The night sky gleamed as the moon shone her gentle rays, coating the well worn sun-beaten earth in a silvery hue.
Amidst scaly trees that seemed to reach towards the heavens, floating wisps dotted the ambience, delicately meandering here and there with a poisonous green glow.
Nearby, a brook gurgled its lamentations, ripples undulating ceaselessly with reflections that echoed the eerie land.
Crack.
A sound broke through the soft cacophony of whispering spirits and cicada-like reverberations.
“Ugh,” Florence groaned wearily, as she continued to roll over until she found herself on her back, gazing into a starless sky.
The hard ground wreaked havoc on her frail back and straggling weeds poked through gaps in her clothes, causing her to feel a great deal of discomfort.
A cold breeze blew through the trees, giving rise to a new wave of goosebumps that covered her skin.
Waking up to find herself exposed in what seemed to be like the middle of a forest was completely out of her expectations.
Just what kind of horrid dream is this?
She did live close to the countryside, but never in her life would she ever go out for a walk in a dark forest, especially this late at night. Barely a few moments ago, she was definitely in bed, knitting a new pair of socks for her feet!
“Well, if you find yourself in a forest, the very first thing you must do is to find shelter,” she mumbled to herself.
The cold breeze picked up again with a vengeance, blowing through her with a bitter chill as if desperate to confirm her musings.
Luckily for her, the sky was clear and the moonlight shone just bright enough to illuminate her surroundings. The light emphasized the harsh cracks in the fractured ground that extended without end.
Various shrubs covered the land, casting uncanny shadows further accentuated by the pinpricks of light radiating from the floating wisps.
Around her, the scaly trees sparsely populated the area, and some of them grew branches low enough for her to reach.
She struggled to her feet, grasping the nearby branches in an serious effort to stabilize herself. Rising up shakily, she gripped the branches even harder and made a sharp tugging movement.
Crack.
“...???,” she froze, not daring to move a single inch further.
CRACK.
She watched in horror as the branches gave way under her forceful pulling and disintegrated into dust. Startled by the loud commotion, the green wisps flew around chaotically in frantic circles, casting her view into disarray.
Landing on her bottom, she sat on the forest floor in disbelief, her hands and body now covered in a fine powder. Slowly gathering her composure, she sat there for a few more moments.
“I really am too old for this,” she sighed gloomily.
After a few moments of deliberation, she finally managed to get to her feet, this time using the trunk of a scaly tree. In that moment, she finally realized the extent of the forest. The expanse of land seemed to go on forever.
Turning around in a full circle, she could not make heads or tails of her surroundings, except that they were shrouded in darkness.
Traipsing the unpathed ground was easier said than done. The ground was riddled with cracks and roots, with the occasional protruding rock that seemed to appear out of nowhere.
With utterly no sense of navigation, she picked a random direction and kept walking. Fortunately, she soon heard the gurgling burble of the brook.
“I did once read in a book that running water is vital for survival,” she announced to no one in particular, then cringed in embarrassment.
She was definitely not a survival expert, and her blind exploration only served to further underscore this point.
The subtle absence of larger lifeforms was not lost on her, but deeply disturbed her.
Save for the ever present insect chirps and the occasional murmur of a green wisp, she did not hear anything except the strangely empty sound of wind whistling through the trees.
The environment became increasingly barren the longer she walked, and by the time she stumbled across a clearing, the lingering horde of green wisps had somewhat thinned, and the inconspicuous mist in the background had completely disappeared without a trace.
The gurgling of the brook increased in intensity and she could barely make out rippling moonlit reflections about 20 metres from where she stood.
“That’s great! A source of fresh water,” she declared happily.
Not that she would be going anywhere near open water in these terrible lighting conditions.
Walking closer to the center of the clearing, she suddenly stopped for a minute, momentarily stunned. In her excitement for fresh water, she had almost overlooked the finest ‘fruit’ of her exploration.
In the distance, beside the brook, a house stood alone — old and sturdy. Its stubborn visage elegant; poised as a testament towards the fine work of its craftsman. A house that has endured countless rain showers and droughts alike.
Creeping vines ensnared the wizened supports that held up the walls of the house. At the front, a marble owl perched on top of a sign post unblinking, mottled patches of algae the only evidence towards its age.
The signpost was written in an indecipherable scrawl, but the degree of decay was too extensive for even a native speaker to translate it.
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“Someone lives here!” she exclaimed in excitement, picking up her pace as she made her way unsteadily towards the house.
Already tired out from her unusually long trek, she stumbled up the steps and knocked on the door. The wooden steps creaked as she rested her weight blissfully on one of the supports and waited for someone to answer the door.
After hearing no response, she knocked a little harder.
Was there no one here? Her exhaustion slowly exposed the growing unease she had been subconsciously holding in. Stepping forward, she looked straight at the door and rapped harshly until her knuckles stung.
No one answered.
In a fit of desperation she banged on the door and pushed with all her strength, immediately regretting this decision as she felt the door sway and slant at an angle doors were not meant to hold.
CRASH.
The crumbling lock fractured under her force and she tumbled into the house. Reflexively sweeping her hands and scrambling to regain balance, she found herself immediately covered in a thick layer of dust.
Leaning closer to the floor, she realized that the dust coated every inch of the building, not even sparing rim of the slim glass pitcher that sat on the counter.
She quickly scuttled backwards, ending up on one of the enormous doorsteps that rested in front of the house.
It was an abandoned house.
“I really am all alone,” she murmured in a sudden bout of fright.
The gravity of the situation suddenly dawned upon her. A frail old woman, alone, in an unfamiliar forest…
“At least I have somewhere to rest,” she proclaimed abruptly. This thought reassured and pleased her so completely that she turned back to the door with a warm expression on her face.
The door of the house creaked shallowly before slamming shut.
“...”
Taking a step forward, she was about to open the door when she suddenly froze in place, dazed into silence.
Runes appeared and started flashing a brilliant blue as the edging of the door lit up with a resplendent light. Like a chain reaction, the light brightened as more and more runes lit up, proliferating until the entire house glowed.
Florence stared, astounded at the sight.
As quickly as they appeared, the runes soon faded into nothingness, bringing back the dim light of the moon.
She stepped forward and tentatively touched the doorknob, stroking it. She did not sense anything out of the ordinary— not even the faintest heat signature could be felt. Tapping, knocking, even kicking garnered a lack of reaction.
After inspecting it for a stretch of time, she deemed the house safe, and that it would pose no harm to her.
“After all, dreams must have magic right?” she quietly acknowledged to herself.
She turned the knob, intent on finally taking the nap she deserved, except that now the door would not budge in the slightest. In fact, the door felt thicker, stronger— an immovable boulder.
“Locked?”
She tried again, using the previous strategy of employing her whole strength, this time even taking the initiative to lean the entirety of her weight against its frame.
The door would not budge.
“Sorry House, I can’t leave even if you wanted me to. It’s too dangerous out there,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.
Look out at the entreating darkness, she shuddered and turned back to the door pleadingly.
However, even talking to the door was to no avail. No matter what she said, the door refused to give a response.
In the end, she had no choice but to turn mournfully to the backyard. Scant vegetation littered the poorly tended ground and it appeared as if everything had died.
Walking deeper into the garden confirmed her assumptions when she touched a black-looking shrub that quickly turned into dust — much like the branches she had been holding on to earlier.
After clearing a spot close to the house, she laid some of the softer dried leaves to line her dwelling.
Sitting on her ‘bed’, she truly regretted leaving the house when it had once been open for her.
“After all, it is not my house so I really should not be mad,” she admitted bleakly, glancing at the door again in hopes that her words would be proven wrong.
The door still refused to respond. It stubbornly occupied the entrance to the house.
“At least the backyard has a fence,” she concluded resolutely.
It really was an impressive fence. She had come in through the front, not noticing the fenced enclosure right behind the house. The ornate metalwork looked incredibly sophisticated, even from what she could barely make out in the dim moonlight.
The fence also seemed to thrum with some kind of energy — electricity would be the best concept to describe it; the kind of phenomena that filled her nose with a burnt ozone smell and made her hair stand on ends.
Fortunately, the energy did not seem to reject her entry, and she could only hope that it would deter wild animals from coming in.
Lying on the ground, the cold breeze blew once again, and though the house beside her buffeted its chill, she could not help but huddle closer into the pile of dried leaves.
“This really is a foul dream,” she sighed, her words tinged with just the slightest bit of indignation. Turning her head, the points of the leaves scratched her face, creating a paltry itch on her left cheek.
“...It is a dream, right?” she muttered to herself as she finally sank into a sweet slumber.
Ding!
Analysis Complete.
Host has a 19.87% rate of survival due to components in the foreign environment and atmosphere.
Now factoring in tangential data
...
Calculation Complete.
Host has a 0.14% rate of survival.
Ding!
Now adapting Host to the Environment
...
Beginning Transformation.
...
.....
Ding!
Transformation complete.
However, Florence naturally did not hear these words as she was already sound asleep.