The huntress lies in the dark. Her senses fixated on her surroundings. Eight powerful legs taut, ready to propel her massive gait swiftly to target. Two well-groomed claws ready to tear her prey, black as the surrounding dark.

An excellent hunter, capable of sensing any vibration from a mile away. Boasting an impressive range of conquests that were produced by the hellish dark environment. She is an apex predator, one of the finest of her hive.

She moves swiftly and silently. Her legs capable of carrying her bulking mass with terrifying silence. Most prey had never perceived her presence even when her claws settled around their throat.

She did not have eyes since her environment did not require any but her senses were fine-tuned to the point where they could outclass any man-made surveillance system.

Her Impressive abilities and lethality easily landed her in the top echelons of her hive out of thousands of hunters, in terms of deadliness.

However, on this particular day, the huntress has not been able to catch a single prey. Her normally bountiful hunting grounds were thoroughly barren.

Her lethal gifts had come at the cost of a less-developed intelligence but even her primitive mind was able to discern the reason for the lack of prey.

There had been a powerful resonance that she had felt earlier in the cycle. Something a lot more violent than the usual daily vibrations of her hive and territory.

In fact, it wasn’t even a vibration but a powerful wave. It had rocked her delicate sensing organs, almost knocking her out.

If the wave had affected her this deeply then most poor little grubs must have shat their souls out.

She waits with her body lowered to the ground. staking out from one of her most familiar vantage points.

An ambush predator patiently waiting for a hint of vibration. There is little time though, her biological cycle is warning her that hunting time is almost over.

Right at the brink of giving up, she feels something.

An impact, something small striking the hard surface making a small but sharp impact. The distance was a little over two hundred meters, her usual strike range.

She moves quickly, her feet scurrying without making a sound.

Following the most direct path, she simply climbs over any barrier she encounters. It takes her less than thirty seconds to cover the distance with her speed.

In that duration, she picks up on multiple other small impacts coming from all angles and directions.

She had never felt impacts like these before, small but with enough speed to cover a dozen yards in a second. A hard shell that strikes the ground’s surface with a loud clack.

Nearing one of the impact sites, she carefully lowers herself, positioning her sensory organs against the earth’s surface.

The foreign new sensation piques her curiosity as her formidable senses try to zone in on the exact location of this elusive prey.

There she sits patiently, about a dozen yards from the boy to his east. Her senses focused on pinpointing the unfamiliar prey’s exact spot.

The only small blessing for the boy is her inability to sense vibrations in the air for that is what has kept him alive during his ramblings.

However, once the boy begins to move, she picks up on the light vibrations he makes.

She is not certain about the kind of creature she is facing. To her, this creature was capable of altering its vibrations.

Fast and hard, slow and light there were two sets of vibrations. Whether or not this was deliberate is something she must figure out before attacking.

In the dark, it was life and death depending on what you were up against. A prey or another alpha predator.

The huntress has lived a long and blood-soaked life in this very dark. She is a simple beast but an experienced one and although all of that experience was telling her that this creature was prey, she maintains caution.

It was safer to strike when there wasn’t a shadow of a doubt.

She silently stalks the boy, closing the distance bit by bit, as he makes his way toward the wall-like structure.

The boy moves slowly, stopping at intervals to pick up the pebbles he keeps throwing away.

He doesn’t really have to throw them anymore; he knows as much as possible about his immediate surroundings but the activity seems to calm his nerves.

Alone in the dark with no memory or bearings, he was completely blind.

Reaching the wall was just a desperate attempt at finding direction, a shot in the dark.

He had no idea how big this cave, assuming it was a cave, could be. The biggest one, according to his defective memory, was nine km long. There was no way he could navigate nine kilometers in this pitch-black dark.

If that wasn’t the only problem, he had no way to tell how long he had been here. Soon he’ll need food and more importantly, water. So not only did he need to navigate in the dark but hunt for food and water as well.

“God damn it, it’s no use……….I’m a dead man walking……..AH FUUCK!!”

He exclaims, angrily throwing two more pebbles in random directions. Their impact makes a loud noise, as they skid across the rocky surface.

The echoing sounds of the clatter snap him out of his frustration. He can’t get too careless.

He takes in a deep breath and exhales slowly, maintaining a constant steady flow. It has an immediate calming effect on his nerves. The action had come naturally to him as if it were a past habit.

Probably another useless trivia from his blank memories. They were practically taunting him at this point.

“Who knew stress was so good for memory?” He says sarcastically, throwing, yet again, another pebble straight toward the wall-like structure. The trajectory is a lot shorter now, less than ten paces.

He moves steadily, placing each step carefully, taking extra care not to step on any pebbles or loose rocks.

The lack of visibility was making him paranoid. For all he knew there was a group of assailants examining his every move, ready to pounce any second. If it wasn’t that then he might accidentally step into a deep pit in the ground that swallows him whole.

It seemed ridiculous but he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being observed.

Either the dark was playing tricks on him or it was alive, watching him stumble around.

Finally, he makes contact with the supposed cave wall. It feels rocky and dry.

“Yup…….that’s a wall…..sure as fuck feels like it…….now what do I do?”

Now, he could either go east or west. East seemed like an open plain since all the pebbles flew far and wide.

West had some type of low wall or maybe a raised surface, he wasn’t entirely sure.

He literally had rocks for eyes in this place.

“The raised surface to the west seems like a better option. It just might lead all the way up to the entrance of this goddamned cave.”

It was a long shot of course but at this stage, he was willing to believe in anything if it meant surviving this nightmare.

He slowly moves towards the west, one hand on the wall for direction, the other hand busy throwing pebbles in his new direction.

Intuitively he decides to throw one up directly above him, parallel to the wall.

“Maybe the cave's ceiling is lower closer to the wall.”

If he could hit the ceiling then that suggested it was low enough that the cave could be in the hundreds of meter range and not in the kilometer range as he was dreading. Big caves had ceilings that went way up and were impossible to hit.

Although throwing a pebble to gauge the cave’s size was wildly inaccurate, he wanted to hang on to every piece of good news he could find.

He uses all of his might for this throw, intending to make a straight upward trajectory but the intense force messes up his aim and diverts the angle slightly toward his east.

He listens expectantly, hoping the pebble strikes a barrier but it continues to skid across the wall.

Much to his annoyance, it reaches its maximum height without any disturbance and begins to skid downwards along the wall.

From the sound, he could tell it was veering further east as it tumbled down the wall.

As the rock approaches the ground, he spots something that instantly chills his blood ice cold.

A giant blood-red claw glowing in the dark, bigger than his entire body and barely a dozen yards from him. The glow lasts for a literal second before fading away in the dark, making the whole sight feel like a fever dream.

Others in his situation would’ve considered they were hallucinating but his instincts were too sharp to swallow that as truth.

The boy is stunned.

His entire body goes limp, including the hand holding the tiny pieces of rocks. One of the pebbles escapes his loosened grip, plummeting toward the hard rocky surface.

The enormity of the danger hits his mind like a sledgehammer and its electrical impulses snap into action, triggering an immediate response.

Time visibly slows down for him as he bends and grabs the offending rock out of the air with efficient lightning-fast movements just before it makes contact with the surface.

Stolen novel; please report.

Adrenaline courses through his body as he slowly raises himself, his mind churning information at speeds that could compare with high-end processors.

He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly.

In the span of a few brief moments, his mind goes through hundreds of thoughts and scenarios about the specter he had just glimpsed, desperately trying to understand the threat.

“Something is observing me in the dark.”

“Something much bigger than me.”

“Something with mean-looking claws that were clearly designed to dismantle bones and meat.”

“How long has it been there? It can’t have been from the start, can it?”

“Has it been silently observing me the entire time?”

“It got so close to me despite my ears focused on the surroundings. Is it a silent predator native to this cave?”

“What was that glow?”

“If this thing is hunting me then how am I still alive? Why hasn’t it gotten me already? Does it not know where I am?”

“Can it be lost like me? Yeah, that one is not likely.”

“It can’t be using eyes in this darkness and it showed a reaction to sound so hearing must be its primary sense.”

“Did it hear my voice? No, doesn’t seem likely. Its location was a bit away from mine and the direction of the claw was pointing toward the moving rock.”

“It hasn’t reacted to my voice, not to mention It would’ve gotten me already since I have been talking for a while.”

“It’s likely that if it moves then I won’t be able to hear it. It could be moving right now.”

“I also have to assume the thing has much better hearing than me since this dark is its home.”

His thoughts flow like a tsunami, too rapidly for anyone to make coherent sense but to him, they come as naturally as breathing. His awareness and focus swell far beyond the average human’s capability as he considers his options.

“What can I do? Can I run?”

“No, in this dark environment hearing is sight, and compared to this creature I might as well be blind. Running will cause too much vibration, I might as well stick a neon sign up my ass. Not to mention I won’t be able to go that fast anyway since I can’t fucking see.”

“Can I fight?”

“The claw is twice as big as my size and most probably it is attached to an even bigger monstrosity while I’m unarmed. The chances of not just winning but even damaging this thing are 0 percent.”

“Can I hide?”

“If this creature has been targeting me from the start, then there’s a high chance it is aware of me somewhat, even if I stay still here there’s little chance it won’t find me. It might have a sense of smell to detect prey at close range. At that point, it’ll be too late to do anything.”

“Maybe I can distract it through sounds?”

“Even if I do that how am I going to escape though, once I start moving it’ll sense the vibrations and come right over. Besides, I have thrown about a hundred stones now and that hasn’t distracted it away from me.”

Despite his inhuman speed and perception, he couldn’t find any escape. There was no doubt about it, he was trapped.

For the first time since waking up in this place, he feels pure terror well up in his heart.

“Is this it? Am I going to be crab food?”

“NO!!!”

He mentally shouts at himself, trying to drive fear away.

He takes a deep breath again and exhales slowly to calm his shaken heart. The action was definitely a past habit.

Closing his eyes, he visualizes the moment he had caught a glimpse of the ethereal glowing blood-red claw. In his mind, the image is crystal clear, as if looking at a portrait.

He examines the image from different angles, trying to find anything he missed.

“It is tracking me but at the time it was clearly targeting the moving rock so essentially it doesn’t really know where I am exactly.”

“It considers the thrown pebbles to be movements. Might even consider them to be aggressive displays of threat hence it’s quietly observing. Means it doesn’t really understand what I am.”

He refocuses on the moment when the claw had faded away in the dark.

“The blood-red glow was a response to movement and it only covered the claw. Not any other body part but the claw, it might be because it was preparing to strike using only that particular claw.”

“So, the glow only occurs when it is preparing to strike and only covers the body part it is about to use for striking.”

This new information gives him the right building blocks to make an effective escape plan.

The whole process of analysis had taken less than a minute.

However, his plan was based on thought-out assumptions, detailed, but still assumptions. For the plan to succeed, he has to be sure.

He raises his hand to the wall beside him, feeling all its mounds and ridges.

Then he crouches to examine the soles of his shoes. The material feels foreign to the touch just like his suit but it is soft and malleable enough to not cause too much noise.

He also grabs as many stones as he can without making noise and rises up to his feet.

The next step may end his life but it was necessary for the plan to work.

He prepares to throw a rock in the direction of the silent predator because he has to be sure of its response. There was a chance the action could provoke it to attack immediately.

“If this doesn’t work, I'm dead anyway.”

He hurls the rock lightly in an arching trajectory, to ensure it continues to roll after falling down. It touches the surface with a sharp *clack* and rolls forward.

As soon as the stone makes contact, two blood-red claws appear out of the darkness.

They posture threateningly over the unsuspecting rock, poised ready to strike, following its movement.

As soon as the rock loses its momentum they fizzle out of sight, as if they were immaterial illusions.

The boy gulps, the claws had appeared a lot closer to him this time.

They were initially a dozen yards away but now it was less than half that range.

It had covered quite a distance and he hadn’t even heard a peep.

At this rate, it would reach him in less than two minutes. A mental image of the dark crab-like monster silently crawling toward him makes him shudder.

Now was his only chance.

He bends his legs in a sitting position and crouches low to the ground.

He winds his right arm, the one carrying the rocks, behind his back to muster as much momentum as possible for the pitch.

Taking a final deep breath and exhaling steadily, he mutters under his breath.

“It's now or never.”

His arm snaps forward like a whip, flinging the rocks in a wide spread. They travel through the air parallel to the ground.

The first one to connect with the rocky surface unleashes a spark that twinkles in the dark.

Two things happen simultaneously.

First, eight legs appear out of the dark, clad not in blood red but in a golden glow.

In the center of the glowing arches lay a hulking mass of immense strength. The gold aura covered most of her mass but neglected the head and upper torso which were pitch-back and covered by darkness.

The legs gently raise the heavy form out of the ground with slow and deliberate movement.

Then they disappear in a blur, moving at impossible speed., Their motion makes an ethereal golden wave beneath the grotesque figure.

She glides toward the source of the strong vibrations, intercepting them before they cease their motion. A speed that is easily capable of catching up to a sports car.

However, as she draws near the vibration fades away as if fizzling out.

Like all the previous ones these fast and hard impacts had also been made by nonliving things.

It perplexed her every time she sensed them. They started fast but then slowed down and stopped immediately.

It was beyond the capability of her primitive mind to imagine the usage of these nonliving rocks as tools for deception.

Despite that, she knows with absolute certainty there were two sources of vibrations. If the fast motions were made by rocks, then the slow one must be something living and warm.

Keeping true to her status as a hunter, she had sensed that the source of the slow vibration was close.

She had tracked it for the small time the thing had moved but all of a sudden, the motion had stopped just when she was a short pace away.

She turns and follows the small trace of pheromones she had secreted when launching into the chase.

The secretions helped her trace her immediate direction so she didn’t walk around in circles while navigating.

They also have a primary marking purpose that she uses for tracking.

Any living being marked with her tracking scent will always leave behind a trail of pheromones that very few of her sibling hunters could track.

She backtracks from her position and stealthily walks to the last felt position of the slow and light vibration but only finds emptiness.

A little frustrated she flops her belly down on the ground to monitor if there are any movements fleeing away from her but again finds only silence.

More than a little frustrated she grooms her claw.

There was no way that slow-moving thing could outpace her so quickly but she couldn’t sense it on the ground around her.

This was because of the second thing that had happened.

As soon as the stones had left his fingertips the boy had quickly turned around and begun an ascent on the cave wall directly beside him.

He had felt out all the mounds and ridges in his immediate range to get a head start. The soles of his shoes were luckily soft enough to not make a loud noise or scrape with the rocky ledges.

He had ignored the golden flashes of light and waves zipping northeast of his direction as his entire focus was devoted to ensuring he placed his hands and feet on the right surface.

By the time the huntress was walking back in frustration, the boy had climbed a few meters above her head.

At this point, his life was entirely dependent on how carefully and silently he could climb. He kept his pace slow but accurate.

He places one hand over the other, delicately feeling the slope and grip before applying weight for leverage.

The universe had aligned to bless him with a particularly solid wall with no loose pieces, that is what the boy believed.

However, it was not simply blind luck but a testament to his own stamina, strength, and control that allowed him to adjust pressure and weight wherever it was required.

In spite of being a prepubescent child, he was exhibiting feats that were on the level of an adult male but he was too focused on his climbing to be conscious of this abnormality.

“These shoes are a god-sent.”

He exclaims inwardly, not bothering to risk exposure for an expression of spoken speech.

For the first few moments, his heart was in his throat. He had no way to check if the dark crab could sense sensitive vibrations across a perpendicular wall next to it but nothing had happened even after 5 minutes had passed.

The creature had intercepted his pitched rocks within the first fifteen seconds. He doubted it had forgotten about him so it must be carefully surveying.

Despite her sensitive hearing and him climbing right above her head, she had not sensed him.

“It's not a race, it's a stealth mission. No need for speed, only need accuracy.”

He repeats the words in his mind like a mantra to take the pressure off.

Hypervigilant of the position of his arms and legs, he moves only after confirming the solid stability of every ledge he grabs.

There was no way to measure but by his approximations, he was now sixty or seventy feet above his initial position.

The distance between him and the dark crab was growing steadily to a point where he could breathe a sigh of relief.

Climbing in the dark was tricky and he advanced slowly, but it didn’t matter.

As long as he remained attentive to his control and placing, he could get out of the dark crab’s range entirely.

Reaching for a ledge further up, he glances up and is shocked to find it visible to his eyes.

Not completely apparent but dim as though the source of light was faint. He peers upwards in excitement and finds the wall dimly visible, all its mounds and ledges sticking out in his eyes.

Further up he saw that the wall retreated inwards, probably making a flat surface.

“There is no ceiling, I can escape above!”

He continues his vigilant climb with his heart feeling light, shedding the weight of all inflicted fear and dread into the dark pit below him.

This nightmare was on its way to becoming a memory.

He places his hand a couple of feet below the top of the inward retreat, confident of the ledge’s stability but he did not see the bug with nasty-looking mandibles next to this hand.

He notices the bug in his periphery and his incredible reflexes yank his hand away before he can think calmly or logically.

This offsets his balance and he’s forced to grab another ledge within reach.

One he has not tested beforehand.

The ledge breaks off, unable to bear his weight, and falls toward the dark abyss he had crawled out from.

Understanding the danger, once more, his mind accelerates, slowing time around him.

His body moves with a sharpness he did not know he was capable of as he dives his whole body down leftwards.

His left arm reaches straight down as the rest of his body bends to offer more extension while his right hand grabs a lower ledge to stop his sudden downward momentum.

In one single graceful motion, he catches the falling rock out of the air but, unfortunately, a smaller piece breaks off and continues its descent.

He hears the faint *clacking* as it tumbles down the wall’s length, disappearing into the dark directly below him.

He instantly turns around and begins a rapid scramble toward the solid ground above. He didn’t need to see the spark of gold igniting in the dark below him to understand the chase was back on.

“God damn fuck!”

He shouts as he leaps to grab the ledge connected to the retreating plain.

Successfully latching on he quickly pulls himself up.

The surroundings were now bright enough to see somewhat clearly, a dim twilight just before dawn.

Knowing fully well of the horror approaching behind him he immediately looks over his encompassing area to find anything he could use.

Noticing a large boulder overlooking the edge he swiftly sprints behind it and starts pushing.

The rock might hopefully tumble on top of the dark crab directly or make enough of a racket to disorient it.

He heaves with all of his might and the boulder shifts, almost on the verge of keeling over but suddenly he notices a red light reflect on the surface around him.

Immediately he leaps backward as the boulder explodes into thousands of tiny fragments and a glowing blood-red claw bursts through it.

He watches, slowly getting back to his feet, as the monstrosity scales up onto the plain to face him.

Rising to its full size, it reveals its grotesque figure in the light in all its glory as the red glow on its claw dissipates.

A pitch-black exoskeleton covered the massive body from the tips of its eight hefty legs to the top of its triangular-shaped head.

A couple of powerfully built pincer claws raised upwards in a stance that signaled battle.

A large open gape in the center of its triangular eyeless head revealed countless immense fangs that were arranged in a circular pattern inside.

A long muscular tail emerged from behind the crab’s towering mass with a curved dagger-like protrusion connected at the end that presumably acted like a stinger.

Clear sticky liquid seeps out of the tip with some drops falling to the ground.

The boy’s eyes reflected an eldritch nightmare, designed to tear and kill.