Aaryan's body throbbed with pain, learning him hard lessons of violence at each act of movement. From shallow gashes and wounds across his skin, blood dripped and pooled on the soil beneath. Every breath he took broke into shallow, frantic gasps; his inhalations - wheezed, his exhalations - shallow victories until struggling with each intake, he's now somewhat released into unconsciousness. Everything swayed in and out of focus; he could see and hear, but consciousness was loss in blood. Each restless move his body made brought an agonizing scream from his tensed muscles. Still somewhere deep within rose something---a refusal to surrender, primal and furious at the onslaught of darkness slowly seeping into the corners of his vision.

  So, he was still alive.

  But how?

  The thought hardly reckoned before it was submerged by the wild rush of instinct. He couldn't stop functioning. A close call this time, but for how long could he rely on that? The beasts, the fight, the stinging menace of danger would await, and once again, if came, he may not be lucky this time.

  "I killed it... I really killed it..." The words were hoarse and weak, almost more a whisper, but there lay a disbelief about them, as though he could scarcely believe such a thing happened. The wolf that had almost ripped him apart--the beast he had brought down by sheer force and willpower unknown to him about before.

  His eyes flicked to where the old man had died. His sacrifice-the man’s life was traded for Aaryan’s survival-seared in his mind. He could not shake off the memory of the man being torn to shreds by wolves. Grief flooded through him, but he could not allow grief to take hold; redemption still poke its head out for salvation. He could not afford to grieve just yet.

  He staggered to his feet. Each movement was a struggle. He was weak of leg; his arms were near trembling with the pain of battle. But his sharp mind, although befogged with exhaustion, scrutinized the valley around him. The village was visible not far away, a place that could once be considered shelter, but now feeling like a trap-a cage he could not stand in.

  "I can't stay here," Aaryan muttered under his breath, squeezing the hilt of his bloodstained sword tighter. "I survived this time, but next time..." He could not finish the thought-words were not needed. This truth was sufficiently alive and kicking: if he stayed behind, if he returned to the very people who had seen him in combat, those who'd presumably sent him to face death, they would cast him into the fray yet again, and his life would no longer belong to him.

  He looked the valley over again for any sign of an escape route. A thick forest across the valley beckoned to him, but it was not the trees that were his distraction. It was that sound-the muted thundering of water tumbling down a cliff-face behind him.

  The waterfall.

  It had been there all along, a distant soft roar in the midst of battle, going unnoticed in that whirl of confusion. Yet, now, as the world surged with silence except for that relentless roar—as he finally began to understand—that waterfall was his escape.

  His heart kicked wildly as the thought blossomed in his brain. The water, the current, the endless monstrous fall-the villagers would not follow him in there. It was his chance.

  Aaryan’s body was trembling, yet he moved nearer the sound of freedom. As he placed his first foot forward, something in his periphery caught him. He turned his head, squinting through the haze of blurred vision before turning and staggering , towards……..

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  The villagers.

  They were watching him, their eyes wide in disbelief. He could hear their whispers—snatches of voices floating on the wind.

  “How is he still alive?” someone wondered, their voice barely audible.

  "He shouldn't have lived. We all saw it," another one murmured.

  "He fought like a beast. A boy...and he killed it."

  Yes, there was admiration mixed with fear. Another fear that was growing within Aaryan ever since the battle was over. The fear about him, yes. And why not? By all accounts, he shouldn't have lived through this. He ought to have been render apart, just like the rest of it. But he was not. And that filled them with fear.

  Aaryan shook even more, taking a punishing, tortured step forward, hounded by extreme fatigue and drowsiness. But still, a part of his spirit burned fiercely and brightly in his guts, forcing him forward through pain. He was something else now, no longer just a survivor. He was now a force the villagers could not understand.

  With narrowed eyes, Sharan watched him from the side-lines, calculating. His gaze was cold and distant. But Aaryan felt the full intensity with which Sharan studied him, weighing his constituents like a puzzle to be solved. He had watched Aaryan fight—survive. And now, Sharan wanted to know how.

  Behind him, the eagle-nosed man strode closer, heavy boots stamping down into the mud. He stopped next to Sharan and took a quick look at Aaryan before cast down at the dead wolves.

  "Well?" Sharan asked, his voice low but taut with impatience. "Was there anything there?"

  The eagle-nosed man issued a feeble, bitter laugh and set his eyes on Aaryan a moment longer than was necessary. "Nothing at all."

  Sharan's brows furrowed, and in an incredulous tone, he spoke again. "What do you mean, 'nothing'? No core?"

  The eagle-nosed man nodded in grim confirmation.

  "No core?" The incredulity in Sharan's voice blossomed into anger. "All this? All those blasted wolves, and there's no core?" What sort of fool's errand was this?

  The eagle-nosed man turned his penetrating eyes back to Aaryan; his glimmer of darkening frustration swirled again through his darkest thoughts. He had never thought the boy would survive, let alone outlast them all.

  Aaryan's legs almost gave out beneath him as he stumbled toward the wolf's body. His sword felt heavier than it had ever been, yet he gripped it tightly; his hand was trembling. There was no power left in him, no energy for him to resist. He almost lost his focus on the fight, although he knew what he had to do: he wanted out of there, and taking something—anything—along the way would be worth it.

  His fingers twitched into the wolf's half-split skull, searching constantly until something hard and smooth slipped into his grip.

  Squelching sickeningly, he freed it with a yank.

  He turned, making toward the waterfall.

  "Stop him!" cried the eagle-nosed man in frantic desperation. He ran forward, rage the engine of his feverish haste.

  Aaryan did not stop.

  Did not look back.

  With every step he took away from the group, he burned with physical pain, his muscles screaming in protest. But his mind was clear now. No looking back. No being a pawn anymore. No being controlled.

  As he reached toward the edge of the waterfall, the roar drowned out his hearing, drenching him with an immense cascade of foam. On the splinter of nothingness, he stood, looking down into utter blackness. His heart raced; in his chest, however, there was no fear, only a calm determination.

  "Pray we don't meet again!" he called over his shoulder, carried by zephyrs. A warning, a proclamation.

  There was no more time wasted. Aaryan jumped!.

  The fall was short and ever so overwhelming. The surge of the current gripped him momentarily, sending him under. Everything turned yet quiet; history submerged, swallowed by water. Aaryan, wearied and broken, yet alive was borne away into oblivion.

  "NOOOOO!" The eagle-nosed man let out his voice, but it was all in vain; Aaryan was already gone.

  Sharan and the others reached shortly after, their faces twisted with rage, glancing towards the waterfall, which was the only indication that Aaryan had managed to escape, but there was no boy to be seen.

  "He took the core," the man, dressed in silver armour, muttered as he knelt beside the body of the wolf.

  Teeth clenched, Sharan said, "We're not leaving until we find him. Dead or alive."

  Aaryan's body battered against the rocks, splaying himself against the river, muscles screaming as he fought the current. He didn't know where he was going. All he knew was that he could not stop. He had, for the first time, become "UNBOUND."

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