The interior of the stone cave smelled of woodsmoke, dry earth, and the heavy, iron tang of roasted meat.
Angram sat close to the fire, staring into the flames while chewing slowly. His body was still recovering from days of starvation, from the mauling, from the sheer terror of survival. Every swallow felt like an effort, like his throat was trying to reject the food even as his body screamed for it.
He shudded involuntarily, his eyes flicking away to the corner of the cavern. Hanging suspended from a jagged branch jutting out of the stone was a discarded bird costume—empty, hollow, and purposefully arranged to cast a menacing, upright silhouette against the dim light. From a distance it gave the distinct illusion that a towering creature was still standing guard.
Then he looked at what had been under the armor.
Just a few feet away, a girl about his own age sat cross-legged on the floor, tearing into a slab of roasted meat with a ferocious, feral intensity. Her long black hair fell in tangled, matted sheets around her shoulders, framing a pale face dominated by striking, luminous golden eyes that gleamed in the firelight like polished topaz. She was wolfing down the food as if she hadn't seen a single scrap of sustenance in weeks.
Her clothing was little more than a collection of rotting rags. Tattered strips of coarse fabric were crudely tied around her chest like a makeshift wrap, and similar scraps were knotted tightly about her waist, her right bicep, and her left forearm barely enough to cover her, but she moved with a wild, unselfconscious energy that made her seem less human and more like something from the forest.
Angram stared at her, his stomach churning. When he had first regained consciousness in this dark hole, terrified and half-delirious from the brutal mauling he had suffered at the claws of a forest beast, he had been utterly convinced the girl was a predator preparing to finish what the wilderness had started. He remembered clutching his stone knife, expecting to be devoured alive. Instead, she had force fed him meat while using some herbs to tend to his wounds.
'How is she so hungry?' The thought barely finished forming before she glanced at him.
"What are you staring at?" she asked, her voice muffled by a mouthful of meat.
Angram looked away quickly.
"Nothing."
She snorted and went back to eating.
A sudden, heavy silence settled over the cave, broken only by the crackle of burning embers. Angram blinked, pulled from his spiraling thoughts, and looked up.
The girl had stopped chewing. Her golden eyes were locked entirely on the remaining hunk of meat resting on a flat stone beside Angram. A thick string of saliva pooled in the corner of her mouth, slowly dripping down her chin as she stared at the food with an expression of such pure, unadulterated longing that it bordered on comical.
Angram blinked. He glanced down at the meat then back at her.
"Here," he muttered, his voice raspy.
He was entirely full—or perhaps too nauseated by his circumstances to care about hunger. With trembling fingers, he picked up the piece of meat but she snatched it before he could fully extend his hand.
"..."
He slowly lowered his hand.
'That was fast.'
She wolfed it down in three massive, savage bites, nearly swallowing her own fingers in the process. Then licked said fingers then wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, turned her head sharply, and stared right back at him. Her golden gaze was unnervingly intense, heavy with a suffocating curiosity.
Angram shifted uncomfortably, pulling his knees up defensively.
"What?" he demanded, his voice cracking slightly. "Why are you looking at me like that?"
"How did you get out there?" she asked, her voice surprisingly clear, though sharp as a clipped blade.
Angram frowned, narrowing his eyes. "Why?"
"You aren't supposed to be here."
"I don't understand."
She shrugged.
"Most humans don't come this far."
Angram frowned.
"I just want to go home."
"Where?"
"My village."
"Which one?"
Angram stared.
"My village."
She stared back.
"There are lots of human villages."
"..."
Angram suddenly realized she was serious.
"How many?"
She shrugged.
Angram hesitated. He looked at her tattered rags, her feral posture, and the wild, untamed glint in her golden eyes. She didn't look like anyone from his tribe. But as the crushing weight of his exile settled back onto his shoulders, a desperate yearning for familiarity overrode his caution.
He took a slow, deep breath.
"My village... we live deep in the valley. The elders always warned us never to look directly at the gods wandering the borders. They said they were forces of nature beyond understanding."
He paused, a flicker of bitter memory crossing his face.
"I was curious. One day, I found a wounded beast cub hiding near the creek. I tried to help it. My father caught me... he scolded me, told me I had brought a curse upon our bloodline. And then, because I witnessed a battle between two... two gods... I was banished."
Gods?" The girl let out a short, dry bark of laughter. "They weren't gods."
Angram frowned.
"Yes they are."
"No they aren't."
"They were stronger than anything I've ever seen."
"That doesn't make something a god."
Angram bristled, a sudden surge of defensive anger overriding his fear. He shook his head violently.
"You don't understand! I've seen beasts! I know what a sheep or an ox looks like! None of them display the amount of power those creatures showed. They shattered mountains with a roar! They tore the sky apart! They are gods!"
The girl stared at him for a long moment, a strange, grim smile touching her lips.
"Like this?" she whispered.
Before Angram could blink, she raised her right hand toward the far wall of the cavern. She didn't chant, nor did she pull a weapon. She simply snapped her fingers and thrust her palm forward.
BOOM!
A concussive blast of condensed energy erupted from her hand with the roar of a falling avalanche. The invisible shockwave slammed into the stone wall, obliterating a massive chunk of granite in a shower of screaming debris, blinding dust, and flying gravel.
Angram shrieked, shrinking back against the rock with a desperate gasp. In a panic, he scrambled for the stone knife his father had given him, clutching the crude weapon with white-knuckled desperation and pointing its jagged edge straight at her chest. His entire body was trembling so violently he could barely hold the blade steady.
"You!"
The girl blinked then sighed dramatically.
"Oh, come on."
"What... what are you?!" Angram choked out, his voice pitching high with terror.
"Are you a demon? Are you one of them?!"
"One of who?"
"A god!"
The girl let out an exaggerated, deeply annoyed sigh, rolling her golden eyes toward the cavern ceiling.
"I'm not a beast like them."
"Then what are you?"
"A human."
"No human can do that!"
"Well, I can."
Angram hesitated and the girl sat down again. She didn't appear frightened by the knife, didn't even seem particularly concerned.
"Now put that thing away and sit down." She said.
"How did you destroyed a wall without touching it."
Her casual demeanor instantly evaporated, replaced by a dark, chilling shadow that seemed to swallow the warmth of the fire. She lowered her hand slowly, her fingers curling into a fist.
"My village was a bit more advanced than the other human settlements," she muttered, her voice dropping to a dangerous, low hum.
"We actually learned how to harness the ambient energy of the world—the same raw power the beasts use. We thought we were safe. We thought we could protect ourselves."
She looked away, her golden eyes suddenly swimming with a profound, aching sorrow.
"One day... a creature came down from the peaks. It might as well have been a god. It looked down at us and decided we were an abomination. It said humans should not be allowed to grow too powerful."
She moved closer to the fire and it was under its illumination that Angram saw that she had jagged red scars that wrapped completely around her parms and torso.
"It wiped out my entire home. Everyone I ever loved. Gone in a single breath." She clenched her fist tighter, the scar tissue turning white against her skin.
"That was six years ago."
Angram slowly lowered the stone knife. The violent trembling in his arms began to subside, replaced by a heavy, hollow shock. He looked at her—really looked at her—and saw past the dirt, the rags, and the feral posture. Beneath it all, she was just a child carrying the weight of a graveyard.
He swallowed hard, the hostility draining out of him.
"I... I'm sorry."
Angram stared at her.
Six years.
She had survived.
Alone.
Just like him.
His grip loosened around the knife.
"Can you take me home."
The words came quietly.
The girl looked at him and nodded.
"I know where you're from."
Angram froze.
"What?"
"The only human settlement that fits the deiscruption you gave is the one in Death Valley. I can take you there if you want." she said matter-of-factly.
Angram opened his mouth. The girl paused, tilting her head when Angram didn't immediately answer. He sat frozen, his mouth half-open, a storm of internal conflict raging across his face.
'If she knows the way, I could go back,' he thought frantically. 'I could prove to the chief that I survived. I could show them I wasn't cursed.'
And yet... a cold knot twisted in his stomach.
'Should I even go back?'
The elders and the village chief had cast him out without a second thought. They believed he was tainted. And worse—this girl's entire village had been completely obliterated by a creature just for trying to touch the power of the beasts.
What would happen if he returned bearing strange knowledge?
What if his village panicked, branded him a monster, and drove him out into the wilderness again—or worse, executed him?
He had already been through absolute hell over the past few days. He was battered, broken, and utterly lost. He didn't know who he was anymore, let alone where he belonged.
"I... I..." Angram stammered, looking down at his hands. The girl waited.
"I don't think..."
He swallowed.
"...it's time yet."
At those words, the girl's golden eyes suddenly lit up. A bright, startlingly genuine smile broke across her face—a smile that chased away the feral shadows and made her look, for the first time, like a normal teenager.
Before Angram could react, she lunged forward with terrifying speed, and wrapped her arms around him in a tight, vice-like grip.
"Then you should stay with me!" she declared, her voice bubbling with sudden, infectious energy.
Angram stumbled, nearly losing his balance as he stared at her in utter bewilderment.
"Stay with you? What are you talking about?!"
"We can travel the world together!" she interrupted, her eyes shining with manic determination.
"You can help me in my search!"
Angram blinked, completely thrown off balance by her rapid mood swings.
"Search? Search for what?"
"The beast that destroyed my village." Her golden eyes hardened.
"I'm going to find it, and I'm going to kill it."
Angram's face went pale, the sheer insanity of her statement washing over him like cold water.
Are you a fool?!" Angram blurted out, pulling his hand free and staring at her as if she had lost her mind.
"You want to hunt a god?! That's suicide!"
She tilted her head, pondering his outburst for a fraction of a second before flashing a reckless, razor-sharp grin.
"Yeah, maybe I am a fool. But you don't have anywhere else to go. You can be my world while we find it."
"...What does that even mean?"
"I don't know. It sounded good in my head."
Angram protested, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "How does me being your—"
Crack.
The sharp, echoing snap of splitting timber cut him off mid-sentence and both of them froze.
From the dark mouth of the cave, a thick, grotesque shape pushed its way through the entrance. It was a massive, segmented caterpillar-like beast, its armored exoskeleton gleaming wetly in the dim light. Dozens of twitching legs scraped against the stone, sending up showers of sparks, while its bulbous, multi-eyed head reared back. It had been drawn directly to the cave by the lingering, mouth-watering scent of the roasted meat they had just devoured.
Angram gasped, his blood running cold as he instinctively scrambled backward, pressing himself flat against the rock wall.
"It's another one!"
The girl, however, didn't panic. In fact, her eyes narrowed with a predatory thrill.
Without a single word of warning, she reached down, scooped up a glowing, superheated stone the size of a watermelon directly from the edge of their campfire with her bare hand, and hurled it with terrifying, superhuman velocity.
Thwack!
The rock struck the caterpillar squarely in on of its primary eyes. The concussive impact violently jerked the beast's massive head backward, pushing it entirely out of the cave entrance with a squealing, thrashing shriek. Then she was on her feet, sprinting toward the entrance with speed that blurred her form.
The girl paused at the entrance, and broke a jagged spike from below the caves entance, and held it over her shoulder like a spear.
"What's your name,?" she asked.
"A-Angram!" he said, his voice shaking.
She smiled—a fierce, wild grin. "Wait here, Angram. I'm going to kill our breakfast."
Before he could process a single word, she leaped out of the cave entrance into the open air.
Angram hesitated. His arm was still weak, his body still ached but he couldn't just sit here. Driven by a desperate surge of adrenaline, he scrambled across the uneven stone floor and threw himself up to the edge of the cave entrance, dodging all the spikes and forcing himself to climb up to the entrance in time.
The girl was already moving. She sprinted across the rocky terrain at speeds no human being had any right to achieve, her tattered rags snapping violently in the wind like a battle banner. She zipped around the monster's blind spots, completely unbothered by the silk it was trying to entangle her with.
With a fierce battle cry, she hurled the heavy stone spike straight into the beast's already wounded eye with enough force to bury it halfway to the hilt. As the creature reared up in agony, she leaped into the air, twisting her body with acrobatic grace, and brought both of her fists down together in a devastating, energy-infused hammer blow directly onto the spike.
BOOM!
The impact sounded like a lightning strike hitting dry earth. The monster's entire head literally exploded into a shower of green fluid, shattered chitin, and smoking flesh, the headless carcass collapsing heavily into the dirt with a final, shuddering tremor.
Angram froze, his jaw hung slack, his mind completely refusing to compute the sheer, terrifying display of power he had just witnessed. .
The girl landed lightly on her feet amidst the carnage. She casually wiped a thick streak of slimy, glowing green fluid and viscous silk from her cheek and arm, breathing heavily but smiling brightly.
She looked up at the cave, catching his stunned gaze, and shouted back up the cliffside.
"My name is Erynn!" she called out, her voice ringing clear and triumphant across the desolate valley.