I knew something was wrong with the forest the moment I stepped beneath the canopy.
The damage did not look natural.
Trees were down, but not scattered like a storm had thrown them. Trunks snapped clean at the same height, too uniform, too deliberate, like something had passed through and forced them to give way. Branches littered the ground in wide arcs, all bent in the same direction, brushed aside instead of torn apart in a struggle.
This was not the chaos of weather.
It was the aftermath of violence.
I moved slower without meaning to. My eyes kept dragging across details I did not want to see. Bark scraped raw. Roots exposed. Dirt churned into long grooves that ran too straight to be accidental. Dark stains marked several trunks, smeared and dried.
Blood.
Old enough to have darkened, not old enough to disappear.
It streaked along roots and soaked into the soil in uneven patches, like bodies had been dragged rather than left where they fell.
No carcasses.
No bones.
No signs of where the fight ended.
The memory of the hunting party surfaced uninvited. Five people gone. Taken when they crossed into territory they should not have. I had overheard the story back at the village, half whispered and half warned, the kind of tale that did not need exaggeration because the fear in the teller did that work for free.
The way the forest swallowed them and gave nothing back.
If this was where they had been caught, then the Centilito had not stayed long. It had struck, scattered them, and moved on.
Whatever passed through here had not come to feed.
It had come to correct something.
That thought made my throat tighten. I did not know why it came to me like that, like a sentence I had not earned, but the damage did not look like hunger. Hunger was messy. Hunger was desperate. Hunger tore at whatever it could reach.
This looked like a route.
I adjusted my grip on the spear and forced myself to breathe quietly. The forest itself felt wrong, not silent, but muted, like sound had been pressed down. Insects were scarce. Birds were not singing. Even the leaves seemed reluctant to move, hanging stiff and still despite a breeze that brushed my skin.
I stepped over a fallen limb and reached the edge of a clearing.
The ground ahead was scarred, dirt flattened in wide curves that looped back on themselves. Whatever did this had circled more than once, as if checking boundaries.
The pattern made my stomach tighten.
Animals did not patrol like that.
They hunted.
They fled.
They defended territory.
They did not sweep.
I crouched and pressed my fingers into one of the grooves. The earth there was packed hard, compressed deeper than the surrounding soil, like something heavy had passed over the same line again and again.
Not panicked.
Not desperate.
Methodical.
A memory flashed up sharp as a slap. The tunnel in the cave. The trials. The way paths closed. The way choices vanished.
I shook the thought away.
This was different. This was the forest.
Living things did not work like stone traps.
I straightened.
That was when the ground vibrated.
Not a tremor. Not a quake.
A rhythm.
Click.
Click.
Click.
It came from everywhere and nowhere at once, soft and relentless, threading through the trees like something counting time. The soil pulsed under my boots, subtle but undeniable, like something massive shifting its weight just beyond sight.
My mouth went dry.
I raised the spear without realizing I had.
Then the trees ahead parted.
The Centilito rose in front of me, a wall of yellow hide and twitching limbs.
For a heartbeat, everything in me stalled. My brain, my breath, even my fear. It was bigger than any story had made it sound, long enough to coil around several trees if it wanted. Its legs rippled in a wave that made the soil vibrate. Its body shifted with a sound like dry leaves being crushed all at once.
Its head tilted slightly, eyes fixed on me, like it was waiting to see what I would do.
I tightened my grip.
"Come, then," I spat, voice shaking more from adrenaline than courage. "You is just one big ugly bug."
I heard myself. I knew I was lying.
But I needed the lie.
I dragged air into my lungs, let out something that was almost a battle cry, and charged.
The ground rushed up under my boots. I aimed for the section just under its head where the plates curved together. If I could jam the spear between them, maybe I could hit something soft. Something important.
The Centilito did not move at first.
It watched me come.
That made it worse.
I brought the spear up and drove it forward with every ounce of strength I had. The tip struck and for a split second I felt resistance, solid enough to trick me into hope. The impact ran up my arms, sharp and solid.
Then the spear slid sideways across its hide with a harsh scraping sound and refused to go in.
It was like trying to stab stone.
The wood jumped in my hands. The shock shot up into my shoulders. My fingers almost opened.
The spear bounced away and I stumbled forward, thrown off balance by my own force. I threw myself to the side just in time for the monster to react.
The Centilito moved.
Not slow. Not sluggish. That was the mistake I had made in my head. Huge things were supposed to be slow.
This thing was not.
Its front segments rose slightly and then snapped sideways with terrifying speed. A thick section of its body slammed into my left side.
I did not even see the hit coming.
I only felt it.
It was like being struck by a moving tree.
Pain exploded through my ribs. The world spun. My feet left the ground. The spear flew out of my hands and disappeared into the grass.
Then I hit the dirt.
The impact knocked what little air I had left out of my lungs. The taste of earth filled my mouth. For a second I could not breathe at all. My chest refused to move.
I lay there stunned, aware of nothing but the screaming in my side and the roaring in my ears.
Move.
Get up.
Move now.
I rolled onto my stomach, dragging in a ragged breath that hurt so much I almost stayed down. My ribs felt like they were tearing open. The earlier hit from the fox had already bruised that side and this blow landed right on top of it. Pain pulsed there with each thump of my heart, hot and sharp.
The soil shook under me.
I pushed up onto my hands and knees and forced my head up.
The Centilito was drawing closer, its many legs digging into the ground with soft relentless clicks. It was not rushing. It did not need to. It had just slapped me out of the way like I weighed nothing.
Its head lowered toward me. Its mouth opened a little wider, pincers flexing as if it were testing them. Strands of saliva stretched and broke, dripping onto leaves.
I looked around frantically.
The spear lay a few paces off to my right, half buried in dead leaves.
I lunged for it.
The movement sent a burning stab through my ribs. I hissed through my teeth, grabbed the spear, and scrambled to my feet in one clumsy motion. My legs wobbled. Blood tasted metal at the back of my throat.
The Centilito's head rose again as I stood. It watched me.
Runes along its lower body flickered faintly like embers under skin.
I had not even gotten close to them.
"Okay," I muttered, breath shaking. "Dat never work. Plan B."
I did not have a plan B.
So I did the only thing that made sense.
I turned and ran.
Pain flared in my side with each stride, but my body did not give me an option. Instinct buried reason. I sprinted away from the clearing, crashing between trees, shoving past hanging vines like they were nothing. The forest swallowed me in seconds, trunks closing in around me like dark pillars.
Behind me, the Centilito followed.
I heard it before I dared look back. Soil churned under dozens of legs. Trunks creaked as segments scraped against them. Branches snapped in rapid bursts, an ugly rhythm that chased my heels.
The monster moved with a fluid rippling speed that made a lie of its size.
My lungs burned already. My arms felt heavy. My left side screamed like someone had wedged a knife between my ribs and was twisting it with every jump. My whole body begged me to stop.
The sounds behind me said stopping meant letting it catch me.
I ducked under a low branch, barely clearing it. Leaves brushed my hair and snapped back into place. I leapt over a fallen log, boots thudding into soft soil on the other side. My breath rasped harsh and loud in my ears.
"Think," I told myself, though there was no space for thinking. "Think, man."
The spear jolted in my hand. I tightened my grip. If I could not pierce that armor straight on, maybe I needed to aim somewhere else. The underside. Between the legs. The head.
Or those glowing marks.
They had to mean something.
Behind me, the forest exploded.
The Centilito smashed through a tangle of brush, sending leaves and broken branches flying. I did not need to look back to know how close it was. I could feel its presence pressing against my back, like the air itself was trying to throw me at its feet.
I veered sharply left, hoping to break line.
The Centilito surged forward with a burst of speed that felt wrong. Its long body slid past me to the left in a ripple of segments and legs. Trees shook as it wrapped itself around them. In a blink, the monster coiled between several trunks, segments bracing against bark, claws digging deep.
The path I aimed for vanished.
In its place was a living wall of yellow plates and twitching limbs.
I swore and darted right instead, pushing through vines and thin branches that clawed at my skin. They whipped my face and arms but I did not slow.
The Centilito moved again.
Its legs pounded the ground with sickening rhythm. Segments twisted as it surged past me on the right side this time, body flowing between trees like a river of flesh. It wrapped around a cluster of trunks and pulled tight until its segments locked together.
The escape route closed again.
Every time I tried to break sideways, it rushed ahead and wove its body between the trees, turning the forest into a maze it controlled. It stretched across trunks and stones, its length forming walls that forced me to turn back or get trapped against its plates.
It was not just chasing me.
It was steering me.
The realization settled into me slowly, like cold water soaking through cloth. Every time I cut left, the forest ahead was already wrong. Gaps closed too fast. Trees leaned where they should not. I was not reacting late.
I was being anticipated.
Not panic. Not hunger.
Control.
My boots skidded as I changed direction again. I nearly fell and caught myself with the spear, jamming the tip into the dirt just to stay upright.
Above me, branches creaked.
The Centilito shifted in the canopy.
I looked up in time to see the runes along its underside flare brighter.
Not all at once.
One line lit first. Then another. Then a third, the glow rippling forward in a precise order just beneath its head.
A heartbeat later, its body moved.
Legs locked into new positions. Segments tightened as it blocked another route.
Light first.
Movement second.
I froze mid step.
That was not instinct.
I had seen that pause before. Cars at a crosswalk, engines idling, drivers watching the light instead of the people waiting to cross. Everything held in place by a signal that had not changed yet.
This felt the same.
The Centilito did not hesitate or react. It stayed still, weight coiled and ready, waiting.
Then it moved all at once, like something unseen had finally told it it was allowed to.
The pressure behind my eyes returned, sharper now, like the runes were brushing against my thoughts, tugging something into alignment. My stomach twisted. The pattern repeated again.
Pause.
Glow.
Motion.
It did not feel like it was deciding.
It felt like it was being cued.
The forest shook as it dropped from the branches and landed ahead of me with a force that sent dirt jumping under my feet. I staggered back as its body flowed sideways, sealing another exit with terrifying efficiency.
Enough.
I did not think.
I just swung for anything I could reach.
I drove the spear up at the plates beneath its belly, trying to wedge the tip into a seam. The point hit hard, skated, and shrieked across the underside like iron on stone.
Then the shaft jolted in my hands.
A thin line of light cracked beneath the spear tip.
Not blood.
Not flesh.
A rune.
Something screamed.
Not the creature.
Me.
The sound ripped through my head like metal tearing. The world lurched. My vision flashed and then steadied, but everything felt off for half a second, like my skull had been rung like a bell.
The rune shattered.
Its glow flickered violently as cracks of light spread outward and collapsed in on themselves.
The Centilito convulsed.
Its body spasmed. Legs lost their perfect grip. One segment slipped, scraping bark loose as it slammed sideways into a tree. The smooth flowing control it had shown before broke apart into jerky uneven movement.
The runes dimmed.
Then flared again.
But not in order.
Lines brightened in the wrong places. The rhythm stuttered. The pressure behind my eyes vanished as suddenly as it came.
The Centilito roared.
The sound was not rage.
It was wrong.
It lunged toward me, late and clumsy, and smashed through branches it should have avoided. It tore bark and leaves free as it overcorrected, twisting as if it was trying to remember how it was supposed to move.
It was still massive.
Still deadly.
But the perfection was gone.
I stumbled back, heart hammering, staring at the fractured glow beneath it.
I did not understand what I had hit.
I only knew something about the creature looked unstable now, like a powerful animal suddenly fighting its own balance.
It lunged again, violent and inefficient, flattening saplings in a way that gained it nothing. Its legs hit too hard. Its segments lagged a fraction behind each other. It made mistakes that did not match what I had seen earlier.
Birds burst out of the canopy in panicked flurries, exploding from hiding places they had clung to in terrified silence.
The forest did not react like it had before.
It felt less guided.
More chaotic.
I ran.
Not because I had a plan.
Because staying meant letting that chaos reach me.
I cut hard between two thick trunks and threw myself through undergrowth until my lungs burned like fire. I found a fallen trunk thick enough to hide behind and dropped low, pressing my back to it. I held my breath and listened.
The ground trembled once.
Then again, farther away.
The clicking moved off.
I stayed crouched in that cover long enough for my hands to stop shaking, long enough to pull one full breath into my chest without choking on panic. My ribs still screamed. My shoulder throbbed. The acid burn on my side pulsed with heat. Sweat cooled on my skin and turned sticky in the night air.
Then I moved again, slower, quieter.
I did not have the strength to outrun it forever.
And I was not going to survive another hit like the first.
I kept low and moved through the trees until the forest stopped shaking around me. I found a patch of shadow where the canopy grew thicker and forced myself to stand.
Behind me, deeper in the trees, the forest held its breath.
The Centilito was no longer in my immediate sight, but its presence still pressed against everything, like heat lingering after a fire. No insects chirped. No soft rustles. Even the wind seemed to be hiding.
I stood there hunched slightly, listening to the silence and waiting for it to break. Waiting for the ground to vibrate again. Waiting for that clicking rhythm to return like a sentence finishing itself.
It did not.
My heartbeat slowed enough for me to feel every ache again.
A small ugly thought slid into my head.
Go back.
Go back to the village. Slip through the trees and stumble in before dawn. Tell them you tried. Let Grizz handle it. Let Lenny handle it. Let somebody else die next.
I shut my eyes and let the idea sit there for a second, heavy and tempting. I could see it clear. Warm light. Food smell. A bed. A voice telling me I made it back.
My body wanted that.
My fear wanted that.
Then Levi's face pushed into the picture and ruined it.
Levi walking these forest paths knowing this thing still hunted here. Levi paying for my existence in a realm where I did not belong. Levi taking responsibility for a boy he did not have to protect.
And me, the human with no clan, no blood ties, no one who would say, touch him and you answer to me.
If I went back now empty handed, this forest would not stop being dangerous.
It would just wait.
And so would everyone watching me.
I opened my eyes.
"Not yet," I whispered.
My fingers curled around the spear until my grip hurt.
I did not need to understand the runes.
I did not need to understand what I had cracked.
I only needed one thing.
A way to make the Centilito leave its own yard.
I turned my head toward where the trees thinned, toward where the soil grew looser and the air tasted drier.
Toward the desert.
The idea was stupid.
The idea was dangerous.
The idea was the only thing I had.
I started moving.
I kept to shadow, to the uneven ground, to the places where branches and leaves covered my footsteps. The forest remained unnaturally quiet. That made every sound I made feel too loud. Every snap of twig felt like a shout. Every breath felt like it carried farther than it should.
It did not take long to find the Centilito again.
I heard it first.
A scrape.
A low churn of dirt.
A faint clicking rhythm that came and went, like something moving without committing.
I crouched behind a thick trunk and peered around it.
There it was.
The Centilito slid between trees, weaving in and out like a ribbon dragged through water. Some plates were streaked with dirt and sap. It moved slower than before, head swinging side to side as if tasting the air.
It looked like a predator that had lost the clean thread of the chase and was trying to find it again.
My mouth went dry.
My legs wanted to run.
Instead, I stepped out where it could see me.
I raised the spear with both hands.
"Come find me then," I whispered.
And I threw.
The spear cut through the air in a crooked arc and slammed into the Centilito's side, about three segments back from the head. The tip hit armor, skidded, then lodged shallowly in a gap between two ridges.
The creature jerked sharply. Its hiss changed pitch, climbing into something shrill. It twisted its head to look at the spear sticking out of it like an insult.
Then it looked at me.
I felt that look in my bones.
"That get your attention, eeh?" I said, though my voice shook more than I liked.
The Centilito's mouth spiraled open and it let out a piercing cry that made my ears buzz.
Then it lunged.
I spun and ran.
Not random.
Not blind.
Straight toward the thinning trees and the sand beyond.
The plan depended on one simple thing.
It wanted me more than it wanted to think.
Behind me, it crashed through the forest now, no more careful weaving. It drove forward in straighter lines, slamming aside brush and snapping branches like they were nothing.
Good.
Come.
The ground began to tilt upward as the terrain shifted. My legs screamed. My ribs burned. The air tasted drier with each step. Patches of sand appeared beneath the leaves like warnings.
I burst through the last line of trees and onto the first stretch of dunes.
The sand shifted under my boots and tugged at my heels. Wind sliced across sweat and made my skin sting. The desert looked open and empty in a way that felt like another kind of trap.
I turned back toward the treeline.
The Centilito reached the edge and stopped.
Claws dug into roots. Segments rippled with agitation. Its head swung side to side, testing the loose soil under its front legs.
It knew this was not its world.
It hissed low, almost like a growl.
"Wah happen?" I called, forcing the words out through pain. "Big bad forest king fraid of a likkle sand?"
It lifted itself slightly. Plates shifted. It scuffed the sand once and pulled back, like the grains whispered danger.
For a breath too long, nothing happened.
Then the ground tightened beneath my feet, subtle but deliberate, as if the forest itself had decided where I was allowed to stand.
I didn't move.
Whatever choice came next wasn't going to be mine.