Treiton ran.
Every stride causing the exhaustion to build in his legs, breath already shredding into ragged gasps.
There was no need for him to scan the memories running through him. This body, he knew, wasn't built for sprinting. Did this kid never exercise?! Was it only playing around with him?! Each successive step demanded more from him; drained a reserve that didn't exist.
Treiton risked a look back and felt his stomach drop. The creature wasn't even sprinting. The panther-beast moved like a dark ghost. Its long forelegs carried it forward in smooth, effortless arcs. Its tail swayed lazily, as if it had all the time in the world.
It—it can't be… Is it waiting for us to tire out?
Luca was ahead, dodging roots and ducking branches with far more grace, glancing back with wide, terrified eyes but never stopping. Along the cliffside, the forest seemed to stretch on endlessly.
Treiton's eyes caught something in the short distance. A fallen branch. As thick and long as his forearm, splintered at one end. Suspecting the creature's goal, he dove for it, but—
A weight slammed onto his back so hard his head burst with stars. Claws sunk into his flesh without a single sound.
"AAAH!"
Blood leaked from the wounds like a cracked faucet. Treiton's arms and legs buckled beneath him as the beast bore down, pinning him flat. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Even if he wanted to fight, he couldn't even turn to use his weapon. The claws slid deeper, grinding into bone—the agony so intense, only a guttural groan managed to escape his throat.
It pressed one claw deeper, then another, slow and deliberate, as if savoring how he writhed. Its muzzle lowered, not biting yet, but only breathing against Treiton's neck.
Fingers scraped uselessly against the dirt as his vision darkened at the edges. Questions mounted beneath the fear and pain. Am I really going to die again?So soon after coming back? Is my luck seriously that bad?
The beast's jaws opened beside his cheek, Treiton hearing the sliding of its fangs as they slid from each other.
"GET OFF!" a roar suddenly echoed from beside him.
Luca's voice.
He tackled the predator like a human battering ram. The impact knocked its claws free, flinging the beast sideways.
The buzzing erupted in his skull again, skittering like a colony of ants.
[BZZZ. Preservation Instinct Activated. Recommendation: None.]
He ignored it and forced himself upright on quivering arms.
"Arh—!" A guttural cry pierced the air, cut off too quickly.
Treiton dragged himself around just in time to see Luca's knees on the ground. The beast had him by the neck, fangs sunken deep. Luca's arms fell limp from his stomach, a large wound slashed into it.
He could hardly think, but still, Treiton seized the broken branch with shaking hands—the predator barely glancing his way.
He knew he could run, but for what? Only to die all the same. No. The sacrifice of a young man who would follow his friend to death twice wouldn't be so uselessly thrown away. Treiton charged with everything he had left, pain screaming in him, and rammed the sharpened wood toward the beast's neck.
The branch struck, hitting its mark cleanly.
But… it only stopped, as if it had hit stone. Even the fur stood still, unbothered.
His fingers went numb as the branch slipped from his hands and clattered uselessly to the forest floor.
The panther dropped Luca's body with a soft thump.
It turned its glowing eyes on him, and he fell back on his rear. The animal released a low, resonant sound—a deep rumble, almost like a satisfied purr.
It dragged its tongue along its blood-soaked muzzle. Then it lunged.
Without the moment for a lamenting thought, everything turned black.
#
"AHHH!"
Treiton's eyes opened, snapping to the flailing boy beside him.
The one who saved his life, and should be lying dead, gutted on the forest floor. But there Luca was fine, other than his current feeling of falling from a cliff.
"Wha—" he opened his mouth for a question, but was cut off.
[Preservation Instinct charging: 0%. Danger Instinct Activated. No predator detected. Recommendation: Leave area immediately.]
Questions flooded his mind, colliding and overlapping, but urgency quickly smothered them. Treiton only knew one thing with absolute clarity. He had felt a sharp, tearing pain and then, in the space of a blink, awakened here again. Alive. Somehow alive.
This… isn't possible, right? he questioned within. But it was there. Right in front of him. There was no denying what was before his very eyes. He scanned, realizing it was the same cliff. The same woods. The same place where the beast first appeared. We—we need to leave. I can figure this out later.
"Luca!" he shouted, the strain in his voice finally making his friend halt and stare at him, wide-eyed and stunned.
"We're alive? How—" Luca began.
"We need to leave. Now," Treiton cut in, forcing himself upright and marching over to seize his friend by the arm.
Luca stumbled forward, still too shocked to resist, but after a handful of steps he began to slow. "Wait, we shouldn't return—"
Again Treiton overrode him. "We're not returning home. Do you even realize where we are? We have to get out of here before anything else. If you have time to talk, you have time to walk." He felt a faint sting of guilt for the sharpness in his tone, but pushed on, making it final. "Treat it as an order. Only speak if we're going the wrong way."
If they had fallen, circling around the cliffside was the only logical route. Every few minutes the sound in his head would alert him with progress updates.
[Preservation Instinct charging: 1% → 5% → 12%.]
Throughout the entire climb he kept himself rigidly alert, refusing to pause even when his body screamed at him to collapse. The incline gradually eased, the terrain smoothing as it aligned with the upper edge of the cliff. Eventually, the trees began to thin, sunlight slipping through the gaps.
[Preservation Instinct charging: 20%.]
Treiton glanced up. The sun had dipped only slightly from its earlier peak. Forcing his racing mind to settle, he pieced together the fragments. Maybe three hours, he estimated, relying on a biased internal clock and the sky. Twenty percent in three hours. I'll need fifteen total, then.
It didn't take a genius to deduce the situation. Thinking back on it, after the Preservation Instinct activated, the recommendation had vanished. Then he died and awakened. And the moment he awoke, the charge began? It was too much for a coincidence.
He already suspected the truth: whatever governed his bizarre revival was tied directly to these instincts. Of course, he could be wrong, but it didn't feel wrong. Still the doubt lingered. His previous life had been too ordinary in comparison to provide any framework for this. Twelve more hours… That's all.
"Can I speak now?" Luca wheezed between breaths.
Treiton didn't have the breath to answer, so he simply nodded. They were safer here, though not entirely free of danger. Memory told people sometimes passed through these parts, which made predators less likely but not impossible.
"You're acting—" Luca paused to gasp for air. "Oh Gods. Ah… whew. You're acting strange. Did you hit your head too hard?" He dragged his sleeve across his forehead, then grimaced at the slick sweat smeared across his arm.
Treiton swallowed, wiping beneath his own nose only to instantly regret it as both hand and face came away equally drenched. "We—are—alive." He sank down onto the ground. "But won't be if we stay here," he forced out in a single breath.
Luca looked around in confusion, tilting his head like he was waiting for Trei to make sense.
Treiton mirrored the gesture. "The Forest of Beast."
"The…" Luca's eyes bulged so far they nearly leapt from their sockets. Without another word, he sprinted forward and hauled his lord to his feet.
"I need rest," Trei protested, though he knew the urgency as well as Luca.
A distant roar rolled across the forest from the direction they had fled, low and resonant.
Luca didn't answer. His eyes widened even further, panic igniting behind them, and he immediately wrapped his arms beneath Treiton's waist, heaving him upward in one swift motion and slinging him into his arms. The motion was awkward, unceremonious, and mortifying. A full bridal carry.
Forgetting the danger for a heartbeat, Trei hissed, "Put me down, I can walk. I can walk," squirming in Luca's grip right up until a sudden jolt knocked into Luca's back, hard and uncompromising. The abrupt impact cut Treiton's protests short, smothering them instantly.
"You're brazen for a servant," Treiton grumbled.
"I have to be," was the only response.
No further words were exchanged.
How humiliating, he thought, heat prickling across his face. Yet beneath the embarrassment, he was genuinely grateful and painfully aware that only one of them still had the strength to move. Still, the complaints bubbled inside him.
It'd be nice to have some kind of baseline, he mused, Why does it feel like Luca's so much stronger? And that panther… What even was that hide?
[Symbiotic Instinct activated. Assisting host… Assisting host…]
[Bzzz!]
[Name: Treiton. Strength: 0.5, Agility: 0.6, Stamina: 0.5]
[Name: Luca. Strength: 1.5, Agility: 1.3, Stamina: 2.0]
This time the instinct didn't just buzz in his skull. A full three-dimensional projection materialized before his eyes. Translucent blue figures of both him and Luca standing side by side, each with their respective evaluations floating beneath them. Treiton's jaw dropped. He reached out in disbelief and attempted to poke the glowing images.
His finger passed straight through.
"Stop moving," Luca scolded through strained breaths. "You think you're the only one who's uncomfortable with this?"
Treiton didn't even register the reprimand.
What on earth? This is— His thoughts fractured as he realized he lacked the vocabulary for whatever he was seeing. Am I really alive? Is this a dream? Numbers? His mind spun, failing to grasp the enormity of the situation. And the projections… so detailed.
His fist tightened, his brows knitting downward in confusion and startled disbelief. But the shock twisted further as he focused on his own displayed stats. A quarter of Luca's stamina? "Oh Gods… How can I be so pathetic?"
"Don't worry," Luca panted, trying for levity. "It's not like I haven't carried you back from the pubs before."
He had no idea that wasn't what Treiton meant at all.