Lysander's breath emitted a thin line of warm air in the humid atmosphere of the jungle.
The canopy overhead was as dense as multiple layers of woven baskets stacked on top of each other, choked with vines that blocked out any view of the dark cave ceiling above. The occasional and distant rustle of dried leaves around them jolted their focus back, preparing them for the possibility of a predator stalking them deliberately.
A twig snapped from above.
Lys lifted his head a fraction too fast.
Pain snapped through his ribs, another sharp, insistent pulse reminding him that he had just rebroken, or at least damaged, another rib just a few hours prior.
Julian was already on his knees beside him, scanning the undergrowth with guarded eyes.
"Hush," Julian murmured. "If it's out here, it'll hear you breathe."
Lysander exhaled slowly and let his body settle. They had barely taken a dozen minutes from delivering the beast carcass back to the campfire when the first excitement instinct of being able to have a Spiritualist's powers had driven him forward like a moth to flame.
But here, in the thick of it, every instinct felt like a blade.
They had agreed to hunt for food first and possible spirit sightings second. Julian's voice had carried an odd blend of excitement and dread when he pitched the idea:
"If we can find something for you to assimilate, we'll be stronger."
—but now, hunched in the mud and listening to the jungle's distant rumble, that ambition felt miles away.
Lysander's gaze tracked a small patch of disturbed earth. Not tracks — this soil was too packed, but something near it had moved recently, causing smaller plants to be crushed and twigs to be snapped. A tremor of life, but uncertain if it is yet a threat. Julian saw it too.
"Movement to your right," Julian whispered.
Ahead, a cluster of ferns quivered.
Lysander tightened his grip on his makeshift spear. He winced as his shoulder pulled taut, but he didn't let himself drop his guard. Julian mirrored his stance, eyes narrowed, breath measured.
Then the rustle grew loud, deliberate, and something large crashed through the leaves.
Lysander leapt forward, spear raised.
But what came into view were not eyes glowing with hunger, but vines shaking with the passage of some smaller animal. It was a creature no bigger than a baby rabbit, which fled deeper into the green without acknowledging them.
"Fuck," Julian whispered, but his voice carried a note of frustration both could feel. There was much more to come.
Lysander let his spear lower, heart still thudding. Every hunt began this way — a sound, then a certain suspicion, then closing with a reaction with a weapon — but this time the stakes were higher. Not because they were starving, though they were. Not because they were injured, though they were. But because every moment in this jungle was a choice between turning one's back to preserve life, or risking death by going further to hunt.
At least Julian seemed to have some experience in hunting.
Julian eased back, brushing mud from his knee. "We need patterns," he said, repeating a phrase Lysander now understood by usefulness.
Patterns.
Silence became their currency. Movements that drew no reaction were noted. Broken twigs, disturbed moss, insect swarms parting in arcs — every pattern had meaning if you watched long enough.
They pressed deeper.
The jungle canopy was a riot of greens, but the forest floor was a maze of root tendrils that seemed connected to nothing, vines so thick they might as well be a temple pillar, and shadows deeper than darkness. Lysander's ribs ached unpleasantly with every step.
Julian stopped abruptly.
Lysander's shoulder collided with him, and an abrupt pulse of pain shot up.
"Sorry," he muttered, head snapping up.
Julian's finger pointed low towards a spiral track in the mud. It was shallow but fresh enough to have been from the past hour.
"That right there—" Julian whispered "—is a track left by a spirit. Not a land animal."
Lysander knelt and traced the grooves with his fingertip. His gut twisted into that old synthesis of fear and anticipation.
"The thing seems cautious," Lys said.
Julian nodded. "That's good. It means that, temporarily, it won't be hostile."
They followed the tracks, moving slowly, speaking only when necessary.
The tracks led to a hollow where vines grew in spirals around a stone archway, almost like a throat carved into the earth. Lysander's heart beat with palpitation as the tracks get more and more recent. Arriving at the site, however—
—An uneasy silence greeted them.
Lysander stepped forward first, gingerly taking the first step into the opening.
Then, with a flurry of ripples in space and splashes of color blotting out into reality, the spirit appeared.
First, it was a shimmer of light, briefly illuminating the jungle; then a disturbance in the air, causing a few nearby insects to fly away.
The jungle's silence cracked.
Julian planted himself, spear ready. Lysander, almost without thinking, squared his shoulders.
The spirit drifted out from behind the stone arch, translucent at first, like mist coagulating into a body. It pulsed with faint blue light, the edges of its shape rippling.
A hunched, skeletal figure draped in a cloak browned by dried blood, with a one-horned reptilian skull and dreadful, blue eyeballs, stared back at him with morbid interest.
Lysander's heart hammered.
Julian whispered, "Don't spook it."
Lysander nodded— but before he could lower his spear, the spirit recoiled, kicking its hind skeletal leg bone and, as light and ethereal as it had appeared, shimmered away in a flash of cold light.
Julian exhaled in disappointment.
"That was—" Lys began, but Julian shook his head.
"It's not supposed to be an easy endeavor," Julian said. "Wait and stalk it again."
So they started to split up again, looking once more for clues in the ground. Lysander was becoming increasingly adept at the basic signs of tracking that Julian had taught him, spotting and deciphering clues more efficiently.
It was only minutes later that they spotted it again.
A glimpse of luminescence on the corner of Lysander's vision— something drifting between vines, cautious, attracted by the scene but retreating when noticed.
Julian signaled to Lys, and they bothfrozed
The spirit hovered near a decayed tree root. Lysander noticed that it never fully concealed itself, but it kept moving, always a body length away, always anticipating danger.
Lysander whispered, "It knows we are tracking it."
"That's good," Julian replied. "If it doesn't run away by knowing that, then it's probably curious. Not hostile. For now, at least."
They tried to approach it together, taking slow steps and avoiding its line of vision. Holding their breaths, as if afraid to disturb the air too much, but the spirit flickered and darted deeper into the jungle, as if playing a cruel game of chase.
Minutes passed.
Then hours, probably.
Lysander's body now protested with every heartbeat, both from the pain flaring in his chest as well as the unmistakable drumming of his heartbeat.
Julian's patience was as tight as the vines around them.
"It's leading us," Julian said.
"How do you mean?" Lys asked.
Julian pointed. "See how the tracks only appear after it moves? And how it avoids open ground?"
Lysander saw it then—the pattern. The spirit preferred covering itself, letting itself be stalked to lead its hunters somewhere.
A dreadful realisation settled in the minds of both Julian and Lys that they might be the prey instead of the hunter all along.
By the third attempt, Lysander's patience was as worn as his ribs.
They, now armed with the knowledge that the thing they were hunting was a being with superior hunting skills, tracked the spirit into a dank clearing where water pooled in mud rings, reflecting the soft glow of bioluminescent fungi overhead.
They now watched the spirit more closely, not openly as it was before, perched atop thick tree branches to avoid the slight rustle in their footsteps when stepping on dried leaves and sticks.
Julian crouched low, eyes narrowed.
"This is where it stays," he said. "For now."
Lysander nodded, spear ready.
The spirit floated low above the water, rippling with an enchantingly peaceful radiance, as if a set of starlight bones imprisoned in mist.
Lysander exhaled.
"Okay," he said. "We'll try together."
Julian lifted his blade, and they advanced towards the spirit, stepping on thick branches that could support their weight and did not shake when they planted their foot atop.
By now, Lys had been successful in activating the vision that allowed him to strike with deadly precision and deal the maximum amount of pain, albeit only for a few minutes. He could enter such a state, given a few minutes before concentrating.
In that moment, reality shattered in Lys's vision, massive cracks beneath the world as he saw it. Only a black void of absolute focus lay beneath the glass-like fragments of his vision, revealing the weaknesses and points where he could be struck to deal the maximum amount of pain.
Shifting his stance to a lower one, he climbed down the tree branch he was on to close in on the distance towards the spirit.
Snap.
The slightest sound was emitted in the air the moment his foot touched the ground, but it was enough to alert the spirit. And it seemed the skeletal figure was caught off guard this time, as it jolted into a surprised prance, disappearing mid-leap in a flurry of colour blots.
For the first time, Lysander saw where it went.
Upwards.
Above the trees.
Not quite flying— hanging in the grip of roots like a light caught in branches.
Julian caught his breath.
"Wait," Julian whispered.
They crept forward, stalking upward rather than forward.
Lysander's ribs screamed in protest as he stretched for a low branch and hauled himself up.
Julian followed.
The spirit pulsed again, watching them.
Then it moved—
Downward.
Straight toward the shallow water.
Lysander braced himself, but Julian caught his arm.
"Not yet."
The spirit drifted only a few feet from them, its form coalescing more distinctly. Its eyes were like glassy, reflective blue orbs, and the air surrounding it was a shifting vapor.
Julian nudged him.
"Now."
Lysander leapt upwards.
He drove the tip of his spear not at its body, but at the point it entered the water— the node where the spirit's form was weakest.
The spear passed through the mist and collided with something with a consistency similar to striking silk that stretched over water.
The spirit shuddered.
It flickered.
And vanished.
Lysander fell back, landing hard on his knees. For a moment, neither moved. Then Julian exhaled—sharp and relieved.
"You did it," Julian said, voice low.
Lysander looked up, blinking at the jungle canopy.
Words tasted heavy.
"I… think I did."
His body protested—bruises flared, breath came labored, ribs twisting with every beat of his heart—but there was something new there, too.
A resonance.
The jungle seemed quieter.
Something inside him shifted; he could feel the sensation, yet it was so slight that it felt like a distant song.
They made their way back slowly, Lysander on his feet but leaning on Julian more than he'd ever admit. Julian didn't speak much, just walked beside him, eyes scanning, body coiled for danger.
When they reached the fire again, Lysander sank, muscles trembling.
Julian handed him water—pure, cold, sweet—and watched him drink.
"This should help," Julian said.
Lysander didn't argue as he then slowly exhaled and closed his eyes.
"What happens now?" Lysander asked.
Lysander opened his eyes, still heavy with exhaustion but lighter in spirit.
"We wait," Julian said. "And we see what this did."
A breeze rustled the leaves overhead—soft, like a breath drawn in reassurance.