The sun was high and oppressive, baking the soil of the Kabua fields as the group of boys returned to their labor. The afternoon stretched ahead of them, a grueling requirement of physical toil that had to be completed before they could dare return home. In this tribe, survival was etched into every furrow they plowed; to return empty-handed or early was to invite a blistering scolding from the elders.
But as Fuyu worked, his hands moving mechanically to clear the irrigation paths, his mind was no longer in the primitive world of mud and grass. It was soaring through the revelations granted to him during those lost hours in the Great Forest.
"So, this Spirit which is living inside my body calls itself Vasana," Fuyu thought, the name vibrating in his skull like a low-frequency hum. "A divine entity capable of granting me powers I never dared to dream of."
He replayed the memory of his encounter with the spirit. When he had been separated from the group, the air had grown thick and shimmering, and it had emerged—a pink, ethereal form that defied the laws of nature. Normally, such a sight would have caused a boy's heart to seize with terror, but Vasana had reached into his very biology, dampening his fear receptors and calming his frantic nerves. In that secluded, silent glade, they had talked.
Vasana had spoken of a grand, terrifying cosmology. "That pink thing told me I am living in a primitive age," Fuyu mused, his brow dripping with sweat. "A world of huts and dirt. But it knows of places far beyond—modern worlds where men are like gods. People who can shatter mountains with a single strike of their fist."
Initially, Fuyu's simple mind had struggled to grasp it. But if a spirit could reside in his own chest, then why couldn't men fly like birds? Why couldn't they move objects with the mere flick of a thought? The curiosity had burned through him like a fever, compelling him to ask the only question that mattered: "Are you telling the truth, or just bragging? And if it's real... how can I go there?"
Vasana's voice had been a cold, serious chime in his head. "It is not easy. To traverse the dimensions to the Realm of Immortals, you must make a sacrifice. You must shed this body. You must die."
Death. The word usually carried the weight of finality and dread, but Vasana had explained it as a mere doorway. The spirit spoke of Karma, the supreme natural law of the universe. Fuyu learned that Karma was the invisible force that balanced all things—the reason a farmer reaped what he sowed, and the reason a soul was birthed into a specific body to suffer or enjoy the consequences of past lives. No one escaped it. It was the natural order that kept the stars in the sky and the crops in the field.
For Fuyu to escape this primitive cycle and be reincarnated into the higher realms, he had to "defy" the flow of Karma. No mortal could do this alone; it required the intervention of a divine entity who knew how to "swim against the river."
"What are you saying?" Fuyu had asked, confused by the metaphysics but clinging to the promise. "If I die, I can be reborn with my memories? But death is terrifying. What if you fail?"
"I will not fail," the spirit had reassured him. "But before the transition, you must prepare the vessel. You must open the Nadis—the energy channels within your current body. There are two ways to do this: the slow, agonizing path of Samadhi and meditation, or the path of Vasana."
Fuyu didn't need to think twice. Samadhi sounded like the work of old men sitting in the dust for decades. The path of Vasana was different. It was visceral. It was effective. To open those Nadis and cultivate the raw power necessary for transcendence, Fuyu needed energy. And that energy was to be harvested through the most primal act of all: union with multiple women.
"I need to fuck as many women as I can," Fuyu thought, his grip on his digging tool tightening. "For Immortality, I will do it. I'm going to die anyway someday, so why not try for something greater?" The spirit's influence was already warping his perception, turning his fear of death into a calculated hunger for power.
As the afternoon finally waned, the boys finished their tasks and headed to the river. The water was cool and life-giving, washing away the dust of the fields. They splashed and laughed, but Fuyu remained somewhat distant, his eyes gazing at the horizon as if he could already see the mountain-shattering gods Vasana had described. After bathing, they finally made their way back to the family hut.
The atmosphere inside was heavy. Rana and Nula were huddled together, their faces etched with a gravity that suggested deep trouble. Manu, ever the energetic one, rushed toward them. "Father! Mother! What are you talking about so seriously?" he asked, his voice filled with boyish concern.
Fuyu approached as well, but his motivation was entirely different. As he neared the firelight, his eyes didn't settle on his father's worried brow. They dropped lower, fixing onto Nula's form.
"OH Fuck... she's hot," Fuyu thought, his heart jumping. "That's how I should say it, right, spirit?"
Under the influence of Vasana's awakening of his base desires, Nula didn't look like a mother figure anymore. She looked like a feast. He stared at her thick, maternal figure wrapped in simple leaf-garments. Her skin, softened by the steam of the hut and glowing in the firelight, looked like milk. His gaze lingered on the swell of her assets and the sturdy, seductive curve of her hips.
"I never felt like this before," Fuyu realized, his breathing growing shallow. "But the Spirit is making me see it. I want to get between those thick legs. I want to feel her thighs sandwich me while I lick her... so hot. So delicious." He unconsciously licked his lips, his gaze becoming a physical weight upon her.
Nula, despite being engrossed in the serious conversation with Rana, felt the shift in the room immediately. A prickle of heat traveled up her spine. What is this feeling? she wondered, her eyes flicking toward Fuyu.
He is staring at me again, she thought, her stomach doing a nervous flip. She tried to focus on Rana's words, but Fuyu's gaze was like a brand. It wasn't the look of a hungry child; it was the look of a man burning with a dark, unyielding lust. It made her skin crawl with a sensation that was both terrifying and confusingly intense.
Should I confront him? she agonized. The way he's looking at me... it's making me so uncomfortable. But he's just a boy... or is he? She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, seeing the intensity in his pupils. I need to find him a partner immediately. If the village elders see him looking at an older woman like this—at me—he will be ruined. People will mock him. He'll never get a mate of his own age.
Nula's mind raced through a dozen scenarios. Part of her wanted to scold him, to tell him to lower his eyes, but another part of her was strangely paralyzed by the sheer raw energy he was projecting. Why am I even thinking about him liking me? I'm not expecting anything... I'm his elder. This is wrong. She shifted her position, trying to pull her leaf-skirt lower, but Fuyu's eyes followed the movement with predatory focus. The air in the hut felt suddenly thin, the crackling of the fire the only sound against the heavy silence of her internal panic. She felt a jolt of alarm, realizing that the "innocent" boy she knew was being replaced by something else—something hungrier.
She was about to snap at him, to break the spell of his staring, when Rana's voice boomed, startling her out of her thoughts.
"Nula! Are you even listening?" Rana barked, his voice rough with the stress of the patriarch's news.
Nula jolted, her heart hammering against her ribs. She looked at Rana, her face flushed with a mixture of guilt and heat. "Yes... yes, I'm listening," she stammered, casting one last, fleeting look at Fuyu.
Fuyu didn't flinch. He remained standing there, his eyes still fixed on her, a faint, knowing smirk playing on his lips as the spirit inside him whispered of the Nadis and the energy he was destined to harvest. He was no longer just a son of the tribe; he was a predator in training, and Nula was the first magnificent prize in his sights.