STAY ON GUARD! My mind raced as my awareness snapped back. Unlike the previous times I had woken up, there was no slow gain of function. My whole body was online in an instant, and I tensed up into a defensive position. It took half a minute before I noticed the sound of rain coming from somewhere, and realized it was daytime. My body screamed out something like damage warnings, and I carefully stood up and walked to the cave exit. By the time I was out in the rain the damage warnings were subsiding. Mysterious, I thought as I looked up at the cloudy sky. The rain was cool on my face, and I took the opportunity to wash myself off.

Back in the cave my prisoner was still unconscious. Why didn't the animal that was chasing me eat him? I wondered. Sitting down near the edge of the cave, I reached behind myself to grab some of my dried venison. Huh? I thought as my fingers failed to find the netted bag I was reaching for. Confused, I took of my new cloak and removed the cordage around my torso. My bag of fruits was still present, though a bit crushed from my rolling the night before, and so was my bag of reeds. The venison, on the other hand, had vanished.

I pieced things together in my head and began to understand. The animal must have grabbed the venison and eaten it, giving me a chance to escape, I realized. I felt a bit foolish for my reaction but knew that it was better to be safe than sorry. There were clearly genetically modified lifeforms in the area and any enhanced hunter predator would be more than capable of damaging me irreparably. I pulled out some of the less crushed fruits from my other bag and began eating them, appreciating the pleasant sensations they provided.

I sat at the edge of the cave with a pile of extracted fibers, slowly weaving them into cordage. The loss of one of my netted bags was quite annoying, as was the knowledge that I had no way of knowing exactly where I had dropped it which made retrieval nearly impossible. The rain had been pouring down nonstop since I had awoken, but thankfully the cave hadn't begun to flood yet. It looks like the ground outside is more absorbent than I thought, I noted. As well, the crack in the ground where it had split to create the formation I was sitting in was either very deep or led into some kind of secondary cave. I was roused from my idle thoughts about the geological state of the area by a low groaning noise, followed by coughing.

I looked over at the prisoner, who was now moving and straining against his binds. Slowly at first, but with quickening speed. I knew his initial lethargy was because, like me, he was waking up slowly and did not fully understand his situation yet. Knowing what I knew now about drowsiness and sleep, I could easily put myself in the man's position and understand his plight. He soon began pulling and forcing against the binding I had tied, and making incoherent noises with his mouth through the gag. I finished up with my cordage, tied it off, and then walked over and removed his gag.

“Speak,” I commanded. The man froze and stopped struggling.

“Keym shaaneyljh,” the man replied. I stopped and analyzed his words, trying to fit them to any language I knew.

“Do you speak English?” I asked.

“Keym vaadhwkeyzh hhaam?” the man replied. The upward inflection at the end of his sentence made it sound like a question. I tried asking him what his language was again, but in Portuguese. The man didn't reply, so I tried again in Afrikaans, then in Mandarin. “Jhow lawm eyljhayzmaaljh,” the man said as I finished up. Maybe I didn't pronounce my last question properly, I thought as I watched him. While I technically knew Mandarin I had never used it conversationally, so I only had my memories from using its language module in virtual training. No, that can’t be right, Mandarin doesn’t sound like this language does, I thought, I can’t place it, maybe it’s North African?

“Hold still,” I said firmly. I knew the man couldn't understand me, but tone of voice was enough to communicate my intent. I reached over and removed the blindfold from his eyes. The man blinked many times, looking around, then his eyes locked onto me.

“Sehpeyzm yaal,” the man said with a tone that sounded curious. His eyes moved down from my face to my clothing, and his brow narrowed. “Yae tverhb!” he growled, and he began struggling again. I suppose that's a normal reaction, I thought.

“Stop struggling, you'll only hurt yourself,” I said. The man stopped for a moment and looked at me, but then let out a yell and tried to roll into an upright position. I stood up and grabbed him by the bindings, lifting him off of the ground, and brought him over to the entrance of the cave. When I put the man down he was very quiet and had stopped moving. Eventually our eyes met again and he looked away quickly.

“Taezoyb...” the man muttered under his breath. I rolled a fruit over in front of his face, and the man looked at me.

“Eat it,” I said. The man looked confused, and I restated myself, gesturing with my hands to indicate what the words meant.

“Shuw?” the man asked in a tone that sounded sarcastic.

“Eat the food, I need you alive,” I said. The man turned his head away from the fruit petulantly. Fine, we do this the hard way, I thought to myself. Grabbing the man from the ground with my right hand, I used my left to force the fruit into his mouth, then cover his lips until he swallowed it. When I released my grip on his mouth and the man coughed and spat on the ground.

“Npoyt,” the man spluttered. I dropped him onto the hard stone and he cried out as his chest smacked against it, knocking the wind out of him. Odd, I thought as the man gasped for air, that vulnerability was removed in warbreed. That means he probably isn't descended from them. I examined the man's form again more closely as he gasped for breath.

The more I looked, the more strange physical quirks I noticed. The man's eyes were the most striking of them, but his ears were also shaped oddly and had detached lobes. His back was not straight, and instead had an inefficient amount of curvature. His body also lacked symmetry, with the musculature on his left being much more developed than on his right. Finally, the nails on his toes were misshapen and uneven, with one looking like it had grown back into the flesh of the toe itself. He almost looks like he's natural, I thought, but that's not possible. Especially not considering the healing.

“Hey, look over here,” I said loudly to get the man's attention. Kneeling down in front of him, I began drawing on the ground by displacing dirt. I drew the rough shape of the coastline I had landed on, then some pictograms to indicate the forest, and a line to indicate my direction of travel. I didn't have a map, so my scale might have been off, but by the time I added the cave we were in the man seemed to get the point.

“Gehp mahpoymehpao,” the man said, gesturing with his eyes to my drawing.

“Assuming that means 'map of the island', yes,” I said. “Now where is your village?” I looked at the man expectantly, getting an incredulous look in reply as if the man was asking How am I supposed to show you? Off to the side I drew a small pictogram which represented a village, then pointed to the map. I began slowly tracing my finger across the area north of us, sweeping from east to west, while looking at the man expectantly.

“Gow kawlm ler kahp suwlahtk?” the man asked suddenly.

“Here?” I asked, pointing to the village and then were my finger was when he had spoken.

“Lawm mahvoydh gow,” the man said defiantly. Ah, he thinks he's tough then, I thought. I split my mouth into a wide grin, calling upon my knowledge of human expressions to perform a psychological tactic. Smiling in such a manner was unnerving to warbreed, especially when they were in a vulnerable position, so I assumed it would also apply to whatever variety of human this man was. It appeared that I was correct, because the man's face flashed fear for an instant before he reigned in his emotions.

“Let's see how powerful that regeneration is then,” I said with another smile, drawing the man's knife from my shorts. The man's eyes went wide, and I sunk the blade into his shoulder. As if he was in shock, the man had no reaction for half a second before the screaming started. I let go of the knife, leaving it in the wound, and held the man still. I marveled as I watched his flesh heal around the obstruction, holding it in place.

“Tpihbao npoyt!” the man yelled, spittle flying from his lips off of his bared teeth. I just held him in place, waiting for the pain to subside. After a few minutes the man was still groaning and breathing heavily, and I was growing confused. Is he still in pain despite healing? I wondered, and why is he acting like he's been wounded severely? Even on a creator human this wound wouldn't be overly serious. I deliberately avoided the most important tendons and blood vessels. I yanked the knife out of the wound, spilling blood before the man's body had a chance to fix itself and prompting a new spewing of curses in my direction. Whatever npoyt means, it can't be polite, I thought with another dangerous smile, and look at that, he has a scar where I stabbed him.

“I'll ask again, where is your village?” I asked, pointing to the village icon then back to the map.

“Ngayl eyljh jhae,” the man hissed.

“Fine,” I shrugged, “have it your way.” I reached up to the man's right arm and pushed on the elbow, forcing it in the opposite direction that it would normally bend in. The man's cries turned high-pitched during the snapping noises, and I heard some birds fly from the trees nearby. I watched with fascination as the man's elbow forcibly bent back into a normal position and rapidly went through a process of swelling and healing, fixing itself in under half a minute. The man was panting once the process finished, and his body was covered in sweat from the pain.

Now, what would happen if I held it in place instead? I thought, breaking the man's elbow again. I kept my hand on it to keep it hyperextended and felt a slight backwards force. Using my other hand I gripped and squeezed his muscles, trying to identify which ones were involved in the action. It's odd, I thought, they're so soft. This man is amazingly weak. It's a wonder he can survive at all out here. After holding the elbow in a hyperextended state for at least a minute I let it go and observed the same healing process as before, setting it back as though I had never broken it before another minute had passed.

The sun was setting and my prisoner was still uncooperative. I had to refrain from performing some of the more extreme tests that I had thought up because I wasn't sure exactly when his ability might give out and leave him dead. Even just with the ones I considered safe, I was sure that the man was capable of regenerating bone, muscle, skin, ligaments and tendons, and blood vessels at a rapid speed. This might explain how that deer survived for so long, I thought, and the fish. Doesn't explain the insects though, those died just like any other insect. Could every animal in this biosphere be capable of this kind of regeneration?

The man had long since lost consciousness again from the pain, and I sat at the entrance to the cave chewing on another piece of fruit as I tried to make sense of the ability. It just doesn't seem possible, I thought, the energy requirements alone would require him to have some kind of battery implanted inside himself. But if the animals can do it too, which they might be able to do, it can't be a cybernetic implant. Biological alteration designed to be used with nanotech? Maybe, but then what mechanism is being used? It isn't like biological cells can just have their metabolism cranked up like that then turned back down again on a whim. The cells themselves would also have to be modified, but if the creators knew how to create regeneration like this they would have done it with the warbreed- My train of thought was broken by another groan. I looked behind me and smiled as a pair of red eyes met mine.

“So, where's the village?” I asked in my gentlest tone.