Running already!

I couldn’t even spend two hours in a new world without getting chased by horrible, monstrous, all-powerful…

Squirrels. Yes, not one, but two. Two squirrels chasing one cat. It was the saddest thing I’d ever seen, let alone experienced.

It was evening. The grass that’d looked so welcoming earlier now looked like rows of teeth. It lashed my legs as I sped through the undergrowth and darted around tree roots.

Quest: Explore the Vencian Wood Progress: 3% (1/30)

What the?!

Oh, great, now I couldn’t see! Thanks, box!

I knew another big fat oak was coming up, but only because I’d seen it coming before the notification. I wanted so badly to ram my head—along with the box—up against it.

Skipping to the side, I hit a different, thinner tree. Papery, like a birch, only colored a bizarre black with orange stripes.

This was no time to marvel at the unique flora. This was the time to shriek as a squirrel caught up to me and bit my tail.

HP 18% (7/40)

I bounded away. I kept bounding, hoping that in the end I would be faster than these squirrels.

The HP box blipped away and I saw that the trees ahead weren’t as closely packed together. Another clearing must’ve been coming!

I laid out the logic in my head: Trees = good for squirrels. No trees = bad for squirrels. I’ll have the advantage?!

Didn’t really make sense, since the creatures were definitely not climbing on any trees right now, but what could I do? I was panicking.

I leaped into the open evening air—and froze.

I was one step away from the edge of a cliff.

Of course the trees had cleared. There wasn’t any space for them to grow on this little triangle of grass.

One of the squirrels popped out from the foliage.

Then something twinkled in the branches of the closest birch. It was the glinting eye of the second one. They had to know they had me cornered.

I didn’t want to risk my second life, and this cliff was looking like the safer option. Even though it was high. High enough to break legs and spines. It almost didn’t matter whether I was going to survive this intact—I had no choice.

I had to let myself jump.

…Also, in case you’re forgetting, I was a cat.

Duh I was going to jump off the cliff. I’d just land on my feet.

The first moments of leaping are always dizzying. That’s why young birds have so much trouble flying the first time. Or why humans have trouble…cliff jumping.

Well, here goes nothing.

I pivoted myself away from the rocks and roots, making sure I’d hit as much grass and dirt as possible. And I succeeded. My legs buckled a bit upon landing, feeling the full shock, even the hard stone deep underneath the dirt.

And then I got over it. I straightened myself, blinked out that stunned shocked feeling, and ran on.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I had to keep going, and at full speed. Those squirrels didn’t have to just stand there, and they didn’t have to jump just to reach me. If they were determined, either they’d discover some squirrel-sized footholds in the cliffside or they’d simply backtrack and find a way around it. They knew their way around this forest so much better than me.

My Health was…

HP 13% (5/40)

A little lower thanks to the fall, but nothing serious. I was alright.

As I hurtled through the woods, I began to hear more animals. Like the cries of owls, unmistakable. As a city cat, I’d never been attacked by owls. But I’d heard them. I’d seen them, large ones that could carry a cat in their claws.

Now I was in the wild, and no place was safe here.

And now it was truly dark. Colors faded and my familiar night vision took over. Everything became just a tiny bit clearer, sharper. I felt more like my old self again, and it was—

Scary.

I thought it’d be a relief. That feeling this way would make me feel more secure, more capable of dealing with the wilderness.

But I’d always been a survivor. And survival is fear, isn’t it?

The trees parted again. Not to show me a clearing or a cliff again, but a house. A big, two-story house made of logs. Dim orange light glowed from one of the windows, searing yellow light from another.

Proof of troublesome, tail-yanking humans. And yet I found myself running straight toward it, toward the lesser evil.

Spotting a gap between the bottom of the cabin and the grass, I squeezed myself underneath it.

I had to hide because I’d heard an owl getting closer, swooping my way. If it was a big one, it wouldn’t be able to squeeze in. And if it was small? I’d just have to try and take it on.

I crouched in the middle of heaping, decaying leaves.

I could sleep here, if I had a death wish. If I wanted rats and snakes and anything else that might be hidden to eat me in the night.

Sadly, I couldn’t detect this prey more than broadly. Not with any of my senses, and not with my intuition either. This forest was too new, and my sense of smell was the only thing that didn’t feel quite so keen in the—what was it called? —the Vencian Wood.

What I heard was rustling in the mulch under my feet. What I smelled was fresh fur and scales.

Death was everywhere.

…Wait, hold on, was that milk?

My nose quivered, as if tickled by the scent.

I tried something: milk huh.

Message from Sierra, the Goddess of Nekomata That’s not really how this works, but okay. It is milk. Cow’s milk, specifically.

Well, this was a surprise. And what took her so long?

Did you know that cats shouldn’t have too much cow’s milk? It’s not good for them. Same with rabbits and carrots, and monkeys and bananas.

…Well, gee, what stupendous information Sierra had given me. Was I gonna die if I drank a cup of milk? Was I just gonna die on the spot? Huh?

I’m thinking long-term here.

Say I drank one bowl of milk every single day. How many years would I lose?

Depends on whether you drink the milk as a cat or as a human.

I-I just…what?

Okay, time for Sierra to go. I swatted her away—or her box, or what-have-you—still wasn’t sure if she had an actual body or not—and became newly determined to find this milk, sneak it away from whatever humans had set it out, and drink it…

…Fine, that would be a bad plan. But I definitely wanted to see the milk. See who or what had set it out. Was it a crafty cat hunter, trying to lure me in the way humans on Earth caught rats with cheese?

Or could it have been a run-of-the-mill milquetoast Vencian human feeding their own pet cat? Or magical cat-familiar?

Maybe it…wasn’t a trap…

Maybe this log cabin was actually safe?

At any rate, now that the owl’s cries had disappeared and the rustling all around me was intensifying, it seemed like a better idea to get out—but still not wise to enter the cabin afterward.

Leaves crackled as I pulled myself out from the gap. I was following the scent of the milk. As I came closer, my nose helped me envision it: a shallow bowl sitting a bit higher than the earth, probably on the ledge just beyond a door. Already I could feel the milk on my tongue… I didn’t even notice the way my eyelids drooped and my mouth drifted open.

I stopped myself before any more than my head poked out from the undergrowth.

Now I had the dish in full view—

And a human, wide-eyed and crouching.

So I’d smelled one but not the other. Wow. My nose was really bad.