Mark and Antea pushed through the trees, and the world slapped them again in 4K—this time straight in the teeth.

  The clearing was an open sewer.

  No more cute grove, grass, little leaves: just wrecked ground, blood, broken shit. The blood wasn’t just splatters—it had formed dark patches that spread and overlapped, mixing with the mud, like someone had dragged bodies back and forth for way longer than made sense.

  The smell was a punch in the gut: iron, meat, wet fur, smoke, that sweet rotting note that could’ve been dried milk, sweat, fear. Even the air felt dirty.

  On the left side of the clearing stood the grizzlies’ hut: a big structure made of logs, hides, and rope, worked enough that it didn’t look like a “beast’s” den, but a home. One wall had collapsed outward, like something had smashed through it with too much force. Part of the roof had split along one angle—not all of it, meaning the destruction hadn’t been slow. It had exploded.

  In front of the hut were the first bodies.

  Three tiny cubs, practically newborns, had fallen right by the doorway—as if someone had grabbed them and tried to get them inside but didn’t make it. Still sparse fur, fragile little limbs, short muzzles. Two had crushed chests, the third had a clean head wound. You didn’t need to be a pathologist to know they weren’t moving again.

  Farther out, scattered across the clearing, were the other four little ones: two males, two females, old enough to be “children,” not newborns. One male lay on his side, arm stretched toward the hut as if he’d tried to go back. One female was near the far edge of the clearing, body turned toward the forest: she’d run. That’s where she stopped. The other two had fallen halfway, with big, ugly wounds that spoke of brute force, not precision.

  The adult females were closer to the house.

  One lay on her back a few steps from the newborns, chest opened by a wide strike—one of those that didn’t leave time to understand what happened. The other lay prone, arms stretched toward where the older cubs were, as if she’d tried to reach at least one of them before she fell.

  A little farther, almost in front of the hut’s entrance, lay another adult: the family’s resident male. He was bigger than the females, his coarse fur matted with blood and dirt. Deep wounds slashed across his chest, another long one at his side that looked like a blade had done it, and his arm was bent in a way no living thing could survive. He hadn’t been killed first. He’d fought, and dropped right there on his back, as if he’d tried to block the entrance.

  Then Mark saw the human woman.

  She wasn’t posed in the center like some painting. She was sitting on the ground at the base of a tree on the right edge of the clearing, back against the trunk like she’d just been dumped there. Her wrists were tied together in front of her with a dirty rope, pulled tight enough to mark the skin. Her ankles were tied too. She had a filthy cloth stuffed in her mouth, knotted behind her head. From her temple ran a thin line of blood that traced down her cheek and disappeared into the sweat on her neck.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  Her eyes were wide, glossy, fixed on something at the center of the clearing. Brown. Alive. Terrified as hell.

  Pretty.

  The thought hit him dry, fast, bastard-like. Not as pretty as Antea—nothing and no one could be “as pretty as Antea” anymore, whether he hated that fact or not. At least, that’s how it felt to him—like no one could surpass her now. But pretty enough that something down low reacted.

  Mark wanted to rip his own head off and smash it against the nearest tree.

  A few meters beyond her lay a man on his side in the bloodstained dirt. He wore a kind of padded jerkin with leather reinforcements, mismatched metal plates on shoulders and forearms, dark pants tucked into tall reinforced boots. Not a uniform: more like the gear of someone used to hitting people for a living. The jerkin had been split open by blows, his chest struck deep, one leg twisted wrong. His sword had fallen further ahead, half-hidden in the bloodied grass.

  Antea didn’t say anything. She glued herself to his back like she’d always done it.

  Chest to back, breasts to shoulder blades, heat everywhere. Mark felt his body decide it could easily ignore the scene and focus on the contact. Perfect. Worst moment possible.

  The self-disgust leveled up.

  He grabbed Antea’s wrist without thinking and pulled her sideways, behind a big, rotting fallen log. The smell of moss and wet wood filled his nose for a second, but at least back there they didn’t have the clearing punching them right in the eyes.

  They crouched.

  He in front, she behind him, so close he felt her short breath on his neck and her heart thumping against his back along with the weight of her chest.

  That’s when Mark finally processed what his brain had been refusing to acknowledge.

  In the center of the clearing, surrounded by everything, stood another grizzly-man.

  Another one. Bigger. Broader-shouldered, dirtier with blood, more “there” than all the corpses combined.

  He breathed in jerks, chest rising and falling in wide motions. His dark fur was matted in clumps, his muzzle streaked with blood that might’ve been his or someone else’s unlucky enough to get close. His eyes were two yellow slits locked on a target.

  In front of him stood two men.

  One was down on his side, trying to get up but his arms kept failing him. His sword had flown off somewhere. The other was standing, sword already drawn, legs spread, breath shallow, wearing that expression people get when they’ve realized they made a huge mistake but it’s way too late to walk it back.

  Mark inhaled slowly, like he didn’t want the air itself to hear him.

  “Competitive infanticide,” he muttered, more to himself than to Antea.

  Her nails dug into his arm.

  “What the fuck did you just say?” she hissed, barely audible.

  “New male entering the territory,” he whispered. “He kills the old male’s cubs. Happens in some animals in our world too—lions, primates… wipes out the rival genetic line, females go fertile sooner.”

  “If it’s like you say,” Antea murmured, tense, “then that grizzly-man wouldn’t have killed the women too, right?”

  Mark stiffened.

  “Fuck… I didn’t even think of that.”

  Antea went silent a moment, then hissed against his neck:

  “And you pick now to lecture me while I’m looking at dead kids?”

  “I’m trying to keep my brain busy,” he whispered back. “If I stop thinking, I scream.”

  The beast let out a deep sound. Not a movie roar: a low, real, heavy noise that vibrated in the sternum.

  It stepped toward the standing man.

  He raised his sword. Technical gesture, but desperate.

  Mark felt Antea press even closer, like she wanted to crawl inside him.

  The grizzly lunged.

  Not super fast, but not slow either. Weight did the rest. The sword swung—a diagonal cut, trying to use the beast’s inertia. The impact was a mess of sounds: metal hitting something hard, a growl turning into a scream, the thud of the man’s body losing balance.

  Mark didn’t see everything, half hidden behind the log, but he saw enough.

  He saw blood spray, though not like a fountain.

  He saw the man buckle, stagger.

  He saw the grizzly not stop.

  Behind him, Antea trembled. Her breasts pressed harder into his back, but his brain had stopped translating that into anything except “you’re fucked.”

  In front of them lay a destroyed family, a new male finishing his takeover, a tied woman staring at them like they were her only hope, and two humans who had thought it was a great idea to step into the mess.

  And the two of them.