Desperately, I scrabbled at the water, clawing against the image floating in the water, trying to break through, trying to return home. For all the scabbling and digging I was left with wet hands and little else.

“No!” I roared at the water, clawing at the rapidly disappearing image until eventually I was left staring at my own horrified face, watching my own eyes puff up as they soaked my face with tears. I shouted a curse at the sky before gritting my teeth and rubbing at my face with a less bloodied side of my right sleeve, rising with a new determination, I decided crying wasn’t doing anything for my survival.

“I’ve just gotta live long enough to get home,” I whispered so quietly that my ears were barely able to pick it up.

Looking around at the lack of any wildlife or recognisable plants that I knew were safe to eat, I decided to move. Although I knew I could survive longer without food than clean water I could always come back to this little clearing if I was desperate for a drink.

Grabbing a couple more handfuls of water before departing, I walked to the edge of the clearing trying to peer out into the woods, yet it remained useless, the trees blocked me from seeing too far into the densely populated forest.

I stood there for a while, deliberating back and forth on whether I should leave or not, fighting my own instincts that were telling me to turn around and return to the clearing. I lasted a couple minutes, yet in a fit of cowardice I returned to the clearing.

“I’ll stay the night, that’s it,” I told myself weakly, although internally I knew it was only an excuse, and a bad one at that.

For the rest of the day I remained at the lake, constantly telling myself of how much of a mistake I was making and how much better it would be to be out there, however it was useless. I remained at the lake, head swiveling constantly back and forth over the tree line as I held myself, completely terrified. During that time I did a little exploring for anything useful, however all of my searches had come up empty, there were no animals, at least none that I could find, and the only plants I found were some grasses and weeds, alongside some strange mushrooms the glew up with a subtle purple light and seemed to do little else except sit at the lakeside drinking in the sun or whatever mushrooms do, I chose to leave them alone however in case it was somehow dangerous. The only other thing of note I could find were a couple strange patches of dirt around the lake where grass seemingly refused to grow . After about 20 minutes I returned to the lake, deciding it was the safest spot in the clearing with at least one direction cut off from a possible attack.

Until eventually the sun fled, leaving me blind to my surroundings, I cursed again as finally the treeline was no longer visible, leaving me with the sensation of complete vulnerability, it would only take a suitably large animal and there would be nothing left of me to awaken the next morning. Again I complained at myself for not using the daylight usefully and looked around for any sort of cover, roving my hands across the dirt, yet I knew it was useless, during my short exploring session I knew there was nothing here, the best I could find were a couple twigs, and yet no branches along the edge of the clearing.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

With little other option, I returned to the lake, curling up futilely to conserve warmth and trying to blend in with the environment, feeling the eyes of the forest looking down on me, even knowing there was probably no life in the surrounding area.

Surprisingly enough, I slept that night, whether from my tired body dragging me down or some other reason I’ll never be sure, although something I am sure about is that it didn’t last long.

At some point around midnight where it was so dark that my eyes being open did practically the same job as them being closed. I awoke, I didn’t know why, I assumed it was some sort of fluke and attempted to go back to sleep, yawning fitfully as I closed my eyes again unwilling to open my eyes and yet unable to shake away the sense of alertness that came with being suddenly awoken.

“Aaaaaa!!!” I got up to the sound of my own screams as I felt a burning pain permeating through my right leg. In a manic form of panic, I shook my leg violently, screaming bloody murder as I watched a purple bioluminescent blob of something climbing up my leg. My head turned light as I watched under the effect of the substance my leg was being broken up. My skin began breaking into infinitely small pieces before disappearing entirely, leaving my muscles and viscera to the same treatment. I screamed louder, desperately trying to shake my leg, however by that point, the muscles had been torn up so completely that they were no longer usable. Using my hands I tried scraping it off, peeling at it and the surrounding skin with my fingernails but it was useless as my hands soon lit up in pain as the same thing happened to them. Still lying down, I watched in horror, clawing harder and harder as it crawled up to my hips slowly rising to my chest as it carried on eating me alive.

Breathing heavily as I reviewed what was going on I knew that whatever was happening wouldn’t leave me alive, my leg had already been reduced to bone, yet wasn’t gone yet since the bone apparently slowed the thing down. Finally the message that scraping it away was useless reached my hands and I halted, my brain handing the reins back to me after realizing that blind panic was useless. Luckily, or rather unluckily the thing decided spreading over to my head was better than eating at my chest, leaving the muscles covering my rib cage somewhat intact, leaving me some time to think. I began to study the thing as quickly as I could, searching for anything abnormal I could use as a weakness, although all I could see was the translucent substance. I sat there watching and feeling the creature climbing over my body, blaring pain following in its wake as it tore through me attempting to stay calm. By the time it reached the base of my neck and I felt panic begin to arise again, I found something. Through the area above my hips where my intestines should’ve been I instead found a small crystal, barely smaller than my fist trying to embed itself there.

Without thinking, I launched my arm into the substance, feeling how thick it really was as I got forearm deep. I watched with my teeth grinding against each other as I glared the crystal down, watching as my arm began dissolving, yet I only pushed harder and faster, my arm dissolving quicker and quicker as I reached closer to the crystal. By the time I reached it, I already felt my throat beginning to disappear.

Knowing I had no chance of life past this, missing most of the vital parts of my body at this point, I gave a silent roar and flexed the few remaining muscles in my arm, crushing the crystal in my bone fingers. Unable to feel the shards embedding themselves into my finger bones, I closed my eyes, keeping the image in my mind of the crystal shattering, in the end I was left with a distinct sensation of déjà-vu, the shards reminded me of something… though my mind was unable to keep up with the thought, already muddying.

Even with the substance losing all its causatic properties with the crystal destroyed I was practically already dead, I was surprised I was even alive now. I felt my eyes closing and yet with my torn up throat I was unable to let out a last breath. It was funny, I thought, how I’d ended up in this situation twice already.