Kamcy

  I woke up screaming.

  The sound tore itself out of my throat before I even knew I was conscious, raw and animal, like something cornered. My heart was trying to punch its way out of my ribcage, each beat a hammer blow that rattled my skull. For a moment I couldn't breathe. My chest hitched, lungs spasming, fingers cwing uselessly at the air as if oxygen itself had abandoned me.

  I bolted upright.

  Pain nced through my spine, sharp and electric, but I barely noticed it. My hands flew over my body in a frantic sweep—face, neck, chest, stomach, legs—checking, searching, counting limbs like a man afraid one might be missing. I expected to feel teeth, cws, the wet warmth of opened flesh.

  Nothing.

  No wounds. No gaping holes. No exposed bone.

  I was alive.

  That realization hit me just as hard as the fear. My breathing slowed, hitch by hitch, until it became something closer to human again. The pounding in my ears softened, though my heart still raced like it was trying to outrun the memory of whatever nightmare had dragged me awake.

  I swallowed and looked around.

  That's when I saw myself.

  My body y less than a meter away.

  Not sleeping. Not unconscious. Dead—violently dead.

  The ground beneath it was bckened with dried blood and slick with fresh gore. My skull had been split open like rotten fruit, fragments of bone scattered outward in a grotesque fan. Brain matter clung to the dirt and nearby roots in pale, glistening clumps. My ribcage had been torn apart, organs exposed and partially missing, as if something had eaten its fill and grown bored halfway through.

  The smell hit me next.

  Coppery. Sweat. Rotting.

  I gagged.

  My stomach twisted violently, and I barely had time to turn away before I vomited. Bitter bile burned my throat as it spilled onto the forest floor, spttering against leaves already stained with blood that—impossibly—belonged to me. I retched again and again, until my body shook and there was nothing left but dry heaves and tears streaming down my face.

  When I finally stopped, I stayed hunched over, hands braced on my knees, gasping like I'd just cwed my way out of a grave.

  I hadn't felt this sensation in a long time.

  Fear so pure it stripped thought away.

  Slowly, reluctantly, I forced myself to really look around.

  Daylight filtered through the canopy above, pale and sickly, illuminating the forest in washed-out greens and browns. Birds chirped somewhere far off, ignorant and cruel in their normalcy. There was no monster in sight. No massive silhouette looming between the trees. No glowing blue light.

  But that didn't mean it was gone.

  The fear crawled back in immediately, colder now, sharper. If one existed, there could be more. The forest suddenly felt too tight, too close, every shadow a potential hiding pce.

  I didn't think.

  I ran.

  I didn't choose a direction. Any way that wasn't here was good enough. Branches whipped across my face and arms as I tore through the undergrowth, lungs screaming, legs burning. Roots tried to trip me, stones bruised the soles of my feet, but I didn't slow down.

  I couldn't.

  Every snapped twig behind me sounded like pursuit. Every rustle of leaves felt like breath on my neck.

  I ran until my body rebelled.

  My muscles turned to fire, then to lead. My throat went dry, tongue thick and useless in my mouth. Bck spots danced at the edges of my vision, my head pounding in a steady, nauseating rhythm. Hunger cwed at my gut, sharp and insistent, and thirst burned like acid.

  Eventually, running became impossible.

  I slowed to a stagger, then to a forced march, each step an act of sheer will. I don't know how long I walked. Time lost meaning. The forest blurred into an endless tunnel of trees and shadows.

  Then, suddenly, the trees thinned.

  Light spilled ahead, brighter than anything I'd seen since waking. I pushed forward, heart hammering with something dangerously close to hope—and burst out of the treeline.

  Water.

  A wide stretch of it shimmered in the distance, sunlight reflecting off its surface in blinding fshes. A river, maybe. A ke. I didn't care.

  Without thinking—without remembering anything I'd learned about survival, contamination, infection—I ran.

  I dropped to my knees at the water's edge and plunged my hands in, scooping greedily. The water was cool, blissfully so, sliding down my throat like salvation. I drank and drank, choking, coughing, but unwilling to stop.

  That's when something cmped onto my left arm.

  Pain exploded.

  Teeth sank into my biceps, crushing muscle and grinding against bone. I screamed, the sound tearing out of me as I yanked back instinctively. Whatever had me applied force—terrifying, relentless force—and dragged me sideways.

  I looked down and saw scales.

  A long, armored snout.

  "Oh—you've got to be—!"

  A crocodile.

  A goddamn crocodile.

  It thrashed, jaws locked tight around my arm, trying to pull me into the water. I braced my feet against the muddy bank, muscles screaming as I fought back with everything I had. My injured arm burned, blood pouring freely into the water, turning it pink.

  Then a roar came from the forest.

  Not loud.

  Heavy.

  A sound that carried weight, that pressed against the world itself.

  The struggle stopped instantly.

  The crocodile froze, its grip loosening just a fraction. I felt it—felt the shift in its behavior, the sudden intelligence in its fear. Heavy thuds followed the roar, rhythmic and fast, something rge moving with terrifying speed.

  The crocodile released me.

  Not violently. Carefully.

  It slid back into the water and disappeared without a spsh.

  I didn't move. I didn't breathe.

  The thing burst from the treeline.

  The same monster from st night.

  Its massive form loomed in the open, hide dark and ridged, its single enormous eye fixed forward. My body locked up, every instinct screaming at me to flee—but I couldn't. I was rooted in pce, blood dripping steadily from my arm into the water below.

  The monster sniffed the air, head tilting slightly.

  It didn't look at me.

  A realization crawled through my terror.

  It couldn't see.

  Then why—why did it have that eye?

  I didn't have time to think further. My vision swam, dizziness threatening to pull me under as blood loss caught up with me. Slowly, as carefully as I could, I tried to stand.

  The water shifted around my legs.

  That tiny sound was enough.

  The monster rushed me.

  The impact was catastrophic. I was grabbed like a child's toy, fingers the size of tree trunks wrapping around my torso and injured arm at once. It smmed me into the water with bone-rattling force. My head struck something hard beneath the surface, stars bursting behind my eyes as water filled my mouth and nose.

  I filed.

  My free arm punched uselessly against its hide, each blow nding with a dull thud that meant nothing. My screams turned into bubbles as the monster squeezed, crushing the air out of my lungs.

  Just as my vision began to darken, it yanked me back out.

  I sucked in air desperately, choking, coughing, chest spasming as I hovered on the edge of unconsciousness. The monster swung me around, bringing me face-to-face with it.

  The stench was unbearable.

  Rot. Decay. Something wrong.

  Its mouth opened wide, rows of jagged teeth catching the light. A sickly blue glow ignited within its throat, bathing its maw in cold luminescence.

  Then I felt it.

  Something leaving me.

  The same blue light streamed out of my body, peeling away like smoke made of electricity, flowing into its mouth. I didn't know what it was—life, energy, something essential—but panic overtook me completely.

  I fought.

  I punched its arm again and again until my knuckles split. I bit down on its flesh in blind desperation.

  My teeth shattered.

  Pain tore through my jaw as blood filled my mouth, gums screaming where enamel had failed. I sobbed, half-mad, but refused to stop.

  With a final, reckless surge of strength, I drove my fist into its eye.

  My hand went through.

  The eye burst like an overripe fruit, fluid and gore spraying across my arm. The monster roared, a sound of pure fury—and tightened its grip.

  My ribs creaked.

  My vision tunneled.

  Darkness closed in.