With steps that sank the black gravel under my claws, creating a dull, ominous rhythm that marked my advance, I approached the clearing where the echoes of combat rumbled like distant thunder.
My mind, an ocean of cold calm over a bed of burning lava, had purged itself of all superfluous thought, concentrating on a single purpose carved in iron and fire: exterminate the son of a bitch who had hurt my Nala.
Each deep breath I drew through my nostrils was like a bellows fanning the embers of my rage, contained but pulsating, ready to erupt into a blaze of absolute destruction. The air, heavy and charged, smelled of fresh and clotted blood, churned earth, and torn roots, mixed with that metallic, static ozone that the winds of this alien world always brought, as if the planet itself knew of the carnage about to be unleashed.
As I approached, crossing the final curtain of reddish bushes whose leaves crunched under my weight, my sharpened vision, capable of perceiving the slightest tremor, the tiniest flash of light, analyzed the battlefield in an instant, absorbing every detail with terrifying precision. The snake—an emerald colossus with scales thick as armor plates, black horns curving backward like daggers, and a single remaining eye, a golden disc pulsating with pure hatred—was crisscrossed with deep tears and brutal claw marks oozing a dark, viscous liquid.
Its body, a mountain of sinuous muscle, writhed with fury, but its breathing was a labored hiss, a broken bellows.
The she-bear, for her part, that imposing mass of fur and power, breathed with audible difficulty, a harsh panting escaping her jaws.
Her fur, which at another time must have been a thick, hard-to-damage coat, was scorched in large patches, revealing reddened, swollen skin underneath, and she rested her left front paw with evident pain, a clear injury compromising her formidable stability.
Although the logic of my residual human mind couldn't fully comprehend the nature of the bond uniting this beast with Nala, the evidence was as clear and incontrovertible as the violet sunlight: she had defended my companion with the ferocity of a mother protecting her cub.
That was enough. In the primal code that now governed my existence, a blood debt had been incurred, and I was not one to leave such debts unpaid.
Both combatants, sensitive to the slightest disturbance in the delicate balance of their mortal duel, stopped dead upon feeling the weight of my presence, a long shadow charged with intention looming over them.
The she-bear turned her thick head with a slow but deliberate movement, her three eyes, like wells of damp obsidian, reflecting a complex mix of surprise, exhaustion, and a faint, almost imperceptible glimmer of primitive hope, probably.
The snake, on the other hand, fixed its remaining eye on me with the intensity a sunray would have on a person's skin.
In its vertical pupils, that golden abyss, I saw clearly how the innate arrogance of its species—the certainty of being the supreme predator—first transformed into deep irritation at the interruption, and then, inexorably, into a cautious, growing unease.
My own scales bristled instinctively under its scrutinizing gaze; it didn't see just another predator, another beast disputing territory or prey.
It saw an implacable force, an anomaly in its world ordered by brute strength, a being that had defied, defeated, and humiliated one of its own kind not long ago. This snake, this Serpent King as my mind was already cataloging it, was slightly different—it lacked the third eye on its forehead that the Queen had, its hood was wider and more ornate, its scales had a livelier emerald hue—but in that critical moment, under the crossfire of our gazes, those biological differences due to sexual differences were completely irrelevant to me.
Only one simple and brutal truth mattered: he had harmed what was mine, and I was going to erase him from existence itself without hesitation.
Nala, my Nala, lay wounded somewhere nearby, alone for the moment, with her ribs fractured and her body bruised. Every beat of my heart, every passing second, was a sharp reminder of her pain and my urgency.
I dismissed in one stroke, with cold calculation, the seductive but senseless idea of prolonging its suffering. It wasn't out of pity—a concept that at this moment felt increasingly foreign, more human—but out of pure efficiency. Revenge, that cold but damn exquisite banquet, could wait.
Nala's life, the warmth of her body next to mine, could not.
My muscles, every fiber and every tendon, tensed like springs of white-hot tempered steel.
A primitive energy, accumulated during days of tension, frustration, and fierce love, seethed under my scaly skin, seeking an outlet. I dug my rear claws into the fertile ground, feeling the damp earth give way and compact under my weight, anchoring me to the planet itself.
Then, with a guttural growl born from the depths of my chest, I propelled myself forward in a cataclysmic burst of speed and power that erased my form, turning me into a black blur, a lightning bolt of concentrated rage that pounced on its target.
The giant snake, despite its wounds and surprise, still possessed the keen reflexes of an ancient hunter. Its tail, an immense mass of scales, dense muscle, and pure power, lunged at me in a horizontal swipe meant not just to strike, but to sweep, to crush, to reduce anything in its path to an unidentifiable smear.
The air whistled, broke, and groaned as it was cut by the mass moving at a speed deceptive for its size.
But I wasn't going to dodge. Not this time. Dodging meant conceding ground, yielding the initiative, playing its game. And I hadn't come to play.
In the microsecond before impact, I twisted my torso with superhuman precision, pivoting on my anchored feet, and extended my arms fully, presenting a living barrier.
My claws, which are tools of hunting and survival, opened like pincers forged in the vacuum of space, each as sharp as a razor of the highest quality or even more, and as hard as diamond.
The impact, when it came, was brutal and dull, a sound not so much heard as felt in the bones and the ground, which sank and shifted.
It was like the blow of a giant battering ram against a steel door.
The force transferred to my body was monstrous, a shockwave that made me slide backward through the earth, my heels opening two deep, parallel furrows, like wounds in the planet's skin.
Dust, small stones, and plant debris flew around me. But I didn't yield. I didn't retreat a step more than the most basic physics demanded. My joints absorbed the blow, my muscles contracted like concrete blocks, and my claws, with pressure inversely proportional to the force received, sank through the Serpent King's hard scales, not only stopping the blow cold but digging into the living, pulsing flesh beneath, securing their grip on its prey with a steel hold that had no intention of letting go.
A sharp, electric pain ran through my arms from shoulders to fingertips, but I ignored it, dismissed it as mere sensory data of no importance; this bastard hurt what I love most, I have to finish him even if I hurt myself in the process.
The snake let out a choked, strangled hiss, a sound born of absolute disbelief and sudden, fierce agony.
Its tail, its master weapon and the symbol of its dominion and power, was immobilized, trapped in my hands as if anchored to the planet's bedrock.
I could feel the powerful underlying muscles contracting and twisting in a vain attempt to break free, but my claws had already found their way, hooking into tendons and fascia.
For an instant that stretched like an eternity, everything in the clearing seemed to stop: the wind ceased to blow, the distant sounds of the forest faded, even the she-bear's panting breath held.
I, Adonai, the transformed human, the intruder, the survivor, held this alpha predator's most powerful attack as if it were no more than a nuisance, a minor inconvenience on my path to what really mattered, thus humiliating this being in the process.
And then, in the depth of its single golden eye, I saw it. It wasn't just pain, it wasn't just rage. It was the flash of fear. A primal, pure fear, the visceral understanding that it had grotesquely underestimated its opponent, that the food chain, that sacred order in which it occupied the pinnacle, had suddenly shattered.
I was the abyss staring back at it.
But there was no time to savor its terror, to revel in the psychological humiliation. Nala was waiting for me. With a deeper growl, a vibration emanating from my gut, I squeezed tighter, feeling with dark satisfaction how the snake's scales creaked and gave way under my relentless pressure, how the flesh tore a little more. This was only the beginning. The Serpent King had made its last mistake, and I was about to collect the bill, with interest.
The sound that escaped the snake's jaws was no longer a hiss of surprise or pain, but a sharp shriek, charged with bestial frustration and growing fear. Its body, an emerald-scaled serpent that once moved with the sinuous grace of a deadly river, now convulsed in violent, uncoordinated spasms. The raw power that wounded colossus still contained was tremendous; I could feel it transmit through my arms, a dull, powerful tremor that threatened to dislodge me. Its muscles, thick as logs, contracted and relaxed in a chaotic pattern, trying by sheer animal force to break free from my grip. Each shake was a testament to its desperation, a titanic struggle between two primordial forces.
The earth at my feet continued to give way, the furrows my heels had opened grew deeper, now turned into small craters testifying to the battle of wills.
But I wouldn't move. My determination was a pillar of cast iron at the center of my being. I sank my claws even deeper, consciously seeking the tendon bundles controlling its tail's movement.
I found one, thick and elastic, and with a sadistically precise twisting motion, I pinched it between my claws. The reaction was instantaneous.
A new shriek, even shriller, rent the air. The snake arched its entire body backward, its round head twisting at an unnatural angle, its single eye bulging from a wave of pain so sharp that for a moment it erased all trace of rage, leaving only pure animal panic.
I had wounded its pride by stopping its attack.
Now I was wounding its functionality, its very capacity to be a threat.
Taking advantage of its momentary disorientation, I acted. It wasn't enough to contain it. I had to dominate it completely, to demonstrate to it, and to any other being that might be watching from the shadows, the lesson I had already taught its predecessor: this territory holds an overwhelmingly superior power to what it wields.
A cold smile, a gesture that was nothing more than the slight tensing of skin under my bone mask, formed on my lips. It wasn't joy, not even satisfaction.
It was the simple, raw confirmation of a truth that now resonated in every fiber of my being and, I knew, in the stunned brain of the beast before me: I was its end, and its resistance was a mere formality before the inevitable act.
I had stopped it not with a titanic effort, not with a desperate counterattack, but with the crushing normalcy of my strength.
As if stopping the blow of an enraged god were the most mundane task of the day. And that normalcy, that lack of apparent effort, was the deepest insult a being that believed itself the pinnacle of creation in this world could receive.
The snake, I'll call it Serpent King even though at that moment its title sounded like a bad joke to me (And I don't even know its gender really, nor that of the one I think is the queen), experienced a wave of humiliation as physical and palpable as the pain of its wounds.
I could see it, smell it in the air it exhaled, a sour aroma mixing with the metallic smell of its blood.
Its single eye, that golden disc that once seethed with arrogance and hatred, now clouded with a film of disbelief and, for the first time, a helplessness that corroded its spirit. It was overwhelming, yes. For it. For me, it was just the confirmation of a fact. Its size, its colossal scale, were reduced to irrelevance in the face of the density of my power, forged in the agony of transformation, tempered in the endless nights of survival, and now stoked by the white fire of my rage at what it had done to Nala.
And then, in the depth of that golden pupil, I saw it. A flash of understanding even more piercing than my grip. A thought crossing its bestial mind that I captured with the clarity of one reading a word written with fire in the darkness: I wasn't just stronger than it. I was abysmally stronger than Nala.
The comparison was inevitable for it, and for me, it was like adding fuel to a bonfire that needed no more fuel. My smile widened, showing the edge of my teeth. Yes, I thought, directing the idea towards its terrified mind as if it were a poisoned dart.
—You know it now, don't you? She fought, probably bit you and clearly scratched you or more, gave you a battle you'll remember until your last breath. But I will only kill you, like a fly. —I said without even thinking about whether it understood me or not.
With a quick, almost contemptuous movement, I withdrew my claws from its tail. It wasn't a pull, nor was it a yank.
It was a simple act of letting go, as if discarding an object that no longer interested me.
The sound that escaped its throat wasn't the challenging hiss it must have been accustomed to, but a sharp, strangled shriek that betrayed a depth of pain beyond the physical.
It was the sound of its pride being torn. My claws hadn't just pierced its flesh; they had opened new furrows in the mosaic of pain that Nala and the she-bear had already painted on its body.
And each of those new wounds screamed my name.
I gave it no respite. There was no room for pause, for recovery. The urgency to reach Nala was a constant pulse in my temples, a reminder that every second here was a second stolen from her suffering.
I propelled myself forward, but not in a frontal charge. My legs, laden with a power that sometimes still surprised me, flexed and launched me several meters into the air. The world became a blur of green, violet, and black. For a moment, I floated over the beast's back, an undulating, living surface of emerald scales stained with dark. I landed on its spine with the lightness of a feline, but with the dull impact of a hammer. I felt the vertebrae, thick as logs, under my claws.
I began to run.
It was a surreal race, a ride on the bridge that is merely the body of a dead snake.
My feet and claws found traction on the roughness of its scales, propelling me forward along its back, straight towards the base of its skull, towards the place where I could end this once and for all. The air whistled around me, charged with the smell of snake, of its blood, and of my own determination.
The snake, of course, wouldn't stay still.
Humiliation and pain turned into panic, and panic into violent desperation. Its body, that immense mountain range of muscle, began to turn and coil upon itself.
It was like trying to balance on an earthquake shaped like a living being. The world tilted sharply, the floor of scales became a wall, and then a ceiling.
But I was no beginner.
I had climbed trees whose leaves cut like blades (though they did nothing to me), I had hunted beasts that moved so fast I could barely see them and relied on my other senses to beat them.
This was just bigger and, by the way, slower.
With agility born of sheer necessity, I alternated my advance. I would leap from its slippery back to the clearing floor, running parallel to it for a few meters, dodging chunks of earth and vegetation its body tore up in its frantic struggle, then propel myself again and land several meters further ahead on its back, always closer to the head.
It was a deadly dance, a game of pursuit where the playing field writhed and twisted trying to kill me; too bad (for it) it wasn't going to succeed.
Each leap was calculated, each footfall an affirmation of my dominance. I wasn't fighting it; I was navigating its agony.
Until, finally, I reached it. The base of its skull, wide and protected by those black horns I now saw up close, like twisted columns of obsidian. The air here smelled more of its fetid breath, of venom and fear. It must have felt my presence, the weight of my intention right at its most vulnerable point.
Its head shook, trying to shake me off, but it was too late.
I didn't stop to proclaim my victory. There were no words. Only action. I gathered all the strength of my body, from the toes of my feet, anchored in its scales, through the twist of my hips, the rotation of my torso, to the fist I clenched with a force that would have shattered granite.
I delivered the blow, and you could say it wasn't just a punch.
It was the culmination of all the rage for Nala, the frustration of my solitude, the acceptance of this body, the fury at this hostile world.
The impact against its skull was a dry, bony sound, a crunch that resonated deep in my bones.
But it was what I felt inside that told me it was enough. A strange, nauseating sensation transmitted through my arm.
It wasn't a sound, but a mere vibration.
The almost ghostly perception of how its brain, the command center of this damned snake, had rebounded against the inner walls of its own skull like ripe fruit hitting the ground.
It was a moment of macabre intimacy, a knowledge I sincerely never wanted to have.
The beast collapsed. Not entirely, its body was too large, but its head fell heavily against the ground, raising a cloud of dust. An uncontrollable tremor ran through it.
It was stunned, dizzy, its world a whirlwind of pain and confusion. On the verge of fainting, on the edge of nothingness.
But evolution in this world is cruel and persistent. An ancestral defense mechanism, a last reflex action of a nervous system on the brink of shutdown, kicked in. Perhaps a sac of cerebrospinal fluid cushioning the blow, perhaps an internal bone structure designed to withstand charges—I didn't know and I didn't care.
What I saw was that its jaws, those gates through which it swallows, opened wide in a final spasm. And from the holes in its fangs, not a gas came out as with the serpent queen, but two spherical, pulsating projectiles of bright, viscous green, each the size of a beach ball, flying directly towards me with a sinister whistle.
Concentrated corrosive venom balls, its last breath turned into a weapon.
I, having already landed on the ground, stable and centered, didn't flinch. There was no panic, no sudden movements. It was like dodging rain on a stormy day. I took a step sideways, a simple shift of my weight to the left, and the first sphere whistled past my shoulder, impacting a tree that began to smoke and disintegrate with a disgusting sizzle. The second, slightly off target, required another step, this time to the right.
My body moved with the economy of effort of one who knows every millimeter of his space and every gram of his capacity. It was so easy, so insultingly simple, that the humiliation the snake must have felt at that moment was a more potent venom than the one it had just spat.
I smiled, for I could taste its resentment in the air, a bitter, hot flavor mingling with the ozone.
I knew it was being aggrieved, even violated, that its last and most desperate attack had been evaded with the same ease one swats away an annoying fly.
And I, in the deepest recesses of my mind, enjoyed it immensely, to the point where I just wanted to laugh out loud.
Not with joy (though a little bit), but with the cold satisfaction of the executioner watching the condemned understand the futility of their struggle.
Immediately, I charged again. This time there were no acrobatic leaps, no runs along its back. It was a simple burst of pure speed, a shot of my body from a static position. I became a black arrow, a shadow stretching over the ground and closing in on its stunned head before its slow, damaged reflexes could even process the movement. Its one good eye didn't even follow me; it was fixed on where I had been, not where I was now.
I planted myself before its head, which lay half-buried in the earth, breathing with difficulty. The temptation of a final, clean blow, to sink my claws into its brain and end its misery, was strong. But it was too indulgent. Too human, something I don't need at this moment (though I'm sure a human man would do the same if he could).
It hadn't shown such clemency to Nala.
No, I needed something more.
A symbolic punishment, a mark that, if someone or something found its corpse, would tell the story of its defeat not just before a stronger predator, but before a being that had rewritten the rules of the game.
I extended my arm, not with an open claw to tear, but with a closed hand, seeking not its flesh, but one of its horns.
My fingers found the base of one of its horns, a smooth, cold protrusion like polished stone.
I squeezed. My muscles tensed, not just in my arm, but in my back, my shoulders, my legs. It was a titanic effort, a struggle against the beast's very bone structure, against the essence of its natural armor.
I felt my tendons sing under the pressure, my joints creak, and a slight, very slight numbness began to creep up my arm. But I didn't give in. With a growl that was pure concentrated effort, I twisted.
The sound wasn't a dry crack, but a slow, deep crunch, like a giant tree being felled. A sound emanating from the very roots of its being. And then, with a final snap that echoed in the clearing like a gunshot, the horn detached from its skull.
The scream that erupted from the snake then wasn't animal, but rather something primordial, a sound that seemed to tear the very fabric of reality.
It wasn't just physical pain, though that must have been unbearable.
It was a scream of desecration, of violation of its most basic integrity. It was the sound of its identity being ripped away along with the horn.
Blinded by a fury transcending pain, by a rage that no longer had a place in a world where it was now the prey, it reacted.
Its tail, the same one I had immobilized, rose and crashed down upon me with the last remnant of its colossal strength.
This time, I didn't bother to block. It wasn't arrogance; it was curiosity. I wanted to know, I needed to know, what it felt like. What it felt like to receive the blow that had left Nala so badly wounded.
I let the impact hit me full on.
It was as if a mountain had collapsed on me. The force tore me from the ground and hurled me through the air. The world became a whirlwind of violet sky and green treetops.
The sound of air whistling around me was replaced by the dry, cracked roar of trunks snapping. One, two, perhaps three trees fell in my path before my body hit the ground and plowed through the earth like a plow, raising a furrow of soil and roots.
When everything stopped, I lay amid the debris of my own forced flight. I slowly got up, shaking fragments of bark and leaves from my scales. I assessed the damage. There was a general numbness, a ringing in my ears, and the shoulder where the venom (which I think came from some of its scales) had impacted burned with more intensity.
But nothing was broken. No sharp pain, no fractured ribs, no torn muscles. Sure, the snake was weakened, mortally wounded even before my intervention. But still, the blow that had pulverized trees had only left me annoyed.
It was a feat that, in another context, would have made me reflect on the monstrosity within me.
At that moment, it only confirmed my right to be here, at the top.
A guttural sound, a deep murmur laden with awe bordering on terror, came from the clearing.
The mother bear. Her three eyes must have been wide as saucers, watching me rise from a beating that would have killed any other creature in the forest, including herself.
And the Serpent King, seeing me rise, unharmed, its mind, already on the verge of collapse, broke completely. The last spark of rationality went out, replaced by uncontrollable, blind fury, the fury of one incapable of accepting the evidence of their own defeat.
With a hiss that was pure rage, it charged. A clumsy, desperate charge, head down, using its skull as a battering ram from sheer lack of any other idea.
I, serene, almost bored, dodged the attack with a simple step to the left. It was so predictable. So pathetic. I spun on my heels, and the momentum of its own charge made its heavy, battered head stop right in front of me, as if offered on a silver platter.
There was no time for its one good eye to perceive the movement. My arm was a released spring. In my hand, I still held its horn, that piece of its own essence I had torn from it. I didn't use my claws, nor did I use my fist.
I used its weapon.
With an irony I found poetic and brutal, I drove the sharp tip of the black horn deep into its skull, right at the base of the brain, in the exact spot where moments before I had felt the impact of my fist.
There was a wet, satisfying sound. One last, brief spasm ran through its body, a final tremor of protest. Its muscles tensed and then suddenly relaxed. A torrent of dark green, almost black blood gushed from the wound, staining the earth and my arm. The snake, now dead, was nothing more than a pile of flesh and scales.
Its stubborn nervous system sent a few final electrical discharges, making its tail twitch in post-mortem spasms, a macabre death dance lasting a few seconds before a heavy, absolute silence fell over the clearing.
This king, this arrogant pinnacle of the food chain in its territory, had met its end in a manner as simple as it was humiliating.
It hadn't been an epic combat, a duel of titans. It had been a one-sided beating, a demonstration of power so absolute it bordered on the absurd. A lesson delivered with the tip of its own horn.
I, Adonai, stood over the corpse of my enemy, breathing the air made thin by death. There was no triumph in my heart.
Only the cold certainty of duty done and the urgency, now more pressing than ever, to return to Nala. I turned, leaving the devastation behind, and with the serpent's horn still clutched like a sinister trophy, I entered the forest.
The battle was over. Now began the true war: that of ensuring she lived. And nothing, neither god, nor beast, nor this entire world, would stand in my way to her.
*****
As the claws of my feet sank into the soft earth of the clearing, directing my steps towards where the purple, motionless form of Nala lay, I felt the weight of a laden gaze following me.
The mother bear hadn't moved from her position, her three eyes fixed on me with an intensity transcending mere animal recognition.
It wasn't just gratitude I saw in that triple dark depth; it was reverence, the same kind of silent respect that ancient warriors must have offered their gods after a divine battle (or well, something similar).
Her wounds smoked slightly, her fur was matted, and her paw was injured, but her posture was one of unshakable dignity.
I stopped for an instant before her, just enough to return that gesture with a kind smile, a slight and rare relaxation of the muscles of my face under the bone mask, accompanied by a brief but firm nod.
No words in any known language were needed. The message was clear: "I thank you for protecting her." But my gaze immediately shifted to Nala, and urgency, like a lash of cold steel, spurred me on again.
I turned and continued on my way, each step an eternity.
To my surprise, I heard the heavy but resolute sound of her paws following me. A dull, rhythmic noise of large claws and considerable weight moving behind me.
For a very brief moment, a question arose in my mind: What did she want? Claim part of the spoils? Protect her territory? But I dismissed it as quickly as it came. Something in the determination of her advance, not in threat, but in persistence, told me her intentions were different.
Upon reaching Nala's side, the world shrank to her body lying on the crunchy leaves. And then, two truths hit me with the force of a lightning bolt. The first was the rhythm of her breathing: deep, regular, too slow for someone conscious.
It wasn't the panting breath of pain, but the slow, measured whisper of a deep sleep, a lethargy induced by shock and extreme exhaustion. Her body, wise where her conscious mind could not be, had activated a final defense mechanism, plunging her into unconsciousness to escape the unbearable hammering of pain and allow her depleted strength to begin recovering.
The second truth came to me upon observing the she-bear. She had positioned herself beside me, looking at Nala, and then at me, with her three eyes. Then, with a low, guttural growl, she crouched, bending her powerful front and back legs, lowering her bulky body to the ground, offering her wide back covered in thick fur.
The intention was so clear I could almost hear it.
My first instinctive reaction was rejection. I would carry her and I would protect her. There was more than enough strength in my arms to do so.
But logic, cold and practical, prevailed over protective ardor.
Carrying her in my arms, despite all my delicacy, would imply constant swaying, small impacts against my own body while walking, twists to dodge branches... each of those micro-movements would be a lash of agony for her fractured ribs, a constant risk of abruptly awakening her from her necessary lethargy and, worse, of a bone fragment shifting and causing irreparable internal damage.
The she-bear's back, on the other hand, was a wide, stable platform, a living mattress that would cushion every unevenness of the terrain. It was, without a doubt, the most sensible, the most compassionate option.
A wave of tender, almost overwhelming respect seized me as I looked at the three-eyed she-bear. She, also wounded, also in pain, with her scorched fur and the smell of burnt flesh emanating from her back, was willing to carry another's weight, to undertake a not-exactly-short journey through the forest, just to ensure the well-being of one who had fought by her side.
It was a loyalty I hadn't expected to find in the rawness of this world. A glimmer of the same nobility that sometimes, only sometimes, shone in my own.
I nodded, a slow and deliberate gesture towards the beast. "I accept," that movement said.
And then, with a tenderness I thought reserved only for Nala, I bent down. My arms, so capable of destroying rock, slid with infinite caution under my companion's body. She made no sound, sunk in her restorative sleep.
I lifted her, feeling her unusual weight, the limpness of her battered body. The she-bear, understanding, crouched even lower, making her back a transport stretcher.
With millimeter-perfect movements, I placed Nala on the soft but firm surface of fur. Her body sank slightly into it, finding a natural resting place. I adjusted her position so she would be as stable as possible, resting on her healthy side, away from the horrible purple contusion staining her flank.
The smell of burnt fur from the she-bear was strong, but it was an insignificant price to pay for the comfort it offered.
Once she was secure, I straightened up and, with another look of thanks towards the she-bear, assumed the lead. "Follow me," I expressed without words, and began to walk, choosing the most direct but least rugged path to my cabin, to our home.
The she-bear rose with a dull groan, a sound betraying her own pain, but her step was firm and determined behind me, carrying her precious load with touching solemnity.
The journey back was a silent procession through the reddish forest. The usual sounds of alien life seemed to have hushed in respect, or perhaps from the fear still emanating from us.
And then, we passed near the place where the Serpent Queen's corpse lay. It was then I noticed something that froze the blood in my veins, something that distracted even my concern for Nala.
The colossal body of the snake lay where it had fallen, an emerald and black stain on the earth. But around it, nothing. No movement. Not even the translucent-winged insects dared to buzz near.
There was no trace of six-winged scavenger birds circling the sky, nor of the small, opportunistic silver-furred mammals always lurking for an easy meal.
Nor were there tracks of any larger predator that might have approached to investigate. The corpse, a massive source of protein, lay in a bubble of absolute sterility. It was as if an invisible signal, a "Danger" sign written in the planet's primal language, was nailed to it.
The beings of this world, with their instincts honed by millennia of survival, knew that flesh was cursed, contaminated by something more than death. I wondered, with a cold shiver, if it was the venom, if it was the simple aura of the creature in life, or if it was something related to my essence, the mark of the one who had killed it, that drove everyone away.
I had no time to investigate, but the question was burned into my mind, a seed of unease promising to germinate later.
I glanced sideways at the she-bear. Her reaction was even more eloquent. Passing by the corpse, she stopped dead. A tremor ran through her enormous body. Her three eyes opened wide, fixed on the dead snake. It wasn't just recognition; it was disbelief, mixed with deep, ancestral respect.
She stood paralyzed for several seconds, as if her brain struggled to process the image of her nemesis, of the very embodiment of the power she had fled from or challenged for cycles, reduced to an inert pile of scales and bones.
Then, with a loud snort that broke the spell, she shook her head and, with renewed determination, continued following me, as if moving away from that sight was a tangible relief.
The rest of the journey, an eternal thirty minutes, passed in that charged silence. I went ahead, clearing the path when necessary, always alert, while the she-bear followed with stoic tenacity, enduring her own wounds without a single further complaint, her focus on the task of bringing Nala to safety.
When the familiar silhouette of my cabin, with its sloping roof and solid wooden door, appeared among the trees, I felt a relief so profound it almost buckled my knees.
It was the oasis, the sanctuary in this world of chaos.
We approached the entrance.
With extreme care, I approached the she-bear's flank. Nala was still fast asleep, her breathing a constant but weak thread. I took her in my arms again, with the same infinite gentleness, and separated her from the beast's warm back. The she-bear emitted a low growl, almost a sigh of relief, at being freed from the weight.
I used my tail, agile and strong, to push the heavy wooden door, which gave way with a familiar creak. The cool dimness of the interior welcomed us.
Without wasting a second, I headed to the corner where we had arranged our bed of dry, soft furs. There, with movements that were a hymn to patience, I laid her down, arranging her head and making sure her injured side touched nothing.
She looked small and vulnerable, so different from the fierce huntress she was.
But she was safe. She was home.
My mind was already on the next step, critical and urgent: I needed a first aid kit.
I quickly left the cabin, my eyes scanning outside towards the entrance of the adjacent storage cave. The mother bear was still there, standing, observing the cabin with an expression that now seemed to me one of satisfaction.
She had done her part.
Our gazes met one last time. I nodded again, a gesture of farewell and final thanks. She held my gaze for another moment, then turned heavily and began to walk away, limping slightly, in the direction I supposed her own den would be, probably longing to reunite with whatever (a cub or something similar, probably) and rest.
I simply thought she had her own affairs to attend to, her own pain to lick.
There was no time for more. I turned towards the cave and plunged into the cool dimness where I stored the trunks.
My anxious hands ran over the green and black containers, searching for the specific one bearing the red cross painted on its lid.
I found it, half-hidden under a pile of tools. I dragged it out and opened it with a dry click.
There, orderly and pristine, was the first aid kit.
It wasn't a simple box of bandages and iodine.
It was a high-tech medical arsenal, far superior to anything I had seen on Earth.
It contained self-adjusting bandages of a silvery material that seemed alive, self-loading syringes with broad-spectrum analgesics and potent anesthetics, bottles of pills promising controlled metabolic acceleration for bone and tissue regeneration, and a tactile instruction manual deploying 3D holographic diagrams showing procedures for everything, from an arrow wound to an open fracture.
I took it with reverent care.
It was the only tangible link to the science I once knew, and at that moment, it was the only hope for Nala. I closed it and, with the cold metal chest in my hands, returned to the cabin. The door closed behind me, isolating the outside world and its dangers.
Inside, the silence was deep, broken only by Nala's labored but steady breathing. She was still unconscious, pale under her purple scales. I knelt beside her, placing the kit within reach. I looked at her, taking a deep breath.
The manual recommended cleaning, internal damage assessment, immobilization, medication... a list of tasks that would have intimidated any human doctor.
But I had no choice. There was no one else.
I opened the kit; the soft hum of its electronic components powering up filled the silence. I took a self-sterilizing syringe, its tip glowing with a faint blue light.
The hologram showed the exact injection point for deep analgesia. My hand, the same one that hours before had shattered a giant snake's skull, didn't tremble. It rested on her neck, searching for the pulse beneath the skin.
The most delicate task of my life in this world was about to begin. And I wouldn't rest, wouldn't relent, until I saw those yellow eyes, full of life, open again.
Everything else, including the mystery of the Serpent Queen's sterile corpse, could wait, no matter how much curiosity it provoked in me.