Chapter 4: Night in Hell
Night fell like a shroud, slow and suffocating, draping the world in a purple-black haze. The last slivers of a dying sun bled into the sky like veins torn open, staining the heavens with streaks of crimson and indigo. Trees loomed like ancient sentinels, their twisted limbs clawing at the stars. The air was thick with silence—too thick.
Stelae lay on his side in the cold dirt, his breath ragged, his body trembling uncontrollably. Every fiber of him was screaming in pain, still broken from his brutal encounter with the Sloi. The wounds had vanished, the skin was whole—but nothing about him felt whole.
Even with the regeneration gifted by the mythical Sloillar fruit, his body was no miracle. It was a graveyard of fatigue. The healing hadn't rejuvenated him. It had hollowed him out.
"I need… water… fresh… water…"
His voice rasped from his throat like dry leaves scraping across stone. His tongue was stiff, leathery. His lips cracked with every breath. A metallic taste settled in his mouth, as if the air itself were rusted. In the 2.3 million years of petrified stasis, his body hadn't craved anything. But now? He could feel the thirst clawing up his throat like a monster with hooks for fingers.
He could survive without water—for now. But the thirst remained. And somehow, that was worse than death.
Gritting his teeth, Stelae forced himself onto his knees. His arms quivered beneath him like a dying animal's. His lungs refused to work in rhythm. Short, sharp gasps wracked his chest as though he were breathing through splinters.
Why am I so tired? Why so thirsty?
Is it… the healing?
It had to be. Every time his body rebuilt itself, it took something from him—his stamina, his fluids, his willpower. Pain ebbed. But in its place came something worse: numbness. A deep, drowning exhaustion that no sleep could mend.
It was healing, yes.
But it was also a curse.
Torture in disguise. A beautiful death sentence.
He staggered forward, dragging one foot after the other. The forest floor was slick with dew and rot, leaves curling up like they too feared the night. Every step felt heavier than the last. Roots reached from the ground like fingers of the past, trying to trip him, slow him, bury him again.
Above him, the canopy swayed with windless movement. Shadows danced, flickering like spirits whispering secrets between the trees. The violet sky burned with the dying light of the sun, now little more than an ember behind thick clouds.
I need sleep. But I can't. It's too dangerous.
Those dinosaur-things… they could still be out there.
How do I rest when I can't even feel my lips?
His vision blurred, the edges of the world dissolving into static. His limbs screamed with every motion, like rusted metal grinding in sockets. His soul felt flayed, left out in the cold to rot.
This world is cruel. No warmth, no mercy. Just endless struggle.
Why do I have to survive?
Why me? Why not someone stronger? Someone sane?
Gods damn you…
Then—he saw it.
A cave.
Hidden beneath thick layers of moss and overgrown vines, nestled like a scar in the side of a craggy hillside. It yawned wide like a mouth long unused, jagged at the edges and damp with breathless cold. It didn't welcome. It threatened.
But it was shelter.
A dark place to hide from darker things.
He took one shaky step toward it, legs wobbling beneath him.
Then—
A shape erupted from the shadows.
A blur of black. A screech like glass ripping apart.
Not a bird. Not a bat.
A monster.
Black fur bristled over rippling muscle. Its wings, thicker than logs, unfurled with a roar of displaced air. Its ears were sharp as knives, twitching like they could slice the wind. The creature stood three feet tall—easy. Its eyes gleamed like oil under moonlight, soulless and silent.
Stelae stumbled backward, his heart pounding so hard he thought his ribs might burst.
"What… what the hell is that?"
It resembled a bat, yes—but only the way a shark resembles a fish. It was a mockery of what he remembered. This was a bat forged in hellfire.
Three feet tall? That's insane…
Right. This isn't Earth—not really. It's the two-million-somethings now. I'm not in Kansas anymore.
He tried to calm himself.
It's only a bat. They don't attack people, right?
…
Right?
Wrong.
The monster dived.
Its wings slashed through the air with a sound like tearing metal. A boom of wind followed, flattening leaves and shaking branches.
Stelae threw himself aside. The air screamed past his ear.
Just my luck, a dinosaur thing, and now a bat that could easily kill me.
Watch there's gonna be a kangaroo next…
If I even have next,
Is everything here carnivorous?!
Adrenaline erupted in his veins like wildfire. The exhaustion vanished, shoved aside by instinct. Every muscle moved without thought. Fight. Flee. Survive.
The bat attacked again.
And again.
Its echolocation pulsed through the air—clicks that sounded like bullets, echoing in unnatural rhythm. Each blast seemed to track him, like the trees themselves were betraying him with echoes.
He ducked. Rolled. Gasped. His body obeyed, but only barely.
Then—CRACK.
It hit him.
Full force.
His back flared with white-hot pain as he slammed into the dirt. The impact ripped the air from his lungs. His vision pulsed red.
Seriously?! I waited 2.3 million years just to get killed by a bat?! A glorified flying rat?!
But then… clarity.
Echolocation.
It doesn't see. It hears.
He clenched his teeth, grabbed a fallen branch, and—SLAM.
WHACK. WHACK. WHACK.
He beat the stick against a nearby stone. Loud. Chaotic. Random.
Let's see how you like that, freak.
To a creature with such sensitive hearing, it must've sounded like an explosion. A warning. A threat.
The bat flinched, veering off. Its wings faltered midair.
It's working. Don't question it. Just—
Run.
He hurled the branch deep into the trees—CRACK—then slipped away in the opposite direction, feet barely brushing the ground. Every motion was agony. His back throbbed. His legs screamed. But he moved.
Quiet. Careful. Like prey.
The forest swallowed him again. The shadows pressed in.
It hurts… it hurts…
And then—
Blackness.
His body collapsed beneath him, nerves firing in broken patterns.
Face-first, he tumbled into a cold, thorny bush, thorns tearing at his skin. The world spun, and then stilled.
Darkness took him.
Not death.
Not yet.
But damn close.
Time passed.
Maybe hours. Maybe minutes. In the pitch-black world of pain and exhaustion, Stelae couldn't tell. The bush cradled him like thorns around a corpse, and cold dew clung to his skin. He didn't dream. He just existed—barely.
Then…
A sound.
Wet. Sloppy. Like something dragging through mud.
Stelae stirred, his eyelids peeling open slowly. His breath caught. A pale moon—swollen and eclipsed—hung in the sky like a ghostly eye, half-veiled by thick violet clouds. Shadows swirled across the forest floor like liquid smoke, and every breeze carried the whispers of something wrong.
Crunch.
He froze.
Something moved beyond the trees—quiet, heavy, deliberate. Branches groaned. Leaves shivered. The wind shifted…and with it came a scent. Not rot. Not decay. But blood. Old, metallic. Dried in the fur of a predator.
Then, it emerged.
A shape from nightmare.
Its silhouette rose above the underbrush like a moving mountain, swaying with unnatural rhythm. Muscles coiled beneath leathery brown fur, rippling with every step. Its long ears twitched, ragged and torn, sharp at the ends like broken blades. A thick tail dragged behind it, scarring the earth. Clawed paws thudded against the dirt, splitting roots.
A kangaroo.
But not a kangaroo.
Ten feet tall. Covered in battle scars and dried blood. Its eyes gleamed yellow-green, reflecting the moon like twin mirrors of madness. Its jaw jutted with fangs—not the flat herbivore teeth Stelae remembered from books, but long, knife-like canines meant for tearing meat.
"What… the hell…?"
Stelae couldn't move. His muscles screamed for flight, but terror nailed him to the ground. He had seen kangaroos online once—fighting matches, memes, silly clips.
But this wasn't Earth anymore.
This was a wild, post-apocalyptic echo of it. Two million years of evolution gone wrong. Or right, depending on who was judging.
Carnivorous kangaroo.
Because of course.
"What is this ecosystem?" Stelae whispered, barely audible. "Freak bats, dino-lizards… now kangaroo murder beasts?"
The creature turned its head.
Its nostrils flared.
It heard him.
Then it leapt.
BOOM.
The ground exploded as it landed, barely missing him by inches. The shockwave knocked leaves from the trees and sent birds screeching into the night. It hissed—yes, hissed—and coiled for another strike.
Stelae's heart thundered.
He forced himself to his feet, every nerve burning in protest.
"Run? Fight? Die? Pick one, dammit!" he yelled.
He backed away, feet sliding in mud, trying to keep his eyes on the monster. But he knew—there was no winning this. His healing may have saved him from dying once, but another hit like the last would turn his spine into paste.
The kangaroo lunged.
Something shattered. His legs? He couldn't feel them—only pain."
He couldn't move, He couldn't do anything.
The kangaroo once again began to lunge and slam down on Stelae this time for the last.
A finishing blow.
Am I really gonna die.
And to a Kangaroo, how fitting.
And—
SHNK.
Time stopped.
A flash of silver.
A spray of blood.
The beast staggered, then—its head slid from its shoulders.
Clean. Smooth. Effortless.
The body collapsed beside him with a heavy thud, shaking the earth.
Stelae stared, stunned.
The kangaroo's head rolled a few feet before landing against a tree, its eyes still wide, still glowing… and then slowly dimming.
Standing behind it…
Was something—someone—else.
A figure cloaked in black and silver, tall and terrifying. In one hand, it held a blade longer than Stelae's arm, stained red at the tip. Its face was hidden beneath a mask of bone and obsidian. No words. No sound. Just presence.
It didn't look at him.
It looked through him.
Like it had been expecting him.
Stelae collapsed again, legs giving out, breath gone.
The forest was quiet once more.
But the night…
Was far from over.