The night after the Ceremony was long, thick with drums, laughter, and feasting. The tribe's fire roared high, sparks ascending into the dark sky as if to carry their pride to the ancestors. Meat roasted, songs of triumph rose, and the newly initiated youths were celebrated with garlands of feathers and painted cheeks.
Ahayue sat apart at the edge of the firelight, unseen, unspoken to. No garland lay upon his shoulders. No cheer was raised in his name. He chewed a strip of dry meat given by his mother, but it tasted like ash.
The humiliation of the trials still throbbed in him. He felt the burn marks on his arms like brands of failure, the sting of bark in his palms, the echo of jeering laughter in his ears. But worse than the pain was Yairan's final decree: "The boy speaks truth. His path is not ours."
The words had sealed his fate. He was not Ekuarai anymore. He was nothing.
When the fire dimmed and the tribe began to sleep, Ahayue lay awake under the shadow of his family's hut. His mother's soft breathing comforted him, but he dared not wake her. His father had not spoken a word to him all day, disappointment etched in silence.
The moon had climbed high when Ahayue rose quietly. He wrapped himself in a thin cloak of wolfskin, the only one he owned. Around his waist he tied a small satchel: dried roots, a waterskin, and a flint stone. He had no spear, no bow, nothing of pride or strength. Only himself, fragile and trembling.
Yet his heart was louder than his fear.
He whispered into the night, as though the spirits might hear:"If my curse cannot be healed among my people, I will find the cure beyond them. If I am not of the tribe, then I will be of the world."
He turned once to look at the hollow, the great fire reduced to a bed of coals, glowing like eyes in the dark. For sixteen years, those flames had been his universe. Now, they were behind him.
And he stepped into the forest.
The wild embraced him at once. The air grew colder, scented with moss and damp earth. The trees loomed like watchful giants, their branches whispering secrets above. Strange cries echoed in the distance—birds or beasts, he could not tell.
He moved slowly, each step cautious, for his body was not made for long journeys. His twisted leg dragged, his uneven arm ached, but he pressed on. He had endured mockery his whole life; pain was a familiar companion.
The stars above stretched wide and endless, more than he had ever seen from the tribe's hollow. It was as though the sky itself opened to him now that he was no longer bound by firelight.
After hours of walking, he reached a stream. The water gleamed under the moon, silver and alive. He knelt to drink, the cold shocking his throat. He washed his burns and cuts, sighing with relief.
It was then he heard it—the faintest rustle across the water.
He froze.
From the thickets, two glowing eyes appeared. A low growl followed, vibrating the earth. Slowly, the creature emerged: a wolf, larger than any he had seen, its fur shadow-black, its fangs long as knives. This was no ordinary beast. Its eyes burned with something old, something more than animal.
Ahayue's heart pounded. He had no weapon. His first night beyond the tribe, and already death stood before him.
The wolf circled, its growl deepening. Then, to Ahayue's shock, it spoke—its voice a rasp like stone on stone.
"Child of crooked flesh… why do you walk alone in the dark?"
Ahayue stumbled back, his voice shaking."I… I am cursed. I seek a cure."
The wolf's eyes narrowed. "Cursed? No. Marked. The mark draws the gaze of spirits… and of hunters." Its tongue flicked over its fangs. "The weak do not live long in the wild."
Ahayue clenched his fists. Fear shivered through him, but somewhere beneath it burned a spark—small but fierce."Then I will not be weak."
The wolf tilted its head, as if measuring him. For a long moment, silence hung heavy. Then the beast huffed, lowering its stance."Perhaps. Or perhaps you will die before dawn."
With that, it leapt back into the shadows, vanishing without a sound.
Ahayue collapsed to his knees, his breath ragged. His body trembled, yet he felt strangely alive. His first step beyond the tribe had brought him face-to-face with death—and he had not broken.
The stream's current whispered at his side. He looked into the water, seeing his reflection under the moonlight: the twisted boy, scarred, mocked, unwanted. Yet behind the crookedness he saw something new—eyes that had met the gaze of a spirit-wolf and had not looked away.
He pressed a hand to his chest. The voice from the mask at the Ceremony echoed again: "You are not cursed, child. You are chosen. But not for them."
Chosen for what? He did not yet know.
But the path lay before him, and he would follow it.
He rose, clutching his cloak tighter. The forest stretched endlessly into the night, full of beasts, mysteries, and dangers. Every step would test him. Every trial would either break him or rebuild him.
And so Ahayue, once the cursed boy of the Ekuarai, took his first true step into the wide world. Alone, unarmed, uncertain—but burning with a fire no mockery could extinguish.
The tribe's laughter was behind him. The unknown future was before him.
And with the moon as his witness, his journey began.