A brilliant white light burst forth from my left palm, so intense that for an instant, I could see the outline of the creature's skull as the light refracted underneath its skin. A bitter chill traveled through my entire body. It howled in agony and fell backwards off of me, writhing on the ground and clutching its face. It was then that I noticed where my hand was; instead of flesh, there was a charred ruin. The entire left side of its face looked as if it had suffered a third-degree burn. I could see the burnt muscle and fat beneath its cracked, charred flesh. Its right eye was completely destroyed, and at this point, my opponent could do nothing but writhe on the ground in agony.

Immediately, I looked at my hand, worried that I was also burned, but the skin was perfectly normal.

"What was that?" I asked no one.

"Magic? Is that what it was?" I immediately thought of blasting the creature again, but the pain in my arms calmed my thoughts for the moment.

'I need to get the hell out of here,' I thought.

I didn't know what or who could have heard that fight, but I needed to end this quickly and get as far away from here as possible. Glancing at its axe embedded in the tree, a small smirk appeared on my face. I walked over to it and with a pain-filled grunt, pulled it free.

My opponent was still on the ground, writhing in pain. He managed to move a few feet away from me during his squirming. I walked over to him, axe in hand, ready to end it.

Apparently hearing my approach, it shouted "Grah an gulag,"

'Oh my, the creature speaks', I thought to myself.

What did it say, I wonder as it repeated the same phrase? I raised the axe above my head.

"Grah an gulag," it said once more in an even more desperate tone.

Perhaps it was begging for mercy; either way, I didn't care. With one eye destroyed and another swollen shut, I was not going to allow him to recover or gather more of his kind to hunt me down for revenge or something.

"Grah an gul."

I brought the axe down into its chest; the obsidian teeth of the weapon bit deep and I must have hit something important because after only a few seconds of struggling, the creature died.

Dragging the axe from its chest, I stood there for a few moments looking at its face in hatred. To think this disgusting thing almost killed me. I noticed the small pack strapped against its back and removed it. Walking away from the creature, I peered inside and examined the items one by one. A leather-wrapped knife, perhaps as long as my hand, the handle looked to be made of bone, and testing it against some grass, I found it was reasonably sharp. There was some kind of dried meat, and a smaller leather pouch filled with random nuts. The last item was some kind of water skin; it was little more than a leather bag with a wooden stop on one end tied together so as not to allow whatever liquid inside to escape.

'I'll figure that out later,' I thought and packed everything back into the bag.

Taking in my surroundings once more, I noted the angle of the sun and headed where I thought to be south. With my new pack, I walked at a slow pace as I looked at my arms. There were many long rents in my flesh, and blood flowed from a few that were particularly deep. Knowing the creature's claws were likely filthy, I feared infection setting in.

But I had no way of cleaning or dressing the wound, and the only cloth the creature had was a loincloth. I wondered if staying and fighting was perhaps the wrong idea; perhaps I could have kept outrunning it. I could have lasted at least a few more minutes at that speed. But what if it tracked me all the way from where I woke up? Maybe it was just wandering and stumbled upon me? There was no point in thinking about it. What's done is done. I need to take stock of what I have and come up with a plan.

There was nothing I could do about my arms at the moment, so if I ran into another one of those things, I would have to take my chances with running, though with my arms slowly dripping blood, I'm probably leaving a perfect trail to follow. The light then, I have to learn how to summon it again. Placing my palm out again, I tried to see if I could summon the light.

Nothing happened, unfortunately. I stopped walking and tried again, pointing my palm at a tree.

"Damn it," I whispered.

This was apparently not something that can be learned easily. I began walking again, thinking of how I could summon the light.

"When it was on top of me, I felt a chill in my entire body." I recalled the memory.

"Then the light burst out of my hand." The chill, what was that, I wonder?

It felt almost as if my entire body temperature dropped for a moment. Then, an instant later, blinding light. Assuming that chill is a precursor to summoning the light, I would need to focus on that for now. Thinking back, I wanted more than anything to get the creature off of me; it was do or die at the time. Well, I certainly can't wait for another near-death experience to use this power. So, there must be something about that moment that was enough of a trigger to use it. Thinking about the power was enough to distract me from the constant aching in my arms. I need to figure this out before nightfall; it might be the only thing that can save me in a desperate situation.

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Over two hours had passed, and I still hadn't made any progress. Left hand, right hand, standing still, even a 2-minute meditation to clear my mind, and so far, I had nothing. The slow progress of the sun was causing me to become increasingly worried. Though the bleeding in my arms had slowed considerably, the pain had only gotten worse, and I feared that infection would start to set in.

'Dammit,' I whispered.

Even if I learned how to use it, my arms are the bigger problem. How long do I have, I thought? Sepsis can take anything from 12 hours to days to kill. I don't have a gut wound, so let's say I have a few days. The meat, nuts, and the waterskin should help, so my only chance is to keep myself alive long enough to reach civilization. So, I have to figure this out before nightfall, and hopefully, with the axe and the light, I can survive an attack with minimal injury.

I looked around for a secluded area. After a while, I spotted three trees closely clumped together with plenty of bushes around the base. I walked over and sat in the middle of the trees. It wasn't perfect, but if I sat down, the bushes would at least obscure me from vision.

I removed my pack and took a drink from the waterskin; the water tasted slightly brackish, but I was too thirsty to care. I ate at least half the dried strips of meat, remarking that they tasted almost like pork. Ignoring that tidbit of information, I then ate the entire bag of nuts.

"Okay," I said to myself, "do or die time." I sat down with my palm facing forward determined to figure this out.

I thought back to my fight with the creature and the moments leading up to the light. First, I resolved to shove the creature off of me. My will was absolute. I didn't question whether I could do it, simply that it must be done.

Then there was the chill, as if my body temperature instantly dropped several degrees. Then I pushed with all my might and boom! burning light erupted from my hands. Focusing on the first part, my resolve, I ignored any distraction from the forest and the ever-falling sun.

'I will do this,' I whispered to myself. It must be done; failure means death and I will not die in this forest.

It was over an hour of this, constantly replaying the memory of that moment, trying to bring forth those feelings. Those same emotions compelled me to act without regard for pain or safety. I remembered its ugly face, its stinking breath, as it scratched and clawed at me. The feeling of revulsion crawled up my spine as I imagined what would have happened if my arms failed.

Then the heat started to leave my body.

"Holy shit." I said aloud.

As soon as my focus broke, so did the chill. I had summoned it again! It wasn't close to the depth of cold I felt when facing the monster, but it was something. I immediately calmed myself down and tried to summon it again.

Another ten minutes passed before I felt the chill again, this time I retained my focus. I felt my limbs go cold as heat was sapped from them. A few seconds passed as I maintained this state. Soon enough I felt as cold as I did on the ground with the creature. I thought of pushing my arm forward and seeing if I could summon the light. However, I discarded that idea immediately. I needed to focus on the coldness. I almost felt like I was summoning heat from my body as energy. Eventually I felt a small amount of heat in my chest. It was getting warmer by the second.

'Is that the unspent energy?'. I wondered. I released my grip on the power.

As expected, the heat dissipated, and my body's warmth returned.

'Ok, so I wasn't summoning cold, but gathering my body's energy into a single point.’ I mused.

My chest grows warmer as the energy concentrates. The more I thought about it the more it made sense to me.

'I'll keep going until I figure it out.' I resolved to myself.

I had gotten it down to around two minutes to begin gathering energy from my body. Again, it pooled in my chest growing hotter as my extremities became colder. I repeated this process dozens of times. And after an hour of this I had gotten my gathering time to around 15 seconds. Nowhere near a fraction of a second it took me with the creature. But I didn't have the luxury of certain death to spur me on.

Now to move the energy to my hand. After a short delay I began to gather energy once again. Instead of simply allowing it to pool in my chest, I tried to will it to my left hand. I could feel the heat move from my chest, down my shoulders, then into my left palm.

'Focus.’ I thought, resolving myself once more.

Instead of trying to fire light. I allowed the energy to dissipate. I repeated the process once again. 15 seconds for the energy to gather, another 5 to move it to my hand. This, I repeated for at least another hour, for what had to be over a hundred times. I managed to get the gathering time to ten seconds, but moving the energy to my hand still took the same amount of time. However, I did find that I could move the energy to my right arm without any change in difficulty. So, I opted to alternate during my practice.

I spent another two hours practicing and now it was the moment of truth. I sat with my left palm facing forward and gathered the energy as usual. This time I pooled as much energy as I could in my chest, to the point that my extremities went from cold to numb. Then I moved this mass of energy to my left hand. I thought back to that moment when I first used the light. The claws digging into my arm, it's putrid breath in my nostril’s, the revulsion and hate rose in me. That disgusting creature could have killed me, and it had the gall to beg for mercy in the end. I remembered myself hiding in the bushes, hoping that the creature wouldn't find me, then running away out of fear. It was insulting to think I would flee from such vermin.

"Next time will be different" I said then thrust my palm forward.