The exertion of running burned away Jacob's numbness. Camilla and he crested another hill and stopped to catch their breath. Jacob bent over and half sobbed, half gasped for air. Behind them magic flashed. That light blue of Hueller's ground spell. Then intense green augmentation.

"Which way do we go?" Camilla hissed. "This place is the frigging same everywhere."

The rogue mage's bloody fist emerging from Jimmy's back.

"Jesus Christ, Jimmy." Jacob shuddered. He fell to his hands and knees, crushing several blue flowers. He threw up. Oh man, why'd he eat all that Thai food?

"Jacob!" Camilla cried. "C'mon, we gotta go!"

He didn't know how she wasn't hurling. Oh God, all that blood. Christ, Jimmy...

His stomach heaved again but not much came up.

Camilla was shaking his shoulder, as if that would help.

The fear in Sheriff Hueller's eyes. They were going to die. And then the rogue mage would come after Jacob and Camilla, and there would be nowhere for them to run. He'd kill Camilla and then... Oh God, what were they going to do? What was he doing? He didn't have time to throw up. They had to run.

Movement caught his eye beneath the vomit-splattered flowers. One of those little rainbow coloured centipede creatures skittered across the ground. He recoiled and Camilla helped him to his feet. He looked furtively around, wincing every time there was a blast of magic from the battle behind them. Camilla was right, it was all the same. They'd never get away. That rogue mage could cover hundreds of metres in moments. And what about getting out? Last time he'd gotten lucky, but Camilla couldn't open a portal, and he didn't see anything around.

Last time.

He became aware that he was panicking. He tried to think courageously, tried to remember that panic wasn't going to help, that he'd gotten out of the magical world last time by taking control of the situation. He tried to slow his breathing down, ease his vibrating heart, but neither it nor his lungs would listen to him.

"Which way?" Camilla hissed again. Her voice was desperate. Her eyes were wide with fear.

Jacob realized that for the first time since this whole craziness had started a few days ago, he was the one with more experience. Camilla had only briefly been in this world with Sheriff Hueller and the others. She was looking to him for direction.

If he could have hit pause and rewind on his life, or asked his coach to sub him out then and there, he certainly would have, but, unfortunately, as he was discovering lately, that was not how life worked.

They could run and hide, but wasn't that the panic talking? What had he done last time? Been courageous. Done the brave thing. Not been ruled by his panic. But this time that meant what, facing the rogue mage? He let out a little laugh and Camilla looked at him with wide eyes. What could they do against the rogue mage? Nothing but get in the way.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

But he couldn't leave Sheriff Hueller and the others to die.

Christ. Jimmy. He was... Jacob scrunched his face up to try to stop himself from crying. He failed.

The brave thing would be to go back and give himself up to the man so the others could live. If he'd done that in the first place maybe Jimmy would still be...

The thought made him weak at the knees. There had to be some other way.

"Jacob!" Camilla pulled on his arm. "It's back!"

The Dream Tiger peered at them from behind a mound of flowers that didn't conceal it very well. Jacob jumped. For one morbid moment he almost wished it would come over and eat them already. Then at least this would all be over.

"Come on!" Camilla tried to pull him in the other direction.

"Wait!" Jacob hissed. Eat them? That tiger could have had him on a silver platter several times. First at VanDusen, then again in the black crystals by the Reaper's corpse. But it hadn't. Even now it just watched them.

A plan formed in Jacob's head. All he had to do was not be afraid of the big tiger. No, that was crazy. It was a huge carnivore. And even if it hadn't eaten him, it had jumped out at him in VanDusen and showed him that weird vision. He was going crazy, grasping for straws. But did he have any choice?

But no, no he couldn't be afraid. If he wanted to work with animals in the wild he had to overcome his fear of them. It wasn't going to just happen sometime when he was older. It was just like taking control of his own life. He was the only one who could do it. Not his parents. Not Sheriff Hueller or Jimmy. Him. He had to overcome his fear of that tiger right now. He was only afraid of it for the same reason he'd been afraid to hop that fence. It was just like following the rogue mage, like walking downtown alone.

He laughed again, this time a little harder, picturing himself going over and giving the tiger a big hug.

"Are you alright?" Camilla asked.

Behind them, magic pulsed from the battle. Jacob stiffened. He could stand here all day thinking about it, worrying about it. It was better to just do it, just have it over with whether it was the right thing to do or not. Then at least it would be done.

Jacob peered through the flowers at his feet. Another of those centipede things crawled near his foot. Without thinking he lashed out and stomped on its head. It crunched beneath his foot. He stooped and picked up its still twitching body and tossed it towards the Dream Tiger.

Too late to go back now. A thrill shot through him and he grinned.

"Ew! What are you doing?" Camilla asked.

"Same thing the rogue mage was doing." Jacob said.

The Dream Tiger flinched when the centipede landed a few feet in front of it, its long whisker-tassels tensing. It sniffed, its big nostrils flaring. Then it padded forward gently, empty crystal orb eyes locked on Jacob the entire time. It lanced its head out and snatched up the centipede in its jaws. As it chewed, the centipede dissipated into silver light that was sucked into the Dream Tiger's mouth. It was hard to tell, but Jacob thought it became marginally larger.

"It works. It works!" He cried. "C'mon, help me find those things."

Camilla hesitated, "You're crazy, you know that?" But she jumped in to action.

They scoured the flowers for more centipedes while the Dream Tiger watched them like a house cat waiting for its bowl to be filled. It licked its paw, disinterested.

They each managed to find another centipede, and the Dream Tiger reluctantly consumed them. It became marginally more blue.

"Shit." Jacob swore. If this was going to work the Dream Tiger was going to need to be a lot stronger than it was now. It would take forever feeding it these little centipede things. Jimmy had said it was all conservation of magical energy. Creatures eating others was just transferring energy between prey and predator, but keeping the system in balance, just like on Earth. Of course a predator wouldn't grow too strong only eating small prey. That would upset the balance, make it too easy for creatures to reach the crossover threshold.

They needed something big.

Jacob froze.

He knew exactly where they needed to go.