"Fuck, we can't stay here. This shit is too much right now," Kyle said, trying to breathe through his mouth, though it only let him taste the death more acutely.

"Yeah, shit is gross, bro," Marcus agreed, his usually composed face twisted in disgust. His skin had taken on a greenish cast beneath the blue-tinged sunlight filtering through leaves.

Dex had moved a few paces away, doubled over. The wet sounds of his retching punctuated the jungle's morning chorus—clicks and whistles from unseen creatures that seemed to mock their human discomfort.

"Wait—" Dex straightened, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Look at them. Take it all in." His command ended in another heave, his body rebelling even as his mind insisted.

"I'm serious," Dex continued, gesturing toward the carnage with a trembling hand. "This is it, right? You guys felt it—the power that comes from this. This is what we need to do to survive. Look at them."

Kyle watched his friend struggle, wondering at the contradiction. Dex had seen bodies before—had made bodies before. They all had. The streets of Spanish Harlem weren't known for their mercy. But something about this place, these kills, hit differently.

It wasn't just the flesh with its wrong proportions, or the dark blood that still steamed in the morning air like hot metal in winter rain. It was the proximity, the immersion, the way death clung to them now—viscous and intimate. Back home, violence had been almost surgical: quick flashes of steel, the distant bark of guns, bodies dropping in their wake as they melted into alleyways and around corners.

Clean. Separate. Over there, not here.

But this... this was primal. His clothes hung heavy, stiffening as the creatures' blood dried into a tacky second skin. The substance had splashed across his face during the frenzy, leaving tracks that pulled at his skin when he spoke..

They had never been this close to what they'd done before. In the Five-Eight, you pulled a trigger and walked away. Here, you drove a spear into living flesh again and again, felt the resistance of muscle and cartilage, the subtle pop as the point broke through to softer regions beneath.

They were butchers.

But Dex was right. Beneath the revulsion, Kyle felt something else—a humming in his veins, a new awareness of himself that hadn't been there before. The level up had changed something fundamental.

Marcus looked too, one hand pressed against his stomach as if physically holding back its contents. “So we gotta to get use to this”

"Exactly," Dex nodded, seeming more like himself now that they were discussing strategy. It had always been his strength—finding the angles, seeing how to turn a situation to advantage. "We need to put our points in. Get stronger."

Kyle closed his eyes, calling up the character sheet that floated behind his eyelids like a ghostly report card. Sixteen unbound points lingered there, waiting for allocation. Another decision in a place that seemed designed to test every choice.

He thought about his ankle, about how close those teeth had come to crippling him. Five points into resilience, bringing it from a pitiful 1 to a more respectable 6. Nine into vitality, making it 10. One into dexterity, another into agility. His will had always been strong; he'd fix that later if needed.

The confirmation felt like a silent bell ringing inside his skull. Then the changes hit.

Kyle gasped as sensation flooded his system. His skin didn't feel tougher, not exactly, but there was a new awareness of it, as if extra layers had been added that he couldn't see but somehow sensed. His heart hammered against his ribs, then settled into a rhythm that felt stronger, more deliberate. Blood rushed through his veins with renewed purpose, carrying oxygen to muscles.

"Yeah, you was right, Marky," Kyle admitted, flexing his fingers experimentally.

"Yeah, I know, Alvin," Marcus replied with a smirk—an expression Kyle hadn't seen since they'd arrived in this forsaken place. The nickname felt like a tether to a world they might never see again, a reminder of who they had been before bullets cut them down on 58th Street.

They made their way to the stream in silence, each step leaving the clearing of death further behind. The running water called to them with its gentle murmur, promising cleanliness if not comfort.

Kyle waded in first, wincing as the cool water kissed his ankles. He peeled his blood-stiffened shirt from his skin, the fabric reluctant to release its grip. The dried blood had turned the material into a crude armor, crackling as he pulled it over his head.

The water swirled around his waist as he dunked the shirt, watching as tendrils of dark red bloomed and dissipated in the current. He scrubbed vigorously, his fingernails digging into the fabric where the stains ran deepest.

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"Man, this feels good," Marcus said nearby, already submerged. Water dripped from his face as he emerged.

Dex stood waist-deep, splashing water over his chest and arms. The blood sluiced away, revealing the dark skin beneath. "Needed this," he grunted, the simple admission unusual from him.

Kyle cupped water in his palms and brought it to his face, washing away the grime of battle. He rubbed at his arms and chest, watching as the evidence of violence spiraled away in the current.

Their clothes would never be truly clean again—stains lingered like memories, faded but present—but they looked better after repeated rinsing. They wrung out the excess water and laid the garments on sun-warmed rocks to dry.

The stream continued its journey, indifferent to the burdens it carried away. Kyle stood in the shallows, feeling strangely unburdened himself. Clean. Ready for whatever came next.

"All right, we really got to find a way to make a fire," Kyle said, glancing toward the jungle's edge. They needed to move, to leave this clearing of death behind. But survival required certain basics. Fire meant safety—from cold, from predators, from the creeping darkness that seemed to hold even worse terrors than what daylight revealed.

They tried different methods for nearly two hours. Stones struck against each other produced nothing but dull clicks. Green wood refused to catch, no matter how vigorously they rubbed sticks together. Kyle's palms grew raw from the effort, skin peeling away to reveal tender flesh beneath that stung in the humid air.

As they worked, Kyle noticed something—the throbbing in his ankle had subsided to a dull ache. He paused, rolling up the leg of his makeshift shorts. The puncture wounds where teeth had torn his flesh were smaller, less angry. Some had closed entirely, leaving pink marks that looked weeks rather than hours old.

"I can get used to that," he muttered, running a finger over the healing skin. Another benefit of this twisted game they'd found themselves in.

"We got to find dry wood, bro," Marcus said, discarding another failed attempt at fire-making. Sweat plastered his shirt to his body, darkening the blood stains to rusty smears.

"Yeah, everything is fucking wet here," Dex growled, his frustration evident in the tense line of his shoulders.

They fanned out, careful to keep each other in sight. The jungle floor felt spongy beneath Kyle's boots, releasing moisture with each step that seeped upward through the leather. Everything dripped—leaves, vines, even the air itself seemed to condense on his skin within moments of wiping it dry.

Finally, Kyle spotted it—a dead tree, its leaves withered to a color similar to autumn back home. The trunk stood gray and lifeless among the riot of vegetation. He called the others over, and they used their spears to cut deep into the dead wood.

"Let me try something," Kyle said, an idea forming as he examined a piece of the trunk. The wood felt drier than anything else they'd found, almost papery where it had begun to rot.

He carved a circular hole in a flat section, making it as smooth as possible. Then he gathered the stringiest bits of wood he could find from the tree's interior, placing them in a small pile next to his creation. Using the edge of his spear, he sharpened the end of a straight branch until it tapered to a point.

Kyle positioned the wood shavings around the hole, then placed the pointed stick vertically in the center. His hands moved with strange confidence, as if they'd performed this task a hundred times before. He began spinning the stick between his palms, pressing downward with steady pressure.

The friction generated heat—he could feel it warming his palms as he worked. Smoke began to rise from the contact point, thin wisps at first, then thicker clouds that carried the sweet smell of burning wood. When a tiny ember appeared, Kyle carefully transferred it to the pile of shavings, bending low to blow gently until flames licked upward, hungry for more fuel.

The knowledge hit him like a flash flood, information pouring into his consciousness faster than he could process it.

[New skill acquired: Survivor (Novice 3)] Skilled in the art of adaptation, they transform limited resources into tools of survival. Beneath their tough exterior lies a quiet, powerful resilience, driven forward by a purpose stronger than fear.

Kyle's mind expanded with new understanding—optimal shelter locations, basic first aid techniques, ways to purify water, natural indicators of coming weather changes. The knowledge settled into his brain like it had always been there, waiting to be accessed.

"Another skill?" Marcus asked, already gathering larger pieces of the dead tree to feed the growing fire.

Kyle nodded, his thoughts racing ahead. "This place... it's like it rewards us for surviving. Like it wants us to learn."

“Yea this fucking place wants to throw more shit at us and see what sticks” Dex snorted.

The fire caught properly now, flames climbing higher as they fed it carefully selected pieces of dead wood. The heat pushed back against the jungle's oppressive humidity, creating a bubble of comfort that felt almost sacred. Kyle stretched his hands toward the warmth, letting it dry the sweat and blood that had turned his skin tacky.

"Either way," Kyle said, watching the flames dance, "we're getting better. Stronger." He thought of JT, of the scream that had cut off so abruptly. "For now on we don't run."

Marcus and Dex nodded, their faces transformed by the flickering light. In that moment, Kyle saw past the blood and grime, to the same brothers he'd known back in the Five-Eight. They'd survived the streets together. They'd survive this place too.

As the blue sun climbed higher in the sky, Kyle felt something he hadn't expected in this nightmare—hope. Not the desperate hope of a drowning man, but something cooler, more calculated. This system—these levels, these skills—they were just another set of rules to master. And if there was one thing boys from Spanish Harlem understood, it was how to make the rules work in their favor.

Kyle fed another branch to the fire, watching the flames consume it greedily. Survive. The command still burned behind his eyes, simple and absolute. But for the first time since waking in this place, he believed they could survive.

“Lets go get some of that fucking meat.”