The boiled water, still warm and carrying the faint, earthy tang of bark and minerals, had settled the worst of his dehydration. A measure of clarity had returned, but with it, a gnawing hollowness in his belly that water couldn't fill.
"Food, SAGE," he'd said, the words a statement of renewed, if weary, intent.
"Accessing data on local flora and fauna with potential nutritional value," SAGE replied. "Short-term available options primarily consist of localised flora. These are generally low-calorie and represent an inefficient energy return for the effort of foraging. Long-term survival, Elias, necessitates significantly higher caloric density — specifically, fats and proteins derived from animal sources."
Elias stood, his crude stone knife still clutched in his hand. The boiled water had been a victory, a small island of control in an ocean of chaos, and he was still riding a fragile current of that success. His body ached, a deep, resonant soreness from two days of unaccustomed labor and exposure, but his mind felt sharper, more focused. He needed to maintain that.
He began to scour the underbrush near his camp, eyes peeled for anything remotely edible. After twenty minutes of careful searching, he found a few straggling bushes bearing clusters of small, dark fruit, almost black in the dim light. They weren't abundant, just a handful here and there.
"SAGE, these berries." He held one up, turning it in his fingers.
"Analysing… Solanum nigrum. Berries appear to be mature Black nightshade. No immediate toxicological markers identified from visual data consistent with known Earth analogues. High probability of edibility. Low caloric value, primarily sugars and some vitamin content."
Elias didn't need a second invitation. He popped one into his mouth. A burst of sharp acidity, followed by a surprising sweetness, flooded his senses. He eagerly stripped the few bushes bare, savouring each small, precious globe of flavour. It was a fleeting pleasure, a momentary distraction.
"It's not a meal," he said, licking the juice from his fingers, "but it's something."
"Blood sugar levels temporarily stabilised," SAGE observed. "The effect will be short-lived."
As if on cue, the deeper, more profound hunger reasserted itself, a cold, cramping demand from his core. The berries had been a sparkler; he needed a furnace. He already knew, with a certainty that settled like a stone in his gut, what SAGE meant. He needed meat.
He found himself back by the fire, the small blaze now a familiar comfort. He'd tried roasting a pale, fibrous root SAGE had identified as "starch-rich, but likely requiring extensive processing to render palatable." It had tasted like ash and disappointment, charring on the outside while remaining stubbornly woody within. He spat out the bitter mouthful.
"Energy reserves are approaching critical depletion," SAGE stated, its voice devoid of inflection yet carrying an undeniable weight. "Without significant lipid and protein intake within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, you will experience rapid onset of debilitating fatigue, cognitive impairment, and eventual systemic failure."
Elias stared into the flames, the image of the raw, scarred patch on the birch tree flashing in his mind. He'd taken from the living to survive. The thought, abstract until now, began to solidify. "I build things, SAGE," he muttered, more to himself than the AI. "I design systems. I don't… I don't kill things."
A cold logic, as unyielding as the stone knife at his hip, surfaced. He'd eaten berries, plants. They were alive too, in their own way. But this was different. This required intent, an act of violence. A thought, unwelcome and stark, bloomed in the quiet of his mind: Everything I eat, everything that truly sustains me here, has to die. And I have to be the one to do it.
"That is a fundamental truth of most heterotrophic biological systems, Elias," SAGE confirmed.
A long silence stretched, filled only by the crackle of the fire and the distant sigh of the wind. The lesser god's words echoed: Build a future. Or die trying. He was already dying, just slowly.
Elias took a ragged breath. His hands clenched. "Then let's learn to kill."
SAGE immediately accessed relevant data. "The most rudimentary and resource-efficient method for capturing small game is a deadfall trap. It utilises a heavy weight, propped up by a trigger mechanism, designed to fall and crush or pin the target when disturbed."
The explanation was clinical, detached. Elias listened, his engineer's mind latching onto the mechanics even as a knot of revulsion tightened in his stomach. He gathered the materials SAGE described: a flat, heavy stone about the size of his torso, a springy young branch he cut with some effort, and a few smaller sticks for the trigger. He found a handful more of the dark berries for bait.
He sat near the fire, his crude knife in hand. The flint was dulling already. With slow, painstaking effort, he began to shave and notch the trigger sticks. The wood was pliant but tough. Each cut was a conscious act, his engineer's instincts taking over, focusing on angles, leverage points, the precise balance needed. This is just load balancing, he told himself, the familiar terminology a strange comfort. Pressure systems. Applied mechanics. He was designing a machine, a simple one, designed for a single, brutal purpose.
He set two traps in areas SAGE identified as potential animal runs – faint trails in the undergrowth, a few scattered droppings. He baited them with the crushed berries, the sweet scent seeming obscene in this context.
Then, he waited. It was the hardest part. The sun arced slowly across the bruised sky. He paced. He fed the fire. He drank more of the boiled water, now cool. Every rustle of leaves, every snap of a twig, sent a jolt of anxious anticipation through him. He thought of food constantly: a perfectly cooked steak, a juicy burger, even the bland rations he'd had on remote construction sites. His stomach gurgled and cramped.
As dusk began to bleed into the forest, painting the trees in shades of grey and deep purple, he couldn't stand it any longer. He approached the first trap cautiously. Empty. The bait was gone, the trigger undisturbed or cleverly bypassed. A surge of frustration, sharp and bitter.
He moved to the second, his hope dwindling. Then he heard it – a faint, frantic rustling, a muffled thumping.
His heart leaped into his throat.
One of the trigger sticks had fallen. The heavy stone was down. And beneath its edge, something moved.
A small creature, a rabbit by the look of its long ears and powerful hind legs, lay pinned. Its fur was a mottled brown, its eyes wide and black with terror. One of its hind legs was clearly crushed beneath the stone, dark blood already matting the fur, staining the damp earth. It was alive. Twitching. Making small, whimpering gasps.
Elias froze. The air left his lungs. The sounds of the forest faded, replaced by the thudding of his own heart and the creature's ragged, desperate breaths. Time seemed to slow, stretching each second into an eternity of suffering. He saw the pulse throbbing in its neck.
His mind reeled. Flashes of memory: neatly packaged meat in a supermarket, anonymous and sterile. The warm, soft fur of a dog he'd loved as a child, its trusting eyes. The cold, detached curiosity of dissecting a frog in high school biology, its organs laid bare. None of it had prepared him for this. This raw, immediate, personal horror.
"Immediate dispatch recommended to minimise suffering and prevent attracting scavengers," SAGE's voice cut through his paralysis, calm and utterly remote.
"How?" Elias choked out, his voice a strangled whisper. His hands were trembling violently.
"Viable methods include cervical dislocation – breaking the neck – rapid exsanguination via severing the carotid artery, or direct cranial trauma to destroy the brain."
He stumbled forward, crouching beside the trapped animal. Its wide, dark eye fixed on him, a universe of pain and fear reflected in its depths. "I'm sorry," he whispered, the words absurd, inadequate. "I'm so sorry."
He reached for his knife, its stone handle cold in his shaking grip. He had to do it. He closed his eyes for a second, trying to summon some resolve, some distance. He aimed for the neck, where SAGE indicated the artery would be.
His first strike was a clumsy, hesitant jab. The knife, not nearly sharp enough for such a task, skidded off the fur and tough sinew, barely breaking the skin. The rabbit screamed – a thin, piercing shriek of pure agony that lanced through Elias, shattering what little composure he had left.
He flinched back as if burned, a strangled cry escaping his own lips. His eyes flew open. The animal thrashed, its struggles made more desperate by the fresh wave of pain. Blood, brighter now, welled from the shallow cut.
He couldn't look. He squeezed his eyes shut again, tears stinging behind them. Do it. Just do it. He lunged again, blindly this time, forcing the blade down with all his weight. There was a sickening, soft resistance, then a wet tearing sound. The animal jerked violently, a shudder running through its small body.
He felt warm liquid spray across his hand.
He ripped the knife away. Silence. A terrible, ringing silence. He opened his eyes. The rabbit was still, its head lolling at an unnatural angle. A dark pool was spreading quickly beneath it.
Elias stared, his breath coming in shuddering gasps. He dropped the knife as if it were on fire. He scrambled back, tripping over his own feet, and fell heavily to his knees. A wave of nausea, acrid and overwhelming, rose from his stomach. He turned and vomited into the bushes, his body wracked with violent, heaving spasms until there was nothing left but bitter bile.
Shaking uncontrollably, he crawled back towards the fire, collapsing beside it, curling into a tight ball, his arms wrapped around his head as if to ward off the images burned into his mind.
A beat of silence. Then, SAGE's voice, crisp and unchanged: "Target neutralised. Caloric acquisition successful."
"Don't," Elias rasped, his voice raw. "Don't say it like that."
It felt like an age before he could move, the fire's warmth doing little to dispel the icy chill that had settled deep in his bones. The forest seemed to press in, darker, more menacing. But the smell of blood, faint but persistent, and the dead thing lying by the trap, were undeniable realities. He had to deal with it.
He forced himself to his feet, legs unsteady. "SAGE," he said, his voice hollow. "Butchery. Tell me what to do."
What followed was a grim, methodical lesson in dismantling a life. SAGE guided him through the steps: how to make the initial incisions for skinning, the strange, slippery feel of peeling the pelt away from the cooling flesh. How to open the body cavity without puncturing the intestines, the gush of steam and the overwhelming, coppery, offal-rich smell that made him gag repeatedly. He learned to identify and remove the bitter scent glands.
His hands, already raw, were soon coated in warm, sticky blood. The slick pull of tendons as he disjointed limbs, the soft give of organs, the sheer, visceral intimacy of it all, was a relentless assault on his senses. He worked in a haze of nausea and grim determination, his mind struggling to process the biological reality rather than the abstract concept. Several times he had to turn away, dry heaving, but he always came back, driven by a primal imperative.
Finally, it was done. A small pile of meat, a bloody pelt, and a heap of entrails he buried quickly, the smell too much to bear. He skewered chunks of the meat on green sticks and set them to roast slowly over the fire.
The fat began to sizzle and pop, dripping into the flames. The aroma that rose was a confusing, deeply unsettling mix – the nauseating memory of fresh blood and guts overlaid with the undeniably mouthwatering scent of cooking meat. His stomach, despite the earlier revulsion, rumbled insistently.
The first bite was mechanical, his jaw working without conscious thought. The meat was tough, gamy, but undeniably substantial. The second bite was more eager, the third almost greedy. The sheer, animal relief of consuming protein, of feeling actual sustenance fill the aching void within him, was powerful. Then, just as quickly, the guilt returned, a cold wave washing over the primal satisfaction. He saw the rabbit's terrified eye, heard its scream.
He ate it all, every last piece, down to the scorched edges.
Night had fully fallen. The fire cast flickering shadows on his face as he sat, staring into the flames. He took his knife and scraped it clean in the dirt, again and again, as if trying to scrub away more than just blood. He wrapped the few remaining bones in large leaves. Tomorrow, he'd find a place to bury them properly. He found himself murmuring something under his breath, incoherent words that weren't quite a prayer, but felt like a necessary acknowledgement.
He looked up at the sky, the unfamiliar constellations like cold, distant diamonds.
"I didn't think…" he began, his voice barely audible. "I didn't think it would be like that."
"The termination of a sentient life form, particularly for the first time, often elicits a strong empathetic and physiological stress response," SAGE replied. "It is, in many ways, 'like that' for most organisms capable of such reflection, Elias."
He was silent for a long moment, the fire crackling. "Do you think… is it supposed to get easier?"
"Behavioural adaptation to repeated stimuli is a common neurological phenomenon. Habituation can lessen the emotional intensity of subsequent similar events for many organisms. Others find the cumulative toll unsustainable. Some adapt. Some break."
Elias didn't respond. He just watched the stars, which seemed harder now, sharper, their beauty tainted by a new, brutal understanding. The wilderness around him felt darker than it had before, its silences deeper, its shadows more profound.
But he was still here. And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, he wasn't starving.