Fifteen years of silence, broken only by the drum of rain on a million leaves and the grumble of a gorilla troop moving through the undergrowth.

High above the forest floor, in a cradle of twisted vines and moss, a man sat motionless. His skin was dark, crosshatched with old scars. His hair, matted and wild, hung past his shoulders. His eyes—bright, amber, unblinking—tracked a single drop of water as it crawled along a broad-leafed branch, trembled, and fell.

He caught it with his tongue.

But he heard it. A rhythm wrong. A car engine, growling where no car should be. Metal scraping against earth. And beneath it all, a sound he had never heard before.

A voice. High. Sharp. Terrified.

He stood, muscles coiling, nostrils flaring to catch the scent on the wind.