Ayah stumbled on her feet, eyes squeezed tight at the bright light that surrounded her. She felt like she was floating, free falling. Once she was certain she was on firm ground, she took a deep breath, eyes clutching her drumming chest. She slowly peeled her eyes open, and blinked away the fuzziness from her mind.

It was a forest. A forest with the densest canopy she'd ever seen. She could hear the gentle hum of the wind as it trickled through the branches, a soft thrumming interrupted by the chirping of the birds. Sunlight trickled through the leaves, casting an eerie shadow. She blinked, then squinted her eyes up. A few moments ago, it was the middle of the night, but now, the patches of the sky visible through the branches indicated it was a bright morning.

She frantically looked around. Where was she? Where was Loaye? But there was no one. She was alone, Loaye had disappeared to only God knew where.

How could someone just disappear into thin air?

She fished out her phone and frowned, the signal was dead, she couldn't contact anyone. She took a deep breath to steady herself. First things first, she needed to get out of here. She needed to get back to civilization.

She put her phone back in her bag, chose a random direction, and started walking.

Ayah took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air. She had been walking for a while, but the forest seemed endless. At that time, she thought about what had happened. One second, she was in Loaye's garden, the next she was here.

What was that circle? Some kind of portal?

No. No. She shook her head. How silly of her. Her work must have gotten into her head. Which was why she had wanted those days off. She had yearned for them. Finally alone with her chocolate cake and the treasure within her book haven.

Utter bliss.

She glanced at the small paper box inside the see-through bag. At least she still had her cake. Thank god for small mercies. She sighed.

Her eyes roamed around looking for a hidden road or sign, but nothing. She squinted her eyes, hoping that a pathway would simply materialize out of thin air. Still nothing. There was no way out of the forest.

Once she had stepped through the circle, not only did the location change, so did the time.

She stopped.

Did she really step into a portal of some sort?

To make matters worse, the circle had disappeared once she had stepped through it.

She groaned loudly, running her hand over her face. How could she be so stupid? How would she get back home now?

A loud growling in the distance brought her out of her musings. She froze, straining her ears to listen further.

Oh god, did she somehow end us in the jungles of Africa and she was going to be some lion's brunch?

She shivered. She had to get away. To hide. Anything! Fighting off predators was beyond her pay grade. She took a half step in what she assumed was the opposite direction and paused at the new sound that stirred the silence of the forest.

A scream.

A human scream.

A young, possibly a child, human scream.

It took her half a second to make up her mind. She launched herself towards the scream, ignoring her legs' protests as she pushed forwards, gaining speed as the scream sounded again. Her heel caught on a twisted root and she stumbled, her heel breaking in the process. She glared at her shoes. It had to be this day that she chose to dress up. She cursed her luck. She didn't have time for this. The poor kid could be in mortal danger and here she was struggling with her fancy piece of garbage. She should have taken her sneakers. She almost did. She should have said screw it to her last day at work before her long awaited vacation.

She tore the heel and threw it to the side, ignoring the tinge of guilt at polluting such a clean environment and broke the other heel, put her shoes on, and started running again.

It didn't take her much to find the source of the commotion.

There, a young boy was struggling against a huge claw pinning him to the ground. The animal, a grotesque Frankensteinian beast that seemed to share a distant ancestor with wolves, had its mouth gaping open trying to get a bite of the poor kid whose only protection was some kind of knife, an arm's long, wedged between the beast’s teeth. The beast’s long tail swished around, twisting and swirling, making it hard for anyone to approach them.

Ayah stood there, staring at the horrific picture like she just stumbled into a nightmarish daydream. She might not have been an expert in the animal kingdom, but she was sure the mere existence of such a creature defied logic itself. If it wasn’t for the constant ache in her feet after the marathon run earlier, she would have thought she was dreaming.

Was she hallucinating?

Another pained groan bought her out of her musing. Ayah couldn't see much of the kid's face, but the red patches covering the front of his once gray tunic were spreading at an alarming pace.

The kid was hurt, and badly. She had to do something. She had to distract it. But how?

She squatted on the ground, her eyes not leaving the beast’s maw, and gathered in her arms the only weapon that the forest abundantly provided.

Rocks.

She threw the first rock. It landed a few feet away from it. The second. the third. Ayah cursed. Then the fourth hit the bull's eye. The animal stilled, its ears perking up and twitching. It growled, letting go of the long knife and snarled around in Ayah’s direction.

The beast must have thought it had already secured her first meal, why not go for the next.

It sprung forward, the muscles around its back rippling as it stalked its way towards Ayah. That distraction was all the boy needed. He sprung to his feet and swung his sword in an ark, cutting the beast’s head clean off. Its remaining body slumped to the floor, twitching for a moment, before stilling completely.

Ayah couldn’t take her eyes off its blood as it seeped to the forest floor and gathered into a pool. The sound of the boy dragging his feet towards her startled her from her daze. She glanced warily at the blood soaked blade, then back to his hunched form. The kid was a mess. A long gash ran along his chest, the blood oozing steadily from the visible flayed skin. His trousers were drenched in blood, either from his chest wound or another hidden one, Ayah wasn’t sure. Large punctures covered his right shoulder, his arm lay limp by his side. The poor kid looked like he went through a grinder.

Ayah’s eyes traveled back to the beast’s corpse. A shiver ran up her spine. The fact that he defeated that monster in such a state was a mystery.

The kid stumbled, couldn't right himself and fell to the ground, barely evading impaling himself with his own sword. Without wasting another second, Ayah rushed towards the slumped kid and leaned over him. He flinched away from her, his eyes wary and tired.

“Who are you?”

“No time for that,” she chided him. “We’ll have all the time in the world for introductions once the bleeding has stopped.”

“I’m fine.” He protested wearily, his uninjured hand weakly trying to swat her away.

“Fine?” Ayah leveled him with an incredulous stare. “You look like you’re two steps away from keeling over. How is that fine?”

“I can heal.”

Ayah frowned. What kind of nonsense was this kid spouting? Did he have a concussion? She looked worriedly at his bleeding head. If only her phone’s signal was still working.

“We have to leave. The others won’t be far behind.” He eyed the beast’s corpse warily.

Ah, there were others. Ayah cursed under her breath. Indeed they had to leave, but leaving now would hardly matter if the boy couldn’t last the night.

“Your wounds−”

“They will heal,” the boy insisted, his lips pulled into a grim line.

She glanced at his bloodied form and leveled him with a stern look. “We’ll stop the bleeding first.” She didn’t leave him room to protest.

The gash around his chest was deep. The kid would need stitches. She only had a small bottle of water−that she had bought earlier today, or was it yesterday? Ayah no longer knew−to clean the wound before patching it up the best she could. The lack of protests spoke volumes about the degrees of his injuries. His eyes were shut tightly, his chest trembling with every breath he took.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

She tore her vest into patches and used it as makeshift bandages around the most prominent wounds−the kid had reluctantly lent her his sword as she struggled with the hard fabric. It was heavy, too heavy for a kid his age to carry. She frowned. What was a kid who looked no older than fourteen doing alone in this godforsaken forest?− Her brows furrowed as she bandaged his leg. The wound was deep, but not as bad as the one on his chest.

It was bad, really bad. Ayah gritted her teeth as her mind wandered into even darker thoughts. What if his wounds were infected? She had no antibiotics on hand. The best they could do was hurry back to civilization, no matter where that was.

"Can you stand?" she asked.

The boy looked at her, his face scrunched in pain. "Wha−"

"Can you stand?" she repeated.

The kid nodded. She helped him up, but as soon as he was somewhat steady on his feet, he held his hand up to stop her. "I can walk on my own. You need to notify the others."

Ayah frowned. She had no idea what he was talking about, but she wasn't about to let an injured kid put on a brave mask and walk by himself when he was in so much pain.

Are those tears she could see glinting in his eyes?

She took hold of his hand and draped it over her shoulders, hunching over a little to accommodate his height.

"I can −" he started to protest, but his words died down at Ayah's hard stare.

"Let's go."

She dragged him away, hoping that they would stumble across a forest guard or a camper, or even better, the kid's parents. He needed to get to a hospital, and fast. They kept walking. Ayah told him words of encouragement each time a pained gasp escaped the boy's gritted teeth. At some point, his breathing became labored and sweat drenched his bloodstained clothes. She glanced at him worriedly. Maybe they should stop for now. She still had no idea where they were, and spending the night here wouldn’t be one of the top rated experiences on travel advisor, but the kid looked exhausted and slightly feverish.

She lowered him to the ground. His body lost all strength midway and he tipped sideways nearly bringing the both of them down. She gritted her teeth and halted his descent, her arms straining with the exertion. She peered at him. His eyes were open but glazed over, blinking drowsily but still unseeing.

She checked his wound and allowed herself a sigh of relief. The bleeding had stopped to a sluggish dripping. He wouldn’t die from blood loss. Unless he was suffering from internal bleeding, the thought flashed through her mind. She frowned. There was nothing she could do to help with that.

She observed him as his eyes slowly closed and his breath evened out in exhausted sleep, the occasional wheezing faint but present. She glanced at the specks of darkened sky through the canopy, streaks of red announcing the end of day. Soon, she wouldn't be able to see past her nose. Despite having no way to detect the animals−or heaven forbid, the monsters− that could be silently prowling in the darkness, she found herself straining her ears for a sign of their presence, squinting at the dancing shadows casted by the fading light.

She sat, and waited.

Ayah startled awake. She glanced down at her arm and shook off the main culprit that had dragged her away from her fretful sleep. The spider−hairy and half the size of her palm− jolted away and disappeared where, Ayah hoped, it would never come back from.

She looked around, confused for a moment, before the day’s memories rushed through her mind.

Right. The circle she had foolishly walked through, the forest, the monster, and the kid that was now wide awake and staring at her with guarded eyes.

“You’re awake,” she said.

The kid kept staring at her, refusing to answer.

Ayah glanced up. The darkness was easing a little and the soft morning breeze was rustling through the leaves. She ran her hand over her face. She was supposed to keep watch but an attempt to close her eyes and gather her strength for a moment, led to her complete surrender to exhaustion. She sighed. She wasn’t cut out for this.

“How’s your wound?” she asked.

He blinked, startled from his staring. He harrumphed, pouting, like he was offended by her question. “I’m fine,” he muttered.

Ayah peered at him, his shoulders tensing at her scrutinizing look. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you? Really?”

The kid glared at her. He opened his mouth to protest, then he froze. His head snapped to their left, breath hitching. He tilted his head to the side, his brows furrowed in concentration, as if he was listening for something.

Ayah willed away the panic that coursed through her chest. She started asking him what was happening, but he snapped his finger to his mouth, silencing her. She looked at him, her anxiety rising with each passing second.

Was it another monster?

She tried to listen for its paws, but nothing. She could hear nothing.

Then it hit her.

There was nothing. No birds. No squirrels. No wild cats. Nothing. The forest was bathed in an eerie silence. The only thing echoing around them were their breaths.

The boy looked at her, panic and distress clouding his eyes. “We need to leave,” he whispered.

She nodded, not daring to utter a word.

Ayah helped him to his feet, wincing at the boy’s sharp intake of breath. They trudged through the forest at a fast pace, pausing now and then to let him catch his breath and to hastily fasten whatever bandages came loose. Some wounds were still bleeding, torn open in their haste, though slowed down noticeably.

He truly was healing, and fast.

No matter how disturbing it was, it was also reassuring.

He guided her while she dragged him through the thick foliage. He would sometimes plant his feet on the ground, putting a stop to their trek, tilt his head, brows furrowed in concentration, then as abruptly as he stopped, he would tug her towards a new path.

Something was coming, and for some reason, only he could hear it.

They kept at it for a while, switching directions from right to left, left to right, back and forth, evading an invisible enemy. At least to Ayah. Her legs screamed at her, but she couldn't stop. Not now. She begged herself to hold on for a while. Just a little while. Then, they'd get out of here. Ayah swore she would exercise more. She would go to the gym every single day, for the rest of her life. If she could just hold on for a little while longer.

The boy lurched forward, bringing the both of them to the ground. Ayah looked at him in panic. Did his wounds get worse? Could he no longer walk? Should she carry him? Her mind ran over thousands of other possibilities, each of them more alarming than the other. But before she could say anything, a shadow lurched from behind a tree and passed over their heads.

Ayah swallowed thickly, it felt like sand was lodged inside her throat. The monster was on them, growling, thick saliva falling in chucks from its gaping mouth.

Ayah grabbed blindly for the boy's arm. His shoulders were tense, his eyes following the beast's every move.

Where were the forest guards? The military? How could this monster go under their radar?

The boy stood up on shaky legs, clutching the sword Ayah wasn't aware he still had with him. He stood between her and the monster. Ayah could see a trickle of blood travel from his boot to the ground. She cursed. Another wound had reopened.

“You have to go inform the general,” he said, his voice steady despite the slight tremors that run along his frame. “I'll hold it off.”

She frowned. What was this boy saying? Was he asking her to abandon him? She looked at his squared shoulders, his hands tightly gripping the sword like it was an extension of himself. Bravely facing the animal, his voice calm and steady, as if it was a daily occurrence.

She smiled wanly. While she appreciated his attempt to protect her, she was the adult here. And as an adult, protecting him was her job.

She stood up and pushed him gently to the side. “Go get help. I'll try to distract it,” she whispered, her eyes fixed on the monster. From the corner of her eye, she could see the dumbfounded look he was throwing her way. She wanted to snap at him to leave, but she feared any loud sound would entice the monster to attack.

Ayah glanced at the sword clutched in his hands, wondering only for a split second before tearing it from his grasp and pointing it towards the apex predator, ignoring the indignant splutters of the boy. She took a couple steps away from him and called to the monster to get its attention. The beast bared its fangs at her, ignoring the boy.

Perfect. Now he could leave and get the forest guards, the police, or…just leave. Ayah doubted even the military had any protocol to deal with these kinds of monsters.

Her arms strained as she tried to hold the sword up. The monster prowled towards her, its red eyes glinting.

“Evil creature. This shall be your last day on earth,” the kid announced, a hand held high towards the beast.

Ayah looked at him, baffled. What was this fool still doing here?

“Leav−”

The beast lunged towards her, Ayah had barely enough time to dart to the left to evade instant death. But her arm wasn’t as lucky. Its claws tore through the skin, cutting deep. She let out a howl of pain as a burning feeling spread from the bleeding wound.

Her arm was on fire.

Initiation process…

Processing…

A strange text appeared in front of her, floating. Ayah ignored it, and glanced at the monster as it readied its next attack. She would try to make sense of it later. Words didn’t just appear out of nowhere.

Processing…

The text kept blinking in and out of existence, distracting her. She cursed under her breath. She had enough on her plate to last her a lifetime. This was the last thing she needed.

The beast lunged towards her. Ayah had no chance to stop it. Its fangs made contact with the sword shattering it into million pieces. She hissed in pain as one piece nicked her shoulder. She could feel warmth trickling down her arms but she couldn’t take her eyes away from the cavernous mouth threatening to take a taste of her. She stumbled back as the beast made another move, barely avoiding getting her head bitten off.

She lunged to the side, landing on her knees, but before she could lumber herself away, the beast’s jaw closed around her ankle and threw her away. The agonized scream that was building its way out Ayah’s throat got cut off as her back connected painfully against a tree trunk. She heard something breaking but her mind was too muddled with pain to decipher what it was.

She was dying.

Ayah couldn’t think about anything past that horrifying thought.

She was dying and there was nothing she could do about it.

She was going to die in this godforsaken land she had willingly stepped into.

Blood trickled past her lips and down her chin, and joined the bloody pool slowly collecting around her prone body. She could feel the rocks dig into her face, and in her fuzzy field of vision, she could see small insect-like creatures gather around her, waiting, anticipating.

The ground shook around her with every step the behemoth took. She tried to think of a way out, of something she could do to escape her looming death, but the pain from her wounds was slithering to the front of her mind, although her senses were dulling.

She opened eyes she hadn’t noticed she had closed to glance at the monster. It poised its body upward, ready to pounce at her.

She tried to move, to get out of its way, to run… nothing. Her body refused to obey her.

Her eyes stung and tears collected at the corner then spilled to rejoin the bloody mess.

She didn't want to die.

She still had lots of things to do, lots of places to see, lots of firsts to experience.

‘This sucks, I finally managed to get some vacation time.’

The monster twisted and lunged forward, its gaping mouth salivating at the promise of a meal.

Player detected.

Processing…

Initiating ‘Survival Protocol.’

You have five seconds before imminent death. Would you like to use the Special skill: ‘Heaven's wrath’?

Yes/No.

Five…

Four…

Three…

Skill used successfully.

A bright light shone from the sky and struck the monster. Its body disintegrated into ashes. The only remaining sign of its existence were its once extended claws that lay a few feet from her, charred.

The last thing she saw before blissful darkness welcomed her, was the horrified look on the boy’s face. A look of terror directed at her.