On the Path of Eternal Strength.

When he opened his eyes, there was no more rain.

There was no more mother.

There was no more home.

Only an infinite plain, where the earth was black like ash and the trees, twisted like corpses, rose toward the sky, like lifeless specters. The ground creaked under his weight, dry and cracked like a body without a soul. The air smelled of rusted metal, of something old and forgotten.

Above his head, a sky red as blood stretched to the horizon, pulsing, like an open wound that would never heal.

There was Sebastián.

Alone.

In a world that seemed to have forgotten the light.

And on his wrist, the red bracelet kept shining, a faint heartbeat in the middle of desolation.

And then, the void came.

First as a shapeless whisper, an icy hollow that began to swallow everything from within.

His mother's laughter.

The sound of the rain.

The smell of freshly made tortillas, of simple promises.

Everything was erased, devoured by the monstrous silence of that new hell.

When Sebastián tried to get up, he found nothing to hold him.

The ground creaked under his weight, dry and cracked like a body without a soul.

His trembling hands sank into the dead earth, staining with dust and old blood.

And the sky, that red and living sky, throbbed as if it breathed with him.

—Mom… —he whispered, with a broken voice.

But the world did not answer.

It only observed him.

The pain did not come suddenly.

First was the void.

An icy hollow that devoured his chest, sucking everything he once knew.

His mother's laughter.

The sound of the rain.

The smell of home.

Everything vanished, swallowed by the monstrous silence of that new world.

When Sebastián opened his eyes again, he found nothing familiar.

The land was black like dead ash.

The air smelled of rusted metal and abandonment.

Above his head, the red sky throbbed slowly, like a wound that would never close.

The boy fell to his knees, not understanding what had happened.

His trembling hands sank into the cracked earth, dirtying with dust and old blood.

—Mom… —his voice, barely a thread, broke and disappeared, as if that unknown place swallowed it without mercy.

The silence enveloped him, heavy, like a damp blanket crushing his chest.

Sebastián blinked, trembling. His cheeks were streaked with dry tears he no longer remembered crying.

His throat burned, dry from screaming until he lost his voice.

He took a step forward, clumsy.

The earth creaked under his dirty sneakers, hard and cracked like the skin of a dead animal.

He didn't understand where he was.

He didn't understand why he was alone.

Terror gripped his stomach, twisting it like a knot of snakes.

His eyes, wide and frightened, scanned the infinite horizon, desperately searching for something known, something that did not exist.

Then, he felt it.

First it was a tingle on the back of his neck.

Then, an invisible weight that crushed him to the ground with its mere presence.

It was as if hundreds of invisible eyes had opened in all directions, drinking each one of his fears.

It wasn't a "someone."

It was everything.

The earth, the air, the bloody sky: everything observed him.

Everything savored him.

Little Sebastián hugged himself, trembling from head to toe.

His fingers clenched tightly over the red bracelet on his wrist, the only fragment of his lost world.

He wanted to run.

He wanted to scream.

But fear was a thick poison that anchored his feet to the earth.

There was no noise.

There was no wind.

Only the certainty that something ancient and hungry had just awakened in that place forgotten by light…

and he was completely alone to face it. Time seemed to stagnate.

Minutes, maybe hours, passed without Sebastián moving. Only his ragged breathing broke the silence, that fragile whisper that still kept him tied to the world. But it was not enough.

His body began to hurt.

And then… to beg.

Hunger, at first a murmur in his gut, became a stab that climbed up his chest.

A hollow that could not be filled with fear or with tears.

Only then did he remember something as simple as it was devastating: he had not eaten.

Not since that morning.

Since before the accident. Since before everything changed.

And the special dinner his mother had promised him… would never come.

His lips trembled.

—I'm… hungry —he whispered, with no direction. As if the red sky could listen.

He looked around.

The plain offered no answers, only that black, cracked land, and the twisted remains of what once were trees, now nothing more than hollow skeletons.

There were no fruits. There were no animals. Only a dead landscape that seemed to mock his need.

He moved forward, dragging his feet, with his hands still holding the bracelet, as if that could protect him from hunger, from fear… from everything.

His eyes moved nervously, as if searching for a miracle among the rot.

And then, something different.

Between the dry roots of a fallen trunk, a swollen shape caught his attention.

It looked like a sack… something rubbery, like wet skin, covered with a black substance that shone with the reddish light of the sky.

Sebastián stopped.

His stomach growled again, and his throat burned, dry.

But his instinct screamed at him to back away.

That lump… was not natural. It was not dead. It moved.

He got a little closer, just one step.

The air seemed to tense.

The lump shuddered again.

A slit slowly opened on its surface, revealing a fleshy mass inside.

It did not smell like food.

It smelled like blood and something rotten.

But for Sebastián, it was the only thing for miles that was not dry or broken.

His body begged him to move closer.

But all his being trembled with the idea that that thing might be alive.

Or worse… waiting for him.

Then, a subtle sound, like a wet sigh, came from the lump.

Sebastián backed away immediately, with his heart pounding so hard he felt it would explode.

No.

That was not food.

That was breathing.

The air around him became dense, and the little boy began to tremble uncontrollably, unable to take his eyes off that shape that twisted among the shadows. Something was there, something bigger than him, more ancient, and as evil as the void that surrounded him.

The ground seemed to tilt beneath his feet. Every step he took felt heavier, as if the very terrain were absorbing him, as if it wanted to drag him into the depths of his own despair.

Sebastián clenched his teeth, fighting against the fear that took over his chest, but he could not stop looking at the figure that moved. It was at a short distance, close enough for him to hear its heavy breathing, as if it were waiting for something. Perhaps waiting for him to approach.

But no. Sebastián could not get closer.

He did not know what it was, but he knew he should not go toward it. Instinct told him to retreat, to hide, to become nothing more than a whisper in the darkness. But his legs refused to move. Fear had paralyzed him.

An elongated shadow slid across the ground in the distance, its outline barely visible under the light emanating from that crimson sky. Sebastián could not make it out clearly, but he felt that something in the air was tightening. Like a wire, about to break.

The wind blew again, but not with the freshness from before. This time, the air carried a strange humidity, something that made his skin bristle and his breathing even harder. The metallic aroma of the earth surrounded him, heavy, as if the very atmosphere were charged with something ancient, something dirty.

For a moment, everything was silent. Only the sound of his breathing and the frantic beating of his heart filled the space, as if the universe itself were holding its breath. Sebastián knew that at any moment something could happen, and if he did not move now, if he did not decide to act, whatever was stalking him could catch him.

With an almost superhuman effort, he took a step back. Then another. Then one more, until his feet finally carried him to a safer place, or at least, so he thought. He could not see what was out there, he could not know if he was moving away or closer to danger. But he had to keep going.

The feeling of being watched did not go away. On the contrary, it seemed to intensify, as if the shadows themselves were lurking, waiting to catch him.

His mind screamed that he had to flee, but his legs felt heavy, exhausted by fear. Each step he took felt like an eternity, each movement an agony. The ground creaked under his feet, every sound amplified by the deadly stillness of this unknown place.

And although he did not see it, Sebastián knew that something else was there, something that followed him, something he could not escape. He did not know what it was, but he could not deny what his instinct told him.

In the distance, the low roar sounded again, but this time it was closer. Sebastián clenched his teeth, he could not give up now. He could not let that something, that shadow, catch him.

And without looking back, he began to run. The run was clumsy, uncontrolled. He tripped over roots that rose like deformed fingers from the ground, and the dry branches of dead trees scratched his face and arms. The air was hot, dense, almost viscous; it seemed to oppose every breath he took. His lungs burned. His heart beat with savage force.

But he did not stop.

He could not.

He must not.

Behind him, the roars were no longer distant. Something was chasing him, truly. He could hear its rhythm, like a ragged, wet breath. Sometimes, steps. Or claws. He didn't know.

And he didn't want to turn to find out.

A buzzing began to surround him. A strange sound, as if hundreds of tiny wings vibrated in unison, mixed with a dull hiss. It came from the trees, or from the air itself. He wasn't sure. He only knew it surrounded him, pressing down on him.

His vision began to blur.

His body couldn't go on.

And then, as a reflection of desperation, he jumped.

He jumped between two rocks half-buried in the dark mud, and rolled, covering himself as best he could with dry leaves, broken branches, and dried blood.

The roar stopped.

The world… froze.

He didn't dare move. Not even breathe.

He curled up on himself, as if he could become part of the earth.

His nails dug into the flesh of his arms as he tried to contain the tremor.

For minutes —perhaps an eternity— nothing was heard but the whisper of that distant buzzing. And then…

a step.

Another.

Claws, perhaps.

Or simply imagination.

Sebastián squeezed his eyes shut.

A nauseating stench drifted close to him. Something had passed just a few meters away. He felt its heat, or its absence. He wouldn't know how to explain it.

He didn't look.

He only waited.

Waited as if his life depended on it, because it did.

And slowly, the world breathed again.

The buzzing faded.

The silence returned.

And for the first time since arriving at that place, Sebastián cried silently. Tears not of sadness… but of pure terror.

He was alive.

But barely.

And there, lying in the mud, covered in dust, sweat, and fear, he understood something:

It was not enough to run away.

He had to learn.

This world would have no mercy. And if he wanted to survive, neither could he have mercy on himself.

He forced himself to move. He could not stay there. Not another night.

Each step was torture.

But also a small triumph.

When he found a half-collapsed hollow log, he crawled inside. Not because it was safe, but because it was the only thing he had.

And that night —if night even existed in that eternally red sky—, he did not sleep.

He only stayed still. Listening.

Counting the beats of his heart.

Hoping that the next day would not be worse.

And as he did, he felt something hardening inside him. Something he did not yet understand…

But that had already begun to grow.

The dull sound of a bone breaking in the distance was the first thing he heard. Then, the whistle of the wind tearing through the twisted, dead trunks. And after that… nothing.

The silence returned.

Sebastián opened his eyes. He had not slept, not truly. But something in his body had shut down for a few hours, a state between exhaustion and unconsciousness. What woke him was the rough cold of the ground and a stabbing pain in his stomach. As if his own body were starting to bite itself from within.

He crawled out of the log. The light was still the same, reddish, eternal. There was no sun. No sky. Only that damned bloody glow that enveloped everything like a roofless prison.

He stood up staggering. His legs trembled, and when he stood, everything spun. He wanted to scream from hunger, but he had no strength even for that.

The crunch of something beneath his foot made him look down. It was a dry, gnawed shell. A creature that no longer existed. But a few meters away, something moved.

Small. Fast. Deformed.

A kind of rodent without skin, with bones partially exposed and a long tongue dragging across the ground as if tasting the rot.

Sebastián crouched, holding his breath. Hunger was a constant voice, a serpent tightening his stomach. He watched the creature move among pools of thick blood that accumulated between trunks and the remains of corpses.

Then he saw it drink.

Not water. Not nectar.

It drank blood.

A part of Sebastián recoiled in horror… but another, deeper, more desperate part did not.

He slowly walked toward another pool. A less murky one. Denser. Red, thick, with bubbles of dry heat. He did not know where it came from. He did not know if it was fresh or rotten. But something inside him no longer questioned it.

He knelt. The metallic stench struck his face. With every breath, he felt sicker… but more alive.

Trembling, he sank his hands into the edge of the pool and, like an animal, leaned in and drank. The first sip burned his throat like acid. He coughed violently. He felt like he would vomit, that he would faint, that he would die. But he didn't. Because after the burn… came something else.

A faint warmth. An instant of energy. A whisper of life among the rot.

The second sip made him cry.

Not from sadness. Not even from disgust.

It was pure instinct to survive that drove him. It didn't matter if what he drank was the blood of a dead creature or poison. His body, finally, had received something.

And he didn't stop.

He drank until blood ran down his chin, until his lips were stained scarlet and his stomach stopped complaining. And only then did he fall on his back, breathing heavily, feeling how every cell of his body slowly returned from the edge of collapse.

After a few minutes, he forced himself to get up. He could not stay there. Not in the middle of a field of carrion.

In the distance, the rodent kept chewing on something. Sebastián followed it.

For hours, he became a shadow. He walked crouched, hiding behind rocks and trunks, following those deformed creatures. He observed what they ate: dark larvae hidden under slimy stones, gray fungi that grew on dead flesh, a greenish liquid that oozed from certain sick plants.

And he imitated them.

He tore the skin of a dead trunk with his nails until he found a nest of black worms. One squirmed in his fingers. He closed his eyes and brought it to his mouth.

The bug exploded when he bit it, releasing a thick, hot, bitter liquid. Sebastián vomited the first time. But he did not stop. He clenched his teeth. He kept eating.

With each bite, he felt he was dying a little more inside. But he also felt something else: a strange calm. As if the part of him that still cried out for normal food, for bread, for fruit, for anything human… were fading.

Disgust became habit. Fear, instinct.

Every movement was studied. Every sound, a threat.

By mid-afternoon —if that even existed here—, he found a half-buried structure. It looked like a creature dead for centuries, its bones forming a kind of natural cavern. He crawled inside. There, hidden, he slowly chewed on a rubbery fungus he tore with his nails. It had a metallic taste and a faint tremor to the touch, as if it still had life.

He chewed. He did not think. He only survived.

And while doing so, he realized something: he no longer cried.

The crying had been left somewhere else, in another Sebastián. One who still believed this was a nightmare. That Sebastián was no longer there.

What remained now was a thing with hunger, with fear… and with eyes that learned quickly.

That night, he returned to the hollow log.

He did not pray. He did not call for his mother. He did not beg.

He only listened. Like the day before.

But this time, he did not only count the beats of his heart.

He counted the sounds the world made.

And compared them to those of the previous day.

And prepared himself for what would come tomorrow.

The next morning —if there even was a "morning" in this motionless sky—, Sebastián woke with a stiff neck, nails black from dry earth and blood, and cracked lips. He did not know how long he had slept. He only knew he was alive.

And that he must not stay still for long.

The sounds of the place were no longer chaos to him. They began to make sense. Certain creatures moved with a defined rhythm. Some were heard only at dawn. Others, just before "nightfall," when the wind carried with it a more acidic smell, like decomposed meat stirred by heat.

That day he did not look for food. His stomach still twisted from what he had eaten the night before, but at least he had something inside. What he needed now was to understand more. To know what hunted. What was hunted.

He ventured deeper into a denser area of the plain, where the deformed trees gathered more frequently, twisted like corpses in eternal spasms. And there, he saw it.

First, he heard the growls: dry, deep, heavy. Then, the sound of something breaking. Flesh tearing. Bones giving way.

He crouched among the putrid undergrowth and watched.

A creature, like a dog but without skin and with protruding ribs covered in black spines, was being torn apart by another larger one. More silent. That thing did not roar. It did not shriek. It only acted.

It had an elongated body, four blade-like legs and a triangular head with unblinking eyes. Its movements were exact. Lethal. It did not hunt for hunger… but for instinct.

Sebastián did not breathe. He could not move. Seeing that left him frozen. Not only from fear, but from what he understood in that instant:

He was nothing.

He was weaker than the prey.

He was less than a fresh corpse.

And if he wanted to survive… he had to be invisible. When the larger creature left —leaving only chunks of black flesh and a pool of thick blood—, Sebastián took a detour and returned to the area where days before he had seen some rock formations.

He wasn't looking for shelter. He was looking for safety. And if possible, something that could resemble a home.

It took him several hours to find it. It was a crack on the side of a large rock, surrounded by dry trees and twisted roots that grew like deformed hands. He barely fit inside, but that was the best part.

Only he could enter.

The inside smelled of dampness, of mold, of confinement. But not of death. And that was already an improvement.

He spent the rest of the day gathering pieces of bark, hollow branches, stones. He didn't know exactly why. He just… did it. His body moved by instinct, seeking to rebuild something that no longer existed: a space where he could feel safe. Even if it was a lie.

He placed a large stone by the entrance, to block it if something came near. He arranged pieces of rotten cloth he found among the remains of an animal skeleton. Even so, something inside him knew he wasn't building a home. He was building a trench. A nest of desperation.

When he finished, he sat inside, hunched, his back against the cold rock. Outside, the world creaked, breathed, stalked.

But inside… there was only silence.

Not peace. Silence.

And for the first time since he arrived in this hell, Sebastián closed his eyes by his own will.

He slept. Little. Badly. With a bone knife in his hand that he had carved as best he could.

But he slept.

And in his dreams, there was no voice of his mother, no home, no school. Only lidless eyes watching him from the red sky. Only blood. And the need to keep living.

He woke with a pasty mouth and his stomach twisting like a hungry animal trapped inside.

The new refuge, though safer, was also colder. More real. There was nothing in it that felt like home, but at least, for a few hours, it kept him from being easy prey.

Sebastián crawled out, not out of fear, but because he was beginning to learn. Moving crouched, slowly, holding his breath, kept him alive. He watched the smaller creatures —some with eyes on their chests, others faceless, all silent— and tried to imitate them.

He noticed that many clung to the ground, hid under roots, moved through shadows. They didn't run. They slid.

And he did the same.

For hours, he only moved.

He listened. Analyzed. Copied.

At midday —or what he could guess as such— he found the remains of a dead creature. It was recent. The bones still wet, the air heavy with an acidic, hot smell.

But that wasn't what caught his attention.

Beyond the remains, hidden among black, coal-like roots, a small being trembled. Its body was torn, one leg bent unnaturally, and its skin covered with scales that shifted color with the light. Its breath was short, almost imperceptible.

It was beautiful… and it was dying.

Sebastián approached cautiously, more by reflex than compassion. Instinct told him to watch it. To understand it.

The creature didn't flee. It didn't even raise its head. It only kept trembling, its body curled up, bleeding little by little.

Sebastián crouched. He studied it. It was small, no bigger than a cat. It had a thin, long tail, and a deep wound on its side that exposed pulsing flesh.

—You have no escape, do you? —he whispered, not knowing why he spoke.

Perhaps because he needed to hear his own voice. So as not to forget it.

The small creature barely lifted its head. Its big, black eyes looked at him. Not with fear. But with something worse: resignation.

Sebastián moved away. He couldn't help it. He couldn't even help himself.

He kept walking.

Hours later, hunger forced him to return.

The creature was still there, more motionless than before.

And he… no longer hesitated.

He crouched, pulled out the bone blade he had carved the day before, and pressed it against the animal's neck. He didn't cut.

It wasn't necessary.

The creature no longer breathed.

And while he skinned it clumsily, with trembling fingers, with his mind screaming at him to stop, another deeper voice —one he did not know— whispered to him:

"Eat. If you don't, you die."

And he ate.

The meat was hot. The taste, metallic and viscous. It didn't taste like anything his tongue remembered as food. He chewed with difficulty. Forced himself to swallow as tears ran down his cheeks covered in dust and dried blood.

Then, unable to bear it any longer, he moved toward a reddish puddle next to the corpse of a larger creature. It wasn't water. It wasn't clean. But it was the only thing.

He knelt. Put both hands in.

And drank.

The blood slid down his throat like thick fire. He coughed. He choked. He vomited a little.

But he drank again.

Because his body needed something. Anything. Because if he didn't, he would fall.

And if he fell, the world wouldn't forgive him.

When he finished, with his face stained and his chest burning, Sebastián lay on his back on the ground. He breathed with difficulty.

And in that absolute silence, for the first time, he didn't feel human.

Not entirely.

He was something else.

Something learning to survive not through reason… but through instinct.

And for a second… he felt more alive than ever.

But life was not relief. It was not comfort.

It was a flame that burned only to remind him that he could still die. He moved forward.

He didn't know if it was day or night in that eternally red sky, but the atmosphere had changed. It was drier, hotter. The ground crunched with remains that were not leaves or branches. Bones. Many, broken and blackened by time. And among them, some still wet. Recently split.

The Plain of Bones gave him no respite. No answers. Only death… scattered, old, recent, latent.

The wind brought a different smell.

Sebastián stopped.

It wasn't rot. It was something worse. A dense, metallic aroma, similar to his own blood… but stronger, more animal.

He was not alone.

The instinct that was already sharpening inside him made him walk more slowly. Close to the ground. Eyes alert. Ears tense.

He saw it.

It wasn't like the other creatures that skulked in the shadows. This one didn't flee.

It was devouring.

It was enormous, with long, bony legs, with skin torn as if it had emerged from its own skeleton. Its jaw opened until it split in two directions, and what it chewed was another monster, smaller, already shapeless and faceless.

But the worst part was not that.

The worst part was that, although it ate, it knew Sebastián was there.

Its head shot up. It had no eyes, but it turned directly toward him.

A part of him, the human part, froze.

The other… screamed at him to run.

And he ran.

The ground became treacherous, slippery with dried blood and decomposed flesh. Behind him, the sound of the long legs was constant. Tak-tak. Tak-tak. A rhythm that marked his sentence.

He had learned something in those days: predators do not always roar. Sometimes, death comes in silence.

He jumped between rocks, crawled through a cut in the ground, panting with his chest burning. The monster didn't chase fast, but it didn't stop.

It didn't need to catch him right away.

It only had to wait for him to fall.

And that almost happened.

Sebastián tripped, fell face-first. His hands tore against the stones. The pain was a dry lightning strike. He got up as best he could. He didn't think. He only survived.

A gap between two rock formations saved him. He got in there, breathing blood and fear. His heart pounded. He felt its echo in his ears, in his throat, in his fingers.

The predator went past.

It didn't see him. Or didn't want to follow.

Maybe, at that moment, it wasn't hungry anymore. Or simply, it wasn't its territory.

And Sebastián understood.

Here he wasn't just a victim. He was an intruder.

Every creature had its space. Each knew its hunt, its shelter. Its territory.

And he, for now, had none.

That night he found another shelter. Not a home. Not like the previous one.

A shallow cave between two fallen stones, with remains of dead creatures and marks on the walls. But it was empty. Enough to stay.

And for the first time, he didn't stay awake out of fear… but out of watchfulness.

He observed.

He waited.

He learned.

And the next day, hunger returned like an old enemy. But now, he faced it differently.

He saw in the distance a small creature. Like a rodent, but with hind claws that made it jump as if the ground burned it. It moved fast, clumsy… but it had a pattern.

Sebastián crawled.

Watched.

Waited.

And when the creature approached a pool of blood —yes, blood— to drink… he lunged too.

He failed.

He didn't catch it. But he made it flee.

And he followed it.

For hours.

And he learned.

Animals also fled. They also feared.

And they also ate things they shouldn't.

When at last he dared to try, he returned to the pool.

The blood was thick, coagulated by the heat. With insects floating. But it had a smell. A smell that no longer disgusted him.

He drank it.

Slowly. With his tongue, as he had seen the smaller creatures do.

And he knew he was lost.

But he also knew he would survive.

He wasn't human.

Not entirely.

He was something that crawled among blood and bones, with eyes open and heart beating like a war drum.

And each day, that thing… Sebastián… was less a child.

And more a hunter. The next day, when he opened his eyes, the sky was still red. Unchanging. A canvas of dried blood stretched above his life.

His stomach burned. His body ached. But he didn't move immediately.

He pressed his lips together. Swallowed saliva, though there was almost none left. The only thing he had was a new, dark, firm thought that burned in his chest:

"This place is mine."

He didn't know why he thought that way. He didn't reason it. It wasn't his voice. It was something deeper. Something that had been born out of despair, hunger, and the darkness of the night before.

He crawled out of the log he had turned into a refuge and, by impulse, began to gather stones. Not to protect himself. No wall would withstand the things that roamed out there. But by stacking them near the entrance, like a small irregular fence, he felt something was being said. Something invisible.

A border. A warning.

Then, with fingers stained with dirt, he rubbed dried blood over the bark. The blood of the animal he had managed to hunt. He spread it like a trembling signature.

He didn't know if it served for anything.

But he had observed.

Small creatures with spines on their backs that crawled around trunks before hiding. That marked the ground with secretions. That growled if anything dared get too close. That defended their space fiercely.

Sebastián understood why.

Now… he felt it too.

Later, when he went out to look for something to put in his mouth, he discovered tracks that weren't his near the refuge. They weren't human. They were deep. Sunken. With claws. And bigger than his foot.

He didn't stop to think.

He ran back to the hole. Grabbed the sharpened bone that served as his weapon and hid in the undergrowth, covering himself with dry leaves and mud until he became part of the ground.

He waited. Not for minutes.

For hours.

His body trembled. Not from cold, but from alertness.

Every creak of the forest tensed him.

But no one appeared.

And when at last he allowed himself to breathe with some calm, something had changed inside him.

He was no longer just a child hiding.

He was an animal marking territory.

A creature among creatures.

That day, instead of returning to the refuge, he kept exploring.

He learned to skirt areas with the smell of recent rot. To avoid branches that hung like traps. To stop when he heard sharp screeches —because what screamed was rarely the real threat—.

He moved more carefully. Crouched. Breathing through his mouth.

He learned.

And he observed.

In a clearing ahead, he found a huge creature. Not from the front, only from the corner of his eye. The shadow of its body was a living wall. Sliding like a nightmare over the mud.

It didn't roar.

It hissed.

And the sound was wet, like flesh being torn from flesh.

Sebastián threw himself to the ground, covered himself with mud, closed his eyes.

But opened them instantly.

He had to see.

From among the roots, he watched it mark a trunk with its back, leaving a line of slime that shone in the reddish light of the sky.

It crushed bones. Dragged its body effortlessly.

And left.

But not without first making something clear: that place belonged to it.

Sebastián understood.

This wasn't just about hunting or hiding.

It was about claiming. About writing his existence in every broken branch, in every bloodstain, in every stone moved.

And when he returned to his little refuge, he didn't feel security. He felt hunger for something more.

Hunger to be part of the world.

And not just a fearful shadow that crossed through it.

That night he didn't sleep.

He only thought.

And something in him, deep inside, whispered that if he wanted to live… he would have to learn to mark his path with more than fear.

He would have to learn to make himself noticed.

To make himself respected.

Or nothing would remain of him in the end.

Only dry bones…

…like those that covered all that land. Sebastián's new refuge, built with crossed branches, rotten leaves, and hollow bones, was nothing more than a shadow of what once was a home. But it was his. A corner in the middle of chaos.

He slept little, ate when he could, and every sound around him was a possible threat.

He no longer reacted like a child. He no longer trembled at the first creak.

He observed. Calculated. Crawled as the bugs did. Hid like the scavengers.

And he had begun to mark the ground. Not with intention… but with necessity.

That is why, when that creature crossed the edge of what he already considered "his space," something inside Sebastián reacted differently.

It was not just fear.

It was rage.

It was a new spark.

The creature was not like the others. It had an elongated body, covered in bony plates that protruded like black spines. Its legs were multiple, arched like inverted spears, and each step left a burned furrow in the earth, as if its very presence corrupted the ground. From its back protruded short, wet tentacles that vibrated with disturbing sensitivity, tracking every vibration in the air.

It had not yet seen him.

But it smelled him.

It felt him.

Sebastián did not back away. Not this time.

He tightened his weapon: a stake made of polished bone, stolen from the skeleton of another corpse days earlier, sharpened against the rock until his hands bled.

And when the creature slowly turned toward him, he was already in motion.

He leapt from the bushes like a starving animal, jaw clenched, eyes wide open, filled with an intensity he didn't know he possessed.

His scream was not human.

It was something older. More primal.

The bone struck violently against the monster's torso, between two plates of the exoskeleton, right where the dark flesh pulsed exposed.

The creature screeched, a high-pitched, broken sound, as if its body were made of glass and shattered from within. A thick, dark, pestilent liquid gushed out, drenching Sebastián in a substance that burned his skin like acid.

But he did not stop.

And he kept pushing, even when the bone weapon in his hand splintered and broke inside the creature's body.

Even though his muscles no longer responded.

Even though the pain in his side clouded his vision.

The monster shook violently. One of its hind legs, armed with a curved claw like a sickle of bone, swung in a dry, brutal movement.

And it struck him.

A slash.

From his ribs to the lower part of his abdomen.

It was not clean.

It was a tear.

Violent, dirty, deep.

Air left his lungs with a hollow moan as his body flew and fell among roots, stones, and mud.

Blood gushed like a warm spring, darkening his clothes, his skin, his breath.

He tried to stand, but his legs trembled.

Mud stuck to the open wound, rotten leaves mixed with the blood, and everything smelled of death.

The creature took another step.

And another.

It observed him in silence.

Its breathing was heavy, uneven.

And then… it didn't attack.

It didn't flee.

It simply stopped.

Sebastián, still with lips covered in blood, looked into its eyes. Or whatever it had for eyes.

And in that exchange of gazes, something was decided.

The monster turned and left.

Not in fear.

Not in disdain.

But with a kind of recognition.

It no longer saw him as prey.

It saw him as something that could become dangerous.

A rival in growth. Sebastián dragged himself to a hollow between rocks and roots. He could not stay on his feet.

Every movement hurt as if he had live fire inside his body.

The wound in his side remained open, pulsing like a second heart, his blood soaking everything around him.

And yet, he did not scream.

He did not cry.

There was no one who could hear him.

He only breathed.

Heavily.

As if that night he had not won… but neither had he completely lost.

One more night.

One more cut.

One more mark.

And in that thick silence, with his body covered in blood and mud, he felt a little less of a child, a little less human… and a little more part of that world that was devouring him piece by piece.

…Then, his body reacted.

Not from logic. Not from knowledge.

But from pure survival instinct.

He searched among the remains of the improvised refuge for something, anything, that could stop the bleeding.

His hands found a kind of dark lichen, damp and thick, clinging between the cracks of the stones. He didn't know if it was poisonous. He didn't care.

He tore it off and pressed it against the wound.

The burn was unbearable.

As if the skin tried to peel away from the body.

But he did not stop.

He tied the moss with a piece of his torn shirt. His fingers trembled, not from fear, but from exhaustion.

Each knot was a struggle against the trembling of his own bones.

But he did it.

He stayed still, breathing raggedly.

He felt his heart pounding hard in his throat.

And then, a sound.

Not a natural one.

Not the whisper of the wind between branches.

Not the creak of some predator in the distance.

It was a dry, distant sound… as if the sky were cracking.

And it did.

A luminous crack opened among the clouds of blood.

And from it, rain began to fall.

But it was not water.

The first drops struck the stone with a hiss.

Sebastián didn't understand at first.

Until one fell near his hand.

And the rock… sizzled.

Another drop touched a leaf. It wrinkled, blackened, disintegrated.

And one more… fell on his bare ankle.

He screamed.

It was as if a thousand needles pierced his flesh instantly.

He dragged himself away, crawling deeper between the rocks.

His wound struck against a ledge. The improvised bandage shifted. The pain mixed with the burn.

The thick liquid that fell from the sky didn't just burn on the outside.

It seemed to want to seep inside.

The rain increased.

It was not natural.

It was something… alive.

Something hostile.

A message.

Sebastián sought cover with whatever he could. Thick branches, dry earth, leaves that had not yet disintegrated. He covered himself as best he could.

Trembling.

Panting.

The wound remained open.

The skin of his leg bore a red, swollen mark where the rain had touched it.

And his eyes, for the first time, were not open from fear.

But from a new clarity.

That world was not cruel by mistake.

It was cruel by nature.

Because it owed nothing to anyone.

And because those who did not adapt… would simply disappear.

He clenched his teeth.

The pain was still there.

The fever began to rise.

But inside him, something kept hardening. Something that was not born of hatred, nor of rage.

It was colder.

Sharper.

More real.

A thought.

A silent promise:

If this world wants to destroy me… it will have to earn the right. The thought hung in his mind like a spark lit in the middle of darkness.

It did not bring relief.

It did not bring hope.

But it brought direction.

When the rain finally stopped, silence did not remain.

The smell did.

Of burned flesh. Of rotten earth. Of leaves dissolved by the poison of the sky.

Sebastián did not sleep.

He didn't even close his eyes.

He only breathed.

Short. Irregular. As if every inhalation were a coin tossed against death, waiting for it to land heads.

When the red sky began to clear —if dawn even existed there—, he dared to move his body.

The rocks were slippery. His wound had stuck to the improvised bandage, and tearing it off was like opening it again.

But he didn't scream.

He could not afford to be heard.

He slowly crawled out of his hiding place, first dragging himself, probing with his hands the stability of every inch.

The air was dense, saturated with something invisible that pressed against his chest.

And the landscape… had changed.

The vegetation seemed melted.

The corpses of small insects covered the corners.

And the ground bore new marks: craters, smoking cracks, dark puddles where once there had been solid earth.

That world was not only hostile.

It was changing.

And it did not forgive weakness.

Sebastián forced himself to stand.

His legs shook.

His side throbbed, hot, swollen.

The fever crawled into his neck like a thick vapor, making him see figures where none existed.

But he walked.

Not from strength.

But from necessity.

He moved through the remains of dissolved leaves, following tracks he didn't fully understand: traces of small creatures that had survived the rain…

How had they done it? Where had they hidden?

Were there caves? Tunnels? Natural shelters?

And in the middle of that weak march, he stumbled upon one of those answers.

A crevice in the ground.

Small, barely perceptible among the roots.

But peering inside, he found remains: intact dry leaves, fragments of shells… and a dead creature.

It wasn't big.

It looked like a cross between a blind mole and a thick snake.

But it had flesh.

And it wasn't rotten.

Sebastián didn't hesitate.

He took it with both hands.

Carried it back to the hideout he had used during the night.

And there, with trembling hands, and his body half-broken, he tried to do something more than just survive.

He took stones.

He struck until he broke the creature's skin.

He didn't know what part was edible.

So he tried everything.

Vomiting was not an option.

Keeping it down, yes.

He chewed. Swallowed. Felt his body itself protest for having to process something so alien, so raw, so… real.

Afterward, he lay down.

Not to rest.

But to think.

For the first time, he wasn't just reacting.

He was beginning to observe.

To study.

To adapt.

And that was, perhaps, the only thing that could keep him alive. The fifth day did not dawn.

Here, it never dawned. The sky remained stained with that red that marked no hours, that offered no comfort. Only the passing of time through the body. Through hunger. Through exhaustion. Through pain.

Sebastián did not know for sure how many days he had been there, but he began to count in his mind. One… when he almost could not move. Two… when he ate what he should not. Three… when he hunted for the first time. Four… when he faced the monster and gained a scar. And today. This one. The fifth.

His wound in the chest no longer bled, but it still burned. Every time he breathed deeply, he felt a sharp pull beneath the hardened skin. Yet he did not stop. Because there was something more important than healing.

He had begun to understand what it meant to have a "territory."

That crevice between rocks, half-covered by roots, was his. Not by right… but because he had defended it. Because he bled over it. Because he survived one more night within it.

And now… he was beginning to understand that it had a price.

That day, he didn't hunt. He didn't look for food. He didn't go far.

He observed.

From a nearby natural rise, Sebastián watched the terrain as if he had been born for it. There were smaller creatures moving around him. They didn't attack him, but moved with constant unease, looked with alert eyes, and vanished at the slightest sound.

He learned from them.

From how they flattened themselves to the ground before moving.

From how they stopped when the air changed.

From how they used silence as a shield.

And then, when the moment came, he did it without thinking.

The creature that approached that day was not small.

It looked like a wild beast born of a nightmare. It was the size of an adult boar, but its body was more robust, covered with dark, cracked skin, as if its flesh were about to split open. From its back protruded irregular bony plates, and its legs ended in deformed hooves that left deep tracks with every step. Its snout was flat, crushed, and instead of eyes it had two cavities that expelled vapor with every snort.

It was blind… but not defenseless.

It sniffed.

It listened.

It hunted.

Sebastián knew it. He knew from the moment he felt it sniffing near the refuge. It was looking for carrion. Or something wounded. Something easy.

And he saw it move.

Heard its breathing.

And it began to advance.

Sebastián did not flee.

He waited.

He had in his hand a broken stone, sharp on one edge. He had carved it as best he could with other rocks, until it had a kind of rough edge. It was not a weapon… it was a claw stolen from the earth.

When the beast was close enough, Sebastián threw another stone to one side. The sound shattered the silence like a gunshot.

The creature turned violently, charging toward where it believed the threat was. Its legs sank into the thick mud.

Sebastián took advantage of the mistake. He slid along the flank, went down a short slope, and with all the strength he had, jumped onto its back.

The stone went in between one of the bony plates, right at the base of the neck.

The beast screeched. A guttural, deep sound, like a roar drowned by boiling water.

It tried to shake him off. Sebastián clung with legs and arms, while striking again and again with the stone, until it broke. Then he used his hands. His nails. His teeth.

He dug his fingers into the soft flesh he found between two plates. Scratched, burrowed, tore.

The creature staggered. Fell on its side.

And Sebastián fell with it.

He kept striking even when it stopped moving. Until his breathing was the only thing heard. Until the blood —thick, dark, with an acidic smell— covered his arms, his chest, his face.

And then… he stayed still.

Not from weakness.

Not from fear.

From respect. That creature was not just an animal.

It was part of that world.

A predator… like he was learning to become.

He did not celebrate.

He did not cry.

He only walked away, with his body drenched in blood, his nails broken, and his pulse racing.

A new scar opened across his chest, but it no longer seemed like a wound.

It seemed like a mark.

A sign.

That he was beginning to understand the rules of that place.

And although he still did not master them…

for the first time, he did not feel completely at their mercy.

It took him a moment to catch his breath.

The echo of the confrontation still vibrated in his muscles, in his chest. It was not only exhaustion. It was something denser. Deeper.

He did not feel pride.

He did not feel relief.

He felt… a different silence.

One that did not come from the surroundings, but from within. As if something inside him —something that had been hidden, waiting— had just opened its eyes for the first time.

He crawled to a damp rock and leaned against it. His arms trembled. The dried blood was already beginning to form a second skin on his torso. He had a new wound on his rib, another on his forearm… but he did not look at them.

They didn't matter.

Not as much as before.

His gaze was fixed on the corpse of the monster.

Not from fear.

Not from curiosity.

But because he understood.

That animal was not a threat.

It was not an obstacle.

It was a mirror.

A brutal reflection of what he had to become if he wanted to keep breathing.

He could not afford to think like a child.

Not anymore.

It was not enough to survive by accident.

He had to do it with intention.

Because the world was not going to become softer.

So he had to become harder.

He felt it in the rhythm of his heart, in the way his mind replayed every second of the attack. He no longer analyzed with fear, but with hunger for understanding.

How did the beast move?

How did it react to the sound?

What was its mistake?

And, most importantly… how would he do it better next time?

That thought was like a spark.

Small.

Cold.

But constant.

It was not hatred. It was not bloodlust.

It was something more disciplined. Purer. Like a compass just beginning to turn in the right direction.

He wiped his face with a broad, dirty leaf. Not for hygiene. For the need to see clearly.

Then, he dragged the mutant boar's carcass toward his refuge.

He could not move it whole, but he tore away parts that would serve: the softer meat, the tusks, a fragment of long, resistant bone.

He was no longer only defending himself.

He was beginning to build.

That night, while chewing charred meat over the flame of an improvised fire, he felt that fear was still there… but more distant.

Like a voice that once screamed and now whispered.

And above that whisper, another voice rose, more recent. Firmer.

An idea that did not come from pain, nor hunger, nor instinct.

An idea of his own.

It is not enough to not die.

I have to learn to live here… with its rules. Or break them.

And thinking that, closing his eyes with fresh blood still on his broken nails, something inside Sebastián smiled. Not on his lips. In his soul.

Because he had taken a step.

A brutal one.

An irreversible one.

A necessary one.

And he knew it.

Without words.

Without witnesses.

He was ceasing to be a child.

He was beginning to become something more.

End of Chapter Two