"We should split up," Varun gasped as they paused behind a cluster of bamboo. "I mean, she can't follow both of us, right?"
"That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard," Aryan said immediately, breathless and frustrated.
"Why? It's a good plan. At least one of us could survive."
"You don't know this place any better than I do. Alone, we're both dead."
Varun opened his mouth to argue, then hesitated. "Then what about hiding?" he said, glancing around. "There?" he pointed toward a thick tangle of vines and fallen trees nearby. "We could crawl under there and wait for her to pass."
"Alright."
They tried it, squeezing beneath the natural shelter and holding their breath as footsteps approached. But the footsteps stopped directly above them, as if she knew exactly where they were.
An arrow punched through the tangle of debris, missing Aryan's head by inches.
They burst out of their hiding spot and ran again, abandoning any attempt at stealth. This wasn't about cunning anymore. It was about pure endurance, about who could keep going longer.
The woman pursuing them seemed to have limitless stamina. No matter how many obstacles they put between themselves and her, no matter how many times they changed direction or tried to confuse their trail, she found them. She tracked them with the patience of a predator who knew that eventually, her prey would tire.
"There!" Aryan pointed ahead to where the ground dropped away sharply, forming a narrow ravine cut by some ancient water flow. Thick brush lined the edges, forming a wall of green that could easily hide them.
They stumbled down the slope, brambles scratching their arms and tearing at their clothes. At the bottom, they found a narrow hollow beneath a tangle of branches and leaves, just wide enough for both of them. Moonlight barely reached through the thick cover.
For the first time since the attack began, they couldn't hear footsteps.
They lay there in the suffocating darkness, trying to control their breathing, trying to become invisible. Aryan's heart was pounding so hard he was sure it would give them away, but gradually, the sounds of pursuit faded.
Minutes gone. Then more minutes.
"I think..." Varun whispered, so quietly Aryan could barely hear him. "I think we loose her."
Aryan pressed his ear to the ground, listening for any sign of movement above them. Nothing. Just the normal sounds of the jungle at night. Insects, the rustle of small animals, hidden shadows and the distant call of some night bird.
"I hope," he whispered back. But even as he said it, he knew better. She hadn't given up. She was just being patient, waiting for them to make a mistake, to reveal themselves.
"What the hell is going on with her?" Varun's voice was barely a breath. "I mean, It's like she's just blindly hunting us. Are we some kind of animal? is she even human?"
Aryan thought about Ranjir, about the cold emptiness in his eyes after he'd embraced the whispers. About the predatory focus in the woman's gaze when she'd stepped into the clearing.
"Maybe she's not," he whispered. "Not in any way that matters."
They huddled together in their hiding place, two frightened young men from a world that felt increasingly distant and impossible. Above them, somewhere in the darkness, their hunter waited with inhuman patience for her next opportunity.
"This isn't going to work," Varun whispered after what felt like an eternity huddled in their cramped hiding spot. "We can't stay stuck together like this forever. I mean, she's just waiting us out."
"Just stay like this till dawn," Aryan replied, his voice barely audible. "Once the sun comes up, we'll have better visibility. We can see her coming, find better cover."
So they waited. And waited.
Hours crawled by with agonizing slowness. Aryan kept checking the sky through the gaps in their leafy canopy, expecting to see the first hints of gray that would signal approaching of dawn. But the darkness remained as thick and oppressive as ever, the stars fixed in their positions as if time itself had stopped.
The night felt paused, suspended in place just like the day had seemed to stretch endlessly before. Nothing moved forward, nothing changed. It was as if the natural rhythm of time had been broken here, leaving them trapped in an eternal present.
"How long have we been here?" Varun asked after another stretch of motionless silence.
Aryan didn't know. His sense of time had become completely unreliable in this place. Minutes felt like hours, hours felt like minutes.
The usual markers, the progression of the sun, the feeling of fatigue, even hunger and thirst, all seemed to follow different rules here.
"Long enough," he finally answered. "This night can end any time now."
But even as he said it, he knew it wasn't true. The darkness showed no signs of lifting.
Finally, Varun couldn't take it anymore. "We have to move. I can't stay crammed in here any longer. My legs are going numb, and if she finds us like this, we won't be able to run."
Aryan wanted to protest, but he could feel the same cramping in his own muscles, the stiffness that came from staying motionless too long. Reluctantly, he nodded.
Somehow the magical recovery ability is not working anymore.
They crawled out of their hiding place as quietly as possible, every movement seeming loud in the oppressive silence. Aryan's joints protested as he straightened up, and he had to bite back a groan.
Above them, the ravine's edge looked empty. No sign of their pursuer.
"Now, where?" Varun whispered.
Aryan pointed deeper into the ravine, away from where they'd entered. They began walking slowly, carefully placing each step to avoid loose stones or dry leaves that might give them away.
"The stars... they are wrong," Varun said suddenly, looking up at the night sky through the opening above the ravine.
"What?" Aryan followed his gaze upward.
"The constellations. I used to watch a lot of science and space videos, those YouTube channels about astronomy and stuff. I mean, I know what the night sky is supposed to look like." Varun pointed to a cluster of bright stars directly overhead.
"That constellation there? It doesn't exist. And that one..." he gestured to another group of stars to the east, "...that's looked completely backwards from how it should be."
Aryan stared at the unfamiliar patterns of light scattered across the darkness. Now that Varun mentioned it, nothing looked right. The stars seemed more brighter, arranged in configurations that felt unknown and wrong.
"Maybe we're just disoriented," Aryan said weakly, but even as he spoke, he knew it wasn't true. This was yet another piece of evidence that they weren't on Earth anymore. Or at least, not the Earth they knew.
"What about wild animals?" Varun asked after a moment, his voice subdued by the implications of what he'd just observed. "I keep expecting something to jump out at us. Maybe tigers, leopards, whatever lives in places like this."
Aryan had this thing in mind for quite some time. In a normal jungle, they should have encountered some kind of wildlife by now. But apart from the distant sounds of insects and night birds, the larger predators seemed to be avoiding them completely.
"They are staying away on purpose," he said quietly. "Either they can sense something about us, or about this place, that makes them keep their distance. I can still felt their presence in the shadows, watching, but they are not approaching."
It was true. Even now, as they picked their way carefully along the ravine floor, Aryan could sense eyes on them from the darkness above. But whatever was watching didn't feel immediately threatening—more like curious observers than hungry predators.
"What a strange place." Varun asked.
"Yeah. Nothing here is following the rules we know."
Varun considered this for a moment, then nodded. "If you're saying this then I'll trust your instincts."
They continued walking for what felt like half an hour, maybe longer? Time remained as unreliable as ever in this place. The ravine gradually widened, its walls becoming less steep, until they found themselves in what might once have been a dry riverbed.
Aryan was beginning to think they might actually have lost their pursuer when every instinct he'd developed since arriving in this place suddenly screamed danger.
He threw himself sideways just as something whistled through the air where his head had been a fraction of a second before.
The arrow struck a boulder beside the path with such force that it shattered on impact, splinters flying in every direction.
"She's still with us," Aryan gasped, grabbing Varun and pulling him toward the nearest cover.
Their hunter had been following them all along, moving through the darkness above the ravine like a ghost, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The long wait, the patient stalking—it had all been leading to this moment when they thought they were safe.
"How the hell?" Varun's voice was tight with panic. "How in the insane world is she still tracking us?"
Aryan was as confused. But as they scrambled for cover, one thought kept echoing in his mind. in this place where time moved differently, where the natural world doesn't follow the rules they know, their pursuer had advantages they couldn't even begin to understand.