A scream.
Not just any scream of surprise or joy; it was sharp, piercing, desperate, coming from somewhere nearby in the dense forest. A scream of genuine pain mixed with absolute terror, the kind of sound that instantly paralyzes the body.
Hawke jumped up in a chaotic leap, almost hitting his head on the uneven roof of the tree trunk, and ran in terror toward the approximate direction of the sound without stopping to think; without grabbing a weapon, without assessing danger, without planning.
'They're in serious danger! But why the hell didn't they call me sooner, why didn't they wake me up?!'
He ran so fast, so focused on the scream that still echoed in his memory, that he didn't even notice the obvious absence of the black club he always carefully left beside him before sleeping. He just ran wildly.
That's when he saw it , and his stomach churned violently.
Bloodstains.
Not much at first; just a few scattered drops on the leaves, on the low broken branches, almost imperceptible if he wasn't looking for them. But it was enough to be extremely alarming considering that no one was hurt last night. Dark red drops on the brown earth, stains on the tree trunks, making an irregular but clear enough trail to follow.
He followed that macabre trail, without questioning whether it was a trap or danger, his heart and breath were already beginning to race, and his mind was forcing itself not to think the worst.
'It can't be what I'm thinking, please it can't be this, there has to be another explanation...'
The trail of blood progressively intensified as it advanced, first more concentrated drops, then small, shallow puddles glistening ominously under the filtered light, then large, thick stains painting the ground and vegetation; it was redder than the others, fresh blood. But it stopped suddenly, abruptly, in a small clearing where the sunlight entered more directly through an opening in the green canopy above.
And it revealed exactly what he feared most, the worst possible scenario he was trying not to imagine.
Bodies scattered on the ground of the clearing.
Completely torn apart, destroyed beyond recognition.
Kuggi lay face down in a huge pool of still-fresh blood, his chest literally ripped open like a book, his ribs exposed and broken, forming a twisted bony cage, his internal organs partially... missing.
Duggi lay beside his companion, his head turned at an angle absolutely impossible for any living creature, completely twisted, his eyes still open and completely glazed, staring at the eternal nothingness with an expression of frozen terror.
The old woman... the old woman was literally in disjointed pieces, scattered over an area of about two or three meters like a plush doll torn apart by a cruel child ; an arm here, a leg there, the torso separated, all mixed with earth and blood forming something repugnant.
And Tairo, the young leader who had received the medicinal herbs and the responsibility of the group, lay on his back with his arms outstretched, a huge, irregular hole where his stomach should have been, empty, hollow, just torn flesh at the edges and an exposed spine at the bottom.
All brutally murdered.
Hawke desperately searched, his eyes wet with tears, frantically looking for any sign of the girls; Yuka and Kaira.
"Where are they? Where are they? Please let them be hiding somewhere, please let them have escaped."
He searched for a while longer.
"Where are they?! WHERE ARE THEY, DAMN IT?!"
*THUMP*
An absurdly heavy step shook violently behind him, making the entire ground vibrate and small stones jump, sending shockwaves up his legs.
Another noise; of something falling to the ground was heard by him.
Hawke turned slowly, very slowly because every fiber of his body screamed not to look, his entire body progressively freezing with paralyzing fear of what he would inevitably see when he completed the turn.
********
And what he saw when he finally faced it left him with such intense fear that he could barely breathe and a suffocating feeling of sadness and horror that threatened to crush his chest from the inside.
On the ground right in front of the creature...
Half of Yuka's body.
Only the upper half ; from the waist up, cut irregularly and brutally. The rest, the entire lower part of her body, had simply... vanished, disappeared, probably already devoured. Tears could still be seen slowly streaming from her large, wide eyes, shocked and in pain, her small mouth open in an eternal silent scream that would never be heard again, her delicate hands still clenched as if she had tried to grab onto something before the end.
And the gigantic, terrifying paws of whatever had done this hovered menacingly near her severed body, almost touching it ; enormous as young tree trunks, with curved, long claws like hunting knives embedded deep in the soft earth, stained with still-fresh blood.
Hawke looked up, trembling uncontrollably, inch by inch, unwillingly but unable to stop.
A dinosaur.
Monstrously enormous. Huge serrated teeth protruding from the half-open mouth, each the size of an adult human finger, dripping saliva mixed with blood.
And trapped between those horrible teeth, being slowly chewed...
Kaira.
Still alive somehow.
Still conscious and feeling everything.
Trapped between the sharp teeth, her body crushed and pierced in multiple places, blood streaming in streams down the scales of the beast's snout.
Hawke's body was so completely paralyzed that not even her heart seemed to beat anymore, it was absolutely frozen, she didn't even breathe; hhe just stared, pure and concentrated horror literally freezing every muscle in her body in place.
"Help... me..."
Kaira's voice came out so weak it was barely audible, broken and destroyed, almost an agonizing whisper.
"Help... me... Hawke... please... don't leave me..."
Horrible sounds of intense agony mixed with desperate crying and broken sobs of pain.
Hawke's body, which had been completely frozen, finally began to move after those eternal frozen seconds. But it didn't move as he desperately hoped it would, not forward toward her to try to save her somehow, not to help or fight.
It turned around.