The grᴀss was high enough to hide a man.

That was the danger.

The woman—small, narrow-shouldered, her dark hair braided with sinew—stopped walking. Her name, if it could be called that, was a sound like a breath and a click. She carried a stone flake in one hand and a digging stick in the other. Behind her, three others moved slowly across the floodplain, eyes scanning, noses tasting the air.

The sun hung low and brutal. Cicadas screamed. Somewhere near the river, hippos grunted like boulders shifting.

Then the birds went silent.

Not all at once. Not dramatically. Just… wrong. The woman felt it before she understood it. Her skin тιԍнтened. She raised her hand, fist closed.

The others froze.

In the grᴀss ahead, something moved—but not like an antelope. No sudden flight. No panic. The grᴀss flowed.

The python had been there all morning.

It was older than any of them. Longer than two men laid head to foot. Thick as a fallen log, patterned in dust and shadow. It had fed recently—some unlucky piglet near the water—but hunger was not the only reason it hunted. Heat, instinct, the simple fact of opportunity.

The woman stepped forward.

The python struck.

It was not fast like a cheetah. It was inevitable. The head exploded from the grᴀss, jaws opening wider than seemed possible, teeth curving backward like thorns. The impact knocked her off her feet before she could scream.

Her digging stick flew. The stone flake cut air.

The coil wrapped her legs.

Pressure—immediate, crushing. Her bones screamed before her mouth did. She clawed at the snake’s scales, smooth and cold and impossibly strong. The python’s body тιԍнтened in pulses, each one stealing air, stealing time.

Seconds from death.

The others shouted—raw, animal sounds. One hurled a stone. It bounced uselessly off the python’s back. Another charged, waving a burning stick snatched from a smoldering grᴀss fire they had carried for days.

Fire changed everything.