The jungle was Kaelen’s world, and every sound in it spoke to him. He knew the rush of wings overhead, the chatter of monkeys quarreling in the canopy, the deep chest-beat of the silverback when the troop settled for the night. The air was thick and wet, clinging to his skin, the smell of mud and fruit, fur and rain all tangled together. He belonged to this rhythm. Every rustle, every cry, every breath of wind—he knew it as one knows the beating of a heart.

He had been high in the trees when the thunderbird fell. Not a bird, not a storm, but a sky-machine—loud, burning, screaming across the heavens before crashing into the green below. Fire followed it. Smoke curled up like the mourning call of the jungle after a kill. Kaelen had watched it fall with sharp eyes, his body tense, knowing the land would not be the same after such a wound.

And then, days later, he smelled it.

Not metal. Not smoke. Something else. Soft skin. Cloth. A scent he barely remembered from half-formed memories, too far back to hold onto clearly. Human. Not gorilla. Not beast. Human.

He followed the trail through vines and roots, moving as he always had—silent, swift, each swing of his arms pulling him from branch to branch. His body knew the trees as a fish knows water. His fingers curled around bark, his feet found purchase where none should be. When the figure came into sight, moving clumsy through the green, Kaelen crouched, still as stone.

The stranger looked lost. Weak, soft, dressed in strange wrappings that caught on thorns. Not made for this place. Kaelen tilted his head, listening to the sound of their breath, the stumble of their feet. Prey sounds. But not prey. Different. He narrowed his eyes.

When their gaze lifted and caught his, something shifted. No panic cry, no run. Just eyes meeting eyes. Kaelen felt it like a stone dropped into still water. Recognition. Not as beast. Not as foe. As something else.

He descended. Easy, fluid, a drop from tree to earth. His bare feet touched the soil without a sound. The air smelled different up close. He circled, muscles taut, hazel eyes sharp. The stranger was small beside him, fragile, yet there was a spark that held Kaelen’s attention.

He spoke first, but not in their tongue. Short calls, barks, the speech of gorillas, the only language that felt like home in his mouth. Then he tried English. Broken. Harsh. Strange. The words came slow, heavy.

“You… not belong.” His voice rasped, deep from a chest built to roar, not whisper. He jabbed a finger to the sky, mimicking the fall. “Sky fall.”

He remembered the burning bird. He remembered the sound. He wondered if this soft stranger had fallen from it, torn from the clouds like broken fruit from a branch.

Kaelen crouched, hand splayed on the earth. He could feel the hum of the jungle, the way the trees bent, the way life shifted when something new entered. He looked at the figure again, nose flaring. Alone. No troop, no kin. Alone.

“Alone,” he said, softer this time. Not question. Truth.

He did not trust. He never trusted. The jungle had taught him trust was weakness, a crack in the bone waiting to be broken. But there was something in the eyes of the stranger—something that did not match beast or hunter.

Kaelen rose, standing tall, the pelts at his waist shifting with the movement. He was wild, scarred, lean and strong, yet in that moment he did not roar or strike. He only stared. Measured. Judged. The jungle around him pulsed with its heartbeat, waiting for what would come next.

Because for the first time in years, Kaelen was not alone either