Religion did not arrive with belief.
It arrived with relief.
The night passed without screams.
No one burned. No one was dragged away by the dark. No one collapsed foaming at the mouth.
Morning came.
That alone was enough.
Melina noticed the change immediately—not in action, but in posture. The humans moved more carefully now, as if the space itself had become aware of them. Their steps avoided certain places. Their eyes lingered on others.
The fire was approached differently.
Before feeding it, one of the men crouched and pressed ash against his forehead. Another mimicked him. A third hesitated—then did the same.
No words explained it.
The fire burned steadily.
"They're attributing survival to sequence," Boris said quietly.
Melina watched as a woman approached the fire holding a strip of dried meat. She hesitated, then dropped it into the flames.
The meat curled, blackened, vanished.
She stepped back.
The others watched the fire closely.
Nothing happened.
No sudden flare. No scream. No punishment.
The woman exhaled.
Relief rippled through the group.
"They think it wants something," Melina whispered.
"Yes," Boris said. "And that it can be satisfied."
Later, when another man tried to warm himself without smearing ash first, the flame flared suddenly as a branch shifted. Sparks leapt outward, biting his arm.
He cried out.
The group recoiled instantly.
Not from the fire.
From him.
Melina's stomach dropped. "They're blaming the order, not the accident."
"Because order can be controlled," Boris replied. "Chance can't."
The man pressed ash desperately into the burn, hissing. Others avoided him, eyes sharp with a new emotion.
Judgment.
He had done it wrong.
The rules were invisible but solidifying.
As the day progressed, more patterns formed.
Those who bled—especially from the vulva—were not allowed near the fire. Ash did not help them. Nothing did.
Their blood had proven persistent.
So it was decided—without words—that it was different.
Dangerous.
The bleeding woman from before was made to sleep farther from the group now. When she approached the fire, someone gestured sharply and pointed away.
She complied.
Isolation had become enforcement.
"This isn't medicine anymore," Melina said, voice tight. "This is belief."
"Yes," Boris replied. "Because belief doesn't require correction."
Another death occurred before midday.
A man weakened by infection collapsed near the tree line. His breathing rattled, then stopped. When the group found him, no one touched the body.
They stood in silence.
Then one of them made a low sound and pointed—not at the body, but at the path he had walked earlier.
The others followed the gesture.
The man had stepped near the waste area. He had not smeared ash before eating. He had slept closer to the bleeding woman.
Connections formed.
Wrong ones.
But complete enough to explain fear.
The body was left where it lay.
No one argued.
Melina felt something cold settle in her chest. "They're rewriting death."
"They're domesticating it," Boris said.
As dusk approached, a new behavior emerged.
One of the women knelt near the fire and pressed her forehead to the ground. She stayed there longer than necessary—long enough for discomfort to become effort.
When she rose, she touched her chest and made a soft sound—not language, but intention.
Others watched.
Then copied.
Kneeling.
Lowering.
Holding still.
The fire crackled gently.
Nothing bad happened.
That was enough.
"They're not worshipping," Melina whispered.
"No," Boris said. "They're negotiating."
Fire was no longer just heat.
It was judge. Boundary. Witness.
Ash marked those who belonged close to it.
Blood marked those who didn't.
Bodies that survived were seen as correct. Bodies that failed were seen as warnings.
Authority gathered around the uninjured, the unbleeding, the unburned.
Those people were listened to.
Those people stood closer to the fire.
Those people decided who stayed.
Melina watched the woman who bled sit alone in the dark, ash useless on her skin, eyes reflecting firelight she was not allowed to approach.
Her body had become evidence.
"This is where morality starts," Melina said quietly. "Not kindness. Pattern."
Boris didn't disagree.
He was watching the group arrange stones around the fire—not for containment, but distinction. A boundary drawn deliberately.
Inside: warmth, light, safety. Outside: cold, dark, uncertainty.
Religion had taken its first breath.
Not as prayer.
But as rule.
As night settled, the humans slept according to these new laws. Ash-marked bodies closer together. The unmarked farther out.
The fire burned.
It had not chosen them.
But they had chosen it.
Melina closed her eyes, exhausted beyond words. "They're going to start killing for this," she said.
"Yes," Boris replied softly. "Eventually."
"And they'll believe it's necessary."
"Yes."
The forest watched.
The fire listened.
And humanity—afraid, brilliant, wrong—learned how to obey something it had invented so it wouldn't have to face chance again.