Today’s episode of Hide and Wait was immensely more nerve-wracking than any of Nick’s prior experiences. This time, he would be getting up close and personal with an apex predator. A clever creature that could end his existence without breaking a sweat.
Although he wanted nothing more than to climb back down and start running for all he was worth, he forced himself to breathe. To think. To remain calm, ready to act without hesitation and at a moment’s notice.
Electric chains of adrenaline wrapped tight around Nick’s spine. Cortisol surged within his veins. His senses were strained to the limit, and every noise the tribe made sent his heart racing. The moment when his plans crashed straight into the lurk’s was fast approaching, and the anticipation was killing him. Despite the imminent risk to his life, he found that he was vibrating with excitement, filled with the heady rush of fear and a primal sensation of being alive.
Who would come out on top in this exchange? A towering nightmare made flesh, or Nick and his wits honed by a lifetime of strategic competition. The atmosphere was terrifying but also thrilling, almost intoxicatingly so. It reminded him of his peak gaming experiences, epic boss battles, and desperate roguelike victories. He cracked a grin as he pressed his body tight against the trunk. He found the comparison amusing, although his present rush put those curated experiences to shame.
Heart pounding like a drum set falling down a flight of stairs, he made himself as small as possible and waited for the lurk to arrive. Every crackle of the wind stirring fallen leaves, every time the canopy was shaken by a roving lemur, sent a shiver of anticipation shimmying throughout Nick’s body. All things considered, it was excellent training in keeping a level head in the midst of an extremely stressful situation. A rare opportunity that he intended to take full advantage of.
He needed to learn not to panic when fighting for his life. To keep his wits about him, even when running from wild animals that intended to devour him. Haste and anxiety would cause him to react on instinct, leaving him at the mercy of the whims of his fight or flight reflex. His experiences on the isle had taught him that doing either at the wrong time would lead him to an early grave.
Nick had to be able to act, not react, to any situation that Taltos and the System threw across his path, if he wanted his plans to be of any use. Nick’s strategic thinking was the only advantage he had brought with him from his former life. A toolkit that he needed to be able to rely on if he wanted to survive his new reality. Without his wits, he was no match for even the weakest beasts on the island, let alone the predators that stood up at the pinnacle of the food chain.
Knowing that his eyes would not aid him in his vigil, he strained his ears and listened, scanning the surrounding soundscape while visualizing how he would respond the moment he detected the lurk’s arrival. He couldn’t afford to make the slightest mistake if he wanted to walk out of this showdown in one piece.
He forced his adrenaline-amped body to remain still and put everything he had into sifting through the input from his senses, ignoring the shaking of his hands and the cold sweat soaking into his shirt. Nick battled with his imagination all the while, refusing to entertain the possibility that he had made a mistake and wasted a precious day for nothing. Or worse, that he had misjudged his opponent, and the lurk would arrive from a different approach.
He wrestled down his fears and forced himself to remain calm. His logic was sound, and his preparations had been perfect. Second-guessing himself at this point would only invite disaster. Nick forced his muscles to unclench and kept his ears focused on the dense patch of brush, cupping one hand to the side of his head to enhance his hearing.
Eventually, his efforts were rewarded. Ninety minutes later, he heard the faint tinkling of shell against shell. Then another rattle. Then nothing at all. It was as if something had, ever so lightly, brushed up against his wards, was surprised by the sound, and then stopped to ponder the matter.
The disturbance was so subtle that it almost seemed incidental. Nothing more menacing than the wind passing over Nick’s alarm lines. But the logic to the pattern of trigger, trigger, pause was all the warning he needed. He was certain, deep down in his gut, that the lurk had arrived and was crouching within the brush; that the deadly beast was only a stone’s throw away, waiting for its moment to strike.
The roiling tension made his limbs shake like reeds in a hurricane, but fear did not break his concentration. Focusing on the berry bushes with every scrap of concentration he could muster, Nick pulled a pair of rocks out of the pocket of his jacket, staring at the overgrowth while waiting for the lurk to reveal its position.
There was no further noise, but eventually he saw a faint ripple spread across the cluster of brush to his left, a motion just a heartbeat out of sync with the natural rhythm of wind blowing through the branches. There! Nick took aim, visualized his trajectory, and threw his stones back-to-back, each baseball-sized lump of granite streaking for where he had seen the foliage move. The first missile struck the earth with a dull thud, but the second produced a hollow thump, the reverberating echo of rock rebounding from flesh and bone.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Then, for a fraction of a second, nothing happened. In that instant, he was consumed by doubt, certain that he had fucked up; that he had misjudged the situation and blown his only opportunity to foil the lurk’s plans. But half a heartbeat later, the bushes exploded in a geyser of shredded leaf and shorn branch, accompanied by a primal scream of rage so loud that it vibrated Nick’s teeth together inside his jaw.
At this point, several things happened at once. The forest writhed with sudden motion as the lurk tore its way out of the undergrowth. The lemurs, along with every other animal in the area, went running in all directions, shrieking in terror. Every direction except for where the lurk stood, venting its fury to the heavens.
Holy shit, I did it. Mission complete. Nick had already lowered himself out of the branches and was about to start running madly for his life when he saw something that changed his plans in an instant. Something that made him abandon his moderately dangerous counter-ambush and replace it with an exceedingly dangerous alternative. Engage in what was, by far, his riskiest gamble to date.
His abrupt change of heart resulted from a simple equation—opportunity plus greed. Because when the lurk rose from the brush and assumed its full height, its shaggy gray body was bathed in an errant sunbeam that had threaded its way through the canopy. As he turned to run, Nick’s gaze was drawn to a tiny golden box strung around the lurk’s neck like a pendant, casting gleaming reflections that cut into the surrounding shadows like resplendent blades—a tantalizing container that could only be a gold-tier reward chest.
It must have been wearing it the whole time, but the box is normally too small to see. Nick had already decided that it would be worth taking a significant risk to acquire a silver chest or above, as long as he had a chance of succeeding without being critically injured in the process. He knew from experience that the contents of such a high-tier reward would likely save his life more than once later on down the road.
And this was not a silver chest, but a gold one, containing an item of such worth that Nick could not even begin to guess its contents. Opening the gleaming auric box represented an incredible opportunity to grow stronger—a chance to rise above the curve that might never come again. Even still, he would never have been willing to risk his life trying to recover the diminutive golden chest if he didn’t already have a plan in place. An exceptionally dangerous strategy that he had been saving as a last resort. One that he was standing in an ideal location to enact.
The lurk was a horrifying opponent. The beast had proven itself to be remarkably clever, unthinkably fast, and terrifyingly powerful. Under normal conditions, it could catch him within seconds, no matter how hard he ran or which evasive tactics he employed. Even if he somehow managed to open some distance, the beast’s senses were so sharp that Nick had little chance of escaping from the apex predator once it was on his trail.
However, his battle with the bonecruncher pack had taught him that sharp senses were a double-edged sword. It was this understanding that offered him a means of both leveling the playing field and enraging the lurk sufficiently that it would chase him deeper into the forest instead of following the lemur tribe.
Before the lurk noticed his presence, Nick threw another rock straight at its head while simultaneously reaching into his belt. He withdrew an object from a pouch and then tossed it up in a lazy arc. A half-second later, his rock hit the lurk square between the eyes. The dull thunk of stone bouncing off bone filled the air for the second time in less than a minute. The instant the missile struck true, the lurk’s gaze locked onto Nick. It opened its jaws and roared, murderous rage gleaming in its eyes.
The sound curdled his blood and filled his veins with ice. He understood on a deep, instinctual level, that the powerful predator knew that Nick was the impertinent creature who had dared to interfere with its hunt. The one who had presumed to cause it pain, however slight the injury. In short, the lurk knew that Nick had challenged its supremacy, and the lurk was pissed. The roar was a message, letting him know in no uncertain terms that it was time to settle the score; that Nick would pay for his affront in the universal currency of grievous bodily harm.
The beast would have ended him then and there if it wasn’t for the final rock Nick held in his hand. Although the threat was slight, the crude projectile was enough to make the beast hesitate for half a heartbeat longer. Before the moment faded like smoke on the breeze, he sent the stone streaking straight for the lurk’s face. He saw the lurk tense up, preparing to leap out of the way, but he did not see what happened next.
The reason why was simple. Nick had already ducked behind the trunk, eyes firmly shut, and hands clasped over his ears. The logic to this strange behavior would soon be apparent to the lurk as well. Because just as it sidestepped his stone, a flashbang grenade exploded right in front of the beast’s eyes. The lurk had ignored the languid arc of the seemingly harmless projectile in favor of tracking the clear threat posed by the soaring stone.
A shockwave that Nick could feel in his bones was accompanied by a pulse of radiance so intense that it hurt his eyes, even though his closed eyelids were shielded by the tree’s bulk. The combined assault of noise and light caught the lurk completely by surprise, causing it to freeze up from the agony of sensory overload.
He didn’t wait to see how severely the lurk had been affected by his flashbang; didn’t stop to make sure that the beast had begun chasing him. He didn’t need to. Because at that moment, a second cry of rage, even more vicious than the first, erupted across the forest floor, followed by a vigorous pounding as the gigantic predator burst into motion.
Nick ran for his life, for there was no longer any doubt. The lurk was coming for him. The hunt was on.