A warm feeling suffused through my chest. That same kind of warmth that made it virtually impossible to get out of bed in the morning. That toasty feeling that tempts you to hit the snooze button just one more time. And it was working, I had no desire to get up. The only thing keeping me from falling back asleep was the light attacking my eyelids.

“Mom, turn off the lights,” I mumbled.

I heard a slight chuckle, and not my mother’s. It wasn’t the only sounds I heard either. As my consciousness returned, I heard a multitude of grunts and roars along with the clashing of metal.

“Raid!” The word flew from my lips as I shot up. I looked around, a little too fast apparently. Pain pierced the back of my head, like someone just jabbed a spear through it. For a moment, I thought I needed to check that I wasn’t strapped down to a tree branch thirty feet off the ground and bleeding. Thankfully there wasn’t a lightning bird throwing gusts of hurricane force winds. Just a fire-filled sky. A crap load of fighting. The raid still raged.

I gingerly touched the back of my head and winced. There was a good sized bump but that was it, no blood.

“Chill brother. You're almost done.”

I turned back and saw the jet-black eyes of Marns the medic. I felt his hand press down right on the sore spot, and then that heat from earlier flowed into my skull. After a second, the pain was completely gone.

For all of my complaints with this world, healing was not among them.

I rubbed my face with both hands, trying to remove the grogginess from my enforced slumber. I wasn’t exactly sure how he made me fall asleep but I was ninety-eight percent positive he just knocked me the hell out. But who cares—certainly not Heavy-hands back there—it did the trick. That’s for damn sure.

After another face rub, I paused; something was different. I pulled my hands away from my face and looked at them. Then it clicked, my left arm was mucus free. And honestly, feeling great. I rotated the shoulder around and with a satisfying pop, rose from the ground. I hopped around, shaking off the last of the slumber. I felt like a new man.

“Thanks, Marns,” I said turning back to him. “How long was I out?”

“Thirty seconds, give or take,” he said while standing up.

I turned back around, towards the battle. “Gotcha, guess that means we are still fighting the…”

I couldn’t finish my sentence. My mouth hung open as I stared at what I saw in front of me. I was looking for the giant lizard, and we were literally just fighting. And I found it. Just uh, dead now.

It was lying on its side, blood pooling around its head and body. Parts of its flesh melting into the ground around it. The whole body was covered in wounds from an untold number of sources. Dozens of arrows stuck out its whole body, colorful burn marks ran down its stomach and arms, and a few wooden stakes for good measure as well, not to mention the gashes and slashes galore. Yet they all shared something in common, acid burns. Every wound slowly widened as the acid, my acid, melted the monster’s flesh.

I blinked. The monster, from the looks of it, came down with a serious case of death while I took my power nap.

I twisted my head, searching for Jaren’s squad. “Um, you said thirty seconds, right?”

“Give or take.”

“So they did that,” I pointed at the massive carcass, “in thirty seconds.”

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

He nodded. “Give or take,” Marns repeated.

I scoffed in utter disbelief. “Must’ve been a crap load of giving and taking.”

He just shrugged. “I’ll be honest, I wasn't keeping track. Busy making sure you didn’t go full coma.”

I thought to say more, but this was one of those moments where it's best to just be thankful and move on. It really wasn’t important. The lizard’s death was great news to be sure, though a part of me was sad. I wanted to mimic it. I had a few empty slots to play with and something like that was certainly worthy of a spot. But all hope was not lost, there were two of the giant lizards. I would probably be the owner of a shiny new reptile form soon enough.

“Where’d they go?” I asked my laidback medic companion.

“Helping Commander J with his lizard. Over there.” He pointed behind me, off towards where Jaren and his small crew broke off from the rest of us, to keep the first Reptan occupied while we handled the other.

I followed his finger. Just as I stopped, a bright flash of green energy exploded in the air at the tip. Jaren’s squad fought with the monster only a few hundred feet away.

Jaren whipped his sword around and flew through the air, landing another massive blow against the reptile’s jaw. The Reptan’s face was forced to the side, now pointed right at Marns and myself. Half of it at least.

A portion of the Reptan’s jaw hung on to its face by nothing but a few tendons, and those looked to be fraying. While the attack threw the beast back, the rest of his melee fighters rushed its feet, scoring and slashing as much as they could while it was off balance.

Arrows flew aplenty, piercing parts all over the reptile’s body, along with some wooden stakes and even a lightning bolt. No colorful explosions though. I hope nothing happened to Daila.

I turned to Marns, eyes squinted. “Thirty seconds. Really?”

“Will you get over it already,” he said, walking off towards the squad. “We need to join back with them. ASAP.”

He was right, we needed to move. I was about to jog over to the others until I saw Marns. His words may have sounded rushed, but his pace wasn’t, it was more of a leisurely stroll. A brisk walk maybe. You’d think this situation would warrant at a minimum, power-walking.

I caught up to him. “Um, shouldn’t we pick up the pace? They need us, well you for sure.”

“Nah, I give it another, hmm, thirty seconds before it's dead.”

Another thirty seconds. I thought to myself, shaking my head.

But he was right, during our stroll, Jaren and the other melee fighters managed to topple the monster. Once it was down, the hail of attacks finished it off in a jiffy. I could barely believe it.

“See, yawn, thirty seconds.”

“Yep, thirty seconds.”

Jaren roared out a victory cry, along with the rest of his squad. Even I found myself throwing a fist in the air. We’d done it. Those colossal reptiles had been felled by us and us alone. And I helped. Pride swelled in my torso.

Yet I could only revel in it for a heartbeat.

A horn blasted throughout the battlefield. Must be an ability or something. I thought. But then it blasted again, and this time I caught which direction it came from. It came from the other side of the first Reptan’s body. The monster’s side.

“Uh, is that normal?” I asked Marns.

He shook his head. “Not even a little bit.”

“Great.”

“We need to move. Now.” The tired man looked wide awake now.

Yet before we could act on his words, a rumble grew from behind the corpse. At first, I wondered if the ground was about to open up under our feet, like the holes from earlier. But no, it was footsteps. A stampede's worth.

And before we knew it, the Reptan corpse was covered in a whole platoon’s worth of monsters, maybe twenty. Some scrambled over its corpse, others ran around it. They ran together heading straight for Jaren and the rest of the squad.

I didn’t recognize these ones. They weren’t the usual forest creatures I’d been fighting for months now. These mostly ran on two feet, some used their hands to pick up the pace, but I was certain these were all bipeds. Something Len said was extremely rare in the Forest.

But it didn’t look rare from where I was standing.

I turned over to Marns, all traces of his previous indifference gone, replaced with stark seriousness.

Taking his previous advice, I took a hurried step forward. But he held me back.

“Too late, bud.” He said while shifting his posture, getting ready for combat.

I followed his gaze. Two of the new monsters broke off from the rest, heading straight for us.