A sense of dread... of unimaginable fear and... and of powerlessness was looming over me as I began hearing footsteps approaching. It sounded as if they were cushioned, but still, they were audible enough for me to hear them. I began rocking my upper body, forwards, backwards, forwards, backwards... like a child, a little child waiting for its mother to comfort it.

You can't just hide like that... go out there and fight it!

Oh, and how am I supposed to do that? Even inside my head, there was whimpering in my voice.

You have my ability... you have the power of wrath itself, use it!

I could hear from her voice that she was trying to encourage me to fight, to try and overcome this again, but I couldn't. It was worse than ever before. The wind carried with it their voices, the shadows their faces, every root I stumbled over was them tripping me, every branch that snapped back at me was them hitting me... every falling nut or fruit was them shooting at me. There was also an unimaginable pain in my left shoulder, the shoulder Martin had blown a chuck out of in my past life.

Every time I walked fast I was afraid I would hear him scream: "Where do you think you're going little rat?!" Every time I would hear a gunshot, I would feel pain where ever I thought it would hit... I had taken everything for granted, I had not questioned it... I had not used the moments I could have used to make it more bearable, because there used to be nothing to make it more bearable... but now? Now everything was painful, scavaging through the undergrowth for nuts or half-rotten fruits was the only way I could eat.... often I would go to sleep with a stomachache, either from eating something rotten or from not eating at all. Often I would not even sleep, I would lay there, waiting for the night to be over, trying to comfort myself with the delusion that this was all a dream, that tomorrow I would wake up in my bed and resume my fairy tale life, the life I had before... but no matter how many times I hoped, no matter how many times I wished... over the past month or so nothing had happened.

Pull yourself together damn it. It's coming.

I managed to slightly lift my hammering head up, only to immediately lock eyes with what looked like a large white tiger with bright blue eyes, two long, sharp sabre-shaped teeth protruding from its upper jaw and a reptile-like tail dragging across the ground behind it.

The two bright blue eyes with the verticle, slit-like irises, pierced deep into me. The shaking became even worse.

H-Help me...

How am I supposed to help?

Take over... do something, I screamed inside my own head, my body shaking as I still gazed into the eyes of the tiger-like creature.

I noticed its two reptile-like hindlegs with claws thicker than my arms. The tiger must have been a good eleven or so metres long and a good two and a half to three metres tall standing on all fours. Compared to it I was tiny.

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

I... One minute, I can probably take over your body for a minute... and I don't think I can kill it.

That's fine.. just, run away or something.

You're a real handful you know that?

Before I could answer her I felt a strange feeling and suddenly found myself unable to move, instead, my body moved on its own.

Now then...

My body stood up and stared down the creature, a smile creeping across its face.

"I'm sorry I can't play with you," my body said, its voice sounding like an uncanny mix of mine and that of Ira.

I felt a sudden rush of mana circulating through my body.

This warp magic of yours... interesting... so it's just simple spatial relocation...

I felt my warp magic mark activate at an insane speed, with a tingling stronger than I had felt when using it on my own. It was as if Ira taking over my body had influenced it in a way that made it far stronger than it usually was.

This actually feels quite nice.

The familiar smokey black-dark green energy surrounded me and my body was consumed by it almost immediately. Shortly after I found myself surrounded by bushes and trees, but there was no sign of the tiger-like creature.

Now get back into your body, we need to talk.

I felt a lot of energy leaving my body as I regained control over it.

H-How did you?

Whenever I take over your body some of my old abilities return little by little, maybe with enough focus you can even gain access to my magic and blessings. But that's beside the point. We need to fix you!

What do you mean fix me? I-I'm totally fine...

You are shaking right now, clenching your fists and looking around hectically because some leaves are rustling in the wind and you don't even notice it.

She was right, I caught myself doing all those things once she mentioned it. When I heard another roar from what I assumed was the tiger-like creature I once again put my head between my knees and began rocking, forwards, then backwards.

I heard Ira sigh inside my head.

You won't leave this forest until you kill that thing.

What?! You expect me to kill that thing when I don't have control over my body and mind most of the time?

For some reason, I began chuckling at the thought of killing that thing. I remembered how much I hated Grudon for nearly killing Alyra, and how anti-climactic his death was... At that time I felt powerful... but now, now I felt like a bug.

That thinking is exactly what we need to change. First, you need to gain confidence again... and the best way to do that is to become more powerful... and the best way for you to do that is to get accustomed to your new power: the power of wrath.

You really think it's that easy? You've seen my memories, you've seen what they did to me!

I know... AH, I don't know how to deal with people like you... figure it out on your own if you don't want to listen.

Yeah, you obviously don't know how to deal with people like me!

With that conversation done I returned to hectically looking around, there were still quite a few sounds that made me jump a little, but nothing that indicated a predator nearby. I took a deep breath to calm my out of control heart rate down a little and began foraging around the base of a few trees near me for something edible.

How did you warp me here anyway, neither of us know the place well enough?

I got no answer. It was as if no one was even there.

Fine then, pretend as if you're not there! I don't need your help!

I was confident in my answer, at least in my mind, my body on the other hand tensed up more and I began to notice even more sounds now as I was still foraging around for something to eat.