For all my talk about not being an idiot, I had done something truly stupid. I blame it on the fact that I was a 13 year old boy and thus an absolute idiot.

Did you catch it? The part where I burned my mom’s tent? With her body still in it? In the middle of the forest? And the loud, very visible explosion it made that alerted all to my presence? Including monsters and other Awakened? And the large plume of smoke that let people see my exact location?

Yes, this was not my finest moment.

As I foolishly strolled through the forest, the trees almost de-saturated in color and yet a thousand times more real than they once were, haunted in their stillness, I heard the sounds of howling and of huge feet pummeling the ground. I looked behind me, and far in the distance I saw tree after tree fall over as a great beast, only a streak of red, crashed and broke tree after tree after tree.

As a 13 year old with tiny legs, I could not walk very fast. I had been in no hurry, after all, with nothing to hold me back and nothing to look forward to. But now… now I might not have had anything to look forward to, but I very much had somewhere to be. Away from my old campsite, and away from the red beast heading straight towards it.

And then… I heard it. This time, from coming in front of me. As I ran as fast as my little legs could carry me, I heard the familiar sounds of trees crashing and branches breaking as a huge beast charged through them- only this time, it was ahead of me, and the sounds were getting louder. In fact, instead of running straight for the campsite, to which I was, at this point, a little to the right of, it sounded like it was gunning straight for me.

And yet… I was wrong. Perhaps, at that time, the universe did not actually revolve around me. Obviously, several universes revolve around me now.

I realized, because I was not in fact an idiot even though I had done some truly stupid things, that I could not continue running. I would either attract the attention of yet more of the huge creatures that awakened because of my fiery explosion, or run straight into one. The best thing I could do was hide.

Or, at least, that was what I was planning to do. Now, don’t forget, as I had, but the monsters were still able to smell me because of my Legendary class. However, being the young and foolish 13 year old boy that I was, I chose to optimistically ignore that. I, after all, apparently had bigger fish to fry? No, I’m still not really sure what I was doing. There is no hiding for a Legendary Awakened- at this point, I supposed I was lucky that I had stupidly caused that huge explosion which distracted them from me. But I digress.

Being in the middle of a huge, completely deserted, old-growth forest during summer, there was plenty of brush to hide in. Of course, there was no telling what too had decided to hide instead of facing the prowling beasts, but I decided that nothing could be worse than facing the huge monsters outside. Casting my Mirror-vision, I tried to find the biggest gap in the green mesh of a hundred different plants mushed together, each twisting and turning on top of each other in a never-ending competition for light, and wiggled my tiny body in.

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

••••••••••

The thing about pre-Awakened Winlei was that it was already alive. And I don’t mean alive, as in the way your puny planet is alive- no, I mean everything was truly vibrant. Where sentient life hadn’t slowly killed the planet’s spirit, where it was like cities had never existed as most of it was completely untouched by man. Winlei was, for lack of a better word, gargantuan. Take the biggest, most impressive thing in your home world, and then double it. The trees of Winlei’s temperate forests were already thousands of feet tall, said to be able to talk to a few chosen tree-whisperers. Medium-sized Winlein mountains were as big as some small planets, with deserts that were truly limitless- or, at least, no one had ever found it. Some planets have one surface, limited to only a sphere. Not Winlei, though. No, Winlei was like a layer cake, except in a sphere, and with every layer being so wide that you could only barely see the icing. This is what made Winlei so endless- any biome, any landmass, could just continue onto the next layer and you’d be none the wiser until you too were on a completely different layer.

As you can tell, Winlei was already huge, and that was before the Awakening. Systems are, by definition, supposed to make everything bigger and more dangerous. System #2344323432345677 was no different. But it couldn’t really make things bigger without completely straining Winlei’s planet spirit. So, it did what it could.

It made things much, much, much more dangerous. Especially because our System was put on a 1% Survival Rate.

Things that already felt bigger than life, huge rock faces trillions of years old and truly great trees that had survived a million storms and would survive a million more, became injected with mana, becoming truly alive with spirits and free will of their own.

So, you see, a common pile of brush for me was more like a medium-sized tree for you. Thus, you can quite easily now see how I would be able to squeeze within it.

••••••••••

I followed my tunnel, pressed against the muddy, dirt floor and squeezed by leafy, poky branches on all sides, until it slowly bit surely got wider. I was so engrossed with scooting forward on my stomach, inch by inch, that I lost track of time and my surroundings. The dim daylight got muskier and duller as I headed further into the brush, eventually making it so that I could only barely see. The tunnel I was following led into a bigger cavern, the leafy ceiling creating a dome above the rotting plants and dust beneath.

Indeed, I was only shocked out of my dazed state when I heard a yowl, and the sound of claws scraping into fur. I could only barely see what looked to be a three-foot long rat, it’s long, pointy tail rapidly twirling around in a threatening wave, brandishing orange, sword-like teeth as it slowly approached a wounded, grey-white puff covered in red on the floor. On my belly, I laid there, too afraid to move yet too mesmerized to look away.

The poof curled up on the floor whimpered, attempting a growl that was far too weak-sounding to be even slightly threatening. It was on it’s last legs, and it knew it- and yet, it didn’t give up. It didn’t surrender.

This struck a cord within me. As the rat opened it’s massive maw, the stench filling my nostrils even though I was at least a good 8 feet away, I didn’t hesitate, or think about it.

No, just as the rat was about to end the white poof for good, I cast a Mirror-shield right in front of its teeth. I wasn’t quite precise enough yet, so really I ended up getting it’s nose- but it worked.

The rat was no longer about to kill the poof. Now, it directed it’s angry glare towards me.