James walked through the trees slowly breathing as he tried to calm himself and restore his mind to balance. The latest in what in seemed always like an endless slew of bad luck that always seemed to affect his life. His car had broken down all of a sudden, admittedly he wasn't the most mechanical-minded person in the world but he had done what he could to keep the machine plugging along as best he could. This was going to have a massive knock-on effect on his life. Without the car he wasn't going to be able to work and if he couldn't work well it wouldn't take long for him not to be able to pay the rent and then probably end up in a terrible situation very quickly. He breathed deeply walking down the paths and closed his eyes to focus himself, he let out a powerful exhale as he took a few steps. His life had always been marred by such bizarre ill fortunete things. Everything in his life just seemed to suddenly twist or turn on their head every time he felt like he had a handle on things something would happen and sweep the world out from under his feet.
As he took a few steps, had he been focused perhaps he would have noticed the world changing around him all of a sudden but he honestly didn't notice until he heard an extraordinary noise somehow a mix of hissing and a low vicious growl like some sort of large guard dog.
His eyes popped open suddenly in a little bit of a panic taking in the dark forest he now found himself a very small amount of light through the branches of the massive trees that now surrounded him bearly allowed him to see. The path that had been maintained for many years by a forestry service was now gone the trees were of a type he didn't recognise at all however he barely had any time to register all this because of the huge strange lizard in front of him it was about as tall as a Doberman with a colourful sail that ran along its spine.
It leapt toward him as James threw himself to the side, he had no time to think or even look at the situation. His foot slipped on an exposed root twisting as it did a bolt of pain shot up his leg like lightning. The bizarre creature turned on him its large mouth ready to bite his leg sharp teeth at the ready to tear at his flesh. He scrambled on the forest floor desperately he grabbed some dirt and tossed it into its eyes hoping to give himself a moment's grace.
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Realizing on an instinctual level his currently extremely pained leg could not bear his weight, He scrambled on the ground finding what seemed like a good stick he swung it into the animal with as much force as he could muster—catching it as it leapt towards him again. The creature was caught by the strike and sent slamming down into the leaf-littered ground. James used his free hand and leg and sprung at it before it could recover. He slammed his branch down onto its skull then grabbed it with both hands and rained heavy strikes down on it. Adrenaline pumped hard through his veins as he pummeled it. He felt the creature's skull crush blow the assault but he could not seem to stop. By the time he stopped, he was panting and exhausted covered in the blood on his chest, waist and face a Rorschach-like splatter of blood was on the ground pieces of its skull scattered about in its blood. James turned his stomach lurched at the sight of it. He had never killed anything before he wasn't a vegan or anything like that but seeing the grim carcass of something is different to seeing the prepared meat you might see in a store.
He vomited on the ground then dragged himself around a tree catching his breath a little. He carefully removed the shoe from the pained leg biting the stick to suppress the urge to scream the oddly bulging area near his ankle confirmed his fears it had broken and he was not going to be able to walk on it. The solid branch he had used to kill the vicious lizard was not nearly long enough to help as a crutch. He crawled along the floor using the stick to try and make sure that he travelled in a straight line. He had watched a few survival shows so he knew people tend to go in circles.
It was slow and tiring on top of the exhaustion he was suffering from the encounter with the creature. It had taken moments but had felt like hours, the effort was draining as all hell. He was not sure how long it was that he crawled across the forest floor. His typical mode of dress of long pants and shirts helped a little to save against the abrasions. He had tried a few branches and had no luck with them for a makeshift crutch looking for one that had a natural y shape near the top to rest his arm on it that had a limb a little lower that he could hold onto for a bit of support.