Dozens of trees snapped like twigs, the bark gouged, deep scars slashed across the trunks. The ground itself had cratered, as if something massive had slammed down from above.
A shallow pool of dark, wet blood gleamed in the dirt.
She wasn't imagining it.
Kaya frowned, gaze sweeping over the forest. "No drag marks," she murmured, eyes narrowing. "No signs of anything being pulled away."
That didn't make sense.
Even if some beast had dragged the vulture's body off, there would have been signs — gouges in the soil, snapped branches, bent grass. There was nothing. Not a single trace.
And the bird — that creature — it couldn't have flown. She was sure she had hit it. Not just once. Her shot had been clean. That thing had dropped. She was almost certain it had died.
So how the hell did it vanish?
She stared at the blood again, still fresh. Too fresh.
More disturbing was the absence of everything else. No media helicopters. No distant sounds of search parties. Not a single camera drone. No chatter on emergency radios. A beast the size of a van falls out of the sky, and not a soul is here?
Kaya felt the chill crawl up her spine.
Either someone had buried this story very, very deep — or she wasn't on the same map anymore.
Even if it sounded ridiculous, Kaya just couldn't shake the thought.
How the hell did she go from collapsing in her apartment—right in the middle of a city packed with people, noise, tech—to suddenly waking up here?
Nothing made sense.
Her phone was gone.
Her digital watch? Missing.
Even the tiny Bluetooth earpiece she always kept hidden—the one not even her husband knew about—was just… gone.
The only thing still on her was her gun. Somehow, that stayed.
And this forest—it didn't feel like any normal forest. It was too quiet. Too dense. Trees so tall and tangled that barely any sunlight slipped through. It didn't look real. It didn't feel like anywhere she'd ever seen.
She'd watched enough nature shows to know about places like the Amazon. But this? This didn't feel natural. It felt like someone—or something—had built it.
And then there were those birds. Those vultures.
Big as vans. Moving like shadows in the sky. She wasn't even sure what she'd seen anymore, but the broken trees, the torn ground—they were real.
Whatever it was, it wasn't small. And it wasn't alone.
She leaned against a tree, feeling the sting in her foot again, her pulse still uneven. Her head throbbed with questions, none of them with answers.
Could someone have drugged her? Kidnapped her? Dropped her here?
Or had she… died?
She swallowed hard at the thought. It sounded stupid—childish, even—but what other explanation was there?
Because this—this place—felt too cruel to be anything else. No food. No sign of human life. Just her, alone, surrounded by wilderness that didn't even seem entirely real.
If this was some kind of afterlife, it definitely wasn't heaven.
No. Not for someone like her—someone who lived with alarms, schedules, glass buildings, and glowing screens.
She was from a world of noise. This place had none.
Just silence.
Heavy
She was still lost in thought, her mind spinning with questions that had no answers — beasts appearing and vanishing without a trace, a forest too quiet to be real.
Then — a soft rustle.
It cut through the silence like a whisper too close to the ear.
Her head snapped toward the sound. It came from the very spot where the monstrous bird had supposedly fallen. Her heartbeat quickened. That can't be a coincidence.
"Wait a minute…" she muttered, voice barely above a breath.
With practiced precision, she drew her gun again. Her fingers trembled, just slightly, betraying the tension threading through her nerves. Every step she took toward the bushes felt longer than the last, the hush of the forest amplifying the sound of her own breathing.
She paused, standing just before the source. Grass rustled again — faint, but deliberate.
Kaya inhaled deeply, steadying herself. Then, with one swift motion, she pulled the grass aside.
And there it was.
A sparrow.
Small. Ordinary. Its feathers ruffled in distress, one delicate wing bent unnaturally. It chirped — faint, wounded, innocent.
But something about it felt… wrong.
Not the sparrow itself — no, it looked as fragile as any she'd ever seen. But in this place, at this moment, after what had just happened — its presence felt too perfect. Too carefully placed.
She stared at it, her grip on the gun loosening but not lowering. A strange feeling prickled at the back of her neck — not fear exactly, but the sense that this...
This… is edible.
Only that single, primal thought echoed in Kaya's mind.
Don't get it wrong — she wasn't some wild savage. But she hadn't eaten since last night. After everything — the chasing, the running, the madness — her stomach had begun to echo louder than her thoughts. And now, staring down at the tiny, injured creature in the grass, her mouth watered.
It didn't even look that bad.
Before she could second-guess herself, Kaya reached down and grabbed the sparrow. Her grip was firm — not crushing, but just enough to keep the bird from escaping. The poor thing chirped in alarm, its beady eyes going wide with terror as it looked up at the tall, ragged, mud-smeared woman looming over it.
It trembled.
This… this woman…
The sparrow's little heart raced faster than its wings ever could.
What's wrong with her face? Why is she looking at me like that?
Why does she look like she's about to roast me over a fire!?
It shivered again, helpless in her grasp.
Kaya blinked, caught in a strange moment of awareness. The bird looked straight at her — not like an animal, but almost like it knew something.
She frowned. "Don't look at me like that. You're the one who appeared mysteriously in the middle of a massacre zone."
The bird didn't answer, obviously. But its gaze didn't waver either.
Strange.
She held it there for a long second, her stomach growling again — loud enough that even the sparrow flinched.
Damn it, she cursed inwardly, reluctantly lowering her hand.
She couldn't eat this thing.
Yet.