Caspian noticed it on the eighth day.
A line of bark shaved clean from a tree trunk—too smooth to be an animal's doing. Not a natural break, not claw marks.
Deliberate.
He crouched beside it, running a calloused thumb along the exposed wood. A cut. A tool. Someone had been here.
I've already know this from beginning Someone else was surviving.
Or hunting.
He rose slowly, eyes sweeping the dense forest. The wind whispered through the leaves, masking every sound beneath a curtain of motion. The air smelled damp and earthy—unchanged—but something was different. The forest felt like it was holding its breath.
Caspian adjusted his spear and slipped into the underbrush, moving silently in the direction of the mark. Twenty meters. Another tree. This one marked again—higher. Cleaner. A trail, perhaps. A warning.
He followed it for an hour, careful not to break twigs underfoot, pausing often to listen.
At the base of a ridge, he found the first clear sign: a snare. Twine, twisted tight and precise, made of fiber he hadn't seen before. Not vine. Not from this forest.
Someone knew what they were doing.
Caspian didn't spring the trap. He memorized its design, backed away, and climbed the ridge instead, staying out of its owner's path. From above, he could see faint movement through the trees—a figure, cautious, methodical.
Not wild. Not native.
Another human.
His instincts told him to approach. His training told him to wait.
So he waited.
The figure moved on, unaware. Caspian marked the location and retreated, heart steady, mind racing.
He returned to camp by dusk, adding fresh reinforcement to his shelter. No fire tonight. No noise. He checked his traps, took inventory, sharpened the stone tip of his spear.
That night, the forest felt more alive than ever.
Branches shifted. Insects stilled. The silence was louder now, as if the woods themselves were watching.
Caspian lay awake, eyes open to the dark canopy above, thoughts circling like wolves.
He wasn't alone.
That changed everything.