The morning sun bled weakly through the canopy, casting a sickly green glow over the camp. The ground was still damp from last night's rain, and a thin mist clung to the underbrush like cobwebs. Everyone was awake, but no one spoke. Not at first.
The attack from the night before had left more than just scratch marks and a few scattered supplies; it had dug into their nerves. Thomund sat sharpening a piece of wood with another sharper stick, eyes flicking constantly to the treeline. Lira knelt by the ruined lean-to, trying to re-lash a broken support with strips of bark. Goss muttered under his breath, pacing the edge of camp, kicking stones. Even Naera, usually so composed, seemed worn, her shoulders tight, her gaze heavier than usual.
Raif stood in the middle of it all, face in shadow, eyes locked on the orb. It pulsed faintly, cold, indifferent. His stomach churned with hunger, but something heavier weighed on him. A kind of dread. The silence was eating at him, worse than any creature that might be out there.
"We need to talk," he said, finally breaking the silence.
"About the glowing freak that almost ate us?" Goss snapped. "Or about how your precious orb hasn't lifted a finger to help?"
Raif didn't bite. "About what comes next."
"What comes next," Thomund said, his voice low, "is we get picked off one by one if we don't make this place defensible."
"We've got no weapons, no tools," Lira said, her frustration clear. "Half of us barely slept, and we're building with rotted twigs and fungus pods."
"We start there," Raif said, voice steady. "We build better."
Goss scoffed. "With what? Wishes and bloody optimism?"
"No," Raif said firmly. "With what's around us."
He knelt down, grabbed a stick, and drew a rough map in the dirt. "We have vines, sap, and stalks. Naera's found a type of bark that hardens when it dries. We can boil it, layer it with sap and ash, it might hold."
"And stone?" Thomund asked. "You planning on carving spears out of moss?"
"Limited stone," Raif admitted. "But we saw sharp bones from that carcass. Flint, maybe. If we scout enough, we can get what we need from beyond the edge."
The jungle around them hummed with strange sounds. Black-veined flowers bloomed high in the trees, their red and violet petals glowing faintly when touched by the weak sun. Insects spiraled in drunken loops above the blossoms, some with wings that shimmered like molten bronze. Ground-level ferns hissed when disturbed, snapping their leaves shut in irritation. Creeping vines with glass-like barbs curled beneath bark, some of them leaking a yellow resin that smelled faintly of cloves.
"Beyond the edge?" Goss repeated, incredulous. "You want to go out there after what we saw?"
"Do you have a better idea?" Raif shot back.
No one answered.
"We build knives first," Raif said. "Bind flint or sharp wood to split shafts with vine lashings. Heat the sap, and make a crude glue. Use fungus fibres to bind the hafts. It's not perfect. It's not pretty. But it's a start."
"Fine," Lira said, crossing her arms. "But we split the labour. No more solo runs."
Raif nodded. "Agreed."
"Naera?" Eloin asked gently. "Can we dry the bark without spoiling it?"
Naera nodded slowly, her eyes scanning the tree line. "I can try. It'll take hours. Maybe days for a good set. But it'll work."
Raif crouched by the orb again, knees creaking with the effort. His fingers brushed the cool surface. Nothing. Still nothing.
"Why's it quiet?" he muttered.
No one answered. Not even the orb.
"It let us summon five strangers, dropped us in this cursed jungle, and then what? Just watches?"
"We didn't meet its conditions," Thomund said. "Whatever those are."
"It's a bloody rock," Goss growled. "And we're treating it like a god."
Raif stood, jaw tight. "Because we don't have another option."
Lira crossed her arms. "Maybe we should stop waiting for it to save us. Maybe it never will."
A long silence stretched out. Even the jungle seemed to hold its breath.
Raif looked at them. "Then we prepare like we never get help."
Naera spoke quietly, almost to herself. "It feels like it's watching. Just not… helping."
Raif turned back to the others. "Naera and Eloin, prep the bark. Lira, Goss, find more binding fibres and sap. Thomund and I will try to find another vein of flint."
"Why are you always giving orders?" Goss muttered, more under his breath.
"Because someone has to," Raif snapped. "Because I'm still standing and none of you stepped up."
"Maybe we didn't because we thought it'd be a group effort, not a monarchy," Lira said, her tone cutting.
Raif locked eyes with her. "Fine. Take over. See where it gets us."
Lira didn't respond. But neither did she walk away.
They moved.
Not quickly. Not easily. But they moved.
Later, as they scraped bark, sharpened sticks, boiled sap over a low flame, and braided cordage from jungle grass, they worked in quiet desperation. Each movement carried the weight of fatigue and hunger. Blisters burst and were rewrapped. The smoke from the sap fires clung to their skin, the air thick with the smell of boiled wood and singed bark.
Goss fumbled with a length of vine, his hands shaking. "Bloody hell, this is useless," he muttered, tossing it aside. It slapped against the dirt like a failed punch.
"Try splitting it from the base," Eloin said without looking up, his own hands steady as he carved slow, deliberate lines into soft wood.
Naera watched them both, her hands moving with practiced care. "You're pulling too tight at the ends. Keep the tension even," she murmured, not unkindly.
They were trying. But the strain showed. Goss hissed when a splinter jabbed under his nail. Thomund cursed under his breath as a knot in the vine resisted the blade. Even Raif, usually so composed, slammed a hollowed stick against a rock when his batch of boiled glue failed to thicken properly.
They adjusted constantly. Soaked the bark, layered it. Tested the sap against different leaves for adhesion. When one fibre snapped too easily, Naera suggested soaking it in heated water to soften it before weaving.
Each time something worked, they murmured quiet approval. Each time something failed, no one spoke.
The jungle pressed in on them, the air thick with the promise of rain, the sounds of distant creatures growing louder as the day dragged on. The calls of birds faded. The wind carried a strange, unsettling scent, earthy, sharp, and sour.
But they kept working. Because the only thing worse than failure was doing nothing at all.
"I said hold it tighter," Eloin snapped at Goss.
"Then get someone with fewer broken hands!" Goss shot back.
Naera stepped between them, her voice firm. "We don't have time to argue. Focus."
But even her voice had a strain to it.
Naera spent hours drying the bark using a frame propped over a smokeless flame. She whispered measurements to herself, adjusting the humidity by sprinkling water nearby to keep the fibres from snapping. The process was slow and tedious, but necessary. Sweat dripped down her forehead as she adjusted the frame, her hands steady but tired. Eloin bent a greenwood branch, heating it and securing it with vine twine to hold a curve. His first try cracked, and he swore, starting again.
Thomund split vines with teeth and blade, his movements slow but practised. Each motion was methodical, years of labour behind it.
Raif's hands burned from the sap. He stirred it in a hollowed knot of wood, trying to get the consistency right. When it thickened into a paste, he tested it on bark. Too runny. He cursed under his breath and started over.
The jungle loomed around them. The air buzzed with the sound of insects, the canopy darkening as the sun sank lower.
Raif crouched by the orb again, fingers brushing its surface.
"Say something."
Nothing.
He placed his hand on it. Nothing but the faint thrum beneath his fingertips.
"Help us," he whispered.
Silence.
Raif lowered the reed knife they'd finished, a crude thing, tipped with flint, and walked away.
Goss watched him go. "He thinks it'll answer. Like it cares."
"It doesn't," Lira said, her voice flat.
And in the background, the jungle whispered back.
That night, the camp was still, but not peaceful.
Goss sat alone near the treeline, scratching marks into the dirt with a stick. He wasn't sure what they meant, maybe a count of days, maybe not. His fingers trembled, not from cold, but from tension. The trees whispered things. His thoughts spun in circles, chewing on paranoia. "We're gonna die out here," he muttered, his voice barely audible. "All of us. Just a matter of when."
Lira lay beneath the half-mended lean-to, her fingers curled around the hilt of her bark-handled blade. She stared at the sky, what little she could see of it. She didn't believe in gods. Didn't believe in fate. But part of her hated how quiet Raif had gone, how certain he always tried to sound. Certainty made mistakes easier.
Thomund sat against a stone, chewing slowly on a strip of dried root. His thoughts were quiet, measured, calculating the weight of each person's words, every movement, every failure. Trust was thinner than the vines they used to tie everything together. He had seen groups like this fall apart before. He wouldn't let it happen again.
Naera watched the jungle.
She didn't sleep. Didn't blink much either. The canopy shifted in odd ways at night, and the patterns of bugs had changed, fewer moths, more glow-tick beetles. She cataloged everything silently. A bright fern curled and uncurled near the water catch. The tree bark exhaled mist when the air dropped. Everything had meaning. But she didn't know what it meant.
Raif didn't sleep.
He lay staring at the orb, eyes dry. His chest tight—not just from hunger, but from failure. He'd promised nothing, but they had all followed him anyway. Now they were tired, worn down, and the orb just watched. He hated it. Hated the silence. Hated himself for needing it to speak.
He curled tighter beneath the bark mat and told himself morning would change something.
But he didn't believe it.