Ahmed tried to lift his torso off the ground, but his body had declared a total mutiny. Every time he pressed his elbows into the damp soil, his spine shrieked with a sharp agony, as if the airplane's lightning bolt was still coursing through his veins. His face slammed into the mud time and again, while warm blood gushed from his wound, drawing a crimson trail behind him on the earth's surface—a thread tethering him to a life that was slowly leaking away.
The pain was beyond description; it wasn't just an ache, but a rusty nail being driven slowly into his pelvic bones. With every movement, he felt the tissues tearing around the metal shard embedded within him. He had no choice but to crawl. He dug his fingernails into the roots of the grass, dragging his exhausted body with a deathly slowness. He panted audibly, his sunken eyes searching for any shelter, until the trunk of a massive, ancient tree appeared. He leaned against it with utter weakness, feeling the coldness of its rough bark pierce through his tattered shirt.
There, under the shadows of that tree, his gaze fell upon an army of black ants moving with eerie regularity across the ground. He watched them for a long while, and in that moment, a volcano of sorrow—simmering in his chest for years—erupted.
"Why?!"
The word came out as a slaughtered rasp, an internal scream that shook his being before escaping to the world. "Why me, specifically? I never hurt anyone! I asked nothing of this world but a dark corner to hide in! I didn't even dream of a dignified life; I just wanted to survive... So why does fate insist on making my life a raging hell?"
A terrible silence prevailed, broken only by the distant hum of insects. In that moment, something broke inside Ahmed. Something called "humanity." His internal voice returned, but with a completely different tone—a tone as cold as steel.
"I was human, wasn't I? But this damned world doesn't recognize humans; it loves monsters... Fine. If the world wants a monster, I will give it what it wants! I refuse to be the victim anymore!"
In that instant, his broken features transformed into a terrifying mask. A manic smile crept onto his trembling lips, a smile born from the womb of absolute despair.
"I will be the monster that eats monsters."
Without hesitation, he thrust his shaking hand toward the army of ants, grabbed a handful, and shoved them into his mouth. He began to chew them, swallowing the bitterness of their tiny bodies and the sting of their burning acid on his tongue. He licked his palm, stained with dirt and blood, weeping silently. Every time he felt the ants' bites in his throat, his hysterical laughter, mingled with tears, grew sharper. It was a surreal scene: a human transforming into a primal creature of instinct, before the darkness of a faint overwhelmed his consciousness and his head slumped to the side.
Awareness began to creep back into his senses very slowly, as if he were climbing out of a deep well. He opened his eyes to find himself still under the tree, but something had changed. The searing pain that had been splitting him in two had receded into a heavy numbness.
He felt the site of the injury in shock... the metal piece was gone! He raised his trembling hand to see his abdomen wrapped in a tight white bandage, applied with a skill no amateur possessed.
"What happened? Who did this?"
He had barely finished his question when the sound of rapid running reached his ears—as if a creature were fleeing from something far more dangerous—followed by the sound of calm, steady, and cautious footsteps. His vision was still blurred, colors bleeding into one another, but he managed to glimpse a shadow approaching him.
A stranger, wearing thick medical glasses that reflected the sunlight filtering through the dense jungle canopy.
"Who is this? A hunter waiting for his prey? Or a new enemy wearing a mask of mercy?"
Ahmed tried to gather his strength, but his body betrayed him once more. He heard a faint voice, a whisper in a strange language that sounded like an incantation, but the words faded before reaching his conscious mind. He surrendered to his eyelids, which felt as heavy as lead, and sank into unconsciousness for the second time, leaving his fate hanging in the hands of the mysterious man with the glasses.