The moment my awareness returns I tense, grabbing hold fast with my hands and tights. My eyes shot open and I scan around with my ears listening attentively to any sound. Somewhere in the forest, I hear weird *clack, clack, clack* sounds which make me think of a woodpecker, could be anything here though.

I straighten slowly and secure myself on a big branch, scrutinizing the area below the tree and clearing.

They are gone.

But knowing my luck, treachery is definitely afoot and I don’t allow myself to relax. I have to return home. I don’t have any water and already feel parched. As I gather myself and try to stretch my sore body I wonder.

If I get out of this mess here I will definitely get myself a bow with a quiver of mean barbed arrows. If I had it with me yesterday I would pump those...I have to come up with another name, they only look a bit similar to raptors, now that I got a good look at them. Now, arrows, they would be full of them. Gotta make me some nice treehouse in the future and then pump arrows at any baddies that try to visit for dinner. Let’s add a circle of sharp mean bamboo pikes around for good measure.

Can I leave now?

I lower myself as silently as possible and when I am at almost the lowest branches, examine the area. My weapons lie where I tossed them, in the middle between the wall of greenery and the tree.

I feel weird and can feel adrenalin slowly seeping into my veins. I’m breathing harder just at the thought of jumping down. Damn it, calm down!

Should I hit the ground, roll, and then jump for weapons? Slide down slowly and then just skulk away towards home? Any mix between? I palm my vial necklaces and think if I should drink my last one before going down. Its slow regeneration needs a moment to pick up and I don’t think it’s fast enough to save me from reptile continuously ripping me apart.

I get the empty vial off me and just tie it around a nearby branch, no need to confuse myself and try to drink empty one, precious seconds in emergency and all that. I start to lower myself, dangling from the lowest branches.

I am also not so sure which way is home, I did leave a carved arrow on the trunk the previous day but I can’t find it now. Am I on the wrong side?

This feels like such a bad idea but...I will go for the spear? Fast?

Giddy with tension I release my hold. My feet meet the ground with a thump at an angle. I try to make a roll forward to not break my ankle in the flash of realization. It ends badly, my shoulder hitting the ground at the wrong angle but I continue the roll and am at my feet in a flash, shoulder pulsing with pain, I hope it’s not dislocated.

I run to the spear, grabbing it and…

Wall of greenery explodes as wide-open jaw lunges at me. Teeth! I jerk back and hold my spear in front of me horizontally. I knew in this second I was royally screwed.

Two rows of teeth close on the spear’s shaft with a clap, scaly head bitting down. I absolutely did not expect the headbutt straight to my chest that followed.

It sent me flying backward, and I land on my back in an eagle-like spread. Oh God, I’m gonna die. I’m gonna...handle! My fingers briefly touch the oh-so-familiar handle and I grab it as it would be the last thing that mattered in the world.

I rise ungainly just to witness my foe bitting the spear shaft in two and coughing out wooden splinters. It rushes at me and I, freaked out of my mind, just stab forward, trying to keep the club between us. It jerks back, eyeing the club warily.

We enter a weird standoff. It jumps left and right, makes short lunges, probing me. I respond in kind, making short stabs or controlled swings. I’m afraid to commit and get killed by the momentum of my own weapon. Is it afraid of the club? Sure, the club looks dangerous with its own teeth and is almost as big as me but…

Now in those few precious seconds, I feel time elongating weirdly. I must be swimming in adrenaline now. Is it alone? Where are his pals? Did it wait after getting a lick of me? Is it the same guy? He is big, his eyes are at the same elevation as mine, and Jesus Christ those claws, those teeth. If he is that tall then, how long is its body, oh God, he must weigh tons, he will just trample me!

He screeches loudly, flaring its feathery crest, and jumps. I lunge to the side and roll, I manage to hit the ground correctly and somehow I don’t lose my club in the process.

I just know. From half crouching position, I spin my torso and smash the club in a circle. It meets resistance and the row of teeth that just entered my vision, rears back.

I’m positively shaking right now. I drew blood! But…

I feel something warm spreading down my thigh and knee, did I...did I piss myself? Like the idiot that I am, I cast a glance down and I see red. My eyes jerk up and not too late as I again ward off the advancing teeth.

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Oh God, I’m bleeding. How? When? It’s still wary of a new animal, it will get it soon I’m no predator, just a herbivore. It might rip my club from my hands. Think. What do?! Do whatever!

I stomp my feet and whack ground with the club, I inhale deeply and…

“RAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

I have never made such a loud sound before in my life. Scaly death stops for a moment and jerks back perplexed momentarily.

In the swiftest and most precise motion, I can dream of, I grab the vial, pop the cork with my thumb, and jam it into my mouth. My hand goes back to the club’s handle instantly the second my teeth clamp on the vial. And I drink.

The warmth of the Cure dispels a bit of hormonal rage and fright. What to do? Oh, its right paw is kept pressed to its body, scales on it shredded. So that’s where I hit before. Hope it’s broken. One set of pointy claws less.

I again enter the weird dance. We probe each other, lunge, and dodge. But I’m getting weary, I might soon collapse or make a mistake that will cost me the final price. What do I do? Retreat? It will follow.

As my eyes focus on the feathery dinosaur I notice a fleck of color behind it.

!

I have an idea. Please work.

I lower myself a bit, school my shoulders, and make growling sounds, advancing. My new demeanor throws reptile just a bit off, I only did make a fighting retreat before. I jump around, trying to switch places with it, get closer to my target. It takes time, and the reptile almost trampled it but Feathers did not want to retreat among the trees and started to circle me.

Now, after a lengthy standoff and biting strikes, I’m sporting additional red gashes on my body. I got caught by almost karate-like kick and butcher-like talons bit deep. I felt them bounce on my bones and I still don’t understand how in the world I’m still alive.

I paid a price to get here, don’t fail me now.

I get really low and utter the loudest hiss I can...and then quickly grab big, round, ripe, red fruit. I felt it starting to convulse the moment I touched it and I knew I don’t have time to take a swing. In one swift compound motion, the fruit got scooped up, ripped from its stem, and flung forward at a low ballistic angle. At the same, I turn my face away and shield it with the arm holding the club.

A wet popping sound graced me and then...the screech of pain!

I jump back up and I feel my own eyes start watering. The juice is on me as well but I’m graced by the most beautiful sight up until this point. The beast is trashing on the ground, its snout and whole face dripping with juice.

I launch myself into a running jump. In a big overhead strike, I aim at its legs. It’s trashing around wildly! I will miss it!

I hit.

With a wet crack and pop, my club hits its thigh section. Caught between the club and ground, the monster’s leg rises into the air at an angle that means only one thing. It’s utterly broken and crushed.

The bellow that follows is piercing to my ears. I quickly think if I should just wing it. It can’t follow me now. Its screams can call his mates.

But no. No. More. Running.

I start to dismantle my prey like a frenzied butcher, raining blows wherever. It trashes wildly, biting the air but I always stay out of its reach.

That was a grave mistake.

The moment when it curled its leg underneath and tensed I knew I made the most cardinal mistake a hunter can make. Underestimating a raging, wounded animal fighting for its life.

In the last-stand strike, it shots towards me like a released spring. A missile with its jaw wide open.

We both fell and the big weight of the monster crushes me, its teeth clamped on the club, trying to saw it down. I felt the rocks grind my back as the animal furiously kicked the ground with its healthy leg, propelling us backward. Its front paw rakes my side in anger.

There is such clarity in a moment before death. I see so much, I feel so...alive!

My right hand leaves the handle and the combined weight of my club and raging wall of teeth press me down, choking the air of me. My thighs clamp around its neck and torso like a limpet and my hand grabs the bitten-off section of a discarded spear. With still intact spearhead.

I ram the spearhead in its eye and press, grind and spin. The beast goes into a frenzy yet again and jerks as I hammer the bitten tip with my fist. I clung to the reptile desperately and just hit! And HIT!

Silence returns to the clearing as we both grow still. Am I...I live!

I am alive.

I wriggle myself from underneath the beast and then bask in the afterglow. I live. He died. I am a bloodied mess but I live. I feel so good, I feel...my hand travels and touches my lips. They are grinning and threatening to split my face, ear to ear. I…

Oh.

Did I become a battle junkie? Do I get off on adrenaline now? Is this the reason I was recently spinning like a raging top? Do I need action and adrenaline-fueled dance of death to function? This…

“This is it? I was expecting something much worse to be honest *cough*, whoops, haha.”

That’s not so bad? I mean, I will have to fight here anyway so...that’s a boost? Unless I don’t overestimate myself and shit?

‘Kay back home.

I spin towards the tree and spin back to the monster just as abruptly and eye it with all-encompassing hunger.

Meat.

I pat myself and check my options. Wounds are closing, I don’t squirt blood like hose anymore. Can I lift it? Drag it? On my back? Saw off few choice cuts with a knife? Do I have time? Do I have a knife? Will they trace me back? They might, it does not matter if I drag it with me. Cover my smell. Stream? But need to get closer home. I might get lost if I start to veer off too early. How much does it weigh, its big, dead weight?

I cannot leave without my weapon too.

Let’s try this. I grab its tail with one hand, sneak it around my shoulder, the club in the other hand. I pull it towards the tree. It goes...super slow.

I eye the arrow pointing me in the home’s direction. I grit my teeth, try to grab more of the tail, and join my other hand in the effort, the club bouncing on the same shoulder and wedged unstably between. Kingdom for the rope! Or weapon harness!

Grunting, I make heavy steps. And dragging the first-ever, real, most likely magical, and definitely dead monstrous reptile. Bagged by a human.