Fifth day in the Western Lands.
The landscape remained unchanged. Sharp grey rocks jutted from the ground everywhere. Water had pooled into small hollows, forming shallow puddles barely worth noticing.
Droplets lay scattered across the hard grey soil, like tiny lanterns catching sunlight and reflecting it—turning into scattered, glimmering sources of light.
But the presence of the fennecs made the place feel less safe, more suffocating, more terrifying.
Something else had changed in these desolate lands.
A new predator had appeared.
A creature walking on two legs, with two arms, carrying the corpses of the beasts it had killed in a sack made of their own skin.
The sack was stuffed to the brim. A fennec's tongue dangled out from the small bag, no larger than a schoolchild's satchel.
It stank of blood—its scent carried for miles. Its armor was in shreds, torn and colorless, a shell that had lost all form of protection. Only a single strip clung to its shoulder, and a piece on its back.
Countless claw marks and bite wounds covered its half-decayed body.
It wandered under the black clouds by day, and hid as much as it could by night.
In its hands, two sharp stones served as makeshift knives. Its gaze alone sent fear through any fennec foolish enough to try their luck.
The Western Lands had found themselves a new apex predator.
Aris had reached twenty-three.
He was keeping count like a hunter tallying trophies.Sometimes, he scratched marks into stone walls to record each kill.
He had just switched to a slightly larger sharp stone—not quite the length of a dagger, but enough to cut.
He scratched the wall again. And again.
In under an hour, he reached twenty-seven.
Aris was the new predator.
He had finished stitching the sack in pain and panic.The fennecs had kept pressing him, so he had thrown one of the corpses to them, letting them tear into it in a frenzy.
After several long hours, he finally untangled the sinew around him and stuffed the remaining corpses inside.
The sack was finished.
Of course, it was tiny—barely enough to hold one whole fennec—but by forcing it just enough without ripping it, he managed to cram in two and a half.
He sliced through the corpses as best he could, pulling out anything that looked edible and tossing it into the bag. The rest, he threw to the fennecs who followed him.
A small group had formed behind him. Those who had seen him fight and didn't dare challenge him. They knew full well they stood no chance—but waited patiently, always nearby, watching for another fennec to wander into his path.
When Aris engaged in combat, some of the group would try to snatch the fresh corpse from his body—only to be torn apart like paper.
The others waited behind, silent and watchful, until it was over. Then he would leave two or three bodies behind as if nothing had happened.And the remaining fennecs fought for the leftovers.
Then they followed the king again...
The stench kept drawing more and more of them.
Eventually, a group of twenty hid behind him—lurking behind rocks, sly and silent.
Aris saw them, of course. They weren't exactly subtle. But he didn't care.hey weren't hostile—not yet...
In truth, Aris was in terrible shape.He saw black constantly.Sometimes, the dried blood on his eyelids crusted so badly he could barely see. Black fennec blood was smeared everywhere he walked.
But of course, he didn't walk away unscathed. They were far too many—and they never gave him rest. The deeper he ventured into the Western Lands, the more fennecs he encountered.
And honestly, Aris wasn't even sure where he was going anymore.The scenery was so identical, he could've doubled back without even realizing it.
His head throbbed in unbearable pain. Ever since he started eating those damned fennec meatballs, his body had been acting strangely.He was constantly starving.
His body screamed at him—demanding more.Kill. Tear. Strike. Bite. Spill more blood.
More blood!!!
But Aris was human. Resisting those dark urges, he tried to suppress them. But then his body retaliated, punishing him with even greater pain.
It hurt. So much. But what else could he do but keep walking?
The fennecs followed him like parasites.
The two species had fallen into a strange sort of symbiosis. Aris fed them, even as he killed their kind. And the fennecs followed him, almost offering themselves in sacrifice to feed him.
Some time later, Aris scratched a new mark into a different stone.
Thirty-two...
He scraped the hard grey rock again…And then noticed something to the right.
There was already a mark.
Ten of them, in fact.
His eyes widened.
He had been walking in circles...
He had returned to this same rock without realizing it. Normally, Aris would leave two or three marks before resting beneath one of the huge boulders and then moving on.
But now… he was carving where ten marks already existed.
"Impossible."
A wave of dread crashed into him.He didn't even know how long he'd been walking in circles.
It was only the fifth day—and he might already be lost forever in the Western Lands.
Aris collapsed pathetically to the ground, arm still reaching toward the mark he had just made.
With empty eyes and a lost, hollow gaze, he muttered:
"Am I… condemned?"
His voice cracked in the air, barely louder than a whisper, almost like it didn't belong to him anymore.
Then—
A sound...
Barely a whisper in the silence. The soft, cautious steps of a fennec echoed nearby.
Another one...
It was creeping closer, testing whether the fallen king had finally decided to die.
Aris had expected this.
Without emotion, he slowly pulled the sharp stone from the wall. His body moved on its own now—mechanical, resigned. He rose to his feet with a calm, heavy slowness. Then turned around, his face blank, his eyes hollow.
But the emptiness in his expression cracked—twisted—When he saw the creature.
This wasn't like the others.
This one was tall.
No, not just tall—it was massive.Its build was more reminiscent of a fully grown fox than a fennec. Its fur was darker, matted, and thick. Its eyes gleamed with something colder… older.It didn't flinch, didn't hesitate, didn't bare its fangs like the others. It just stood there.
Watching.
And for the first time in days, Aris felt something new.
Not fear.
Not pain.
But a warning.