*drip*

*drip*

*drip*

I had only lain on my "bed" when I noticed something dripping onto the top of my head, which caused me to look above me, with terror plastered onto my face.

*tick*

*tap*

*crack*

Tens, if not hundreds, of red bead-like eyes, stared at me from the roof of the tree. The sounds of their legs as they climbed down the trunk of the tree slowly, instinctively caused me to get out of my 'bed', grab my bag, and start to run, which was obviously not a smart idea, considering how dangerous the forest was, more so at night.

Unfortunately, however, I had no real other choice in my situation. It was either take the risk now and run, or be eaten by a horde of grotesque-looking 3-foot-tall spiders, and I had bet all my money on running away. Of course, I was in no way in any condition to run, especially with a heavy bag on my back, but it seemed the gods had heard part of my prayers as a few spiders managed to latch themselves onto my bag, which caused me to have to throw it away. Now my shoulders were free of a great deal of weight, at the same time I no longer had the supplies that I had a great need of if I had any plans of surviving and arriving at camp in one piece.

All I now had was my spear and my axe, both of which were not exactly in the best of conditions, especially if I wanted to fight, no, survive, against beasts that had mutated due to the corrupt nature of demonic aether that was so prevalent this deep in the forest.

"Fuck," I cursed amidst a groan as I noticed the spiders had started to jump from tree to tree and were planning to block my way forward.

"Humph," I took in and let out a deep breath as I hurled my axe at the head of one of the larger spiders, which thankfully was strong enough to crush the damned thing's head. Unfortunately, however, the axe was left unusable as it was covered in the blood of the damned arachnid, one that was poisonous by nature.

"Guess I will have to make do with only my spear," I cursed my fate as I looked at my spear, which I had been using as a tool not just to kill spiders at this point, but also a pole to make it easier for myself to jump over the roots and bushes that covered the forest floor.

While I ran, I took a look behind myself to see exactly how many spiders were chasing me at this time, which took a great deal of courage on my part, as I was extremely terrified of insects and this experience had not made that fear much better.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Fuck me," I cursed as I looked at the horde of about a hundred, give or take, 3 feet tall, brown hairy spiders each with six legs and eyes, rushing at me as if I was a piece of meat for them to eat, which to be fair, if I was caught, I would indeed become one.

Thankfully, every so often some poor creature or the other came in the middle of my great escape, which momentarily distracted some spiders away from chasing me, which had caused the number to reduce to this point, but I was still in no way safe as I still had no way of taking care of the creepy crawly bastards.

"Fuck, huff, how much longer must I keep running, fuck," I cursed, as I looked behind me, to see that no more damned arachnids were trying to eat me. "When did they stop chasing me? No, wait, why did they stop chasing me? Horde creatures like Arachnia gigantis don't tend to stop chasing after their prey...unless... the... prey... enters... the... domain... of... a... strong... monster," I slowly muttered as I looked around myself.

It was black, pitch black, not simply dark illuminated by the moonlight, simply black. Perhaps it was because I was only paying attention to running that I had failed to notice when the environment changed around me, for everywhere I looked all I could see was nothing. I could not even make out the path I had used to get here.

[Hmmm…is one human all that you managed to get here?] a distant voice resounded. It was deep, unbelievably deep, and at certain points also broken, almost making it hard for me to understand what was being said.

Then a light red light started to come from some direction, I don't know which, but my body started to gravitate towards it. I don't know why; I tried to resist, however, my body refused to follow what my brain commanded it to do.

Slowly as I moved, an image started to appear before me, a man(?), with wings(?), sitting on something, while the sabertooth tiger lay next to him(?).

*roar*

The sabertooth tiger roared as a tear, likely out of sleepiness, came out from its eyes, and went back to sleep once more.

[Oh, I see why you got this one to come here now,] he said as I stood before him, his gigantic figure towering over me. I honest to God have no idea how tall this being was, all that I knew was I was fucked and there was nothing I could do. The insects I could run from, the beasts could be distracted, but what the fuck am I supposed to do against something that I don't even know what the fuck it is? Like why the fuck is it always me that has to get fucked over by life like this? Is it because I don't pray to God enough? Is it because I don't help people enough? Is it because I don't do my work properly? I don't think so; I do all those things to the best of my ability.

Like seriously, why the fuck are the gods playing like this with my life? At least explain to me, for fuck's sake.

[The gods are dying, you know. They don't exactly have the liberty to take care of the mortal realm right now,] he said as he rested his head on his knuckles and faced towards me. I could not tell what he was thinking or how he spoke as he didn't quite exactly have a face.

[There is no point thinking that hard about it. Us who are so high above you don't even need to try for us to know what you are thinking,] he continued with an amused tone in his voice(?).

"W-wh-why h-a-ve y-ou br-ought m-me he-re?" I asked, stuttering as I spoke with great difficulty. I am pretty sure I had already pissed myself by this point in time, not that anyone would be able to even smell it at this point, considering the amount of stuff I had lathered over myself to cover my scent.

[Hmmm, what do I want you ask? Well, of course, your life,] he said as he leaned further forward, his ginormous face sitting right before my shivering body.