The flickering firelight painted dancing shadows across the rough-hewn walls of Silas's cave. Outside, the alien jungle hummed its incessant, complex song, now a muted backdrop rather than an immediate threat. Roric sat nursing the last of the blue bamboo water – vesi – the smooth stone Silas had given him still clutched in his hand. Echo. Like stone. Thrown by storm. The words resonated, settling a cold weight in his gut. It wasn't just a label; it was a condition, a shared fate of displacement and probable doom.
"How many?" Roric asked, looking across the fire at Silas, who was meticulously sharpening his long knife with a smooth, dark whetstone Roric hadn't noticed before. Roric held up his fingers, spreading them, trying to convey quantity. "Echoes? Many?"
Silas didn't look up immediately, the rhythmic scrape-scrape of stone on steel filling the small space. After a moment, he grunted. "Many." He paused his sharpening, meeting Roric's gaze. His eyes were flat, devoid of sentiment. "Sky coughs them up. Like bad liha." He made a spitting gesture. "Some seasons… many. Others… few." He shrugged, returning to his knife. "Most don't last. Wrong gear. Wrong skills. Soft." He tapped his temple. "Or just… unlucky." He jerked his chin towards the cave entrance. "Stalkers like new meat."
Soft. Roric thought of his CRRF training, thousands of hours in brutal simulations, the firefight in Sector 7. He wasn't soft. But his gear was wrong. His pulse rifle, his armor, his comms – all gone. And his skills… they were for urban warfare, ballistic weapons, coordinated squad tactics. Here, it was just him, a knife, and a cynical stranger against eyeless predators and crushing beasts called Murskaaja.
"This place…" Roric began, gesturing vaguely around the cave, then outwards. "Shardlands?" He tested the word, remembering it from his fall.
Silas stopped sharpening again, giving Roric a long look. "Shardlands," he confirmed, his tone suggesting it was obvious. "Always fighting. Sky-sailors." He mimed the shape of a flying vessel, likely the interceptors or skiffs. "Ground-pounders." He stomped a foot. "And… things below." He pointed downwards, his expression turning grim. "Always fighting." He spat again. "Not place for long life. Good place for quick death."
The pragmatism was brutal, chilling. Roric shifted, the movement sending a sharp reminder through his ribs. He glanced down at his arm. The makeshift bandage was holding, but the area around it felt hot, inflamed.
Silas noticed the movement, his sharp eyes missing little. He put down his knife and whetstone, then rose and came closer, crouching in front of Roric. Without asking permission, he reached out and began carefully unwrapping the crude bandage. Roric tensed but didn't pull away.
"Huono," Silas grunted, examining the angry red gashes left by the Stalker's claws. Bad. Roric already knew that. Infection in this place, without proper medical supplies, would be lethal.
Silas went to one of the bundles of dried plants hanging from the ceiling. He selected a few dark, leathery leaves and a thick, pale root, crushing them together on a flat stone near the fire using the pommel of his knife. A pungent, earthy smell filled the cave, mixed with something vaguely minty. He added a splash of vesi from his own bamboo stalk, mixing the crushed herbs into a thick, dark green paste.
He scooped a fingerful of the poultice. "Stings," he warned, his voice flat. Before Roric could brace himself, Silas applied the paste directly to the wounds.
It didn't just sting; it burned. An intense, cleansing fire that made Roric gasp, clenching his fists against the pain. It felt like raw nerve endings being scoured, but beneath the searing heat, there was an odd coolness spreading, numbing the deeper ache. He watched, fascinated despite the agony, as Silas expertly reapplied the poultice along the length of the gashes, then took a strip of cleaner-looking hide from his pile of gear and wrapped the arm tightly, securing it with practiced knots.
"Good," Silas stated, sitting back on his heels, wiping excess paste from his fingers onto his trousers. He tapped the newly bandaged arm. "Leave on. Draws poison. Heals fast." He looked at Roric's ribs, then shook his head. "Ribs… time. Move slow."
Roric flexed his fingers, testing the bandaged arm. The burning was already subsiding, leaving a strange, cool numbness. The skin around the bandage felt tight. "Thank you," he said, meeting Silas's eyes.
Silas just grunted, returning to his spot by the fire. He picked up a piece of scavenged metal – part of some unfamiliar mechanism – and began tinkering with it using a multi-tool that looked surprisingly sophisticated compared to his other gear.
Silence fell again, but it felt different now. Less charged with immediate suspicion, more like a temporary truce born of necessity and Silas's rough, pragmatic form of aid. Roric leaned back against the cave wall, exhaustion pulling at him.
"Sleep now?" Roric asked, gesturing towards the sleeping furs.
Silas nodded without looking up from his tinkering. "Sleep. I watch first." He tapped his chest. "Then… you watch." He glanced up briefly, his eyes sharp. "Can watch?"
Roric straightened slightly, the soldier in him responding to the implied question of capability. He nodded firmly. "Yes. I can watch." Even injured, even exhausted, guard duty was second nature.
Silas gave another curt nod, apparently accepting this. He pointed to the furs. "Sleep, Echo."
Roric hesitated, then crawled towards the pile of furs near the back wall. They smelled musky, of Silas, smoke, and damp earth, but they offered warmth and softness. He settled down gingerly, arranging himself so he could still see Silas and the cave entrance, his CRRF knife resting beside his hand. Sleep felt like a distant shore, his mind buzzing with the day's events, the pain a dull counterpoint. Echo. Survivor. Vesi. Liha. Stalker. Murskaaja. The Shardlands.
He watched Silas by the firelight, the older man absorbed in his work, a figure carved from survival. Was this his future? Years spent scavenging, hiding, trusting no one, waiting for the Maelstrom to cough up more lost souls? The thought was profoundly bleak.
His eyelids grew heavy. The rhythmic scrape of Silas's tool on metal, the crackle of the fire, the cool throb from his treated arm… it all blurred together. He had survived day one. Point one. But survival here wasn't just about fighting monsters or finding water. It was about enduring the crushing weight of being adrift, a fragment in a shattered world. He closed his eyes, clinging to the discipline of his training, knowing that even in sleep, part of him would remain on watch. Rest was a luxury, alertness a necessity. His last conscious thought was a question: what dangers would the next cycle of this strange twilight bring?