“I said I’d gut you like a fish, didn’t I?” Akira stood over the lifeless, headless body of the monster, the weight of his words hanging in the air like an unspoken challenge.

  His breath was ragged, his body trembling with exhaustion and from the cold hitting against his soaked frame, despite that, there was a dark satisfaction in the twisted humor of his own remark.

  He had done it. Against all odds, he had survived.

  He crouched down beside the body, wincing as his injured shoulder protested the movement.

  His hand hovered above the monster’s scaly body, and despite the pain, his curiosity gnawed at him.

  The creature had been both a predator and a threat, but now, it was just another source of sustenance. Could he make use of it? The thought of eating something that had nearly killed him seemed strange, yet almost repetitive at this point.

  The process itself was not tough, in fact, it was pretty simple. Akira used a strong blow to break through the scales and filet away the meat underneath, cutting off and avoiding the fatty parts.

  Sure, his cuts were crude and wasted a lot of possible good meat, but he wasn’t a chef, he was a lost seventeen year old boy who got dropped into a cruel world filled with monsters that want to kill him without remembering anything else besides his name, even his own looks and age were strangers to him until a day or so ago.

  He simply happened to have an affinity for surviving in this kind of place, or just luck. Maybe a lot of both.

  He took up a piece of meat he had cut from the monster, the color of its bare flesh a juicy mix of orange and red. Its texture was soft, not as gelatinous as the larva’s flesh, it held a certain firmness.

  With a deep breath, he tore into the meat.

  It was surprisingly tender, and the texture wasn’t as foul as he had expected. The flesh was slightly oily, but there was a savory richness that made him chew thoughtfully, its taste was delightfully sweet, not sweet like candy but a different kind that he couldn’t quite place his finger on.

  He repeated the process again and again, turning the lower half of the monster into a carcass, slowly but surely.

  …

  After the feast, Akira lay on a patch of soft grass, a little ways away from the riverbank.

  Thankfully, his wound had stopped bleeding, indicating that nothing important had been hit and his blood clotted properly.

  However, the wound was still open and had left a nasty mark, his skin and flesh a mess, his collarbone probably cracked and his tunic, where he had been bitten, shredded, torn to pieces and mixed in with the raw flesh.

  The pain in his shoulder had dulled to a constant throb, a reminder of the battle he had fought and barely survived.

  “Now… I can’t really sleep out in the open, I need to find some kind of shelter.” There was one problem, Akira had very little idea about anything really, it was as if he were born only a day ago.

  The only reason he knew anything was because basic information would randomly pop up in his head, as if they were forgotten memories that came back when needed, yet none of them offered any insight on how he got here or who he was before this.

  Not that he complained, as it helped him stay alive.

  Even if he wanted to sleep in a monster’s corpse again, this time the problem was that the monster he had at hand was long enough, but too thin, he wouldn't get any protection from the wind, plus it would take too much time and effort to carve and empty enough space to fit in.

  He looked around, straining his eyes in the night to find anything that would look like a shelter, but there was nothing, no small cavern entrances, no dense bushes to prop himself in between or under.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  His mind raced trying to find a solution to this predicament he found himself in, one of them being to stay active tonight and sleep during the day, but there were three problems with that.

  One, the night was bitter cold and he had no protection from the winds.

  Two, the night is when predators were most active, so he had the most chances to run into them.

  And three, he couldn’t see anything beyond twenty meters or so, not to mention the foliage also offered cover to not only himself, but also to whatever lurked in the darkness.

  His gaze flicked back to the waterfall as it flowed into a river, the water flowed in lazy, rippling currents. He had to make a choice, stay near the river for the sake of the crystals and risk being found by something worse or freeze to death. Or move deeper into the jungle where he might find safety but risk getting lost, attacked by another monster or even worse, never finding the crystals again.

  He clicked his tongue in annoyance before moving upstream to the shallow and more narrow part of the river where he had bathed and moved through there, crossing the river and starting to delve deeper into the jungle.

  And such, with not much of an option left, Akira left behind the last link to his sanity.

  As he walked, the shadows and sounds seemed to follow, distant sounds of insects and other life thriving around him, but thankfully none too near.

  During his time here he had noticed a particular pattern to the monsters he was facing were smarter and smarter than the last.

  Sure, they weren’t as fierce, but that didn't make them any less deadly.

  One of the pale, winged behemoths would have probably killed hundreds of the water monster Akira had just encountered, but to him, the smarter and more his own size they were, the worse it was.

  A big predator like the titanic snake he faced or the flying monsters might have ignored him or toyed with him, but they didn’t actively hunt him.

  In exchange, the small fairy looking ones and the aquatic one were focusing on him. It was almost as if the Selection Trial was increasing the difficulty as he advanced… like it was preparing him for something.

  Akira reached a point where the foliage grew denser, and the jungle's oppressive atmosphere felt suffocating. It was almost impossible to tell where he was going, the trees, vines, and roots formed a labyrinth of endless twists and turns.

  Still, the feeling that he was being hunted lingered in his mind, gnawing at him. It had been hours since he left the river, but his instincts told him something wasn’t right.

  The silence felt wrong.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a faint glimpse of a light.

  The boy froze mid-step, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

  His body tensed, every muscle coiled with the familiar, primal urge to flee. But instead of running, he silently crouched, his breathing shallow and controlled as he peered through the dense foliage toward the faint light.

  It was a soft, flickering glow, too unpredictable and wild to be from any natural source. His eyes narrowed as he tried to make sense of it.

  Taking each step with precaution to not make a noise, he closed in on the light.

  Finally, he reached a break in the dense foliage, enough to peer through. What he saw startled him.

  It was a fire inside a rock formation that acted as a natural shelter, it seemed deep enough that it could protect someone from the winds and not blow out the fire, but too shallow for a monster to live in it.

  His eyes widened, beside the fire sat what seemed like a man. He couldn't make out much detail from that distance.

  The man didn’t seem to notice him yet. He was sitting on the ground, cross-legged by the fire, his posture relaxed, as though he had been here for a while.

  His clothes were the same as Akira’s, but they were weathered, almost ragged from use.

  Beside him, stuck in the ground, a long and thin object, long enough to keep something away and thin enough to be grasped by a hand.

  The object beside him caught Akira’s attention. A weapon? A tool? It was hard to tell in the flickering firelight, but it's deliberate placement within arm’s reach suggested it wasn’t there for decoration.

  Akira’s silver eyes darted back to the man’s face, still obscured by the play of shadows and firelight. Should he approach? Call out from a distance? Or stay hidden and observe?

  The man stirred slightly, leaning forward to stoke the fire with a stick. The flames flared briefly, casting his features into sharper relief.

  His face was weathered, lines etched deep into his skin, though his exact age was difficult to determine. A beard covered most of his lower face, and his brown hair was tied back in one thick braid.

  Akira’s gaze shifted back to the object at the man’s side. It was a spear, primitive but effective-looking, its shaft carved from a sturdy wood and tipped with what seemed to be a sharp fragment of stone or bone.

  The craftsmanship wasn’t masterful, but it was functional. The weapon alone suggested the man had experience surviving in this unforgiving jungle.

  Akira’s body, moving almost on its own, stood up. Might as well give it a shot. His life was already in danger, whether he did something or not.