Chapter 3: Circle of Life

Oh shit oh shit oh shit! She thought mentally as she rushed quickly through the thick forest trying to calm her heart as her heart and mind raced. She reached up and placed her hand on a tree, trying to catch her breath hoping that what she had saw didn’t decide to chase her. Feeling bits of her palm be torn by the very bark. This had happened before when she realized that everything around her seemed ready to kill her in some sort of fashion. The tree’s bark felt like razer blades and even some of the nearby vines seemed to reach towards her in slow movements ready to grasp her, most likely to provide sustenance for some sort of botanical plant.

She yanked her hand away from the tree and started to move again. She started to move forward at a quick pace trying to stay down wind from the thing she saw, though the creature behind her, nay the monstrosity of this part of the forest, let loose a mighty roar setting fear and anxiety through Elaines very being. She glanced back towards the sound as her hand instinctively clasped over her ears, that’s when she saw the creature in its full horror. It stood roughly four foot at the shoulders, its six legs with large padded paws tipped with red claws from a previous kill. If she were to describe it known to anything in the mammalian kingdom she would have said that it was akin to a feline closely resembling a mountain lion, and yet it had no fur. Instead it was covered in dusty brown scales that matched the trees that surrounded her. Not to mention that it had four eyes as well, which unnerved her to the core. Something like this shouldn’t exist, didn’t exist… well shit it actually does though now. She thought as she turned to run again knowing full well that she was nothing but prey to this alpha predator.

A day earlier, or something close to it, for the hours here were not the same as what she was used to. She had awoken with a migraine and a low grumble of displeasure. The last thing she could remember was that a man in white had talked to her and asked her if she wanted to live pretty much and then another… male? With six wings had shown up not even a second later and touched her forehead. After which her mind went dark and now she had a migraine and for some reason her body ached as if she had been beaten thoroughly by a silver back gorilla.

Elaine groaned as she sat up something falling from her chest into her lap as she raised her left hand to her head trying to massaged her temple to ease the pain. She opened her eyes and momentarily forgotten about the object… around her was a vista she had never seen before. An endless expanse of forests laid bare before her. Trees easily three hundred feet tall taking the nearest tree on the cliff with her as she sized herself to it. She was five foot six inches tall, so she was able to gauge it roughly. And yet what drew her attention the most was that there was one even larger and with a judge of the horizon had to be nearly three times as large as any of the ones that were around her now. Its branches seemed to cover miles alone. Taking her eyes and tracing the horizon she realized that she was on a cliff overlooking the forest beyond. She peered behind her and saw more thick trees, but they were sparce with mountains glooming in the background.

Well shit… she thought as she went to stand as she felt a small weight fall to the ground off her lap. She looked down realizing that her head had started to ease off. What laid before her was something that looked like a chunk of glass shaped like a rectangle with rough edges as if someone had used another rock to shape it. What really drew her eyes was that their was an icon blinking on it. It looked like a old school e-mail icon.

Leaning down she grasped the rough glass and turned it over in her hand. When she did she noted that the back was solid black. Turning back over she could actually see straight through it. She did this a few more times before stopping realizing that there was probably no way that she could figure that out and instead looked at the blinking icon.

“I wonder if your going to say ‘you got mail’.” she mused as she touched the e-mail icon remembering being told about one of the oldest e-mail services. Instead it did nothing but started to display a message. It didn’t seem like she needed to read it at all as it directly injected the information briefly into her mind. It felt intrusive and unnatural.

~Sorry for the uncomfortable feeling you must have felt from the transportation and the reading of this message. What you had just experienced was magic. This would be the fastest way to give you all the information as quickly as possible for your location that was chosen has the most ideal growth for you based off our knowledge of your past and our knowledge of other galaxies, and yet remember that this is not Earth as you probably have realized by now Elaine Willow.~

She paused for a second time her hands holding the glass visibly shaking as she let that sink in. “I’m… I’m not in the same galaxy?” she questioned out loud. “where the hell am I?” she asked to the wind expecting some answer, instead though she got no responses. Her mind returned back to the information in her head instead.

~The planet your on is full of life and unknown species allowed to grow rampant and in ways that will amaze you. Use your knowledge and the Divine Gift that the god of your galaxy placed within you. Based on your background My Lord had deemed it fit that you will have the ability to change things around and inside of yourself. Dig deep within your very Soul and find which has been given.~

~Marious~

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

For some reason she felt sad at reading the name as if she had lost a loved one for some reason. She whipped a tear and then felt the glass in her hand crack. With a yelp she dropped it as it turned to motes of dust and light and floated away. Seeing that the sadness welled up inside as she slumped to the ground once more. The realization that she was the soul survivor of Earth struck her then and there. She cried as she curled up into a tight ball bringing her knees to her chest burring her face into her knees.

She didn’t know how long she was there crying but she cried until she had no more tears left to cry. Something within her urged her to stand and move like a gut feeling as the words came back to mind, ~unknown species that would amaze you~. She stood up, remembering what she had spent the last two years of her life learning. Biology, chemistry, ecology, physiology, anatomy, and cellular biology. She had taken all her biology classes in her first year, anything that required knowing what made a animal an animal. Her second year was dedicated to all the mannerisms of animals with a splash of natural sciences and her actual zoologist course. Every waking moment of her college life had been full of courses, where some would just take a one or two classes a day, she would make sure that every hour of each day was full of learning something dedicated to the pursuit of knowing and learning the unknown.

A smile crossed her face at that thought. There was a whole world before her that had soo many new species that no human had ever seen before. This was every wildlife management and zoologist’s dream. She looked about and marked the large tree in the distance as her location to go. From her introduction class of zoology she realized that one must be weary of the dangers of nature, and a tree that large must of a water source of some sort.

What she hadn’t thought of though was that usually things in the horizon that where that big usually were way further away than what you would think. Her vantage point and the fact that she could see the tree on the horizon hadn’t even crossed her mind at all. Instead she looked around and saw that the cliff seemed to curve and tapered off into the thick forest beyond. “Well lets go learn something.” She stated and started to walk.

Bringing her back to this very moment in time, she ran as fast as her legs would carry her. She had stumbled across a body of a animal that had been severely wounded by something a few minutes ago. She had heard the mewling of something in pain and went to investigate the sound. It didn’t sound like a growl or a hiss or something that predators used but instead sounded like that of a bovine would make. So she thought it was to be safe. When she came into the clearing she had paused and saw a furred creature on its side, its ribs exposed and rear leg completely crushed. Something had brutally maimed it. There was no way that this creature dragged itself here.

Her eyes widened as she realized that whatever had done this must still be around, and the claw marks around the edges of the wound on its ribcage was large, large enough that if she put her two hands side by side it wouldn’t even cover the size of the claw marks. Whatever did this… left this creature to suffer. What animal would do something like this? She racked her mind trying to remember if there were any animals on earth that did things like this and couldn’t think of any off the top of her head. Well varanus komodoensis, the Komodo dragon would wound a animal and wait for it to die. She thought as her curiosity was starting to get the better of her.

That when she heard it.

A slight creak of a tree branch above her head. She looked up slowly… her eyes widening as it looked like the bark itself was moving.

Ambush predator… animal mimicry… no… fuck run you dumb bitch! she yelled mentally, her mind raced as she tore off across the clearing and back into the wooded forest. Her shoulder bumping into a trees, and the feeling of being cut hadn’t crossed her mind.

She never stop running her legs burned her chest hurt her head pounded as she kept moving, yet slowing down slower and slower. Her body didn’t have the stamina it should have, she only ever ate what she could afford and her body just wasn’t trained. She huffed and huffed and then slumped down to the ground once more. Falling to her knees and palms. Trying to catch her breath as she shook all over, her muscles screaming their protest to keep moving.

*grrrrrr*

Fuck…

She looked back at the creature that seemed to just stroll past the tree, obviously not out of breath as she was. Its eyes filled with malice and hunger. She looked at it and it didn’t seem to want for food… was this creature a glutton? Did it hunt just to harm? She thought as she saw it slowly approaching her.

The creature in question knew that its prey was out of breath and couldn’t go any further, yet it had never seen something like this before. It was curious as it started to sniff the air to get its scent so it could track others of its kind. That’s when it stopped moving, its eyes darting around quickly. Elaine saw this behavior and didn’t even have time to register the next moment.

Something smaller burst through the underbrush and attacked its side, then another and another came in. It was a pack of something small and dark furred. She knew that whatever it was, was a pack species and it hadn’t came here for her, but that cat like lizard creature. She flipped herself over slowly pushing herself backwards as to not remove her eyes from the grizzly scene before her. These small furred animals where roughly two foot tall and had large powerful hind legs that propelled them forward their front claws where curved. It looked like a mix between some sort of dog like creature and a rabbit with… is that a fucking horn? She thought as she felt a bush behind her and glanced back.

It wasn’t a bush…

It seemed that it was a mossy small hole in the side of one of the larger trees. She quickly looked around, as the fighting of the creature and the rabbit dogs continued, trying to make sure there were no vines or anything else that wanted to eat her. She saw no tracks nor any signs of something that passed through it. It seemed big enough to fit into.

And with that thought… she slipped inside hiding as she peered out at the grizzly sight of these rabbit dogs eating the now dead corpse of the scaled ambush kitty. They worked quickly going for the softer spots around joints and the under belly, even some other softer spots near its hind quarters. They ate the best bits that they could and quickly disappeared back into the woods leaving much of the harder meats behind.

Damn… get what you can quick here before something else takes it away. She mused as she watched various other critters come out. The smell of blood fresh in the air. What is this some kind of death world?

~Species here have been allowed to grow rampant…. ~

She sighed as her eyes slowly fell shut from exhaustion and the adrenaline running out.

Back to darkness… hopefully I get to wake up in my bed. Where her last thoughts hoping this was some sort of drugged dream.