This time, I awake in a very calm way, slowly opening my eyes. I don’t know if its because I didn’t sleep as deeply, or if it’s because of the morning light shining through the now only dimly glowing leaves.

I take a deep breath of the now refreshingly cool air, and still wary of whats above me, slowly sit up. Sleeping in a tree like this, is really doing a number on my body. I’m almost too afraid to stretch, worried that the popping of my joints would be loud enough to draw attention. But then I think, if it could hear that, it should’ve heard me breathing while I was still up there. As the wind picks up right then, I risk it, cracking as many joints as I can to loosen my muscles.

Suddenly a blast of wind rushed down from above and a powerful piercing cry echoed out followed by another, but more fierce blast of wind. I froze as fear clawed at me. I could hear the loud thumping of enormous wings quickly pick up speed, the wind growing fiercer, leaves flying around after being torn off the branches by the sheer pressure of the wind.

With a short pause the length of single heartbeat, came another extremely powerful gust of downward wind and a piercing cry. Then the tree suddenly bent before violently shaking, causing me to finally move, clamping myself around the branch I was on.

For a brief moment, a shadow falls over me, blotting out the sunlight before disappearing. The wind then died down and everything once again was calm. Well almost everything. I was absolutely terrified. The size and power of that thing, to create almost typhoon levels of wind and to then proceed to actually force this behemoth of a tree, was beyond my imagination. When I had looked into the nest last night, it hadn’t seemed large enough to cause this kind of reaction from the surroundings, but it might simply be that physics were different in this world. Either way, that thing was a monster in its own right, not something I want to get the attention of.

A part of me was getting tired of being afraid of everything and anything. As far as I could tell, I haven’t been in this world for even two days and I can’t even begin to count all the times that I’ve found myself in a situation like this.

Getting a little irritated at myself, I try to calm my shaking limbs. I don’t know if I have much time, if that would be back soon or not. So I push myself to hurry, climbing up as fast as I can, like my life depended on it. After what felt like an eternity, I reach the top. I practically throw myself over the edge, tumbling into the nest. I jump to my feet and for a brief moment, I freeze. Sitting snugly in the middle of the nest, were three large eggs, about half as tall as I was.

Well shit.

I really don’t have much time. I doubt that the mother would leave the eggs alone for long.

I run around the edge of the tree, looking into the distance for anything other than the forest and, hopefully, signs of civilization. The nest was large enough that you could fit a house in it and it felt like it took me years just to get half way to the other side. It was then that I noticed two things at roughly the same time. The first thing was a discoloration in the distance and what looked like smoke rising over it. As I came to a full stop, excited about possibly finding civilization, I heard a familiar bird cry out in the distance. It felt like my heart stopped.

I panicked. Not even thinking about what I was doing, I threw myself over the edge of the nest. I immediately regret it. Below me is at least 8 feet of empty space before the nearest branch. I barely have a moment to try and position myself to catch the branch. Unfortunately there wasn’t much that I could do. In no time at all, I’m passing by that first branch. I reach out and grasp the branch with my arms, but at the speed I was falling, all that managed to do was swing me in an almost upright position before ripping a layer of skin off my arms and fingers.

Suddenly my foot hit a branch, and for a moment, I thought I had managed to land on my feet. But then I hear a sickening snap before my upper body continues going downward, flipping me upside down. For a moment, I look upward at my body before my gaze lands on my left foot. It was sticking out at an almost 90 degree angle to my leg. I feel dizzy at the sight and feel an urge to throw up.

That doesn’t last long though, in the next moment I feel my head hit something and pressure builds on my neck. I faintly hear another snap, but I’m already rapidly losing consciousness. My last thought before everything went dark, was more of a feeling of gratitude that I at least didn’t have time to feel the pain.

***

I wake up feeling like I got completely shitfaced drunk before getting hit by a truck. My head was throbbing with what felt like the worst migraine of my life and my body was sore in a way that I just can’t compare anything to. Everything felt like it was not only on fire, but also really tense and stiff. I wanted to just not move and hope the pain would go away, but is was getting hard to breath. It seems like I was folded over a branch like a dirty rag and my own weight was pressing my stomach into my chest, squeezing my lungs.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

With a sound in-between a groan and a whimper, I open my eyes to barely a squint and start to move. I have to clench my jaw as pain flares through me, but I persist. Ever so slowly, I move my leg over the branch, maneuvering myself into a position that would let me sit up.

I lean back against the tree and squeeze my eyes shut. I remember what happened and I’m terrified at looking at the state of my body. But despite the amount of pain I’m in, it doesn’t feel as bad as that time. I had broke my arm while messing around on a bicycle.

I slowly relax my eye-lids, letting more light seep through the thin layer of skin, trying to allow my eyes to adjust to the light again. I wait, laying there and slowly trying to relax myself without moving too much. I don’t want to jostle my injuries.

I doesn’t take long until the throbbing in my head dies down a little and I gingerly open my eyes. With trepidation, I inspect myself. I really don’t want to look at my foot, so I procrastinate by starting on my arms.

What I find, slightly confuses me. I didn’t seem to have broken anything in my arms, but they were covered in bruises, cuts and scrapes. What was odd, was that the cuts and scrapes looked like they were a few days old, despite what looked like mostly fresh blood around it. Almost like I was healing really fast.

I move my arms around, then continue to check my body, gently rolling my shoulder blades, testing for broken ribs, and pulling my shirt up to see if I had any puncture wounds in my stomach. Other than bruises and half healed scrapes.

Looking at myself, I somehow felt both numb and shocked at the same time. I couldn’t resist any longer and glance down at my foot. My surprise grew at the sight of a fully functional looking leg. Just to make sure, I twitched my toes. It was painful, but no more than the rest of my body. Growing braver, I slowly moved my ankle in slow circles. Did I imagine it breaking?

Hmm… Something similar happened after I was attacked by the spiders. I thought that they had stabbed me with their fangs, but when I woke up, I wasn’t wounded. Did I really have a similar hallucination in two different situations? Or did I somehow develop some kind of super-human regeneration?

If I trusted my status screen, there was nothing indicating that that should be possible. I didn’t have anything that would help me heal like that. Just to make sure, I willed my status to show back up.

Status Name Damian Dawn Age 26 Level 1 Strength 8 Soul 1 Control 6 Spirit 1 Constitution 3 Vitality 2 Intelligence 4 Empathy 1 Memory 5 Willpower 4 Perception 3 Luck 6 Free Attribute Points 5 Locked Titles None Skills None Abilities Foreign Entity Lv. X Minor Venom Immunity Lv. 1

Nothing there, just like I had thought. I didn’t feel like I had changed when I got here, so my stats should be representing what I was before I got to this world, so I am pretty sure none of my stats were suddenly effecting my natural healing. So, maybe something else was causing it. But what? The forest? This tree? …Or was it the water I drank? I can’t be sure.

I need to verify what was healing me and why. If I could figure it out, it would be a huge benefit to my survival. And in the back of my head, a pretty reckless plan was starting to form. But before that, I should get back down to the water. After seeing that… bird?… the giant owner to the over-sized nest, I not only intend to use my status to get stronger, but felt an incredibly strong need to grow stronger. I’m afraid that if I go back up to reorient myself to find figure out which direction I had seen signs of civilization, that bird would kill me. And not because it thinks I’m some kind of threat, but purely by accident. It was more than powerful enough to send me flying off the tree just by landing or taking off.

I heave a sigh before I force my aching body to move. Even without feeling like hell, all this climbing was getting really tedious. But what other choice did I have? There’s nothing I could do about everything here being so ridiculously over-sized. Giant birds, trees and spiders, oh my!

But seriously, I haven’t seen anything that I could even remotely consider normal-sized, much less small. I just hope the people here weren’t up to scale. If there even were humans or humanoids at the very least in this world.

On my way down, I didn’t have much to do, other than think about my experiences in this world. And honestly, a part of me needed some kind of goal other than just surviving. I know I’m getting ahead of myself, but with how bleak everything seems if I think too deeply about it, having some unrealistic daydreams might help keep me at least somewhat sane. I hope.

I honestly didn’t need much time to realize that I probably don’t want to go back home. There wasn’t much there for me, even compared to this world, where in the two or so days I’ve been here, I’ve nearly died more times than the days I’ve been here. At least a part of me was excited about this whole situation. And everything I’ve felt since coming here has made me feel more alive than I’ve felt in like 20 years. Of course I’m sure that at some point I’ll get bored of the near death experiences. Either that or I’ll die.

I wonder if using the… what was it called? Body and Soul something Interface? If that would let me surpass the natural limits of a human. Could I become as strong as a superhero? Superpowers would be awesome. But how fast would it get old if I’m the only person in this world? Then again, what are the odds that I’m the only person in the world? I honestly have no clue what to expect.

Getting stronger, testing the limits of the Interface, becoming a superhuman and finding out if I’m the only person in this strange world or not. That sounds like a good list of goals to keep me motivated.

For now though, I’ll start by climbing down this tree.

God, it’s so frustrating that I’ll probably have to go up and down this tree at least a few more times before all is said and done.