Sunlight scorched the valley, exposing everything the dark had hidden.
Chao Fei, finally breaking free, sprinted toward the campsite, howling her boyfriend’s name.
We followed, dragging ourselves through the carnage flattened tents, shredded gear, blood so much blood soaking the dirt, scenting the air ripe and metallic.
Zhao Shaoju’s body lay tangled in the wreckage of his tent, eyes wide open, mouth agape in a final, silent scream.
Same as Shen Jun: belly torn open, organs stripped out, legs stripped to the bone meatier parts gnawed off in great, ragged bites.
Nothing wasted. Nothing left.
That awful, sucking sound the sound of bones being licked clean came roaring back in my head.
I shook, bile rising in my throat, trembling so hard my teeth chattered.
Zhao Shaoju hadn’t died instantly.
He’d been alive.
Awake.
Feeling every bite, every rip, every inch of himself being eaten away.
And only after the bear had taken its fill only then had it slit him open and left him to bleed out.
I wept, then, great gasping sobs that shredded my chest.
Because I could see it could see the last minutes playing out behind my eyelids
the agony, the terror, the endless waiting for a death that would not come.
What did it feel like, knowing you were food?
Nobody answered.
Nobody spoke.
The question, the horror it settled over Pine Song Ridge like a curse, wrapped tight in the morning sun
“Why?. Why didn’t you help him?”
Chao Fei collapsed under the weight of grief, her voice raw and ragged. Only Lin Qiang, Liang Yu, and I remained. She turned on Liang Yu, fists pounding his chest, blaming him for Zhao Shaoju’s death.
I didn’t judge her right now, we were all wired nerves and fraying sanity, grasping for someone to strike at, anything to make the world make sense.
Liang Yu barely reacted. He just stood there, eyes bloodshot, letting her hit him over and over. His shoulders sagged. “We couldn’t have saved him,” he said finally, voice thick. “From the moment Zhao Shaoju was left alone, he was already dead. There’s nothing I’ve ever seen like that thing even if all six of us had fought it, we wouldn’t have stood a chance.” He wiped his face, suddenly looking so much older a man who knows the odds and still found them empty. “If we’d rushed in last night, none of us would have come out again. There would just be five bodies instead of one.”
Chao Fei crumpled to the ground, her sobs shaking through her, unstrung, undone.
“What do we do now?” Lin Qiang’s voice wavered, haunted by memories of her own loss. “Do we stay? Can we wait here? There’s food here, shelter the search party is due tomorrow....if we can just last one more night....”
But Lin Qiang’s eyes were wild with fear and doubt. “We won’t make it to tomorrow,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m leaving. Now.”
I reached out, gripping her wrist. “Stick together our best chance is to stay together. It’s all mountain roads out there, no cars. You’ll never make it.”
Lin Qiang rounded on me, eyes flashing. “You want us to stay because it’s safer for you fewer targets, more food, more shelter. If that thing comes back, you really think Liang Yu would die for us instead of you?”
I didn’t have an answer.
Lin Qiang wasn’t waiting for one. She pulled a hunting knife something she’d used for field prep gripped the flashlight, and hoisted Chao Fei up off the ground by the elbow, half-dragging her to her feet.
I looked to Liang Yu, willing him to intervene, but he just stood there, face set, silent until the forest swallowed them both.
Once they were gone, I felt the chill settle in for good. “Maybe....Lin Qiang’s right,” I said, my stomach lurching as I looked at the wreckage and Zhao Shaoju’s body. “Even if we make it to tomorrow, who’s to say anyone will show up? Maybe we should go.”
Liang Yu just watched the treeline, his voice calm and low. “If they’d stayed, we’d have a twenty-five percent chance of surviving the night. Now, it’s fifty.” He looked at me, his gaze steady. “Tonight, you do exactly what I tell you. If it finds us, run. Don’t look back, just go.”
Night fell fast. We ate what little food we still carried, gulping down calories, trying to ward off the cold and fear. Then, Liang Yu boosted me up into a thick pine, its branches sagging under my weight, its high canopy shielding me from sight.
He bundled our spare clothes, tossing them into the locked pickup, then climbed into a tree of his own, thirty feet away, close enough to see, too far to touch.
For the first time in days, the forest around us was silent no wind, no river, no cackling nightjar. Just the dark and the waiting, and above us both, a sky full of stars that felt less like hope than like a billion indifferent eyes, watching to see what daylight might bring.
He climbed up into his own tree, not far from mine.
The night passed quietly. I even dozed off for a while, exhaustion finally dragging me under, until around five a.m., when an overwhelming stench rotten, clotted, impossibly thick ripped me awake.
Blinking, still groggy, I looked down and saw it; the massive bear, stalking through the ruined campsite, now at the truck. With a single swipe, it shattered the window frame and tore the driver’s side door clean off its hinges.
The beast stood there, head cocked, scanning the cab inhuman eyes reflecting the last faint embers of the fire, blood splattered fresh across its muzzle and chest. Maybe it was just the flickering orange glow, but it looked like every part of it was matted with drying gore.
The scent rolled over me in waves corpse and bile, so strong it made my eyes water.
The bear didn’t find anyone in the cab. For a dizzying second, I hoped it would leave.
It didn’t.
Instead, it dropped to all fours, crouched low, and peered under the truck.
My heart slammed hard behind my ribs.
This wasn’t the mindless instinct of some dumb animal it was checking, searching, hunting like it already understood what humans would do, where we’d hide.
Then, with an eerily deliberate motion, it trundled around to the back, reared up, and opened the tailgate.
Clunk.
Even from the tree, I heard the latch give.
Not a wild swipe. Not brute force. The bear knew how to open a car trunk.
I felt my breath catch, my whole body trembling.
It circled, paced, sniffed. When it found nothing, it let out a roar, a sound so deep and loud my teeth buzzed, my hands flying to my ears.
“Liang Yu,” I hissed, barely louder than a breath, “did you see that? The bear.....the bear just opened the tailgate.”
His face was ashen. “That thing’s not right. We can’t stay here. We need to get moving if we follow the trail back, we might run into the search team.”
He hesitated, then added, “But not the main path. I’m not taking chances....this thing.”
He didn’t finish the thought. He didn’t have to.
This bear was smart.
Not just smart.....
It was after us.
We waited until we were sure the bear was gone, then slipped down from the trees. We moved fast, silent, Liang Yu brushing away our footprints with every other step, snapping branches only an idiot or an animal would snap. By early afternoon, we’d covered half the distance to the nearest settlement if we kept up, maybe we’d reach the village by dark.
Then, rounding a dusty little rise, I saw two bodies.
Clothes I recognized instantly Lin Qiang and Chao Fei, sprawled in the dirt, flies already settling in, glinting in the sun.
After so much death, you’d think my heart would be numb, but I still felt a jagged twist in my chest.
Chao Fei same as before: stomach torn open, legs stripped, ribs showing beneath the mess.
But Lin Qiang.....only her legs were gone, the rest of her untouched, as if the bear had left her just like that. For later? For sport?
“Let’s go,” Liang Yu whispered, tugging my sleeve, turning his face away.
I sighed, nodding, ready to step over their bodies, when.....
A voice.
Faint, thready.
“Help....help....me....”
My head snapped up, eyes wide, staring down at Lin Qiang and Chao Fei, motionless in the dust.
Was I imagining it?
Did I really....
“Please....”
Then, impossibly Lin Qiang’s chest rose and fell, her lips parted, her eyes rolling open, filled with pain and terror and just the barest, thread-thin spark of life.
It really was someone crying for help.
“Help me…don’t…don’t go…”
This time, the voice was louder, strained but unmistakable. My fingers dug into Liang Yu’s arm as Lin Qiang’s eyes rolled open, blood-rimmed lips parting, her breathing shallow and ragged.
“Please....I’m begging you....”
The shock hit me like lightning. After all this, after everything she was still alive?
Chapter 04
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