He awoke to a sound rising from the depths of his stomach, but this time it was not only hunger gnawing at him. There was something else, something heavier, slowly spreading inside him. It was quiet. Not ordinary silence, but the kind that settled over everything, thick and oppressive, as though it swallowed every sound before it could even exist. Even the wind seemed to have withdrawn. The trees stood motionless, their dark outlines fading into the pale light of morning, strange and almost watchful, as though they were observing him without ever moving. His chest felt hollow, as if something had been taken from him, though he could not grasp what it was, and his thoughts moved only slowly, sluggishly, as though they had to force themselves through an invisible weight.
He tried to stand, but his body barely obeyed him anymore. The ground beneath him was soft, damp from the night, and strangely warm compared to the cold air brushing over his skin. The earth seemed to cling to him, giving way gently as though it wanted to hold him there, to stop him from moving. For a moment Samuel gave in, half-closing his eyes as he felt how tempting it was to surrender to that heaviness, to simply remain there, become still, and stop wanting anything at all. His breathing grew shallower, calmer, as though even it were adapting to the sluggish, motionless world surrounding him.
Yet somewhere deep inside him, something still stirred — a weak impulse, little more than the flickering remains of resistance. He clung to it, forcing himself to gather his thoughts, to remember. Biology class. Wilderness survival. The memories came only in fragments, indistinct, like faded images with no clear connection anymore, but they were there. And with them came other images, uninvited, suddenly far clearer than anything else. The faces of his friends appeared before him, so vividly that it almost hurt. He remembered the way they sat beside one another, barely paying attention, how sometimes it only took a glance, a small grin, and everything would collapse into that uncontrollable, genuine laughter that needed no reason and yet filled everything around them. For a moment it felt as though it were still there, as though he only had to reach out to touch it again, as though it waited somewhere just beneath the surface.
But the moment did not last. It broke apart quietly, almost imperceptibly, and with it his thoughts began to change. They grew heavier, darker, as though a shadow had spread over them and smothered every trace of light. The memory twisted, shifted, and he no longer saw their laughter, but what had come afterward. The way they had died before him. The image struck him without warning, cold and final, tearing him away from the last warmth left inside him. His breath caught, and for a moment there was only emptiness — a dull, silent space where nothing remained except that single thought. Then he felt his eyes slowly filling with tears. He tried to hold them back, tensing, blinking, but he could not. The first slipped free hesitantly, almost cautiously, then more followed until they streamed uncontrollably down his face, silent and steady. They were warm when they touched his skin, but the cold air quickly stole that warmth away, erasing it just as it erased everything else. They dripped into the earth beneath him and were swallowed immediately, as though they had never existed at all.
The silence returned, heavy and all-encompassing, and only his quiet, uneven breathing disturbed it for a brief moment before even that began to slow. And the cold that had accompanied him through the entire night no longer lingered merely around him. It had long since begun settling deep inside him — calm, patient, and inescapable.
When he opened his eyes again, he spotted something brown growing partially hidden beneath a tree.
"A mushroom!"
Samuel suddenly leapt to his feet with an energy that had not existed moments before. The ground seemed to tremble beneath him, and the moss he had been sitting on, clinging to his blood- and dirt-stained pants, came loose and fell away. And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, the sun seemed to shine again.
His legs moved on their own. His mouth stretched into an almost absurd smile as he practically sprinted toward the source of his sudden hope. When he reached it, he found not just a single mushroom, but an entire cluster.
"It's not much, but it's more than I ever could've wished for in this godforsaken world."
With great care, he began pulling the small brown mushrooms from the earth.
He spent the rest of the day gathering branches, building a ring of stones for a fire pit, and washing both the mushrooms and himself at a small lake nearby.
The lake lay tucked away between two gentle rises in the land, almost hidden, as though the landscape had deliberately placed it there. The water was clear, but not inviting. Too still. Too smooth. As though it did not flow, but merely existed.
Samuel knelt at the shore.
For a moment, he did nothing.
He stared at his reflection.
It looked unfamiliar.
His face was filthy, marked by small cuts he could no longer even remember receiving. His eyes looked larger than they should have — not from surprise, but from exhaustion. As though his body had forgotten what a normal person was supposed to look like.
Slowly, he lowered his hands into the water.
Cold.
Not merely cool — it was a sharp contrast against his skin that made him flinch for a moment. But he endured it. He scrubbed the dirt from his arms, washed dried blood from the cracks in his skin without really knowing when they had appeared.
With every drop that fell back into the lake, he felt a little less… heavy.
The mushrooms rested beside him on a flat stone, carefully sorted as best he could manage. His gaze kept drifting back to them, as though he might find some answer in them, some guarantee that they would not kill him.
"Please… just be food," he murmured softly.
The wind brushed across the water's surface, drawing small ripples that vanished almost immediately again.
When he was finished, he sat down at the edge of the shore, his legs half in the grass, half in the sand. The sky had already begun to change again — the light growing warmer, softer — and yet it felt as though the world were slowly pushing him toward evening, whether he was ready or not.
Then he stood.
Back to the fire pit.
The circle of stones was imperfect. Some rocks were too large, others too small, and a few leaned inward slightly. But it was enough. It had to be enough.
Samuel knelt in the center, carefully arranging the branches together, trying to remember something he had once seen — friction, heat, sparks.
His hands trembled slightly, not only from the cold.
He tried.
Again and again.
Wood against wood.
Pressure.
Rotation.
Nothing.
Only friction.
Only frustration.
"Come on…" he gritted through his teeth.
The sun sank lower. The shadows of the surrounding world closed around him like a slowly drawing curtain. Everything grew cooler, darker, more patient — as though the world itself were waiting to see whether he would fail.
And then, after countless attempts, something small happened.
A spark.
Tiny.
Almost meaningless.
Samuel froze immediately.
He stared at it as though he did not understand what he had just seen.
Another try.
This time more carefully.
The spark returned.
And remained.
A faint glow spread into the dry moss, then into strips of thin bark.
He blinked.
"…Yes."
His voice was barely audible.
"Yes…!"
He blew gently.
Too much air — the flame nearly vanished.
He stopped.
Breathed.
Then again, calmer.
And the fire answered.
A small, living flicker rose between the stones, uncertain at first, then steadier, as though it had decided to stay.
Samuel simply sat there.
Motionless.
And stared into it.
The light reflected in his eyes.
For the first time in a very long while, there was something that was not only pain, hunger, or fear.
It was small.
Imperfect.
But it was control.
Slowly, he reached for the mushrooms.
Held them over the fire… and hesitated.
He stared into the flames for a moment.
Then he began to eat.
The fire crackled softly to itself, a calm and steady sound that settled into the silence around him like a small heartbeat. Samuel sat before it, the warmth of the flames against his face, holding the mushrooms for another moment before taking the first bite.
The taste was nothing remarkable. Earthy, slightly bitter, something warm spreading slowly across his tongue. But that was exactly what made it so strange. It was real. After everything that had happened — the hunger, the cold, the fear, and that endless feeling of unfamiliarity — it was simply… food. Something that did not betray his body.
He chewed slowly. Without hurry. And with every bite, the pressure in his stomach eased a little. Not gone, but quieter, as though someone had turned down the noise inside him. His breathing steadied, his shoulders relaxed slightly, and for a while he heard only the fire and the wind moving through the grass.
By now the sky above him had turned deeply dark, but not threateningly so. Just vast. Filled with stars appearing one after another, as though someone were slowly switching them on. Samuel let his gaze drift across them as he continued eating. For a moment, everything felt… stable. Not good in the usual sense, but safe enough not to constantly think about how everything could collapse again at any second.
He leaned back slightly, supporting himself with one hand in the grass as he took another bite. The fire reflected warmly and flickeringly in his eyes, and somehow he felt as though this small circle of stones truly separated him from the rest of the world. As though something different were possible inside it than outside.
The sounds around him had grown quiet. No more fighting. No more running. No more chaos. Only this small, constant life between flame, earth, and breath.
And then, while he sat there breathing into that quiet emptiness, his gaze unconsciously drifted across the landscape toward the mountains.
At first it was only a change, barely noticeable. A darker shadow behind the mountain range that did not quite match the color of the sky. Samuel blinked without really knowing why and looked closer. The shadow did not remain still. It grew. Slowly, steadily, as though something behind the mountains were rising without any hurry.
He sat up a little straighter.
The bite in his hand remained unfinished.
And then he recognized it.
Smoke.
Thin at first, little more than a shimmer in the air beyond the mountains. But it thickened, darkened, becoming clearly visible against the night sky. It did not rise calmly like the smoke of a small fire. It grew unevenly, heavily, as though it came from something larger. Something that was not merely burning, but devouring.
Samuel stopped chewing.
His hand slowly lowered.
The fire before him continued crackling, completely indifferent, as though it had nothing to do with whatever was happening beyond those mountains. But his gaze remained fixed on the range, as though he were trying to see through the stone itself.
The peace from moments ago still lingered somewhere inside him, but suddenly it felt distant. Fragile. Like something that had only briefly been allowed to exist.
The smoke thickened.
Widened.
And continued rising relentlessly, black against the sky that had seemed so calm only moments before.
Samuel slowly stood.
Without hurry, but without truly thinking either.
"…There's something there," he murmured softly, almost in disbelief.
And while the fire continued burning behind him and the stars above remained motionless, he knew that this silence was no longer the same as it had been only minutes earlier.