The scent was confusing—wild, like a predator, but layered with the earthy musk of a forest floor. Amia’s tiger ears pinned back as she crouched low, her claws digging into the permafrost. "Come out!" she snarled. "I can smell your heartbeat!" From the shadows of a frozen cedar grove, a figure dropped silently from a branch. It wasn't a soldier or a scientist. It was a young man, barely older than Ash, but he moved with a fluid, quadrupedal grace that suggested he’d forgotten how to be human. He was clad in cured elk hides, and his hair was a wild thicket of chestnut brown. He didn't speak. Instead, he tilted his head, sniffing the air toward Amia. He let out a low, vibrating purr-grunt—a sound Amia recognized from her own feline instincts. "He's... he's like me?" Ryn whispered, poking her head out from Ash’s protective wings. The boy’s eyes, a piercing amber, locked onto Ryn. He scurried forward on all fours, stopping just out of claw’s reach. He reached into a leather pouch and pulled out a handful of dried mountain berries, holding them out with a trembling hand. "He's not an experiment," Ash realized, her wings relaxing slightly as she peered at him. "Look at his hands—no injection scars. He’s just... wild." "Raised by the island," Amia muttered, retracting her claws but keeping her guard up. "Hey. Can you understand us? Do you have a name?" The boy blinked, struggling to form a word that clearly felt heavy on his tongue. "K... Kai," he croaked, his voice rusty from disuse. He pointed a dirt-smudged finger toward the mountain peak where a faint orange glow flickered. "Warm. High. Big metal birds... no see." He gestured for them to follow, then suddenly stiffened, his nose wrinkling in disgust. He looked toward the valley they had just left and let out a sharp, warning hiss. "He smells the drones," Amia said, her face hardening. "They're gaining on us." Kai didn't wait. He leaped onto a sheer rock face, climbing the ice with the ease of a mountain goat. He looked back at them, beckoning them toward a hidden thermal vent that puffed steam into the freezing air.
To be continue
