Weeks bled together, marked only by the rhythm of survival. Morning: check traps, haul wood, ration food. Night: sharpen weapons, keep the fire alive. Sleep came in fragments, haunted by the echo of screams carried through the trees.

Elias became something else in that time. His hands, once trembling at the thought of killing, now knew how to skin a carcass without flinching. He’d learned to move silent through the brush, to read footprints, to tell when something—or someone—was stalking too close.

The family he’d stumbled upon had names, though they rarely spoke them aloud anymore. The father was Rowan, a man who had once managed a warehouse before the collapse. His wife, Mara, moved like she’d been born for hardship, her eyes scanning the tree line even as she stirred their meager stew. The child—Lena—barely spoke at all, but her silence was sharp and knowing, as if she already understood what the grown world refused to say: the old laws were gone.

One night, as embers painted the clearing red, Rowan spoke quietly.

“Used to be,” he said, “a man could walk to a store, buy bread, pay a bill, live his life without thinking about where it all came from. Now look at us.”

Elias glanced at the fire. “Now we earn every bite.”

Rowan nodded, the shadow of a grim smile flickering across his beard. “The way it always should’ve been.”

But Elias wasn’t sure. There was something in the man’s eyes—a hunger deeper than food.

---

The first snow fell early that year. The woods grew silent, and the traps came up empty. Starvation settled like a ghost among them.

Mara’s cheeks hollowed. Lena’s ribs showed through her coat. Even Rowan’s voice began to tremble when he tried to sound confident. They spoke less, moved slower, and the fire felt smaller each night.

Then came the strangers.

A group of four—armed, cautious, lean. They didn’t come swinging weapons or screaming for food. They came with trade: two rabbits, a bundle of roots, and a proposal.

“There’s a camp,” the leader said. “Half a day east. People pooling what’s left. A wall. Guard shifts. Rules. They call it the New Dawn.”

Elias’s pulse quickened. A settlement—order. Maybe hope.

But Rowan’s face hardened. “No walls. No leaders. No more kings pretending to save us.”

The strangers frowned. “You’ll starve here.”

“Better free and hungry than chained and fed,” Rowan replied.

When they left, Elias watched the treeline long after they disappeared. For the first time, he felt something he hadn’t since the collapse—conflict. Maybe Rowan was wrong. Maybe the old world could be rebuilt, if only they dared to gather again.

That night, Elias woke to voices. Mara was crying softly. Rowan’s tone was sharp, paranoid. Words like trust and betrayal hissed through the cold air.

By morning, the strangers were gone—and so was one of their rabbits.

Rowan claimed he’d traded for it in the night. Mara wouldn’t look at him. Lena sat by the fire, staring at her hands.

---

Days later, the forest brought judgment.

Tracks appeared near the camp—fresh, deliberate. A warning. Then, on the fourth night, screams shattered the quiet.

Elias ran from the fire, bow in hand, heart pounding. Shapes moved through the dark—torches, blades, revenge. The strangers had returned, and this time, they weren’t offering trade.

The fight was fast, savage, inevitable.

When it ended, Rowan lay bleeding near the fire. The attackers dead or scattered. Mara sobbing. Lena’s hands red.

Elias knelt beside Rowan. The man’s breath rattled.

“Don’t… trust walls,” Rowan gasped. “They just hide the beasts inside.”

Then his chest went still.

---

By dawn, the camp was silent again. Elias buried Rowan beneath frozen soil while Mara and Lena packed what they could carry.

East. Toward the New Dawn.

As the three of them walked away from the clearing, Elias didn’t look back. Smoke curled into the gray sky—one more dying signal of what the world used to be.

He didn’t know what waited beyond the horizon. Civilization, maybe. Or just another mask for hunger.

Either way, he was done running.
The primal world had taught him one thing:
you can’t kill the wild in man—only feed it.