In the old forest, it was an idyllic day. With the sun hanging high in the sky and a pleasant breeze in the air. In the distance the was a large pond, with a deep blue hue. It was truly another pleasant peaceful day on the continent of Elaris. That was until a young man seemed to appear quite literally out of thin air near the overhead canopy of the trees.

BANG!

“Ow Ow Ow. That hurts so fucking much!”, said the young man known as Tyler.

He very slowly got to his feet, rubbing his back where he landed. Tyler had been walking to his job like any other day when he suddenly felt a strong gust of wind and then everything went black.

“Huh… what the hell is happening?” He slowly looked around and took in his new surroundings.

The first thing to draw his eyes were trees so large that even 3 of himself couldn’t encircle one with arms outstretched. The limbs that stretched overhead were so large, he imagined he could walk on them without fear of losing his balance. The massive sea of dark, regal green leaves overhead blocked out much of the harsh rays of sun, leaving the forest floor comfortably warm.

Lowering his head down the dark deep brown trunks of the wooden giants to the forest floor below, Tyler’s attention was drawn to the sparse bushes with some sort of red berry growing plentifully spotting the mostly empty ground. As far as Tyler could see in every direction was an empty sea of leaves in different stages of decomposition with no sign of local wildlife in the area, to Tyler’s great relief.

Deciding he was probably safe for a few minutes, Tyler took just a moment to think about what had happened to him just moments ago. No matter how he thought about it, it was still the same. A sudden gust of wind and then he was thrown into the middle of a God damn forest who knows where, who knows how high up.

Panicking at the thought of the fall, he started to check himself for injuries again but everything felt fine no matter how long he waited, expecting sudden and debilitating pain. All that he could find however was what felt like light , albeit large, bruising on his back.

“Am I actually fine?” he murmured to himself, still afraid of making too much noise and attracting the attention of whatever animal might be lurking. Looking around he searched for signs of somebody, anybody. Whether they were responsible for this, or just someone to help, he was desperate for something to help make his situation make sense.

Scouring all directions, he thought he saw something gleaming in the distance to the left of him. It was at the base of a distant tree, and something seemed to have caught the light just right from a gap in the crown of the trees above. Thinking that it all made sense now and he was on some sort of extreme show. He was desperate for any explanation, no matter how outlandish.

Running to his salvation, and forgetting any semblance of the caution he had only moments ago, he soon closed in. Out of breath and nearing the camera he expected(hoped) would be there, but he slowed while letting loose a saddened and confused “What…”

Tyler saw that the gleam he chased was a golden trinket that was growing into the tree. Panicking, he grabbed and tugged at it mumbling that it was a such a good hidden camera. He grabbed and pulled hard as he could and the chain snapped, sending Tyler flying onto his back, landing painfully for the second time today.

Not letting that stop him, Tyler got back to standing and after quickly surveying his surroundings he opened his left hand to see the jewelry he had wrenched free. It certainly looked like something intentionally left there as there was not a speck of dirt on the golden, glittery, surface of what upon closer look seemed like a pocket watch.

On the front of the trinket was 8 gleaming gems that in his eyes looked like rubies, they were spread evenly on the edges of the top and had some sort of similarly blood red metal going from point to point, forming an elaborate eight sided star. It looked beautiful and in Tyler's amateur eyes it looked and “felt” real. There was serious weight for something so small in his hand.

Hoping for the impossible and to see a note from his imagined kidnappers, maybe a video recording from his friends yelling that it was all an elaborate prank, he slowly pressed down on the button at the base of the watch. With a distinct click he saw the lid swing open and he saw a simple, but elegant ivory watch face and gold numbers inlaid, with the arms of the watch being made of seemingly the same metal as on the watch’s lid.

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Stunned by the beauty of the watch and the oddity of it being in the middle of nowhere, he just sat sunned and stared at it.

Breaking his focus with a shake of his head, he noticed an inscription in the golden underside of the top lid. Bringing it closer to his face and tilting it to see from a better angle, he slowly pieced together what it said “For my loyal servant Adrest. May we build our dreams and country together.”

“Adrest huh, must’ve been a pretty important guy to get a gift like this. Wonder how it got out here? Is this the start of some weird reality show scavenger hunt?” Tyler sat there continuing to grasp to the ever decreasingly likely hope he had. He moved his hand and began to close the pocket watch.

That was when he saw something in the glimmering, and slightly reflective surface. It wasn’t clear, but something big and black was slowly moving towards him low to the ground, presumably to avoid catching his attention. He stiffened and horribly failed at not panicking as he could feel the cold sweat and his jaw was clattering lightly.

He ever so slowly turned his head just enough to see what was behind him out of the corner of his eyes. He couldn’t make out too many details, but it looked like a huge black tiger. However, huge only barely began to describe it, larger than any big cat he had ever heard of, and the color was all wrong, and why the FUCK were its eyes literally glowing red.

It was still a distance away but closing in steadily. Terrified because he knew sudden movements would set off its prey drive, assuming it's like its feline counterparts he knew. But he also knew staying still was just waiting for death. He didn’t get a clear look but just assuming from the sheer size of the rest of it, one paw swipe and he was deader than dead.

Eyes darting from place to place in front of him, a few bushes, more huge trees, and a whole bunch of nothing else. Tyler knew he didn’t have time to stand still, as the cat could decide to pounce at any moment and end him, he decided if he could use the trees to break its line of sight, maybe, just maybe, he could get away.

Putting his plan into action, he sprinted full speed ahead to the nearest trees not paying attention to anything around himself, Tyler gave it even more than he thought possible when he heard a light but so, so loud to him swoosh from behind. Knowing it was do or die he just focused on running and zigzagging from tree to tree.

As he was dashing to the third tree, he felt something graze him from the top right shoulder to the bottom left of his back he heard tearing and fearing to even acknowledge what happened he kept running, simply waiting for the debilitating pain that he knew would set in any moment now.

He focused there was nothing in head other than moving his legs ever faster, his vision turned into a narrow tunnel leading him to the distance ahead, Even Tyler himself didn’t know why he was still trying. He felt something wet on his back and knew he would feel the pain as soon as his body stopped feeding itself an absolutely insane amount of adrenaline.

For what felt like both seconds and hours of torture, he moved forward. Not stopping, too terrified to even properly think. He knew even thinking would kill him, so he ran. And ran until he lost control of his legs and rolled violently forward. On the bright side, the pain of his back wound also chose that time to register, as it was irritated scraping across the ground, and that completely blocked out any other pain he could have possibly felt at that time.

“AHHH! FUCK SHIT!”

Tyler screamed in pain laying on his stomach waiting to die, hoping to, as it would be preferable to the hell that was the sensation across the whole of his back. It completely eclipsed any other injury he had ever suffered, even the time Tyler had broken his arm playing basketball with friends at the park as a teenager, and the bone was sticking out.

He waited, for minutes, and lay there motionless. With blood slowly leaking onto the ground around him making a small pool, surely making an appetizing sight to any nearby monster. But luckily or not, there was no reaper's scythe of a claw coming for him.

“Just do it already.”

Tyler muttered weakly as he shakily lifted his head and turned his body to one side as best he could in his severely weakened state. Even that action was a herculean effort, and he looked in all directions for the monster cat, but there was nothing. No claws, no haunting blood red eyes, just a light breeze through the trees. But he did see the reason he fell just moments ago; a dirty gray stone was poking out from the shed leaves making up the majority of the ground. And as he looked, he saw more gray stone, and what looked like remains of walls and buildings spotted here and there.

“What the…” he mumbled to himself more than anyone, and turned yet again to look ahead of him, there was a large black stone pillar, roughly the same diameter as Tyler himself and nearly as tall. There was something about the way the pillar sat in the twilight evening, it looked warm, inviting, and seemed to call out to Tyler.

Tyler reached forward, bloodied hand over hand and slowly crawled, he didn't know why he was spending his last moments crawling towards a ruin, but he did it with conviction. Something in him was screaming that he had to get to the mysterious object even if it cost him his life. His little remaining blood seemed to burn for it, his eyes glinted with madness. Maybe it was fate, but he reached the pillar and rested his hand on it as he lost the last bits of consciousness, closing his eyes for the last time and never even getting to know why he had to be sent to this hell just to die miserably.