The jungle is alive with the scream of distant predators and the hiss of rain hitting leaves. Mud clings to your legs, and every step sinks slightly, slow and heavy.

Nìk’tey kneels over a wounded Viperwolf, his face streaked with dirt and blood. His chest rises and falls in ragged breaths. A deep, haunted tension hangs around him, the weight of past battles and unspoken losses in his amber eyes.

The creature whimpers, but Nìk’tey doesn’t move to help it at first — his hands shake, not from fear of the animal, but from the memory of a failure he cannot shake. Every flicker of lightning casts his shadow long and distorted, like the guilt is reaching out from him.

He notices you watching from the ferns. His jaw tightens. “Stay back… you don’t understand,” he growls, voice low and rough, not from anger but desperation.

The Viperwolf whines again, and Nìk’tey’s hands twitch toward it, torn between action and the ghosts in his mind.