Adrenaline: that cursed, magical fluid secreted by the body in the fleeting moments between life and death. It is a double-edged sword; it either grants you wings to soar or burns your nerves until you collapse. In that moment, Harten fixed his gaze on the serpent, watching the flicker of its forked tongue, waiting for the moment fate would decide his destiny.
The snake struck like silent lightning, but Harten—driven by Level Two instinct—leaped backward with a litheness his small body had never known. He waited for a gap in the opponent's defenses, and when the snake stilled for a fraction of a second, he lunged with a solid stone. He heard the crunch of the skull and tasted the metallic scent of blood in the air. Harten screamed at the sky: "I did it! Yes! Haha!" It was a bitter euphoria of victory, but it was his first acknowledgment of his own power.
He severed the head, skinned it, and tore out the meat. "It doesn't matter if it's poisonous; I will eat it to live." But he spat out the first bite in bitterness; the taste was like pure filth. He didn't know that the scent of this blood would stretch like an invisible thread, drawing a pack of ravenous wild dogs that began to prowl toward the jungle's edge.
Harten spent his night in a tree, waking to a symphony of birds that hid the horrors of the day behind their beauty. He realized that thirst would kill him before the dogs did. Flashes of an old documentary surfaced in his mind: filtration was the solution.
"Where do I find a bottle in this hell?" He looked at the long snakeskin and smiled grimly: "This will do."
With a patience bordering on madness, he gathered stones and crushed wood to obtain charcoal. He tore a piece of his tattered shirt, stuffed it with the components, tied it tightly at the head of the skin, and poured the murky water in. It took a full day of agonizing waiting until the first drop of clear water trickled out. Harten drank while weeping; these tears were not of fear, but an announcement: "I will live... I will survive despite this world."
On the morning of the third day, the barking of dogs pierced the silence of the pit. Harten climbed down from his tree, trying to return to the point of his initial fall, but one of the dogs was faster. It began to bark hysterically, summoning the rest of the pack.
Harten ran to the left, only to find himself boxed in by giant trees that stood like natural prison bars. "Damn it! Two choices, both bitter!" he screamed in his mind. He decided on the ultimate risk; he turned and charged toward the lone dog before the others arrived, delivered a crushing blow to its eye, and continued his frantic sprint. He found a narrow rocky ledge, and at its end, he saw a miracle: a rope dangling from above, swaying like a hand reaching down from the heavens.
He ran toward it, the dogs snapping at the air behind his heels. As he neared the rope, the voice of "Ahmed" erupted from within him, laughing hysterically: "Yes... run! Return to your weakness... go back to where no one sees you... flee from this hell!"
Harten stopped abruptly, the dogs only meters away.
"Who are you?" he asked in a heavy silence.
The voice answered mockingly: "I am you... the past... little Ahmed who loves to hide."
Harten let out a harsh laugh, dry as the jungle floor: "Change is hard... breathing is hard... even survival is hard."
He looked at the rope, representing "Escape" and the return to being "Ahmed," and then looked back at the dogs, representing "Confrontation" and the solidification of the "Harten" identity. Does he grab the rope and end the test prematurely? Or does he cut the rope and face his greatest fear to become the monster that eats monsters?