Turu

  Roots

  K’aruun moved through the dense foliage of the Sable Expanse with the quiet confidence of someone who knew every root and shadow by heart. His hands brushed leaves, bark, and petals—a practiced touch, searching for medicinal herbs the way others might follow a map. This was his routine. His duty.

  Though young, he served as assistant to N’buta’s medicine man, trusted enough by the elders to roam the jungle alone. They said the Mother had marked him with a gift, that the wisdom of the nature-spirits flowed in his bones. K’aruun believed them. He could always sense the jungle’s rhythm—the shift of animals, the whisper of wind, the tremors of life moving unseen.

  But not today.

  He paused mid-step. Something had moved through the brush nearby—close, far too close—yet he had felt nothing. No warning. No stirring. Only the soft snap of disturbed foliage.

  K’aruun froze. Slowly, carefully, he turned toward the sound.

  Two green orbs gleamed from the undergrowth, watching him. Unblinking.

  A low, rumbling growl rolled from the shadows, vibrating through the ground beneath his feet. His breath caught. Usually, he sensed predators long before they sensed him. But this… this was different. The jungle had not whispered its coming.

  The brush parted—and the head emerged.

  Massive. Smooth-skinned, like a great feline stripped of its fur, its hide rippled with corded muscle and pale plates. Its jaws opened slightly, revealing a forest of spined teeth meant not just to kill, but to tear.

  K’aruun had never seen such a creature. It must have been stalking him for some time—judging, circling, selecting the moment it would strike. His heartbeat quickened, sharp pulses echoing in his ears. He scanned the trees for an escape path—anything. But he knew the truth: the beast was born in this jungle. It would know every route far better than he did.

  The predator stepped forward until its shoulders pushed through the foliage. It was enormous. A cold tremor slid up his spine.

  Suddenly, the beast jerked backward—so violently its front paws lifted off the ground. A startled snarl tore from its throat as it vanished into the undergrowth.

  The jungle erupted.

  Leaves shredded. Branches snapped. The creature’s roar rose into a furious, echoing pitch—like something fighting for its life. K’aruun stood rooted to the spot, unable to move. The sounds were too close, too brutal. Bones striking bark. Claws raking earth. The wet thud of flesh against stone.

  Then, with a thunderous crash, the beast burst out of the brush—flung high through the air.

  For a heartbeat, K’aruun thought it was flying. Then it slammed into a tree with bone-cracking force and dropped heavily to the ground. He blinked, hardly able to comprehend what he was seeing.

  The monstrous cat staggered upright, shaking its massive head as if trying to understand what had happened. Its growl turned into a confused whimper.

  And then something else emerged.

  It came like a surge of wind and earth—power wrapped in motion. Leaves swirled, vines trembled, and from the heart of the foliage stepped a figure clad in armor which looked like a turtle.

  “Turu!” K’aruun gasped, relief flooding him. “Turu, the spirit!”

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  That was what the tribe called him—Turu, the sea turtle spirit. Protector. Guide. A gift from the tides themselves. They had found him long ago on the shore—unconscious, broken, near death—though the elders always said spirits could not die. He had no memory of who he was or where he’d come from. The high Mumbai had named him Turu, after the creature that bore the ocean’s patience and the world’s weight upon its shell.

  Now he stood before K’aruun again—not a spirit, but something just as powerful.

  Turu charged the beast without hesitation. The mutated feline roared and swung a claw, but Turu was faster. He seized it by the loose hide of its neck—lifting, straining, holding it steady despite its size. Metal joints groaned. Green light flared through the cracks of his armor. Then he struck.

  A single punch to the ribs. Another to the skull. A third.

  Each blow landed with a sickening crunch. K’aruun flinched at the sound as the creature’s body sagged, then went still. Turu waited a long moment, watching. When the jungle finally fell silent again, he straightened and exhaled through the vents of his helmet.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, voice low, still fixed on the fallen beast.

  “Y–yes,” K’aruun stammered. “I… I think so.”

  “Good,” Turu said simply. “I’ll take you back to your village.”

  He turned and began walking without another word. K’aruun had to sprint to catch up, stumbling after the armored figure who moved with purpose—as if he already knew the way, as if the jungle whispered its paths to him.

  When they stepped into the village, people rushed toward them.

  “Turu! Turu…!”

  Hands touched his armor, tracing the familiar plates and green glowing seams. Laughter and relieved cries filled the air. Children tugged at his cyberhands. Elders pressed their palms to his shoulders. To them, he was more than a man—he was Spirit Turu, the one the sea had carried to them in their time of need.

  They had saved his life once, when the waves delivered him broken, limbless, and barely breathing. He had lived among them for cycles afterward—learning their language, their food, their warmth… their love. These people had become his family. Leaving had hurt. But he did not have a choice. Something terrible had been done to him—his missing limbs, the scars spidering across his body, the pieces of his memory that refused to return. He needed answers.

  As he moved through the crowd, he spotted an old figure sitting beside a hut. Turu blinked.

  “Really? He’s still alive?” he murmured in their tongue—fluently now, after so long.

  T’Mumbai. The blind sorcerer. The one who had tended to him when he was more machine than man, more corpse than patient—the man who always seemed to see him despite his pale, clouded eyes.

  Turu made his way toward him, nodding at villagers as he passed. Before he reached the hut, T’Mumbai slipped inside, moving with uncanny grace for someone who should not have known Turu was approaching. Turu ducked into the dim space after him.

  The interior smelled of earth and old wood, thick with incense. A small fire burned at the hut’s center, and T’Mumbai sat cross-legged beside it, tossing herbs and shriveled roots into the flames. Dark smoke curled upward in twisting spirals.

  Turu coughed.

  “Nuru, what—?”

  The sorcerer waved a hand through the smoke, muttering words from no language Turu recognized.

  The world snapped.

  Turu lurched upright—except he wasn’t in the hut anymore. He stood in a cavern, light shifting in strange, uneven bands, neither bright nor dark. Shadows stretched in impossible directions. He had no idea how he’d come here.

  Then the shapes emerged.

  From cracks in the stone.

  From fissures in the ground.

  From the darkness reforming itself into bodies.

  Twelve figures at first. Then a thirteenth—taller, broader, its presence cutting through the haze like a blade.

  Turu stayed perfectly still. He didn’t want them to notice him. He didn’t want them to know he was here at all. They spoke in a guttural tongue—deep, resonant. Too structured to be beasts. Too warped to be human.

  Mutants? he wondered.

  No… not quite.

  Then his armor pulsed.

  A faint green glow. Then another. Brighter. Brighter still.

  He tried desperately to smother it, covering the plates with his hands, willing the energy to still. But the light spread, illuminating the cavern in sickening waves.

  One of the shapes turned.

  Its face shifted into view—and terror tore through him. It wasn’t a face at all. Vines twisted where features should have been, writhing in slow, deliberate patterns. The creature’s chest split open, spilling more vines that surged toward him. They wrapped around his limbs, his torso, his throat—so fast he couldn’t react.

  Turu strained with all the strength the armor granted him. It wasn’t enough.

  The vines held him immobile as the towering figure leaned close. Its voice grated like stone dragged across bone.

  “T'ose ut Ispa R’uh Ast’ten, G’aya.”

  The vines tightened. His armor cracked; pressure crushed in.

  There was a final snap—

  Turu jolted awake.

  He stood in T’Mumbai’s hut once more. Smoke swirled. The fire crackled. The sorcerer sat before him, his grin gone.

  Turu staggered back, heart racing.

  “What the—!”

  T’Mumbai’s expression had changed. His blind eyes were wide, pale, and full of dread.

  “They are coming,” he rasped.