Yes, it really was a gnoll. A canine-ish monster straight out of your favorite tabletop RPG. Of course my brain, which had lived in the real world for all its life, tried for part of a second to find a more realistic explanation for what it's original heuristic matrix had potentially misidentified. Maybe it was a chimpanzee, mildly similar in shape, or a bison, much more native to the area I believed I was in, or some guy in a bigfoot costume, way more logical than having an actual monster in front of me. But the longer I looked, the longer my brain had to compare this entity to all of those things, and slap a big red "X" over them with a buzzer sound.
At the most basic levels, everything that is alive, wants to STAY alive. This is where the "Fight or Flight" response is based, as well as things like "hysterical strength" that lets mothers move cars to save their children. Right at that moment, my brain definitely kicked into "Flight" mode. I scurried and scrambled as fast as I could back around to the front of the shed and had the presence of mind to pull the door closed behind me as gently as possible so as to not attract the attention of the gnoll. I was reasonably sure it hadn't seen me; it had been facing away from me initially, and only after it turned its head to look to the left had I identified what the pointed ears and furry shoulders belonged to. Maybe the motion detection at the edge of their field of vision wasn't as sharp as a human's? But those ears were probably as good as a dog's right? Not to mention the nose.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Don't panic. Don't panic. Breathe. Keep breathing. So it was a gnoll. They're low- to mid-range monsters on the danger scale, right? Well, I guess that depends on whether the game has an enemy level-scaling system. If the game is balanced this way, even a slime could be a challenge to a high-level player, since the slime levels up along with the player. On the other hand, some games stratify enemy difficulty based on location, and where you're expected to progress in the story. Enemies near the starting area are weak, to match the new player, and remain weak even if the player comes back at a higher level. Unfortunately, there was no way to know one way or the other, here.
And in reality, it didn't really matter. I was completely unprepared to face any kind of monster, leveled or otherwise. Besides that, what in the actual hell was a gnoll doing in the midwestern United States? They. Don't. Actually. Exist! I was putting pieces together and had pretty much arrived at the realization that like Dorothy, I wasn't in Kansas anymore. And similar to Oz, this world had dangers I would never have encountered at home.
So. I appeared to be somewhere besides the reality I've always known. Some other dimension, or maybe a different planet in the same universe. It was useless to speculate about things like that, since they had no bearing on what I was up against right now. There was an actual, real, live freaking MONSTER about fifty feet away, and the only thing between me and it was about half an inch of particle board on a door that I couldn't even latch from the inside. I was holding the door closed by gripping the two by four brace across its midpoint. There was no handle, no catch, nothing to prevent anyone or any THING from wrapping fingers all the way around the handle on the outside and ripping the door from between my squeezing fingers on the inside.
I was starting to sweat. Not only was my life actually in danger, the asphalt shingles on the roof were absorbing the mild springtime sunlight and transferring it inside the building which had no vents or air conditioning. Even if the shed did have air conditioning, would it still work here? It would have had to be connected to power from the house, and the house is way, way away from the shed now.
Yet another pointless train of thought. I guess I didn't want to honestly face my reality. Alright, Trevor, you're still alive. You have a brain. You're theoretically smarter than a monster. And even if you aren't, it probably hasn't noticed that you're in here yet. Even though there's no way it hasn't noticed the shed itself. It'll probably come sniffing around (haha, sniffing. Get it? Because it's a dog-type monster? Heh...) soon just out of curiosity. What do I have to defend myself with?
The answer to that, it turned out, was quite a bit. This was a garden shed, after all. My eyes lit upon a hoe, two kinds of shovels, several rakes, an electric leaf blower--yeah, that'll be real useful--and a machete! I hadn't used it in years, since I had to chop down the neighbor's rose bush that was growing over and under the fence, but it was a damn sight better than nothing!
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
I hadn't noticed what kind of weapon, if any, the gnoll had been carrying. It could be unarmed, honestly, depending on claws and fangs to fight. At the same time, gnolls had humanoid hands, so theoretically it could hold a sword. In that case, even if the weapons were theoretically around the same length, I wouldn't call a regular guy with a yard tool "evenly matched" against something that had probably been holding that sword for most of its life. And if the gnoll had a spear, or other more exotic weapon, I was even more doomed.
What I probably DID have was the element of surprise. The gnoll would be approaching the shed with curiosity, but probably not with its guard all the way up. Probably. Although if I were in that same situation, I'd probably be expecting a fight and being very cautious. But again, we're assuming I'm smarter than the gnoll, right? Right. It hasn't played the games I have.
The next course of action, then, would be to set some kind of trap. From inside an unlocked, unlit, increasingly sweltering outbuilding. Not helpful thinking, Trevor. Alright. The first thought that comes to mind is to toss something small onto the shelves holding tools and hope the rattling as it falls down attracts the gnoll to the door, and as soon as it sticks its snout in the door, whack it as hard as I can with the machete. Another option is to let the door swing open, hoping the motion will attract its eye, and proceed with the "whack the snout" part of the plan. It's too bad there isn't a trap door in here, I could theoretically attract the gnoll with either of those plans, sneak out through the crawl space under the shed, and come upon it from behind. Note to self: If I survive this encounter, find a way to build such a trap door in the shed. After figuring out a way to semi-securely lock it from the inside.
Of the two plans, the second one seemed the safest. If I made a sound, even a small one, the gnoll would know for sure that there was something inside the shed, even if it didn't know it was a person. Whereas with the door, that would be assumed to have been caused by the wind, right? I was hoping that at least the gnoll would think so. Before I could second-guess my reasoning, I released my cramped grip on the cross brace, stepped to the side, and lifted the machete high over my head with my gaze focused on the edge of the doorframe.
There was no way to know how long I would have to wait in that state. Sweat pretty immediately started to drip down my face, coming very close to my eyes. Jebus, why wasn't I wearing one of the sweatbands I had for while I was on the treadmill? Ugh, and they were in my gym bag, in the car, back at the house. Oh well. I did my best to wipe the droplets away with my sleeves while keeping at least one eye open and trained on the door. After a couple of minutes, my shoulders started to burn, unaccustomed to being held up for so long. Of course I knew that shoulder presses at the gym weren't the same as holding position for an extended period of time, but I had never really thought that I would need that kind of stamina! Not long after the burn started, a tremble began to set in. At that point, I figured it would be better to bring my arms down to a more neutral, "ready" position, rather than losing all the strength and mobility in my shoulders as time went on.
With my arms lowered, I focused on controlling my breathing, to bring it and my heart rate down to something below "mortal terror", against the reality of my situation. Without the distraction of breath sounds and burning deltoids, I could focus more on what I could hear outside the shed.
Wind through the grass.
A bird calling.
Crickets chirping.
A faint squeak from the door hinge.
Snuffling.
As soon as I heard the snuffling, I prayed that the gnoll's potentially dog-like sense of smell couldn't detect me. Or if it could, that I was unfamiliar enough that it didn't know to treat me as a threat. If the gnoll was close enough for me to hear it sniffing, it should be coming through the door any moment now. My heart rate and breathing picked back up, and every muscle in my body tensed in anticipation of the kill or be killed situation I was about to encounter.
After seconds that felt like hours, an angular shadow fell through the doorway. I hadn't considered that I'd have a heads up before it actually made it through the door! As the shadow rose in the rectangle of sunlight, I raised the machete over my head again. In the next moment, that twitching, wet, fuzzy nose I had been waiting for made its way into my field of view, followed by a smooth, elongated muzzle of brown fur, and finally black eyes with the barest line of white around them. Channeling my inner revolutionist, I swung down with all of my might as soon as I saw the white of those eyes, an instant before they swung in my direction.
My eyes closed involuntarily. The blade made made contact. I felt resistance. I heard a cracking noise. My arms stopped moving, and the machete was pulled down, out of my grasp.