<h2>Chapter 1: Survive</h2>
Kyle smelled wet earth—not copper tang.
His consciousness returned in fragmented waves.
He peeled his eyes open to a network of veined leaves overhead, filtering light into unnatural blue-violet rays. Each breath filled his lungs with thick air. His light brown eyes scanned the landscape, disbelief mounting with each second.
"The fuck?" His voice scraped against his throat. His palms sank into soil too soft, too yielding, nothing like the concrete that had caught his body.
Kyle pushed himself up to his knees, wiping the dirt off his shirt. Blood still moist on his Supreme tee. A tightening formed in his gut. He prodded at his chest, finding smooth skin.
The blood remains but the wounds don''t. What kind of twisted shit is this?
He reached up with his left hand and grabbed what looked like a sturdy vine, then jerked his hand back as razor-sharp thorns with crimson tips sliced his palm. The wound stung more than it should, a numbing sensation spreading before quickly fading away.
His head snapped left to a groan he recognized.
Dex lay sprawled a few paces ahead, long face twisted in confusion as he turned to face him, dark skin glistening with moisture. Dex had always been the tallest of their crew, his strength matched only by his permanent scowl. Beyond him, Marcus swayed onto his feet, his compact frame wavering through the oppressive heat haze. Another sound—
"Mierda... Where the hell are we?" JT called from behind, his Puerto Rican accent thickened with stress.
Kyle''s gaze swept over the knotted vines, shapes and colors that belonged in no natural history book he''d ever seen.
"Yo, Alv." Marcus''s voice pulled his attention back. The nickname grounded him. "You seeing this shit?"
Before Kyle could answer, his eardrums vibrated to something not quite a roar, not quite a scream—something that crawled along his spine and reached his neck.
His pulse quickened as he scanned the jungle''s edge. His life had taught him to locate danger before it found him, but his senses struggled to interpret this foreign environment.
"This ain''t Heaven," JT''s voice came from behind. Kyle turned to see his friend, his brownish-black curly hair cut in a fresh temple fade that seemed absurdly out of place. Kyle watched JT''s hands pat down the empty waistband of his sagging black True Religion’s, searching for the .38 that should''ve been there. "And I''m pretty sure it ain''t Hell either."
Kyle’s mind snagged on that missing gun—last time he’d seen JT''s body slamming into his own as the gunfire erupted.
The weight of JT''s shoulder driving him sideways. JT''s hand gripping his shirt, pulling him down as his other hand rose, the .38 revolver gleaming in the dark.
Now, watching JT grope for a weapon that wasn’t there, Kyle felt that same weight linger, heavy as the humid air pressing in.
"Kyle rose, surprised by the steadiness in his legs. Dread and adrenaline settled in his gut—an old companion. He patted his own empty pockets instinctively, which triggered Marcus to do the same.
“Why we got nothing but our clothes?” Marcus asked, his voice thin as he patted empty pockets."
“Maybe just what’s on us made it—nothing else” Kyle said, the words spilling out before he''d fully formed the thought. "Clothes on our backs, but not the other shit."
"Man, you sound like you accepting this," Dex snapped, his jaw tight. "Like this some normal shit."
Kyle shook his head. "Ain''t shit normal about dying and waking up here.".
The roar came again, vibrating through Kyle''s chest. A thought flashed through his mind—sharp, clear, terrible: maybe dying once hadn''t been enough to pay for their sins.
The pain started as a pinprick at his temple. Then it exploded outward, a thousand needles stabbing into his brain from the inside. Not light, but something beyond light—a scouring awareness.
Kyle''s eyes clenched shut against the invasion, but it made no difference. The sensation was inside him, changing something fundamental in his understanding.
Sound and light wrestled inside his skull, overwhelming every thought until somehow his senses blurred. The world disappeared, replaced by a white void where seven black letters etched themselves into the fabric of his being:
SURVIVE
The word hung suspended in his consciousness, an obsidian command.
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"Ahh, do y''all fucking feel that?" Kyle''s question came out shaky, unlike him. His head pounded, spots dancing across his vision, but that word remained branded on his mind.
Through the ringing, and light, he caught only fragments of the others'' reactions. Dex on his knees, fingers digging into soil. Marcus grabbing at his slipping red and black paisley bandana. JT muttering something in Spanish before saying.
"Fuck, it''s in my head, man," his expression frozen.
"Yo—" Kyle began, but the word died on his tongue as that unearthly howl cut through again. This time, he felt it echo in his chest, the way bass thunders through your ribcage at a block party, the way fear resonates when you hear gunshots close.
Before his mind could fully recover. A heaviness descended. Kyle''s throat constricted, his conscious mind couldn''t yet process, but somehow felt. His skin prickled. His heart began to race.
What is that?
Marcus'' head jerked too quickly, looking for a threat. Dex''s shoulders hunched forward, body tensed. JT''s breathing quickened, audible in the unnatural hush that had fallen.
The space around them seemed to recoil. The very air grew dense, difficult to pull into lungs that suddenly felt too small.
Other animals started to skitter away—small lizard-like with ridged scales in vibrant blues, stout pig-like beasts with emerald bristles running down their spines, birds without beaks that took flight on stretched wings-tinged purple at the edges. All fleeing from something approaching from behind.
They looked at each other, eyes wide, the sense of dread building with each passing second.
They all started running, launching forward before conscious thought formed, crashing through undergrowth that slashed at exposed skin. The terrain sloped downward, making each stride longer, harder to control.
The crushing weight intensified with each second, bearing down on Kyle''s spine, wringing sweat from every pore. His heart hammered against his ribs like it might burst through bone. Something was coming, gaining ground with each stride.
Then he heard it moving quickly, the sound of plants being crushed.
His world narrowed to the terrain before him—roots to avoid, branches to duck, vines to push through. His lungs burned, throat raw from gasping humid air that offered too little oxygen.
A change in rhythm behind him broke his focus. A stutter in the desperate cadence of their flight.
Kyle looked back. JT’s face was slick with sweat, panic surging across his features as his foot caught on deadwood. The world compressed into microscopic detail: JT’s ankle twisted, his center of gravity shifted, arms flailing..
JT crashed, landing face first on the ground. His chest heaved, but no sound escaped his lips. His eyes, usually hard and unreadable, widened with something Kyle had never seen in them before—pure, primal terror, his fingers digging into the soil.
Only then did Kyle finally see what pursued them.
The monster emerged from the shadows, its form defying all natural order. Tall as a giant of rippling muscle. Three jagged scars carved deep trenches across its chest, leaving ridges of puckered flesh.
As it turned to face the fallen JT, Kyle''s veins thrummed. It stood on two legs but moved with nothing remotely human. Its face was disturbing, feline but distorted, with horns Fucking horns. The left side of its face bore four parallel gashes slicing from forehead to jaw, cutting across where an eye should be.
"Get up!" Kyle shouted. "Get up, now!”
When it opened its maw, Kyle''s gaze locked on rows of teeth designed to tear flesh from bone. Saliva dripped between jagged points, catching light that filtered through.
In that frozen moment, as the creature began closing in on JT, Kyle saw him frantically scrambling backward, one hand grasping at a low-hanging vine as he struggled to pull himself up. JT''s feet pushed against the soil, trying to gain enough purchase to stand, his body half-raised off the ground. Every instinct screamed at Kyle to keep running, to save himself, to obey the command still burning in his brain.
"Keep running." Dex''s voice reached him, oddly hollow yet urgent. Then louder: "RUN!"
Kyle''s heart slammed in his chest as he forced his legs to keep moving.
Only a few steps later, he heard it—JT''s scream, a pitch he''d never heard from him, not even when the bullets were tearing through his chest. Memories of JT''s loyalty flashed through his mind.
Kyle''s Jordan’s skidded in the mud as he pivoted. "JT!" The name burst from his chest.
"Keep going!" Dex shouted from ahead, already putting distance between them.
"We can''t leave him!" Kyle''s legs burned as he moved back. JT''s scream resonated through the jungle, piercing Kyle''s eardrums.
Three steps back. That''s all Kyle managed before his body betrayed him. His muscles seized—not with pain, but with impossible resistance.
"JT!" he screamed again, voice cracking.
Another scream answered—higher, wetter, ending in a gurgle that Kyle knew meant blood in the throat. He''d heard it before, in alleys and stairwells where life leaked out on dirty floors.
The word flashed in his head again, brighter, hotter, accompanied by a pressure that drove him to his knees.
"I can''t—" Kyle gasped, forcing his body forward one agonizing inch at a time. "Can''t leave him. JT had my back. Always had my back."
"Don''t stop!" Dex''s command. "Don''t fucking stop!"
Kyle dug his fingers into the mud, dragging himself toward JT’s screams. His legs shook, locked between running and crawling back. ‘JT! I ain’t leaving you!’
The pressure in Kyle''s head increased until his vision swam with black spots. The word pulsed like a second heartbeat: SURVIVE. SURVIVE. SURVIVE.
A hand gripped his shoulder—it was Marcus, panic etched across his face. "We gotta go, man. We gotta go NOW.”
Then the resistance won, Kyle''s body surrendering to whatever force commanded him forward—away from JT, away from loyalty, away from the man he thought he was.
They sprinted until his muscles burned and his lungs felt ready to burst.
When they finally collapsed, they found themselves at the edge of a small clearing dominated by a massive fallen tree, its exposed roots forming a semi-protected alcove. Kyle glanced back—no sign of pursuit, but also no sign of JT.
the terrible truth settled over Kyle like a shroud.
They''d left JT behind.
Kyle rolled onto his side, stomach heaving until nothing remained but bitter bile. The acid burn in his throat couldn''t wash away the knowledge. They
Left him alone. Left him to those teeth. Left him to die.