The Master had a haggard appearance, his regal mage's robes the only testament to his esteemed status. His hair was unkempt, and his nails bore the greenish tinge of aged ink beneath them. Ink smudges marred his face like the grime of a street beggar. Yet, an oddly sweet scent clung to him, a deceptive fragrance masking the unsettling truth.

He employed his lightning magic to conjure purple bolts—coronal discharge—that produced ozone gas. This gas, formed by the violent separation of air molecules, served as his unconventional means of disinfection. Ozone's corrosive nature made it deadly to bacteria, and equally perilous to human lungs, necessitating meticulous precision in its use.

The sugary aroma emanated from sorbitol, a sweet-tasting laxative. When combined with saltpetre, it generated explosive gases. He ground the sorbitol finely, its grains embedded amongst the robes fibres as eternal evidence to his time in his lab.

His mastery of Wind and fire was however unparalleled. He was famed for conjuring earth-shattering fire tempests, leaving only ash in their wake as they ate through even metals.

But few knew his actual talents, and fewer still were left alive after knowing so. He didn't weald the ability to turn his internal Mana into fire, nor was he able to weave lightning. He only had a single trick up his sleeve, his closest guarded secret.

Once, he was waling on an unpaved trail once, only lit by the short-night moon and scant starlight, puffs of clouds casting humungous shadows on the world below. He was cold, and very much unprepared. It hadn't been very long since he found himself in unfamiliar lands, and his cheap grey T-shirt and denim joggers were a pathetic excuse for winter clothes. He trod forward in his slip-ons, ones he had been wearing at the hotel just the night before, and their flopping was the only sound in the forest, save the occasional rustling of leaves.

He wasn't quite awake, but felt, strangely, he wasn't dreaming either. Not only that, but he could feel the hoarseness of his throat, the burn on his forearm, and the itch in his beard. It was too vivid, but ethereal still.

He felt everything quieten. Even the rare cricket couldn't be heard.

His footsteps halted.

Turning his shoulders in a slow, firm motion, not daring to make a sound, he looked back.

Nothing was quite visible at first, but as the clouds parted, he saw a brief, but certain, glint.

The bushes hid it well, but as the clouds parted more, brown fur became visible amongst the dark shrubbery.

It was the color of sandstone, and he could see the outline of its body.

The hair on his back rose, and he didn't dare breathe. It was looking at him.

In a blur of motion and a deafening roar, piercing his ears that were starved for sound, it charged forward. His vision narrowed, and he had no way to know what it was; he only knew he had to fight or flee.

In the face of the unknown, he fled — it was a mistake.

He didn't look back and sprinted, his frantic panting and heavy footsteps drowning out all else.

Having made less than a few meters, he felt a cold sensation on his back — almost like a breeze on the beach — followed by a warm, comforting current that spread through his body.

Then came the pain.

The supple skin of his back was pulled back like a bowstring, and he felt his flesh part from his bone. The tug, alongside the soul-piercing pain, made his legs give way, his teeth digging into his lips as his face hit the ground. He couldn't feel his mouth. He couldn't feel his body. Only pain remained.

Somehow, he pushed off the ground with his palms and elbows, his torso facing the enemy, chin covered in a paste of dirt and blood.

The creature stood in the bright moonlight, its snout moist and ears perked. It took him a while, but now he had no doubt — it was a boar.

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Its hooves beat the ground like a drum as it built up speed for a fatal charge. Foam dripped from its open jaw, the soiled tusks dripping blood, as it kept gaining speed.

He knew he was done for. It was the end now. Nothing flashed before his eyes; he saw no angels. It was him and the boar.

His hands were raised, the only thing that stood instinctively between him and the boar.

Suddenly, a sharp pain from his palms was accompanied by gushing past his ears. He felt his eardrum burst and a warm trickle down his left cheek. The boar lay upturned, on the ground in front, its ribs pushing out on its skin and dark blood flowing out its motionless mouth.

He saw its eyes move and twitch, as red as its mouth, until the forest's silence resumed. It was dead. How, he knew not, for he was too stunned to understand.

He sat right there until the pain flared. His vision began to darken as he used the last of his will to take his T-shirt off, struggling to ball it up, unable to feel his fingers — he lay still looking at the starry sky with not a single one he recognised.

Not knowing how much time had passed, he peeled his eyes open. Rays of morning sun shone through, and he had his back against a tree. His T-shirt had managed to stop him from bleeding out. His entire forearm was stripped of hair and lay tinted red beside him.

The pain burned him. He felt every pump of his heart as it pulsed the wound with spikes of gut-wrenching anguish. He wished he was dead.

But he was alive.

He felt his hands hit his pocket, undoing the zip. He found his phone, its corner shattered but the screen intact. He also found a lighter, an empty box of cigarettes, and his wallet.

Sitting down, he fell in thought. He wasn't a huge camper, nor was he Bear Grylls. The extent of his outdoor skills were occasional treks, fishing with colleagues, and the time he spent studying glaciers.

He turned on his phone and saw the battery. "Shit. Just 40%," he cursed.

Thinking quickly, he opened an app he had stashed away. "Thank goodness and Jung's beautiful ass," he sighed. His friend from his time in Korea, years back, had insisted on having this app, 'Survival Guide,' no more than a dozen megabytes, on his phone. The only time he used it was for barbecues to light a fire, and once when Teodora fractured her finger.

The app was just a glorified text file reader, with a compressed folder of survival instructions, and low-resolution, black-and-white illustrations.

He navigated to the first aid section with shaky fingers and scrolled to read:

**Veins. Venous blood is blood that is returning to the heart through blood vessels called veins. A steady flow of dark red, maroon, or bluish blood characterises bleeding from a vein. You can usually control venous bleeding more easily than arterial bleeding.**

**You can control external bleeding by direct pressure, indirect (pressure points) pressure, elevation, digital ligation, or tourniquet. Each method is explained below.**

He had stopped the bleeding by stuffing his T-shirt in it, but it was going to hurt _bad_ till it healed. He had no signal at all, not even on GPS.

Very odd. He knew there had to be at least four satellites overhead at any spot on earth at any time. He must have broken his antenna in his phone.

No matter. But this environment was completely different from the hotel near the test site. They were near a desert, and this certainly looked nothing like it.

The last thing he remembered was being in his room last night. How on earth did he end up here?

He had to find help, civilisation, someone. He had to move.

Not wanting to waste any more time, he powered his phone off. Trying to move his abdomen was met with knife-stabs in his back.

He bit his lips as he used the tree to support him as he got up. His lip bled too. Trying his best, he stood.

He saw the boar's body now in daylight. Its leg had been chewed away by something small at night, and it had begun to stink. Looking closely, he noticed something he hadn't the night before. The boar had only one tusk, and it was pointed outwards, such that the boar would have to look right for it to point forward.

Not only that, its snout was longer and pointing down, and its hind leg, the remaining one, was much shorter than the front.

Very, very odd indeed.

Resting his hand on the low-hanging branch, its leaves yellowed in preparation for autumn, he decided to break it and use it as a walking stick. It was thin enough to break while resting his back against the tree, and did so by twisting it.

He walked with this stick, his back in an awkward angle, his other hand holding the T-shirt in place. He walked for what seemed like days, he checked his phone. It had been over 4 hours, with frequent breaks and rests, but the sun hadn't even properly risen. He fell in deep thought.

"Either the phone's internal clock, as well as my sense of time, is broken, or I'm in a forest in the Arctic circle or Antarctica, or I'm dreaming. I may be even on goddamned mercury," he said aloud.

"But the phone wouldn't work if the clock was broken, my adrenalin has worn off, and I was thousands of kilometres from the poles. I must be dreaming, from Occam's razor, as I'd be dead on mercury, frozen or vaporised," he chuckled.

Dreaming… would he bet his life on it? What if he died, will he wake up? What if it wasn't a dream? He would surely not wake up.

"Fools fret over the board when gods play dice." he comforted himself. There was nothing at all he could to know with certainty, so he might as well assume the worst and hope for the best. He was alive and awake here, and he had to survive.