Kamcy

  I woke with sunlight spilling directly into my vision.

  For a moment, I didn't move. I let my breathing settle—slow and shallow—listening to the cave before trusting my body enough to sit up. The stone beneath me was cold, damp with the night's moisture, and my limbs felt heavy in that familiar way, like my body remembered dying even if it hadn't done so this time.

  The first thing I checked was the ceiling.

  No bats.

  I scanned every dark crevice, every uneven fold of stone where they had clung before. Nothing stirred. No faint squeaks. No flutter of wings. The absence felt louder than their presence ever had, but I forced myself not to dwell on it. Thinking too much about this pce had a way of inviting answers I didn't want.

  I crawled toward the mouth of the cave and carefully pced my hand between the falling water, parting it and creating a curtain as I peered through. The river below glinted in the morning light, deceptively calm. Beyond it, the clearing where the bears had fallen y quiet.

  Eerily quiet.

  I took a look around for anything that might attack or cause me harm of any kind. Seeing nothing, I didn't hesitate. I snuck out of the cave, pnning on carefully approaching the meat. Who knew if it was being used as a trap by some predator to lure out prey—in this scenario, me. After all, from watching Nat Geo Wild, I'd come to understand some predators do that.

  All that carefulness was for naught the moment my feet hit open ground. My pulse spiked. I moved fast, breath burning my throat as I reached what remained of the bear. Mentally, I was embarrassed—being killed twice by that monster had scared me so badly I couldn't risk staying out for long.

  Getting there, I saw most of it was either mash—torn apart, dragged, scattered—but there was still enough left for me to work with. I grabbed chunks of meat, thick and heavy, forcing myself not to imagine what kind of strength it had taken to do this so casually. The same thing that crushed me twice, I mentally joked.

  I turned and sprinted back the instant my arms were full, not paying attention to the statue-like bears nearby.

  I was halfway to the cave when I heard wings.

  I didn't look back until I was safe behind stone again. Only then did I dare gnce out—only to realize the wings belonged to vultures, not monsters as I'd feared. They had already descended, huge and ugly, crowding what little remained. They tugged and tore at the carcass with greedy impatience, bald heads dipping rhythmically as if this were routine.

  I sighed. It wasn't a monster, and more importantly, if I'd stayed any longer, I would've been fighting them for scraps.

  I waited until they finished, some even dragging what they could away, before stepping out again. This time, I gathered dried branches and brittle leaves, snapping them quietly, wincing at every sound. Back in the cave, I built the fire low and shielded, coaxing it to life with careful breaths.

  The meat roasted slowly.

  Fat hissed as it dripped into the embers. The smell wasn't pleasant, but it was solid—real. When it was done, I didn't eat right away. I forced myself to think ahead. I cut the meat into portions using a sharp rock, wrapping thicker pieces in the leaves I'd gathered and pcing them deeper in the cave where the stone stayed cool. Thin strips I set aside for daily rations.

  Only then did I eat.

  The taste was almost nothing. Chewy. Bnd. And yet my chest tightened as soon as I swallowed. Tears came without warning, blurring my vision as I chewed. I hadn't eaten since my digitization—in fact, I hadn't even slept. This was my first real experience since digitization. Hunger had been a thing of the past. In a way, this was good. This was grounding, even if it hurt.

  I finished, drank directly from the rushing waterfall, and leaned back against the wall, exhausted.

  Now I had to pn what to do next. I needed to go outside once more to get some things in order, but with a quick turn, I noticed a piece of wood from the pile that hadn't fully burned.

  Sitting opposite the wall, I began to draw with charcoal, listing the weapons I'd need and the items required to make them. Then came traps. Paths. Angles of attack.

  I pnned weapons.

  A bow for distance.

  A slingshot for smaller prey.

  Spears—crude but effective.

  Rope twisted from fibrous pnts, if I could find the right ones.

  Knives carved from stone or bone.

  As I worked through the steps in my head, my gaze drifted upward—to the stains near the ceiling where bats had once roosted.

  A memory surfaced.

  Weapons handling css. Improvised tools. There were older methods I'd been taught. Bat guano—dangerous, votile, but useful under the right conditions. Not something I could make yet, but the idea lodged itself in my mind anyway.

  A deterrent—and maybe even a weapon, if it came down to it.

  Something loud enough to scare predators away.

  I took inventory of the cave's resources and nodded to myself. There was enough guano deposited here. Now I just had to figure out how to process it.

  With a clearer pn in my head, I ventured into the forest.

  This time, carefully.

  I moved slowly, avoiding snapping branches, collecting only what I needed: flexible sticks, sharp stones, fibrous pnts I could test ter. That was when I noticed something I must've filtered out earlier.

  On many of the trees were clusters of red growths—egg-shaped but wrong. They didn't have shells. They looked like a fusion of pnt and fungus, pulsing faintly. Near them, embedded in the bark, were eyes.

  They opened.

  They closed.

  I didn't touch anything near them. If the eyes weren't warning enough, I'd seen Alien: Romulus and knew better.

  I backed away slowly and continued my search—until something blurred past me through the trees.

  One of the beasts.

  It moved so fast my brain barely processed it. A rush of dispced air. A streak of motion. I froze completely, heart hammering, every muscle locked in pce. Only when the forest settled again did I breathe.

  I didn't test my luck.

  I returned to the cave before evening, ate my ration, and gently fell asleep.

  Something brushed against my stomach, disturbing my sleep.

  The feeling was warm. Soft.

  I groaned faintly, half-asleep, and opened my eyes.

  Breasts filled my vision.

  Large, was my first thought. The nipples were so pink I was dumbstruck. They pressed against my face.

  For a second, I thought I was dreaming. Was this stress? Fear? Was my mind creating something obscene to calm itself? I almost ughed at myself.

  I reached out.

  My hands sank into them, their warmth in contrast to the cold around me. The sensation was heavenly—tantalizing.

  So this is what boobs feel like, I thought.

  The body shifted.

  A face slid into view.

  The upper half was wrong—from where eyes should be upward, it was akin to the monster that hunted me the other day, its skin blooming like fungal growth, splitting unnaturally. The lower half was beautiful. Smooth. Smiling.

  The mouth opened.

  Jagged teeth gleamed.

  My heart smmed into my throat.

  I couldn't scream.

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