Nothing.
Even after searching the entire mountain until his legs trembled and his vision blurred at the edges, the only potentially edible thing Ethan could find was the occasional insect hiding beneath loose stones.
The terraform hadn't just affected humans. It had touched nearly every living thing on Earth. Forests had thinned. Animal calls were gone. Even the wind felt emptier, as if it no longer carried the scent of life. Sensing the danger, most lifeforms had either fled or perished.
Ethan could already feel exhaustion seeping into his bones. The earlier escape from the city — the smoke, the screams, the frantic climb — had drained most of his strength. Running around the mountain afterward had only made it worse.
'No, that's not just it. The terraform has already begun affecting me.'
He hadn't been properly taught the science behind it, but he had listened when adults whispered. The air composition was changing. Slowly. Deliberately. Adjusted to suit the Khaerix.
Even near the foot of the mountain, he had already found it harder to breathe. Up here, each inhale felt thinner, heavier, as if the oxygen itself were being rationed.
'Sis…'
That single word steadied him.
It was the only reason he put one foot in front of the other and kept searching.
'Ethan, that's enough.'
He froze.
His head whipped around sharply at the sound of his sister's voice.
"…Was it just my imagination?" he muttered.
There was nothing behind him. Just gray rock and hollow wind.
He swallowed and took another step—
—and froze again.
This time, he felt it.
A vibration beneath his feet.
Faint. Rhythmic.
With most living creatures gone, there was only one thing it could be.
"A Khaerix!?"
Even the lowest-ranked Khaerix could easily handle ten Ethans.
Without hesitating, he turned and began running toward the cave.
'No, I shouldn't head back. Sis is still there.'
He abruptly kicked off to the left instead, forcing himself into a different direction and slowing his pace.
'I can't just run. I need to lure it away. So I can't be too fast.'
For a brief moment, his senses sharpened under the pressure. He could feel the creature's movement through the trembling ground. It was heading his way.
He broke into a sprint—
'Wait… it isn't moving fast enough.'
He slowed mid-stride.
The vibration didn't increase in speed. It wasn't accelerating to chase him down.
Quickly sensing something was wrong, he stopped entirely and cautiously began heading toward the source instead.
As the Khaerix came into sight over a rocky incline, Ethan realized why it hadn't pursued him properly.
"I mean… no matter how you look at it, it's almost dead."
The creature's grotesque body lay twisted against the slope. Sections of its bio-armor were cracked open, dark fluid pooling beneath it. One limb was nearly severed, hanging at an unnatural angle.
From its size, Ethan judged it to be scout-level — the lowest rank.
Even so, a healthy one would have slaughtered him effortlessly.
'It's okay. It's severely injured and just needs one final push. I can do it.'
He scanned his surroundings for anything he could use as a weapon.
Eventually, he found a large stone slab lodged into the earth.
It would be enough to crush its head.
The only problem was that it wasn't something a child could lift.
He crouched, strained, and pushed with everything he had.
It didn't move.
"Should I give up on it?"
He could leave it. It would eventually bleed out.
But weakened as it was, it could still crawl. Still kill. And Sylvia couldn't run.
He returned cautiously toward the creature.
And stopped.
The scout-level Khaerix was dead.
Completely.
In the center of its grotesque torso was a small, precise hole the size of a fingernail. Clean. Direct. Piercing straight through hardened armor.
'It was killed!?'
His eyes widened.
'That means there are still humans around.'
Relief washed through him so suddenly his knees nearly buckled. A smile almost formed — almost — before he remembered why he was here.
Sylvia.
He took one final glance at the corpse, then made a decision.
Dragging it was difficult, but if there was even a small chance it could serve as food, he would take it.
…
"What… did you bring back?"
Sylvia stared at her brother, who puffed out his chest, clearly expecting praise.
She had already known the chances of him finding anything edible were slim.
But instead of returning empty-handed—
He brought back an alien corpse.
'Where did I go wrong raising him? In the first place…'
She sighed and looked up at him.
"How did you even kill it?"
Ethan shook his head. "It wasn't me. It was already dead when I found it."
Her eyes widened immediately.
She understood at once.
'Humans. There are still others around.'
Joy surged through her chest. She struggled to sit up despite the ache in her body.
"Sister! Don't push yourself too hard."
Ethan rushed forward—only to trip and fall flat on his face.
"…Says the person who just face-planted," Sylvia muttered.
He sat up, rubbing his red nose.
"Anyways," he coughed, changing the topic as if nothing had happened, and gestured to the corpse. "How are we going to cook it?"
"You're really planning on eating it?"
"Why not?"
"…Oh, I don't know. Probably because we'll die if we do? We literally attended the same biology lessons. How do you not understand that our biology is different? Our bodies could reject it outright."
Sylvia felt a headache forming.
Her brother was smart. In some cases, even smarter than her.
But sometimes… he was painfully innocent.
"But we'll die if we don't eat," Ethan replied, tilting his head slightly, his expression blank.
"That's—"
"And you always tell me this, sis. So long as the chance isn't zero, we should take it over a definite zero. As things stand, our chances of dying from starvation are higher than dying from eating the Khaerix."
He said it in one complete breath, pouring all his reasoning into the argument.
Sylvia blinked.
'He's… right!'
For a moment, it felt like she was hearing her own logic thrown back at her. If she had needed to convince someone to eat an alien corpse, she would have used the exact same reasoning.
'We really are twins.'
A faint smile formed on her face.
"Still," she said lightly, "I thought you cared about me too much to let me risk eating it."
Ethan's face shifted into confusion.
"What are you talking about? There's no way your genes are losing to some riffraff alien. You're too great for that."
He said it as if it were an undeniable fact.
A slight shiver ran down her spine.
'I almost forgot.'
He worried about her constantly. Almost worshipped her.
In this case, her.
But something felt different now.
More intense.
More absolute.
'The current him feels more… obsessive.'
She swallowed.
'Not like I'm any different.'
Tragedy changes people.
Even now, she could feel her thoughts subtly reshaping themselves around survival. Around him. Around eliminating threats before they reached them.
And that scared her.
'This isn't the time.'
She shook her head lightly, pushing the thoughts aside.
After a brief pause, she nodded.
"…Let's eat it."