It was dark when a noise woke us up. As I blinked my eyes open, I felt immensely relieved to still be in one piece, on the same forest floor as before. I could feel my sister’s hand, warm and soft, in my own.

“Nielle?” She asked, trying to get up.

“I’m fine. I’m fine.” I winced slightly at my new nickname. “Killer headache but…” As I looked around, I realized I was seeing things way better than I should have. Nothing like night vision, but despite the darkness of the woods and nothing like a moon in the sky, I was seeing through the foliage as if there had been a full moon above.

I was disturbed by sudden smells. I could sniff the rose-flower-tree above me, sense the minute differences between the top and the bottom. I could almost taste the foul urine that had been expelled hours ago by a small critter a few dozen meters on our right.

And it all felt very natural. I wasn’t disoriented or overwhelmed. I had more, most likely double, the senses as before, and it felt perfectly comfortable.

My body was fitter, my breath more stable, I felt stronger, able to climb the tree next to me in less than a minute.

“I’m feeling great, actually.” I corrected as my headache left me as fast as it had come.

“Me too.” My sister’s voice was more melodious than before. “Hell, maybe I fucked up with magic, if body gives you such good a feeling, I can’t imagine what mind would give. I could benefit from a stronger mind.”

“Maybe you won’t. I won’t lie, it’s nice, but I smell pee over there, and that’s something I could have done without. I’m seeing things way better though; I hear more of your voice, but I don’t really…” I stopped. The forest was way too silent. During the day, it had almost been comfortable here, but right now, the ambiance was eerie.

My sister probably noticed my sudden change of expression, because she crouched, pulling me down with her, and whispered: “What is it?”

“It’s going to sound very cliche but…it is way too quiet.”

A big crack of branches, maybe even a trunk, echoed behind us.

“…You heard that?” My sister asked, not looking in the right direction.

“Yeah. It came from over there.” I corrected her.

“…Isn’t that where the dragon’s lair was?”

That brought a big pause.

“Shit.” I swore. “Let’s move away, slowly.”

We stopped talking, and as I was the one with the better vision, I took the front.

We walked slowly, I was pretty certain that whatever was behind us hadn’t spotted us, but it was following us.

After minutes of shuffling through the woods, I heard a low growl, like the largest of boars looking for truffles.

I looked behind me, only seeing the panicked look on my sister’s face and the calm nature of tall trees and grass. She hadn’t heard that, but I think she had a good idea of what was happening by looking at my face.

“It’s the dragon. I think it’s following our smell.” I explained as quietly as I could.

She nodded wildly, and we continued to walk away, but more vigorously.

As time passed by, I realized we weren’t going to outrun the dragon like this. We had to have fled half an hour in total, and the monster only seemed to have gotten closer to us; I was now able to hear the sound of his large footsteps crushing the fallen giant rose-tree leaves underneath. Worse, the more we moved without thought, the more chances there were that we stumbled upon a weird thorn-filled plant that would poison us to dead, a goblin camp, or any other lethal thing that this new world proposed. At least it wasn’t game-like in the fashion that there were monsters everywhere. You didn’t have five hundred wolves in the same square mile of wood. There was something akin normal fauna and flora ratio. The only living thing we had crossed paths with in our escape, was some sort of very small, very cute rabbit, my sister would have loved to pet in other circumstances. Right now, we were without a doubt in the hunting grounds of a dragon. It clearly wasn’t a priority.

“Why isn’t it just flying around catching birds?” My sister asked in a hushed voice, desperation in it.

“I’m not sure if I saw wings on it.” I answered her with the same tone.

We couldn’t hide, we couldn’t sneak forever. At least our new bodies were endurant enough to carry on. It didn’t mean we weren’t getting tired fast and that we could go on forever. Shuffling through woods was taking a lot of energy.

Run?

That was especially risky, but maybe with enough distance, we could lose the beast.

“L? You have any idea?” I tried.

My usually resourceful sister shook her head. “I…no.”

“What about running as fast as we can?” I tried my idea.

“I think we’re on a plateau, if we just run in the dark…”

“Cliff.”

“Yeah.”

Unfortunately, our conversation didn’t go unnoticed. The noises behind us became much more violent, forcing our hand.

“No choice. Run!” I told my sister.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Even without the perception buff, there was no way for my sister not to hear the chase finally being launched fully.

We both ran, my sister just behind me, trying her best to do exactly what I was doing, when I jumped, she jumped, when I ducked, she ducked.

It went well for a few minutes, but then exhaustion started to take its toll on her, and she missed a branch that went and slapped her face, she almost fell when the ground suddenly became dirt, and the stones that now littered the way were forcing me to go slower or even I would slip and fall.

Stones?

That parasitic thought almost killed me, as I came very close to miss the sudden opening of vegetation and sheer drop.

“Cliff!” I shouted.

In a move I thought only happened in cartoons, I came to a full halt on the very edge, and my sister couldn’t prevent slightly crashing on my back, despite trying her very best to stop.

I let go of her hand and started to spin my hands wildly. I had plenty of time to see the void underneath my eyes, it had to be a thirty-meter fall (100 foot). When I started to slip forwards, a scream rose from my lips.

Then I felt a warm hand grab my trekking vest’s collar and I fell on my butt, back on solid ground.

“Fuck.” I took a very short second to look at the midnight view of the forest below, and beyond what seemed small flickering lights of a village. Even in the dark, I could see a river defying the rules of gravity and leaving the solid ground to reach for the skies.

The furious sound of creaking trees behind me woke me up.

“Down!” My sister screamed at me. She went in front, trembling like a leaf.

We weren’t holding hands anymore.

“Wait, we can’t…”

“We have to.” She cut me.

“It’s dark and…!”

“RRRRAAAAAARRR.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…” I started chanting as I followed my sister over the edge.

Leveling up our physical selves had been a godsend, as we would need everything to make the climb down. Then again, if we hadn’t leveled up, we probably would not have been in such a bad position to begin with.

Fortunately, it was less a rocky cliff than dirt and roots sticking everywhere. Everything was weak and every hold would break and force us to push ourselves into the dirt, but at least we were making quick progress.

“RRRRAAAA.”

I looked up, and two yellow eyes stared right back at me.

I couldn’t even swear this time as I saw a miniature sun lighten up the dark inside its maw.

“L! Incoming!”

My sister looked above, and in a show of brilliant survival skills, didn’t hesitate a second as she pushed herself as much as she could into the cliff.

I did the same.

The only thing that told me that the dragon had missed was the fleeting reflection of yellow on the root I was pushing my face in, and the “fffFFFFUUuiiiii” sound of the fireball’s Doppler effect.

“Let’s go, let’s go!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.

My sister was also unharmed, and we resumed our mad dash down the cliff.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem as if the ground dragon needed a long time to recharge, as a few seconds late, another fireball whizzed right between me and Gaëlle.

She gave me a crazed look. “Daniel? Are you there?”

“Yeah, I’m there! Don’t stop!”

She did as I shouted, but a few seconds later… “Daniel?”

“Go! Don’t stop! I’m here, I’m here. I won’t leave you…”

“fffffFFFFUUiiiii.”

“…Just don’t stop.” I continued talking, trying to reassure her that she wasn’t alone.

I knew exactly what she was feeling right now, only Lila’s hand in mine was keeping me focused.

“We’re halfway there, we’re halfway there…Just a little push…”

I heard another gust of heat arrive.

“ffffFFFFFU-PSSH”

I looked at my sister in horror. She had been hit, her backpack now on fire.

She started screaming in utter terror.

“Drop the pack! Drop it!” I couldn’t help her; she was out of my arm’s reach.

I couldn’t help her.

She did what I said.

She removed her backpack and dropped it, wildly, not taking care of where she was holding herself. I heard the crack of a root and then, in slow motion, saw her follow the burning backpack to the bottom.

“GAËLLE!”

Branches cracked as she disappeared under the treeline.

“GAËLLE!” I reached for her madly, almost falling myself.

“No, no, no. No.” I felt the hand of Lila squeeze and looked up.

The mouth of the lizard was wide open, it too had begun to descend the cliff, holding on through massive claws in the ground, fire escaped right towards me.

In a move that I would never have believed myself able to accomplish, I dodged by turning in a one-eighty degree to the right, putting my back to the wall of dirt, and saw the ball of condensed unnatural yellow fire wheeze right where I had just stood.

I looked down but couldn’t see Gaëlle or the backpack underneath the trees.

It was a ten, fifteen-meter fall. She would have survived this, we had extra constitution and regeneration. With the leaves and branches, even a normal human would have survived this.

Not unscathed though. My sister needed my help.

And so I jumped.

A fireball rocketed by next to me, showing me exactly where I was plummeting to.

Because of the dome-like shape of the leaf, I bounced right off, crashing into an opposite tree-rose, I felt branches crack right under me, saw the ground and the sky spin quite a few times, before hearing a big thud.

The feeling came just after.

“HHHHH.” I couldn’t breathe.

I couldn’t move.

The large lizard was still there, it seemed to hesitate, but then decided to descend. This brought the monster in full view, lit up through the numerous fires it had created on the cliffside. It was basking in victory; I could swear it. Its long wolf-like head with big, open nostrils, its yellow eyes that screamed pain and cruelty, and its giant rows of teeth. It didn’t have wings, but it was slithering on the cliff walls like it was flat ground.

“Hhhh.” I said, panicked.

I tried to move and felt relieved when my legs and arms responded. I wasn’t in much pain either, but I was way too slow. I needed to find my sister.

My eyes couldn’t escape the monster’s. It was closing on us, halfway there already.

Lila’s hand squeezed in mine, and I remembered that day. The last day.

An impossible sharp screech shook the air.

The dragon looked up, then tried to jump to the side, but a large shadow of darkness three times its size crashed into him, breaking a good portion of the cliff and extinguishing all the flames.

I tried to protect myself from the falling dirt best I could, but I knew it would be pointless.

The world sounded like it ended for a few seconds, then nothing.

I peered out of my hands, just in time to see the dragon be carried off by something, then disappear over the treeline.

I breathed.

I took a few seconds to comprehend the notion that I was safe. I was okay.

“Gaëlle!” I realized. I painfully got on my feet.

My sister wasn’t hard to spot, her head just next to the dangerous fire eating through her backpack like butter. I ran/stumbled for her, kicked the backpack away, and pulled her in my arms. She had some dirt on her from the cliff, but that was it. I examined her, terrible fear growing in me. I couldn’t do this without her, I needed her.

“Gnnn.” She grimaced in agony, then started shivering all over. “Daniel?”

“Gaëlle! L! I’m here.”

“It hurts.”

“What? Where…” I saw how dumb a question that was when I finally noticed her legs. They were mangled messes of broken bones.

“Oh shit, oh shit. No, wait. You’ll regenerate. It’s going to hurt but not for long, I promise. I’m going to make you all good.” I took out the gourd in the side of my backpack in a hurry, forced her to drink some then looked at the damage on her lower body.

“Fuck.” It was too dark and… I looked at the still-burning backpack. I carefully edged it closer. “Ok, that’s better.”

I needed to remove her pants, but I couldn’t…no, I needed to act fast, force the regeneration to happen just like my broken leg.

“It’s going to hurt I…” I didn’t even have something for her to bite her teeth into.

“Daniel.”

“Shit, I’m sorry, I can’t…”

“Daniel. It’s fine. Pain won’t kill me. Just…stay here please.”

She looked at me with pleading eyes.

“Yes. Always. Always little sis.” I took a deep breath. “It’s going to hurt.” I repeated.

“I know.”

I kept looking at her for a second, then my resolve renewed, started to work on her legs.