CHAPTER I: THE CURSE BENEATH THE JUNGLE CANOPY

 

Alpha Company, 3rd Ranger Task Force, codenamed “Vanguard,” stepped into the ancient Green Canopy jungle. Their mission, under the suffocating heat and dampness of Southeast Asia, was to locate and neutralize a secret enemy radio transmission post—a structure believed to have been abandoned for over four decades, but which recently began emitting complex, coded signals severely disrupting US military communications.

Captain Marcus “Mac” Thorne, the company commander, was a seasoned warrior, his vigilant eyes constantly sweeping through the dense foliage. Beside him were Sergeant David “Doc” Riley, the combat medic, and Corporal Elias “Ghost” Vance, the communications and reconnaissance specialist, who always carried a heavy backpack filled with electronic gear. The twelve-man Vanguard team moved deeper, each step careful, wary of every sound and shifting shadow.

This jungle was a labyrinth of life and death. The smell of damp moss, rotting earth, and tree sap mingled in the air. But after three days of marching, what worried Mac and his team most was the uncanny silence. Birds were not chirping, and monkeys were quiet. Even the sounds of insects were unnervingly sparse. It felt as if the entire forest was holding its breath.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, while they were setting up a temporary rest point near a small stream, Staff Sergeant Kevin “Boomer” Davies, the heavy weapons specialist, suddenly stopped, his gaze fixed on a thick cluster of vines.

“Captain,” Boomer whispered, his voice laced with surprise. “There’s something here.”

Mac signaled the team to hold position, then approached with Doc and Boomer. When they pushed the vines aside, they saw a sight both heartwarming and utterly misplaced in a warzone: A litter of kittens.

Three tiny creatures, their eyes barely open, were curled up on a nest made of dry leaves and feathers. They seemed abandoned or newly born. Their coat colors were striking: one was dark gray, like cinder; one was bright red, like blood; and the last was pure white, like pearl, but had strange, deep black swirls on its ears and legs.

“Ferals, probably abandoned by their mother,” Doc Riley said, a rare note of tenderness in his voice. “They won’t survive out here.”

Mac frowned, unwilling to add any burden to the mission. “Leave them. This isn’t an animal rescue camp.”

But Boomer, a large man with a soft heart, knelt down. “Come on, Captain. We can take care of them. I think it’s good luck. Three of them… The Three Guardians of Vanguard.”

Facing the pleas of the entire team, Mac sighed and conceded. Doc retrieved a light plastic box, lined it with soft parachute fabric, and gently placed the three kittens inside. They named them after their colors: Ash (Cinder), Rogue (Red), and Pearl (Silver).

CHAPTER II: MEAT AND TERRIFYING GROWTH

 

The arrival of the three kittens alleviated the tension in the company. But this brief joy quickly gave way to confusion.

The first problem arose when they tried to feed them. Doc Riley tried mixing powdered MRE milk with water to create a liquid formula, but the kittens refused to suckle. Then, Ghost Vance suggested trying some canned fish (from the rations), but all three, especially Ash and Rogue, turned away, even letting out a slight growl.

“That’s weird,” Ghost muttered. “What kind of cats won’t eat fish?”

In a final, desperate attempt, Boomer took a piece of dried chicken jerky from his ration, chewed it small, and placed it in front of them. And the kittens ate. They didn’t just eat; they devoured the meat with savage hunger.

From then on, the three cats’ diet was exclusively raw meat. Despite attempts to mix meat with rice or mashed vegetables, they would only eat the meat. Every day, a portion of the soldiers’ meat rations had to be cut up and reserved for the three Guardians. Mac Thorne found this absurd, but he couldn’t deny they were the only source of comfort in the gloomy jungle.

The strangest thing began to happen after two weeks: Their rate of growth.

Kittens usually grow slowly. But Ash, Rogue, and Pearl were different. In just one month since they were found, they reached the size of fully-grown domestic cats. They had long, muscled, powerful bodies. Their eyes, initially dull, were now wide and intensely cold: Ash had deep amber eyes, Rogue a fiery emerald green, and Pearl a silvery gray that glowed with an eerie mystique.

They moved almost silently, even on the dry leaf litter. When hunting (small mice, lizards), their speed and precision astonished the Rangers, who were trained to be the pinnacle of stealth. They didn’t run; they glided like shadows.

However, along with their size, their personalities also changed.

The docile kittens that loved curling up on Boomer’s lap or sleeping next to Doc’s backpack were gone. Now, they were less affectionate. They spent most of the day hiding in the brush, or perched on high branches, observing the company from above. When night fell, their eyes glowed unnaturally. While they still accepted food from the soldiers’ hands, it was no longer a warm gesture of closeness, but a cold acceptance, almost a concession.

“I don’t like the way they look at me anymore, Captain,” Private Santiago, the marksman, whispered to Mac one night. “It’s like… they’re judging us.”

Mac tried to dismiss the feeling of unease. “They’re just grown feral cats, Santiago. The wild is asserting itself.”

But he knew Santiago wasn’t wrong. Once, Mac placed his hand on Rogue’s back, and felt the cat’s body tense, a muscular rumble almost like a growl emanating from its throat. Rogue was not a pet. It was a perfect predator.

CHAPTER III: THE BREAK AND THE MYSTERIOUS LOSS

 

By the end of the first month, the Vanguard company finally located the transmission post. It wasn’t an abandoned structure, but a fortified underground facility, perfectly camouflaged beneath a moss-covered rock formation. The signal jamming had intensified, and Mac knew they had to act fast.

That night, they set up camp about 500 meters from the objective. A light rain began to fall, creating a thick mist that shrouded the jungle. The team was exhausted after the final reconnaissance run. Mac ordered total rest, leaving only one man on watch.

Around 23:00 hours, as Mac lay in his hammock trying to catch some sleep, he felt a coldness that wasn’t from the air. He opened his eyes, and saw Pearl sitting on his chest.

The pure white cat stared at him. Its silver eyes exuded a deep sorrow, mixed with an emotion Mac couldn’t name—it was a warning. Pearl let out a soft cry, but it wasn’t the familiar meow, but a deep, resonant sound. Then it jumped down, walked over to Mac’s M4A1 rifle, and nudged the stock with its nose.

“You want me to stand guard, little one?” Mac whispered, chuckling softly.

The cat turned to look at him, its eyes glittering as if trying to convey something, then it vanished into the darkness, heading toward where Ash and Rogue were curled up.

Mac felt uneasy. He decided to take the guard shift himself, placing his M4A1 beside him, and leaned against the ancient tree trunk.

The light rain stopped completely, and the silence returned. This time, it wasn’t just the silence of the deep jungle, but a perfect stillness, like a bell that had just rung but was instantly muffled.

Then, the screams erupted.

It wasn’t the scream of a man, nor of a wild animal. It was the piercing shriek of the three cats. The sound was high-pitched, full of pain and utter terror, as if they were being burned alive or torn apart. The cries lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough to pierce the stillness and etch itself into everyone’s mind.

Mac Thorne bolted upright, his heart pounding wildly. “Up! Everybody up!” he yelled.

In less than ten seconds, the entire company was up. The Rangers, trained to react with lightning speed, grabbed their weapons, assumed defensive positions, and swept the area with their flashlights.

“What the hell was that?” Boomer muttered, gripping his knife tightly. “The cats… something got them!”

They clustered into a defensive circle, listening and waiting. There were no footsteps, no gunfire, no movement whatsoever in the jungle. Only the deadly stillness remained.

“Doc, Boomer, check where the cats were,” Mac ordered, his M4A1 ready to fire.

Doc and Boomer approached the spot where the three cats usually lay. Doc shined his flashlight.

The spot was empty.

The fabric-lined box was still there, but no Ash, Rogue, or Pearl.

“Where did they go?” Doc said, his voice clearly confused. “No way. They never wander far at night.”

Mac felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. “Everyone, check your personal weapons! Hurry!”

Sergeant Vance, Ghost, was the first to speak, his voice trembling uncontrollably. “Captain… My rifle… it’s gone!”

Mac Thorne spun around, unable to believe his ears. He looked down where he had placed his M4A1.

It wasn’t there.

No drag marks, no sign of struggle. The entire M4A1, along with the loaded magazine and combat knife, had vanished without a trace.

The horror spread like wildfire. One by one, every soldier in the Vanguard company checked their weapons.

All were gone.

The M4A1s, the M203 grenade launchers, Boomer’s M249 light machine gun, Santiago’s sniper rifle, all sidearms, M67 grenades, even Doc Riley’s Kukri knife… All metal weapons were completely gone!

None of the twelve soldiers, the elite warriors, had anything left but small ceramic and plastic survival knives, and their entrenching tools.

They stood there, twelve men who had been armed to the teeth, now just twelve easy targets, bare and panicked in the deep jungle.

“Wha… what the hell is happening?” Corporal Rico, the grenadier, whispered.

Mac Thorne stared into the darkness. His eyes were no longer wary, but filled with terrifying understanding.

“The cats,” he said, his voice raw, “They weren’t Guardians. They were… something else.”

CHAPTER IV: THE AFTERMATH AND THE EXPLANATION

 

In the following hours, under the faint moonlight filtering through the canopy, the Vanguard company tried to maintain composure and analyze the situation.

1. The Attacker’s Objective: Only metal weapons were taken. Backpacks, electronic gear, ceramic knives, uniforms, and food were untouched. This ruled out a conventional robbery or an attack by the enemy forces.

2. Method of Attack: No sound, no trace. Twelve highly-trained Rangers were disarmed while asleep, without anyone noticing, save for the screaming of the cats.

Mac gathered everyone. “Think hard. Before this happened, did the cats… do anything strange?”

Sergeant Ghost Vance raised his hand. “I keep thinking about the meat-only diet. And the growth rate. It’s not normal. Are they genetically modified animals, Captain? Or some kind of virus vector?”

Doc Riley shook his head. “No sign of disease. They were perfectly healthy. But the meat craving, the growth, and the coldness… it suggests rapid evolution, or that they were not normal cats to begin with.”

Mac remembered Pearl nudging his rifle stock. “Pearl tried to warn me. It nudged the rifle. It wanted me to wake up or hold the weapon.”

Boomer Davies, the closest to the cats, spoke with a shaky voice. “That scream… it wasn’t the fear of being killed. It was betrayal or an internal struggle. I raised them. I know. They were fighting something. Or… they were being forced.”

The sense of dread grew clearer: The cats were a conduit, a biological tool that had been planted among their ranks.

Mac put forth a chilling hypothesis: “The enemy knew we were coming. They set a trap. The three cats were genetically modified or microchip-controlled organisms. They were programmed to seek us out and bond with us, consume only meat (to store energy or materials), and then, when they reached the required size and strength… they disarmed us.”

But why cats? And why wait until tonight, after they had found the transmission post?

Ghost offered a frightening conjecture: “The enemy didn’t want to steal our weapons. They wanted to immobilize us. The stolen weapons aren’t the main objective. The main objective is time. That scream was the activation signal. They completed their mission. And now they are transporting the weapons.”

Mac looked at his watch. It was 00:30. “The transmission post. Our target is there. If the cats took the weapons, they are taking them back to the enemy for use or simply to prevent us from using them. The post wasn’t abandoned. It’s the main base.”

The Vanguard company’s situation had shifted from a reconnaissance mission to a desperate fight for survival. Twelve elite warriors, stripped of their weapons, faced an invisible enemy in a jungle that was swallowing the silence.

CHAPTER V: THE UNARMED ADVANCE

 

Mac’s decision was clear: Advance.

“We have no other choice,” Mac said firmly. “If we sit here and wait for backup, we’ll either starve or be captured. Our weapons are being transported to the objective. We have to pursue them.”

They used their ceramic knives and entrenching tools to fashion crude spears from tree branches. They relied on their hand-to-hand combat knowledge and jungle stealth. Their power was no longer in their firepower, but in their training and intellect.

They moved toward the rock formation. Mac noticed Doc Riley looked particularly grim. “Doc, are you alright?”

Doc didn’t look at Mac, just stared at the ground. “I feel sick, Captain. I fed them. I held them while they slept. And they betrayed us.”

“They weren’t pets, Doc. They were bio-weapons,” Mac reiterated to steady morale.

“Not Ash, Captain,” Doc countered. “That black cat… it loved us. That scream wasn’t a signal, it was a cry for help. They were changed, but maybe a part of their cat conscience was fighting the enemy’s programming.”

They reached the rock formation. The silence here was even more suffocating. Suddenly, Ghost Vance stopped, pointing at a patch of mud.

Cat paw prints.

Not one, but dozens of large, clear cat paw prints. Interspersed with them were long drag marks in the mud, as if heavy objects were being pulled.

“They are transporting,” Boomer gasped.

Mac Thorne signaled to stop. He looked up at the rock. There was a small opening, just wide enough for a person to crawl through, leading inside the base.

“Ghost, you lead. Use minimal thermal and acoustic sensors. Everyone follow closely,” Mac ordered.

As Ghost crawled into the opening, he suddenly inhaled sharply and turned back to Mac with wide eyes.

“Captain,” he whispered, his voice no longer fearful but one of absolute horror. “You shouldn’t believe the bio-weapon theory anymore.”

“Why?” Mac asked, suppressing his anxiety.

“Because… there are no enemy soldiers inside. No people. Only…”

Ghost paused, his eyes reflecting a sight that could not be described in words.

“Only… The Cats.”

CHAPTER VI: THE TRUTH OF THE PRIMORDIAL CLAN

 

Mac Thorne and the team crawled inside. The underground bunker was vast and lit by a faint, eerie green fluorescent light. It wasn’t a military base; it was an ancient laboratory.

But what stunned them was the sight before their eyes:

In the center of the laboratory, on a large steel table, were piled all the weapons of the Vanguard company. They were neatly arranged, as if waiting to be inventoried. Surrounding the table, dozens of cats stood, forming a perfect circle.

These were not feral cats. They were much larger than Ash, Rogue, and Pearl, with the exact same coat colors and eyes: Cinder, Fiery Red, and Silver. They were The Feline Primordials.

And standing in the center of the circle, in front of the weapons, were the three creatures they had raised.

Ash, Rogue, and Pearl.

Ash, the black cat, stepped forward. It stared at the Vanguard company, its amber eyes no longer holding affection but supreme authority.

“You have done well,” a voice resonated in Mac Thorne’s mind, not through his ears, but through a spiritual, deep, and ancient language. “You have brought us to safety.”

Mac took a step back. “Who are you?”

“We are what remains,” Ash ‘spoke’, “of a race that existed before humanity knew metal. We were trapped. Sealed by the Barrier Signals created by those who built this place.”

Rogue, the red cat, continued: “Metal. Your metal locked us away. We cannot touch metal during the time we were sealed. That jamming signal was our call, trying to break the seal.”

And Pearl, the white cat, explained the terrible truth:

“We needed a conduit. A living body, innocent, untainted by metal or human toxicity, to cross the Barrier. We saw you. And you brought us in. The fresh meat helped us grow rapidly, strengthening the bodies, allowing our ancient spirits to be reborn.

“Our purpose was not to eat fish. Fish contains certain metallic trace elements. We only consumed meat to keep our bodies pure from Metal.”

They had carried into the jungle the ancient spirits of a race that could not touch metal, and had nourished them with their own meat rations.

“Last night,” Pearl ‘said’, “the ancient spirits fully rose. We are no longer your pets. That scream… that was the internal struggle of the three tiny bodies, fighting the possessing spirits. A final warning, Doc Riley, because you were kind to me.”

Ash walked toward the pile of weapons. “We need Metal. A lot of metal. To create the Final Signal, sent to our kin sleeping deep beneath the earth. And you brought it to us. An arsenal.”

All three cats turned to look at each other, their eyes merging into a single, brilliant light.

“Now,” Ash said, “we no longer need you.”

At that moment, all 8 other cats in the circle began to move. They did not attack with claws or fangs. Instead, they approached and touched the rifles.

As they touched the metal, their feline bodies began to glow and melt. The fur, skin, and muscle turned into a luminous green fluid, which poured onto the rifles.

In just seconds, all the Vanguard company’s weapons were covered by the fluid. When the fluid dried, it left no residue. Instead, it left a perfect coating of a material similar to metal but colored a silvery-green. The rifles were no longer metal, but a kind of organic compound…

And then, the Final Signal began.

From the transformed weapons, a colossal wave of green energy shot up towards the ceiling, piercing through rock and earth, heading straight for the night sky.

The signal was so powerful that it shook the entire bunker. Mac Thorne and his team had to cover their ears, feeling their minds being torn apart by the ultrasonic sound.

When the light faded, the three cats, Ash, Rogue, and Pearl, stood silently.

“Mission accomplished,” Pearl whispered. “The Feline Primordials shall rise. This is our territory. And your Metal… is now ours.”

Mac Thorne looked at the creatures he had saved, now the key to the awakening of a mysterious race. He and eleven elite men stood in the bunker, stripped and helpless, facing the reality that they were not the hunters in this jungle, but the prey who had delivered the tools to the enemy themselves.

The story of the Vanguard Company did not end here, but their military careers ended that night. The real war, between humanity and the Feline Primordials, had just begun.