy tilted his head, studying him. "What even are you?"
Bruce blinked. "What?"
"You look like you were raised by squirrels. You always this filthy?"
Bruce's hands clenched around the spear. "I'm fishing."
"That's not a spear," the boy said, stepping forward and snatching it from Bruce's hands before he could stop him. "This is a stick."
"Give it back," Bruce growled, standing.
But the boy ignored him. He walked into the shallows with casual grace, his feet finding rocks like he'd walked this shoreline a thousand times.
Bruce followed, fuming.
"You can't just take that."
"Shh," the boy said, raising the spear.
In one smooth motion, he launched it downward with force and precision. A splash. A ripple. A flash of silver.
When he pulled the stick back up, a wriggling fish skewered through the belly flapped on the tip.
Bruce stared, wide-eyed.
"…How?"
"Skill," the boy said flatly, tossing the fish onto the shore with a wet slap. "And strength. And maybe because I eat more than tree bark."
He stepped out of the lake, water running down his calves. He tossed the spear to Bruce with a single, fluid motion. "Here. Since you tried."
Bruce caught it, stunned.
He didn't know what to say.
Then the boy gestured to the lake. "You know this is private property, right? My family owns this. All of it."
Bruce stiffened.
The boy smirked. "Technically, you're trespassing."
Bruce looked down at the fish, then up at the boy. "I didn't know."
The boy shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Most people don't. But if I wanted to, I could have you kicked off. Or worse."
Bruce's jaw tightened. His fingers gripped the spear.
The boy looked at him for a long moment. His expression shifted slightly. Not quite a smile—something else. Curious. Almost amused.
Then, with a lazy confidence, he pointed at his own cheek.
"You want the fish? And to keep fishing here?"
Bruce blinked. "What?"
"Kiss," the boy said, tapping the side of his face. "Right here. One kiss. You do that, and I let you fish. Every day. No complaints. My land, my rules."
Bruce felt his chest tighten. His stomach twisted.
He stared at the boy.
At the cheek.
At the fish.
Then down at his own hands—small, shaking, dirt-streaked.
He didn't understand why it felt so wrong. So weird. Maybe it was the fact that he was Bruce. A grown man, once. Maybe it was the powerlessness of standing before someone stronger, bigger, better-fed. Maybe it was because, deep down, part of him still wanted to believe he was a man—still strong, still tall, still respected.
But he wasn't.
Not now.
And he needed the fish.
He leaned forward slowly. Trembling.
The boy didn't move.
Bruce kissed his cheek.
It was fast. Barely a brush of lips. Cold and awkward.
The boy didn't react—just smiled slightly.
"There," he said. "That wasn't so hard."
Bruce stepped back, heart pounding, ashamed for reasons he couldn't explain.
The boy grabbed the fish, handed it over, and turned.
"Keep the spear," he said. "You're gonna need it."
Then he jogged back up the path, fading into the trees.
Bruce stood there, wet and silent, holding the spear in one hand and the fish in the other.
He stared at the water.
Then whispered, almost too quietly to hear:
"I'm still Bruce."
And he walked back toward the cave.
Bruce watched the Redfield house from the ridge.
It had been three days since the lake.
Three days since that boy—shirtless, golden, and disgustingly smug—stole his spear, caught a fish with it, and made Bruce kiss him on the cheek in exchange for keeping it.
Three days, and Bruce still couldn't stop thinking about it.
He sat now with his back pressed to a tree trunk, arms folded tight across his narrow chest, chin resting on his knees. His eyes never left the property. The house sat like a crown above the sloping field, surrounded by trees and fences and trimmed hedges. Chimney smoke curled upward. The garden was perfect. The grass was cut.
The boy was out again.
Running laps around the yard like a soldier in training. Shirtless again, boots kicking up dirt, hair bouncing with each stride. He moved like someone who didn't know what failure felt like.
Bruce squinted, hugging his knees tighter.
He hated him.
He really, really hated him.
But he couldn't stop watching.
The boy stopped at the far fence. Picked up a wooden dummy—clearly handmade, with straw guts spilling out—and began to punch it. Then kick. Then slam it into the dirt like it had personally offended him.
Bruce winced.
The kid was strong.
Not just bigger—faster. Cleaner. He looked like someone who belonged in the world. Someone who fit.
Bruce didn't even fit in his own tunic half the time.
He scratched at a bug bite on his leg and muttered, "Show-off."
Down below, the boy dropped into pushups on the lawn.
Bruce mimicked him from his hiding spot. One. Two. Three—
His shoulder gave out. He collapsed into the leaves.
He groaned. "Fucking Redfield."
Later that afternoon, the boy reappeared on the porch with a towel over his shoulder. He drank from a glass of lemonade and leaned against the railing, staring out toward the woods.
Bruce ducked lower behind a branch.
The boy didn't see him.
But he stood there a long time.
Too long.
Bruce eventually rolled onto his side and stared at the forest canopy overhead.
He wasn't watching the boy because of some cosmic connection. There was no glowing thread of fate. No magical pulse.
He just… couldn't stop thinking about the cheek kiss.
It had been humiliating.
And confusing.
And his first.
He groaned and pressed both hands over his face.
"I didn't like it. It was just strategy. I needed the fish."
A squirrel stared at him from a nearby branch.
"Shut up," Bruce growled.
He slid back into the cave that night and scribbled something into the journal-wall near his sleeping area.
"Remember who you are. Even if they don't."
Underneath it, he scratched a crude stick figure with a spear and another with hair that bounced too much.
Then he went to bed.
He dreamed of water.
And a smirk.
And hands that didn't feel like his anymore.
The cave was quiet.
Not peaceful—quiet, like the inside of a storm before it hits. Bruce sat cross-legged on the cool stone floor, dripping from head to toe. The fish lay beside him, already cleaned and drying beside a slow-burning moss fire pit he'd finally figured out how to smother for low smoke. The spear rested nearby, upright in a bundle of loose stones.
He hadn't eaten yet.
He just sat.
Thinking.
Staring at the spear like it might shout an answer he didn't know how to ask for.
His cheeks still felt hot. Not from the hike back, or the cold water, or the training—but from the memory. The moment.
The kiss.
Not even a real kiss. A stupid peck on the cheek.
His cheek.
Given. Like a token.
He'd done it.
He'd kissed another boy.
Not because he wanted to.
Because he had to.
For food. For the right to fish. For dignity.
And the worst part?
He hadn't even fought back.
Not really.
He'd told himself it was strategy. A mission decision. Like when you had to lie on a report to get backup faster.
But deep down, he knew what it was:
He was weak.
He was small.
And someone stronger had laughed at him, pitied him, and taken something that used to be his. His pride. His manhood. His place.
He looked down at his tiny, shaking hands.
"This can't be it," he whispered.
Then, louder, to the cave walls: "This won't be it."
He stood.
He grabbed a charcoal stick and stormed to the log-wall where he'd been tracking garden growth and mushroom yield.
He scratched it out with shaking hands.
Then, in bold, jagged strokes, wrote:
NO ONE LAUGHS AGAIN.
Beneath it, he added:
NO ONE KISSES ME UNLESS I LET THEM.
He didn't know why he needed to write that.
He didn't even understand what it meant.
But it felt right.
He stepped back, breathing hard, chest heaving.
Then he looked around the cave—the flickering Light Stones, the moss beds, the softly cooing squirrel in the corner.
None of it was enough.
Not anymore.
It wasn't just about surviving.
It was about winning.
About walking back to that lake one day, staring that smug blond boy in the eyes, and showing him a real spear. A real body. A real Bruce.
"I'm gonna be stronger," he whispered.
"I'm gonna run faster, climb higher, lift heavier, punch harder. I'm gonna build a gym so good the trees will start working out."
He glanced at the squirrel.
"You hear that, Nutley? You start doing pushups or you're out."
The squirrel blinked.
Bruce cracked his neck, stepped outside into the forest mist, and surveyed the clearing.
There would be a pull-up branch. A log press. A balance trail. Tree limbs for climbing. Stones for lifting.
The mountain would become his gym.
The cave—his headquarters.
And Bruce?
He'd become someone no one could dismiss again.
He grinned.
And whispered, "This is how gods are made."
---
Bruce stood in the clearing behind his cave, squinting at a stick he'd jammed between two trees.
It sagged a little. Bark chipped off when he tapped it. He frowned, muttering, "It'll hold. Probably."
This was the first piece of equipment in what he had officially dubbed "Project Iron Root"—his hand-built, bark-bound, totally unauthorized forest gym.
He jumped, grabbed the branch, and immediately fell flat on his back.
"Ow," he wheezed.
The squirrel overhead chittered at him.
Bruce glared. "Shut it, Nutley. That was a warm-up rep."
Day 1: Pull-ups & Pushups
Bruce looped a thick vine around the branch and used it for assisted pull-ups, gritting his teeth through each shaky ascent. His feet barely left the ground.
"Up," he growled. "Up, you spaghetti-armed legend."
He could only manage three before collapsing.
He did twenty pushups after that, chest barely brushing the moss. Then ten squats holding a firewood log over his head.
He named it "Logatha."
Day 3: Tree Climbing & Core
A tall pine became his enemy.
He wrapped his arms around it and climbed, barefoot, like a determined little raccoon with delusions of grandeur. Halfway up, the bark tore and he slid five feet down, screaming all the way.
He limped back to the cave and invented the "Tree Hug Sit," where he wrapped around the base and did knee tucks to failure.
"Core is king," he grunted. "Abs make you bulletproof. Probably."
Day 5: Agility Training
He built a balance beam from two logs and three flat stones. He ran it. Tripped. Faceplanted into a patch of ferns.
He spat out a slug and screamed, "AGILITY IS A LIE!"
Then ran it again. This time backwards.
Day 7: Swimming & Cold Resistance
Back at the lake, Bruce paced at the edge like a gladiator.
"You trained for this," he muttered. "You're Rocky. You're Goggins. You're Bruce. Goddamn. Steele."
He dove in.
It was freezing.
He screamed.
Flailed.
Choked on lake water.
Swam five shaky strokes before dragging himself out and collapsing on the rocks.
"…Success," he gasped. "Cardio complete."
Day 10: Progress
The pull-up stick now held his full bodyweight. He could do five—six if he screamed motivational quotes the whole time.
He could sprint from the cave to the ridge in one go without stopping.
He started doing squats with Logatha and her smaller brother, "Stick Jr."
And one night, staring at his reflection in a puddle, he flexed.
There wasn't much muscle yet. But there was shape. There was tone.
His shoulders looked less like twigs. His calves actually existed.
He whispered, "We're getting there."
Cave Wall, New Entry:
"Redfield kissed me. I train now."
Under it, he added:
"Glory through growth. Victory through velocity. Muscles before mercy."
He drew a stick figure with abs. It had a crown.
The squirrel in the corner blinked.
Bruce pointed at it and grinned.
"Soon, I'll be stronger than anyone."
He cracked his knuckles.
And started on his 5 a.m. pinecone slam drills.