Pretty increased her pace after seeing the sign. She had been walking for hours now and it's been more than two days since she last ate anything. Aside from the hunger she felt, she was also parched from thirst.

She was tired for all the walk she had but the prospect of possibly finding a town or a village energized her.

She was even more energized when the trees and plants around her grew thinner and less dense.

She looked above her and looked for signs of an electric post or a tower but she did not find anything. She had been looking for one before as that was a sign of people living and if she followed it, it would eventually lead to a house or a structure that used electricity. But she had not seen even a glimpse of an electrical wire around. It could either mean that there were no houses nearby or there were, but they were not using electricity.

It had now been more than an hour of walking and resting since she walked from that sign post but she could still not see any sign of any civilization. Not even a plastic or garbage anywhere that could tell that someone was living nearby.

The sun was already near the horizon. She probably had more than an hour before it would set.

She stopped walking and sat directly at the ground. She was very tired already.

She looked around and all she saw was the same trees, they were more spaced apart and there was hardly any undergrowth below them. She could now see past the trees but all she could was never ending trees. She also had not found any road or crossroad anymore.

It was just the same trail stretching for god know what, and getting wider and wider. .

Did she have to walk more?

She was now sure that whatever village or town that garbage pit belonged to, it was on the other side of where she was going.

When she fell from the hole she did not know which way to go, there were both tunnels on both sides. She did not realize she was getting farther and farther from that pit.

She could turn back but it would take her hours to come back.

With the effort she had already made, she was still betting on the sign leading her to a place. She just has to reach it.

After a few minutes of rest, while dreaming of water and food, she stood up and continued her walk.

After half an hour, she dropped her whole body on the ground. She was done. She did not want to walk or move or do anything.

She was starving. Her lips were very dry and she could not even swallow her saliva anymore.

Why did when she needed her body quirk of numbing things like hunger and thirst, it was not working?

She needed water. But she had been looking for signs of rivers or creeks but she had not seen any sign of one at all. She would even take rain, but the sky was clear.

She laid on the ground for ten minutes and when the exhaustion lessened, her willpower to move came back. She stood up and walked again, this time at a slow place.

She let fate decide for her. If she’s meant to find a place, then she would.

Another half an hour passed and dusk had just arrived when she finally stopped. It was not because she had to rest or she gave up walking at all. But it was because there was nothing to walk at all. The trail just ended into a huge tree.

She had reached a dead end. She could still continue to walk without the trail and through the forest, as the trees were spaced apart almost five meters from each other. There was even less grass and bushes below them. There were only dried leaves and branches in the undergrowth. Everywhere she looked could be considered a trail if she wanted.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

But it came on her that it might just lead her to nowhere. She could trust trails as it should usually lead somewhere and she had been trusting the trail she was walking, as it looked used to her. There was no grass or any small plants in it so she figured they were used often. But she still ended up on a dead end.

She gave up and laid on the floor while facing the fading light of the sky.

She did not have any idea how to change her situation.

She tried to access her ability but she still couldn’t.

She only had one idea and that was to shout for help, and so she did.

“HELP!” she shouted with all she could. “If someone… is out there, Please… HELP ME!!!”

The shout had made her breathless but it helped lessen the hopelessness that she was feeling. She had done her all. Now, she could only choose to go back her way. The prospect of it sapped away any energy she had but she has no choice.

She decided to rest a good while till the sky darkened, she will then start tracing her way back.

She did not know if she could accomplish it. The chance of her passing out on the way and dying with hunger was greater than her finding her way back to civilization.

She could also choose to close her eyes and hope that when she opened her eyes, it would just be a dream.

Now that she was lying on the ground resting, her mind and body automatically chose the second choice.

Her eyes slowly closed and she felt herself succumbing to the arms of sleep but just as she was fully unconscious, she heard a rustle, then a tap, and something wriggling.

Her eyes opened and turned her head to the right. There, behind a bush outside the trail was a protruding leg of a person.

She stood up and went towards the bush and found an unconscious person behind it. She did not even have to guess who it was even when the person was on his stomach, its face hidden. It was the man who had run away from her.

She nudged him using her feet but the man did not respond.

She turned him over with much effort as it would not be good for anyone to pass out in their stomach. Good thing, the man was not that heavy.

She held his wrist and checked for his pulse. To what purpose, she did not know. She just did it because she had nothing better to do. If she had her voice assistant with her, she could ask what to do when someone was unconscious. But all she could do right now was check if he’s alive.

From his pulse, he definitely was alive. He had no visible injury and it looked like he just passed out.

With nothing better to do, Pretty planned to check the man if he had something with him. But she already checked him before and if he had something, he would not be in this situation.

She was about to feel his clothes up when the man moaned. and at the exact time, she felt some disturbance with her renisas.

They felt consumed.

She activated her renisas eyes and immediately her surroundings had turned into white and gray. All around her was a mass of gray and white blobs floating as far as she could see.

She recognized them immediately as soul blobs or spirits. She had never seen a dense number of them in her life, and she was sure it was impossible. If she had to count, there should be more than a thousand around her. What made her worry was they were not the normal ones. They were neafs.

She looked at the man lying in front of her, and she saw his renisas was little by little being eaten by the the neaf spirits around him

They danced around them and lunged every now and then to the unconscious man. His renisas was now already twice less than when she saw him a while ago. He must have been here for a while.

But her eyes then widened when she could visibly see that almost a hundred neafs circled the man at the same time, lunged at him as if they were coordinating their moves and his renisas lessened in visible degree.

That was something she never saw happen before.

The gravity of the situation dawned on her.

She looked at her renisas and was glad to find out that they were holding strongly than the man. More strongly in fact. There was at least the same amount of neaf spirits on her like the man but her renisas stood firmly and she could only feel an almost miniscule amount of her renisas being consumed.

She should have found about this amount of spirits around her but she had not felt them when she was walking in this area. She looked at the trail she had just stepped out on and was baffled to see that there were no spirits in it. It was like someone made a barrier preventing the spirits from passing to the trail.

She immediately got hold of the man’s feet and dragged him towards the trail. She pulled and the man’s body only nudged for a few inches. She forgot strength was not her strong suit.

Despite this, she still pulled the man laboriously, there were only two meters from the trail and where they were so she just had to pull him little by little.

After an agonizing time, she was able to pull the man out of the bushes way and she went behind the man’s back and rolled him towards the trail. It was easier than pulling. After some pushing, they were finally inside the trail.

The spirits around them disperse as if they lose an interest with the both of them, which should not be the case as this neafs spirits love to torment the living.

She traced her eyes to the entirety of the trail and she could not see any neaf spirits in it. There seems to be an invisible barrier preventing the neaf spirits from crossing it.

She was confused how this was possible.

What place did she lead herself to?

Spirits should not be in this number or degree, even finding a normal spirit was hard enough. But there were thousands of them just from what she could see and all of them were neafs. She was not even sure if these were the only neafs around. There could be more behind the trees.