Something broke within me.
No pain. No fear. Just a line.
A boundary that I did not know existed until it snapped.
Heat exploded from my chest, uncontrolled and violent. I screamed as it engulfed me, hotter than fire, colder than ice. My muscles convulsed, and my spine arched backward, as though being pulled apart by invisible hands.
The jungle responded instantly.
Pressure not just increased.
It changed.
It ceased testing me.
It began restraining me.
The guardian growled, an approval-laden rumble deep within. The air congealed in my lungs and began to feel as if I were sucking mud. The trees leaned in, disentangling their roots from the earth, forming a natural cage around the clearing.
The jungle sealed the area.
The man in black armor jerked back, eyes narrowing. "You chose the worst option," he muttered. "You are forcing it."
I could not respond.
My teeth must have at least cracked from sheer exertion. It was burning through my limbs, scalding something that had mattered within me. I felt with sharper clarity now; my own willpower, which had been forged since the beginning of Stage One, was being burned for fuel.
Not refining.
Consuming.
"No," I choked, clawing at the earth. "Stop—"
The jungle paid no heed.
It was the price for this.
A sudden anaesthetizing clarity descended upon me.
Stage One had stabilized me.
Stage Two was never meant to be undertaken in such a way.
I had by-passed a step.
And, the cost therein was irreversible.
My left arm was now asleep.
At first, I thought it was pressure. Then I tried to move my fingers.
Nothing.
Now, panic began to stretch rapidly within my belly.
I looked down and froze.
The skin of my arm had evenly darkened and the veins began to glow ever so faintly in green like the guardian's. Flesh appeared to be denser, harder, as if stone had fused itself into it. I could feel nothing when I pressed my right hand against it.
Absolutely. No sensation at all.
"Your nervous system is collapsing," the man said sharply. "The jungle is compensating."
"Compensating for what?" I gasped.
"For you surviving."
The guardian moved a step forward.
Each step crushed me with the force, flattening grass and cracking the earth. I tried to crawl backward, but my body refused to listen. My left side dragged behind uselessly.
I was losing grip.
The heat flared again, ripping through my chest.
Something ripped.
I screamed as fire poured behind my eyes. My vision was sharded: heat signatures, paths of movement, pulses of energy flooding through the jungle like veins.
I could see everything.
Too much.
Banging my palms against the ground; headache from hell--"Make it stop!"
The jungle responded.
The guardian leaped forward.
I had no conscious thought in my reaction.
I raised my left arm.
Thunderous impact.
The guardian's colossal claw smashed into me-and halted.
My arm did not bend.
Did not break.
Stone shrieked against stone.
The force threw me backward, but I stayed conscious, skidding across the clearing. My arm burned, but not with pain.
With pressure.
With strain.
I stared at it, horrified and amazed.
I blocked it.
The guardian hesitated.
That single moment told me everything.
I had crossed a line.
The jungle no longer saw me as prey.
It saw me as an anomaly.
The man cursed under his breath. "Damn itit's rewriting you"
.
The guardian circled me now, slower, cautious. Its eyes studied me with something close to confusion.
I forced myself up; my legs were shaking violently under me. Heavy and powerful felt my left side, wrong and terribly disconnected. My heart thundered unevenly.
"You said there was a cost," I rasped.
The man met my eyes. "You are paying it."
The jungle roared.
Not from one direction.
From everywhere.
Pain exploded through my chest, all of the heat surging one last time and compressing violently. Something I felt inside collapsed as if a core imploding under its own weight.
Then—
Silence.
Gone.
I stood, gasping in confusion when suddenly nothing; the jungle felt distant, as though I were no longer wholly within it.
The guardian froze.
Slowly but surely lowered its heed.
Submission.
My stomach dropped.
The man glanced up at the creature, then back at me, wide-eyed. "It disengaged," he whispered. "That isn't possible."
I looked down at my body.
My left arm was fully transformed now, dark and plated, veins glowing faintly. Parts of my chest bore the same markings, spreading like cracks in stone.
I touched my chest.
I could feel my heart.
But it beat differently.
Slower.
Heavier.
Something essential was missing.
"What did I lose?" I asked quietly.
The man didn't answer immediately.
He stepped closer, staring me down with unrestrained apprehension. "Your recovery," he finally said. "Your natural regeneration. It's gone."
My throat tightened.
"What?"
"You forced evolution by burning willpower directly," he continued. "The jungle replaced what it destroyed with something stable-but crude."
He tapped his own chest. "Your body does not heal like before. Damage accumulates. Every wound now matters."
I swallowed hard.
Irreversible.
That was the word.
I had crossed a point of no return.
The guardian backed away slowly, melting into the trees, as the jungle cage unraveled, roots retreating and pressure dispersing.
Empty felt the clearing.
The man exhaled slowly. "Congratulations," he said grimly. "You survived forced awakening."
I laughed weakly. "You don't sound impressed."
"I'm not," he replied. "I'm worried."
"Why?"
He gazed seriously at me. "Because the jungle just stopped treating you as human."
A chill went through me that had nothing to do with fear.
"What does that mean?"
He turned, and with his hand summoned me to follow. "You are no longer eligible for mercy. No passive trials. No warnings."
He glanced back at me. "Everything you face from now on will be designed to kill anomalies."
I flexed my transformed arm.
It felt powerful.
Wrong.
But powerful.
"Then I will adapt again," I said.
The man studied me for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "You will have to."
Into the jungle we went, deeper together, and the air grew ever heavier with every step.
Behind us, the ground upon which my break had occurred was changing slowly.
Black roots pierced the ground, marking the spot.
The jungle had recorded me.
High above, an ancient thing shifted fully towards my existence.
Curiosity: that was not it.
More: it was hostility.
And I now felt from deep inside my altered chest something new.
Hunger.
Not for survival for more.