As she plummeted to her death, four thoughts crossed through Maggie's head. First, she would definitely get back at that Imp! Yes, she was the one trying to kill the Imps in the first place, but the cheeky little thing tricked her!

The second thought to immediately cross her head was actually a mess of unintelligible thoughts of desperation, accompanied by her screams, as she most definitely was about to fall to a very painful death. But then she saw what was immediately underneath her; a crisscrossing of wires and platforms, each leading to the same massive land mass that seemed to extend to cover almost the same area covered by the rocky land mass above. Maggie’s next thought was of deep relief, like nothing she had felt before. She was going to be okay! She only needed to stop her fall using the obstacles in her way.

And thus she arrived on her fourth and last thought— This is going to hurt like hell!

***

She didn’t have time to think. She only had two rules going forward: First, don’t die. Second, don’t break anything.

It was with that in mind that she hit the very first platform. To her relief, the bulk of the platform —which was more of a ramp— was positioned at an almost 70-degree angle; so bracing herself, she went face-first into it, smashing her nose into its rock surface and rolling down through its length. In the last moment, she pushed her body in the opposite direction, to try and hit the platform next to it and stop her fall. Instead, she only managed to send herself rolling through the air towards the wire directly below the first platform. Not being able to control her movement, she hit the wire with her lower body and tumbled vertically towards the next platform below, where she slammed the side of her back and shoulder, stopping her rotation in a very painful way and sending her skidding towards the crisscrossing of wires below. “Oh no; no, no, no!” Putting her arms in front of her face, she did the only thing she could do in the fraction of a second she had before hitting her next target. She braced herself for impact.

From then on she suffered the worst, most painful 15 seconds of her brief life. With her being juggled from one side to the other, thrown like a ragdoll, managing to occasionally find purchase and hold onto a wire or two, only to slip and slide down under her body weight a moment later, she continued to fall. Her only respite was that she was falling gradually, rather than plummeting from a high place directly to her death.

The wires weren't too far apart, but just enough to feel like receiving a punch every time she hit a new one. With each new hit, she immediately knew it would bruise. If she survives this, she will be expecting a hell of a morning the next day, that's for sure.

But then, before she could ever expect, the wires were over, and she could finally see the ground below her, and it wasn't as close as she would be happy falling into.

“Oh, fudge—!” Were her last words as she was met by the hard rocky embrace of stone.

***

‘Am I dead?’ Was her first thought, as well as her first words, as she found herself regaining consciousness. Followed by the classic ‘Where am I?’, and the not-so-classic but widely accepted ‘Holly molly!’. She must have fainted for a moment there. She wasn’t sure if she was having a very lucid dream, or if she just hit her head very hard. Maybe both. But one thing was certain; she shouldn’t be floating in space surrounded by books.

She couldn't even begin to describe the place she was in. Looking around, it looked strangely like a massive library, if libraries were built on the surface of the moon, that is. The floor, —which was very far from her— was whitish-grey and looked porous. Sitting on top of it, many rows of long, mind-blowingly tall bookshelves, with uncountable books. Some seemed to be standard size, while others were big, she saw one the size of a door, while another she was sure was as big as a house should be. What a weird place.

But wait, she wasn't alone! Floating in the air with her, a large group of cute dogs seemed to be going around doing their business; whatever librarian dogs on the moon do these days. The cute doggos seemed to have noticed Maggie and started to swim in the air towards her in that cute way dogs swim. Well, she was assuming those were dogs, she couldn't actually see their heads, instead, there was a strange misty globe surrounding it. Like scribbles on paper.

Come to think of it, she still can’t remember what dogs look like, or cats! Yes, she also loved cats. For some reason, she gets the idea that people think you can only like one or the other, but not Maggie! Maggie loved both in their own way!

After much consideration, she tried to swim downwards towards the closest dog to, of course, pet them, but didn’t have much success on that front, her body being completely locked in place, save for her wobbling arms and legs. Well, there was nothing she could do about that, she thought. Crossing her legs and sitting in the air as she slowly rotated in her axis, Maggie decided to wait.

It might have taken hours, it might have taken no time at all. Her perception of time was fuzzy in this dreamland. But soon, the dogs approached. It was finally time for some petting! But where to start… Well, silly her! Of course you need to start by their heads! She then proceeded to do the only sensible thing here; she reached forward towards the closest dog and tried to pet their misty head.

From then on, her dream started to pick up. Before she noticed, she found herself in a darkening forest, filled with strangely colorful flora and a myriad of weird sounds. Then, she was sitting in some kind of cozy establishment, surrounded by people drinking hot beverages. She was waiting for something, or was it someone? She wasn't sure what. But a blink later, she was in a hospital, sitting the same way, tapping to the rhythm of the blips and blops of some machine. And finally, she was back in the forest again.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

It was a very trippy place. Everything seemed to be slowly moving and shifting. Like the whole background was made of moving sand, or circling ants. She tried to touch some tubular plant, but as soon as her fingertip touched it, the whole thing retracted towards its base. Cool.

But before she could explore, a figure started to form out of nowhere. Simply gaining shape as the scenery around her shifted. It looked like a… Weird cat?

She couldn’t quite remember dogs in this dream, but now cats became strangely easy to recall, she noticed. Well, at least this one cat was, even though they had a wicked smile and kept calling her mad. She wondered, where had she ever seen that cat—

—WAKE. UP!

The quite literal mental scream woke her from her dreams. She should probably have had a heart attack from it, but dang, she was so tired.

“Ho—How long?” She asked, still drowsed from sleep, or maybe from pain. Everything hurts.

Oh, thank you, skies above. You woke up! I thought we would both die here because you lost consciousness. You were out for almost 20 minutes. Are you hurt?

“I’m… Okay?.” She mumbled; voice muffled by the stone floor. And from amidst rubble, head deep in dirt, she raised a thumbs-up, still not sure of how okay she really was. Well, nothing felt immediately broken, so it is as okay as falling from who knows how far you will get. Actually, scratch that. Now that she is thinking about it, the center of her face —especially her nose— hurts more than the rest of her body. She could feel the blood pulsing around it. Maybe she did break something after all. It just doesn't seem to be something that critical—

—Good. So get up, we don’t have time to spare.

“Ugh, five more minutes, mom.” She mumbled, drowsily hugging the hard floor beneath her.

UP, MAGGIE, UP!

With much protest, she opened her eyes, still blurry by sleep, or maybe by the dust from the fall. She was about to force herself up from the ground and her half-asleep state when she noticed a tiny little figure just a few centimeters from her face.

“Are you a puppy?” She asked, slowly blinking her sleepiness away and clearing her sight. On a better look, the wee little critter looked almost like a fluffy ball of fur, with a long tail ending in another little ball of fur. Its coloration seemed to match the orange-red of the stone around, and it had rounded ears and a rodent-like face, with big dark eyes.

“Oh, look. It’s one of the rodents, Belinda!” Maggie exclaimed, excitement completing the rest of her way to awakeness.

I know what you are thinking, and I will say right now: Absolutely not!

“But they are so cute! Come here, little friend! I won’t hurt you.”

Maggie, focus. Also, be careful. At this point, I think you should be under the assumption that everything will hurt you here.

Stopping in her tracks, Maggie retracted her hand. “You know, you got a point there.” To the utter surprise of Belinda, she saw reason and decided to not act impulsively for the first time.

Well, until the rodent rolled on its side in a very cute way and started to wobble its tail from side to side; the tiny ball on its point bouncing on the floor.

“Oh! My heart!” She exclaimed, clutching at her chest in an overly dramatic way and falling to the side. “They don’t want to hurt me—!” She jumped back up, “—You won't hurt me, isn’t that right, little fella? Who is the cutest little thing?” She continued in a childish voice. And then, losing her last grasp to reason, slowly extended her hand to try and pet the little critter.

Well, the good thing is, this time she might actually have learned her lesson.

The bad thing is that as soon as her hand reached halfway to the rodent’s personal space, the creature quickly bounced on the ground, like a rubber ball, and jumped towards Maggie's arm, opening its mouth to reveal a cavernous circular maw, as big as its entire body’s circumference. Filling multiple rows around it, there were lamprey-like teeth that ended in a barb of some kind, slightly shaped like a hook, pointing to a side; small, pointy, and very sharp looking.

Before Maggie could fully back off, the rodent's maw attached to her arm, to a sharp pain followed by pressure as it began to push to close around her, and to her ever-growing panic, she felt something slowly rotate, pushing to rip her skin. Its teeth are moving!

I told you so.

“Gaah! They want to kill me, Belinda! They want to kill me!” Panicking, Maggie reached towards the creature's body, trying to pull it out of her arm.

Great. Hopefully, it will give us enough Lifetime to find our way back to the Imps.

Pulling it out of her arm, she felt her skin rip slightly, where a circular mark of teeth stayed. Maggie threw the rodent-not-really-rodent to the ground as strongly as she could, making it bounce, and out of instinct, kicked the thing. She felt something caving in against her boot and immediately felt bad for kicking the little fella, as it was sent flying a few meters towards the closest stone wall, smushing against it like a particularly fluffy little football, and bouncing back towards her, looking like a collapsed furry fruit. She winced at the sight.

Kill it.

“I mean, they only attacked me because I tried to pet them. It is a fair reaction considering the place we are. Do I really have to kill them?”

Yes. 18 minutes, Maggie.

She sighed. Of course. Belinda is right. She just didn’t want to kill something cute. She has been taking her new reality quite well, albeit through a lot of panicking and pain. Maybe because it is the only reality she actually has full memory of, or maybe because she can't focus enough to worry about it, considering she has been running nonstop from the moment she first woke up in this place. But in the end, the truth is quite grim. It's kill or be killed out here.

“Oof…Okay… Sorry little guy. ” Sighing, Maggie approached the creature, to see if it was even still alive. The little critter being immobile since it rolled back halfway towards her.

“Is it dead?” She asked, crouching, slowly moving her head towards the creature, to see if it was still breathing and poking it with her finger.

Almost as if answering her, the rodent twitched, its mouth falling open, teeth slowly rotating like a slowly stopping wheel. She yelped in surprise, quickly getting up in a jump. Without thinking, she stomped the creature with all her might, feeling bones snapping like twigs underneath her feet, and something inside it rupturing, making entrails splash out of their little body, coming from every orifice like a jelly-filled donut. That made her wince.

“That is disgusting.” she said, scraping her boot against a rock “And a bit sad.”

Five minutes. That's how much they are worth. I should also point out to you that this is a Burrowing Gerbil. They are scavenger pack monsters and very dangerous in large groups. You were only not eaten alive when you were unconscious because it was alone for some reason.

“And you didn’t think of telling me this earlier?” She asked, slightly startled by the information. She just unlocked a new nightmare; waking up to find herself being eaten alive by hundreds of furry balls. “And why does a monster have such a cute name?”

I did warn you. I just felt there was a lesson you could learn here, so I didn't push. Besides, just one of the things is not dangerous; practically harmless. That is, if you are smart enough to not put your hand in its mouth—

Before she could continue, Belinda felt something move just inside her range of observation. From a crevice in the wall, another rodent put its head outward, assessing the situation. And a moment later, jumped outwards, followed by a second rodent, and a third, and a fourth, and six more.

Oh. Now it makes sense. That one was just a scout.