The wind had grown silent. After two long years in the Abyss, Rey had learned to read such silences.
They weren't peace.
They were warning.
His feet, wrapped in coarse fabric made from twisted roots, stepped carefully over fallen leaves. Each movement was measured. He no longer rushed. He no longer panicked. He observed.
To survive here, one must become what they feared.
And Rey was close—too close.
Today marked the fourth time he'd moved his shelter in three months. The old cave had started collecting strange claw marks near the entrance. Something had sniffed him out. Something patient.
Now, his new shelter was a carefully dug underground cave, camouflaged under heavy foliage. Just high enough to crawl into, just wide enough to lie in. The walls were reinforced with packed mud and broken bones—both insulation and warning.
He had one rule now: Never leave traces.
Cover your footsteps. Scatter dry leaves. Rub wet soil over your body to mask your scent. He'd learned the hard way that the nose of a monster was sharper than any blade.
In this chapter of his life, Rey had started studying his predators. He mapped patterns in their behavior. Weak monsters traveled in groups, flocking together like scared sheep. Stronger ones roamed alone, territorial and deadly. He learned to recognize warning signs: the chirping of birds suddenly stopping, claw marks at a tree's base, or the stench of acidic saliva on bark.
He wasn't just surviving now—he was learning.
And every day, he moved a little more north.
A path of survival carved in silence and pain.
Two incidents had left marks he could never erase.
The first was the spider.
A monstrous, bone-white creature that had strung a nearly invisible web across the treetops. Rey had run into it unknowingly, caught and tangled, his arms bound by a sticky, burning thread. It took him hours to cut himself free using a sharpened monster tooth. That tooth became his first weapon. The silk? He harvested what little he could and later used its threads to make rope… and clothes.
The second time, he wasn't so lucky.
A group of lizard-like monsters had caught his scent. Three of them, twice his size, with eyes like molten gold. He had no weapons strong enough to kill them. So he ran. For nearly six hours, he ran. Through rivers. Under fallen trees. Into thorned bushes that tore his skin apart. Finally, he dove into a hollowed-out pit left by some old battle and smeared himself with rotting mud and dung.
They passed him by. Snarling. Searching. And then… gone.
Rey didn't move for a full day after that.
And when he did, he was changed.
He missed home—he missed his mother's quiet humming in the morning, his father's tired voice, even the classmates who used to mock him. Every memory was sharp now. Precious.
He used to think survival meant enduring pain.
But now… he understood.
Survival meant remembering why you fight.
Family. Humanity. Hope.
In this forsaken realm of monsters and ruins, Rey began to whisper the names of those he loved before sleeping. Not because he feared forgetting them—but because he feared becoming something that didn't care anymore.
And so, the boy who had fallen into darkness kept walking north, one step at a time…
Carrying not just his pain, but the quiet, burning will to return.
No matter how long it took.
No matter what it cost.
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