But what choice did he have? The figure hadn't moved, hadn't made a sound. If they were already spotted, silence might be seen as hostile. If they weren't spotted yet, maybe... just maybe talking could prevent violence.
Aryan's heart hammered against his ribcage as he made his decision, knowing it could be the last one he ever made.
"Hello?" he called out, his voice cracking with fear and desperation. "look, We are not armed! We don't want trouble! We are just trying to get home!"
Silence.
The figure didn't move or respond. It was as if his words had been swallowed by the darkness of the jungle itself.
"Please!" Aryan tried again, louder this time. "We are lost and confused! We don't even know where we are! We haven't done anything wrong! I am ensuring that we mean no harm."
The response came not in words but in another soft whistle cutting through the night air.
"Move!" Aryan shouted, grabbing Varun and hauling him to his feet just as the second arrow struck the log where they'd been crouching. This one hit with such force that splinters of wood exploded outward, one of them cutting a thin line across Varun's cheek.
They ran with all their might.
There was no plan, no strategy, just pure animal instinct driving them deeper into the jungle. Branches whipped at their faces, roots caught at their feet, and the darkness seemed to press in from all sides like a living thing trying to trap them.
Behind them, Aryan could hear the soft sound of pursuit—not the crashing of someone fighting through undergrowth, but the almost silent movement of someone who knew this terrain, who belonged here in a way they never would.
"Which way?" Varun gasped, his breath coming in ragged bursts.
"I don't know!" Aryan admitted, pulling him to the left around a massive tree trunk. "Just keep moving!"
Another arrow whistled past them, so close that Aryan felt the fletching brush against his shoulder. Their pursuer was gaining ground, moving through the darkness with an ease that spoke of years of experience.
"This is insane!" Varun panted, stumbling over a fallen branch. "Who shoots at people without even talking to them first? What kind of place is this?"
Aryan didn't have an answer. The civilized world he'd grown up in—where conflicts were resolved with words, where violence was the last resort, where strangers at least attempted communication—felt like a distant memory. Here, in this place that might not even be Earth, different rules applied. Harsher rules.
On top of that they don't have any weapons to counter the attacker. His sword was lost in waterfall.
'I hate this place.'
They burst through a curtain of hanging vines into a small clearing, and for a moment, the moonlight filtering through the canopy above gave them their first clear view of their surroundings since the attack began.
The clearing was roughly circular, maybe twenty feet across, with several trails leading out in different directions.
"Which way?" Varun asked again, spinning in a circle as he tried to determine their best option.
But before Aryan could answer, the vines behind them rustled, and their pursuer stepped into the clearing.
In the pale moonlight, they got their first clear look at their attacker. A young woman, probably around their age, dressed in dark jeans and a fitted black jacket. Her long dark hair was pulled back in a practical ponytail, and she moved with the fluid confidence of someone who had adapted to this place completely.
She carried a bow that looked like it had been carved from a single piece of dark wood, and a quiver of arrows hung at their back.
But it was her eyes that made Aryan's blood freeze—cold and calculating, with the predatory focus of someone who had fully embraced what this place demanded of its inhabitants.
This was what Ranjir had become. What they all risked becoming if they listened to the whispers.
The figure nocked another arrow with fluid, practiced movements, drawing the bowstring back with the casual confidence of someone who had never missed a target that mattered.
"Run," Aryan whispered.
They bolted for the largest of the trails, crashing through the underbrush with abandon as the arrow whistled past them once again. The path ahead was narrow and treacherous, winding between towering trees and over uneven ground that seemed designed to trip them up.
"I can't... I can't keep this up. Let's take... a minute break. I mean, That should solve the problem, isn't it?" Varun gasped, his earlier burst of adrenaline beginning to fade. "My chest... it feels like it's on fire."
This strange place somehow allowed them to recover quicker if they stopped any activity, another confirmation that they weren't anywhere normal, weren't anywhere that followed the rules of the world they knew.
"We can't, not like this," Aryan replied, grabbing his friend's arm and pulling him forward. "We stop, we die. It is that simple."
The grim certainty in his own voice surprised him. When had he become someone who spoke so casually about death? When had survival become his only priority, overriding everything else?
But there was no time to analyze the change. Behind them, the pursuit continued—relentless, methodical, and utterly silent except for the occasional whisper of an arrow through the air.
They were being hunted, and they were outmatched in every way that mattered. Their only hope lay in putting as much distance as possible between themselves and their mysterious attacker, and in finding somewhere, anywhere to hide until dawn.
If they lived that long.
The trail twisted and dipped through the jungle like a snake, forcing them to leap over fallen logs and duck under low-hanging branches that seemed to reach out deliberately to snag them. In the darkness, every shadow looked like an obstacle, every patch of moonlight felt like exposure.
Aryan's feet found every root, every loose stone, every depression in the uneven ground. Behind him, he could hear Varun struggling with the same treacherous terrain, his breathing harsh and labored.
"Left!" Aryan hissed, pulling Varun around a massive tree trunk whose roots had created a natural maze. "Stay near!"
They stumbled through the root system, their hands scraping against bark as they used the trees for support. The path ahead seemed to drop away suddenly, and Aryan realized they were approaching some kind of slope or—
"Aryan!" Varun's voice was sharp with panic.
Aryan spun around just in time to see his friend's foot catch on something. a root? a vine? he couldn't tell.
Varun pitched forward into what looked like solid ground but was actually a depression hidden by a thin layer of leaves and debris.
Without hesitation, Aryan lunged forward and grabbed Varun's arm, his fingers closing around his wrist just as Varun's other hand clawed desperately at the crumbling edge of what he now realized was a deep pit. The camouflaged hole was few feet deep, lined with sharp rocks and broken branches that would have meant serious injury or death.
"I've got you," Aryan grunted, his shoulders burning with pain as he hauled Varun back up onto solid ground. "Wee need to be careful as this whole place is seemed to riddled with traps."
They both lay gasping for a moment. Aryan injured shoulder burning with more pain now.
"You alright?" Varun asked.
But before Aryan could answer, the soft whistle of another arrow passing overhead had reminded him they were still in danger.
"She's not giving us any time. She's unbelievably too fast." Varun said, panic in his voice.
"That is why, we need to throw her off our trail," Aryan said, helping Varun to his feet. He hurriedly looked around.
"Make some noise over there—" he pointed to a cluster of thick bushes to their right. "Break some branches, rustle the leaves, then we'll go the opposite direction."
Varun nodded and hit the undergrowth, making as much noise as possible before quietly came back to where Aryan waited. Together, they crawl to the opposite direction, moving as silently as they could manage.
But it didn't work. Within minutes, they could hear her again, not the crashing pursuit of someone following fake trails, but the steady, methodical tracking of someone who knew exactly where they were.
"How is she doing this?" Varun whispered, his voice filled with fear and frustration.
Aryan didn't have an answer. He was too busy scanning the ground ahead for a stream or muddy patch. There was a small stream across their path, its banks filled with dark, wet mud.
"Let's go," he said, leading Varun into the shallow water. They scooped up handfuls of mud and smeared it on their clothes, their skin, hoping to mask their scent or somehow confuse their tracker.
They followed the stream for maybe fifty yards before cutting back into the jungle, their muddy footprints hopefully lost among the rocks and running water.
Again, it gave them only minutes. The relentless pursuit resumed, as steady and inevitable as death.