Grub woke before the sun had properly risen, and for several seconds he could not understand why. The shelter around him was quiet, wrapped in the cool gray stillness that came just before dawn. Usually he slept longer than this, especially after the exhausting days he had been putting himself through. His body certainly felt like it deserved more rest. Every muscle protested as he shifted slightly beneath the woven roof of branches. His ribs still ached from the fall into the underground river and The Leviathan. The burn mark and his leg was beginning to heal but the gash on his neck was still fairly fresh. Even the training he had forced himself through the previous day had left his limbs stiff and heavy.
Yet something had pulled him awake.
It was not a sound that he could identify. The forest outside remained almost completely silent, the usual morning noises of birds and insects still absent in the dim early light. It was not a smell either. Nothing unusual drifted through the air of the shelter. But there was a feeling—an uncomfortable pressure in the back of his mind that made the hairs along the back of his neck stand on end. It was the same instinct that had kept him alive more than once already in this world. A quiet warning that something was wrong.
Slowly, very slowly, Grub turned his head. The moment his eyes focused on the entrance of the shelter, his heart nearly stopped. Standing only a few feet away from him was a lizard.
For a brief second his mind refused to process what he was seeing. The creature simply stood there, framed by the dim morning light filtering through the trees outside. It had clearly been watching him for some time. Its posture was rigid, its long tail twitching slightly behind it as if it was unsure whether to run or stay.
Grub recognized it immediately.
Not because it looked drastically different from the others, but because he had spent days watching them closely. At first glance many of the lizards looked similar, but the longer he studied them the easier it became to notice the details that separated one individual from another. This one had a thin scar across the scales above its right eye. One of the ridges along its jaw curved slightly inward instead of outward like most of the others. Its claws were darker, almost black at the tips.
It was the terrified one. The same lizard that had been screaming and jumping around the clearing the day before when it discovered the corpse of the bear. The creature stood there now staring directly at him.
Its expression was strange. Fear was clearly present, but it was mixed with something else. Awe, or perhaps shock. Maybe even disbelief. Grub froze where he lay.
His mind immediately exploded with questions. How had this lizard found him? Had it followed him the previous night? Had it tracked his footsteps through the forest? Had the others found his shelter too? Was the entire settlement already searching the area right now?
The possibilities raced through his head in a chaotic storm of panic. Neither of them moved. For several seconds they simply stared at each other. Grub could hear his own heartbeat pounding inside his ears as the silence stretched between them.
Then the lizard took a step backward. The movement was slow and cautious at first, but the intention was obvious. It was preparing to run. Grub did not think. His body moved on instinct. He launched forward from the bed with explosive speed and crashed into the lizard before it could turn fully away. The two of them slammed into the dirt outside the shelter in a tangled mass of limbs and scales. The creature shrieked loudly as it struggled beneath him.
Its claws raked across Grub's arms and chest while its tail whipped violently through the air behind them. Grub wrapped one arm around its neck and tried to pin its upper body to the ground with the other, but the lizard was stronger than he had expected. In the chaos of the struggle the creature's hand suddenly darted toward its belt.
Grub saw the flash of metal too late. A small dagger appeared in the lizard's grip and the blade drove forward. Pain exploded through Grub's side as the knife sank into his flesh. He gasped and instinctively slammed his fist into the side of the creature's head. The impact snapped the lizard's skull sideways with a sharp crack, but it did not stop fighting. The creature hissed angrily and tried to stab him again, its claws digging deep into his shoulders as it thrashed beneath him.
Grub tightened his grip around its throat while dragging both of their bodies across the ground toward the entrance of the shelter. His club lay only a few feet away where he had left it the night before. If he could reach it—
He kept one arm locked around the creature's neck while stretching the other desperately toward the weapon. His fingers brushed the wood for a moment. But that brief distraction gave the lizard the opportunity it needed. With a violent twist of its body the creature slipped partially out of his grip and shoved him away. It scrambled to its feet with surprising speed and immediately began running toward the forest. Grub's stomach dropped.
If the lizard reached the settlement and told the others what it had seen, his cover would be completely destroyed. Every chance of approaching them peacefully would vanish instantly. He jumped up and sprinted after it. The lizard began screaming as it ran, its voice rising into panicked screeches that echoed through the trees. Grub's mind flooded with fear. Those cries could easily carry all the way back to the settlement. In desperation he grabbed his club and hurled it as hard as he could.
The weapon spun through the air and struck the back of the creature's head with a loud crack. The lizard collapsed immediately, falling face-first into the dirt. Grub slowed as he approached the fallen body cautiously. His breathing was ragged and uneven as he stared down at the creature lying motionless on the forest floor. For a moment he hoped it was over.
Then the lizard suddenly sprang back to life. It lunged upward with the dagger raised high and aimed directly at his throat. The blade came within inches of his neck before Grub's hand shot forward and caught the creature's wrist in midair.
The knife hovered just short of his skin. The two of them struggled there for a moment, locked in a desperate contest of strength. Grub shoved the arm away and forced the creature backward.
The lizard staggered but quickly turned and tried to run again. This time its movements were noticeably slower, the blow from the club clearly having rattled its senses. Grub caught up to it within seconds.
He tackled the creature once more and slammed it hard against the ground. This time he wrapped both arms tightly around its throat and squeezed. The lizard fought with everything it had.
Its claws tore into his arms and face. Its fists struck his ribs repeatedly while its tail thrashed wildly across the ground. But Grub refused to let go. He didn't want to do this. He truly didn't. But he knew what would happen if he allowed the creature to escape. Everything he had been working toward would be destroyed. His arms tightened around the lizard's throat.
The creature's movements slowly began to weaken. Its punches lost strength. Its claws stopped tearing at his skin with the same frantic desperation. Grub felt tears blurring his vision as he continued squeezing.
"I have to," he whispered hoarsely.
"I have to."
The lizard's body finally went limp beneath him. Still, he kept holding on. He squeezed long after the struggling had stopped, terrified that it might suddenly regain consciousness again.
Only when he was absolutely certain did he release his grip. The body fell still. Grub sat there for several seconds staring at the ground.
Tears ran freely down his face. He had killed it. Not an animal. Not a monster. A thinking creature. A person. Slowly he dragged the body back toward his shelter. His mind raced with conflicting thoughts as he pulled the limp form across the forest floor. Grief twisted inside his chest, but alongside it was another feeling that he hated acknowledging—curiosity.
A small part of his mind wondered what the creature looked like inside. How its organs were arranged. Whether its body functioned similarly to his own. The thought disgusted him. He shook his head violently.
No.
He refused to treat the body like some experiment.
Instead he picked up the dagger the lizard had used and dragged the corpse toward the edge of the settlement's territory. Once he reached the forest line he laid the body down among the bushes and began carving deep gashes into it. The wounds were rough and uneven. Something that might resemble the work of a wild animal.
Maybe the others would believe the creature had wandered too far from camp and been attacked by something lurking in the forest. Grub stared down at the body for a long moment before turning away. Despite everything, he felt the lizard deserved at least the small dignity of being buried.
The only small comfort was the familiar pressure forming within his chest. The weight of death. He had absorbed it. The strange black residue filled him again, restoring the power he had nearly exhausted during his training. But the feeling brought him no satisfaction.
Grub returned slowly to his shelter, his mind racing with fear. Had anyone else seen the lizard leave the settlement? Had it told someone before it came searching for him? Would soldiers arrive at any moment to search the forest?
He didn't know. And that uncertainty terrified him more than anything else. All he could do now was sit in his shelter and hope. Hope that no one else knew he was there.