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It worked. The hits were glancing, but the thin-skinned opobawa creature took it poorly. It briefly collapsed to my celebration, only to swiftly upright like Dracula himself.

From the shadow section of camp, a blur of black swiveled its features in my direction. Long strands of membrane connected strange wings to an even stranger humanoid appearance.

Far from blind, its red eyes saw me better by night than day. But the death glare didn’t put me on my back foot; that came after it screeched to high hell.

Echolocation?

The tone jumped as my hairs stood up. I prepared my fiery whip for another lashing, but the sudden explosion of sound warped the air as a shockwave careened towards me.

The sonic blast sent me backwards like a ragdoll in Skyrim. Thrown far from my pitch with my eardrums ringing, the pressure against my chest was indistinguishable from a football tackle.

Fortunately, my heart took it like a champ. All the pain came from my ribcage, and, of course, my numbing left arm. Each new exertion took more blood from my body and sent it out of a torn arm that would probably never work again.

And that was the optimistic scenario. The longer this nightmare went on, the more likely my monster safari would end in a bloody finale.

Instead of fearing a follow-up sonic blast, I again drew my makeshift whip, but now with the needed upgrade of tent cover.

Unperturbed, the giant bat opted for ability two.

Opening its wings in ways it had yet to demonstrate, my jaw unhinged at its fully uncloaked glory. I watched in amazed confusion as it flapped its bus-length wingspan while keeping its claws hooked to the cage. The bonfire adapted to the tension in the air, but the green lamps did not. They all blew out.

Some even took flight.

Temporarily engrossed in the cinematic moment, my gut instinct quickly drew out new concerns. If this was a horror film, the lamps served some kind of supernatural purpose. Annoyingly, I still didn’t know what any of ‘this’ was, but I’d save the net assessment for the post-game analysis.

Right now, I needed to save lives before my life went to waste.

I tried to prepare my whip for a third time, to strike it away like it was a creature from a cruel circus show, but the flaps and gusts kept coming. The flames were quickly cutting the rest of my rope of bedding down to size, and the air pressure kept me from a forward attack. With my whip eating itself alive, my game clock neared zero.

I hoped — I wondered — if my oppressed friends could do anything to help me help them.

Instead, the cubic sea of faces challenged my morale. The blindfolds gone, all I recognized underneath were looks of terror. The mist was their defensive mechanism, that much I gleamed.

But had it backfired?

Did they summon batboy as a last resort, or try to shield themselves from his inevitable wrath?

Whatever they tried was poorly calculated, at least from my perspective. My whip finally failed me as the meaningful half burned to an unusable crisp, so I took refuge behind the bonfire. The bat screeched again, the blast-free kind, and continued to claw its way into the cage.

I needed a weapon, a real one, but something about my weapon deficit struck me as odd. The three fresh corpses nearest to me belonged to the former slavers. Unlike the few slaves that met logical ends from the opobawa, the traffickers — the masters, were equally impotent.

They kept no weapons…

All they had were handfuls of crystal coins. Handfuls that now filled my pockets.

Before I speculated any further, I heard a scream more human than bat.

The beast got in.

A brave bronze soul jumped out of the opening gash to take his chances. The bat took his life instantly, grabbing him by a row of teeth more wolf than humanoid. I immediately felt ill at the sight of vicious violence.

And now, with the enlarged tear in the cage, the trickle of death would become a flood.

But his brash sacrifice was an opportunity for the others. With precious time to climb out, many piled through as the bat remained occupied with its recent kill. Slaves squeezed out like circus performers. For a second, I thought I witnessed the same acrobatics from police footage of migrants flooding out of a pulled over van.

Their messy escape transpired in slow motion. The unfairness of life and death was on full display. Without a weapon and no other options, this would be it for my aid — my side of the equation had equalized. Before I hightailed it out of here, a few successful escapees gestured at me. They pointed to the treeline. The dark forest had become a stadium ring, filled to the brim with glowing eyes.

More red eyes.

Damn.

Several gathered at different corners of the camp, seemingly summoning courage for a desperate sprint to sanctuary, if such a place exists beyond the everwoods.

Implicitly, I understood their gambit. The escapees, of which there were many now, would each flee to their own corner. Hopefully, enough would make it through safely after the first wave of brave souls occupied the hungry opobawas waiting in the wing.

This was a twist on the ‘faster friend escapes the bear’ scenario, and it left a sour taste in my mouth. A few would die sacrificially… so the many had a chance?

The slaves looked committed to that strategy, but I’d rather burn the forest down than die in the dark.

As the screams of the first wave of slaves began to oppress my conscious, I desperately looked to the swollen campfire for a solution.

It came with a crackle.

Unable to tolerate the tortured cries any further, I gave my dying left-arm one last mission.

My blood burned more than my hand as I grabbed tossable timber from the bonfire. Ignoring the silent cries of my numbing fingers, I spun the firewood away like sticks for hyper dogs. I guessed the forest floor was crunchy enough to kindle — it wasn’t quite a California fire risk, but it would do.

And low and behold, ignition came. In one lucky corner, a bed of leaves snapped with elemental displeasure. The engorging fire traced the leaf fall like a snake at a mouse buffet. And around the flaming fireworks, the red eyes disappeared. I later saw them rejoin the other pairs elsewhere.

The escapees noticed too. Minus the few that were formerly bait, the rush of bodies became a river. My escape plan was now the hottest thing in town. There must’ve been 40 souls at least, pushing through the camp and towards the fire exit. At first I wanted to run with them, but the stampede had too much inertia. So I fell back, already out of balance from a hurt chest and a rapidly declining left arm.

There was no use playing pretend anymore. I’d die from blood loss or infection from 3rd degree wounds.

The reservations for my last supper finally came through.

Soberly satisfied with the efforts I gave in my last act, I caught the eye of a panicked female slave at the tail end of the fleeing mob. Her purple hair and violet eyes were the only beautiful sight this night.

She gave me a puzzling look before abandoning any loyalty she could’ve shown to my heroic efforts.

Fortunately, Will stayed with me while the others fled. Knowing I would join him soon, I prepared myself for one last mission. I — we still had to see daylight.

Until dawn do us apart.

Silly, I know, but I wanted my last death to be surrounded by the life of a new day.

So I wrapped my blackened left hand with the tatters of my exhausted whip and clenched a blazing branch as I prepared to part the sea of red eyes.

A few left to chase the slaves through the briefly lived forest fire I created, but most opobawas crept out of the wood line to loiter at the camp. Some eyed me with interest, while others were curiously disinterested.

At least the monsters will keep me company in thick and thin.

Sadly, I couldn’t escape through the fading fires I started, not anymore. Nor could I follow the chattel by trailing around the burnt brush.

Those slaves… Fear got to them, and I didn’t want to lead the pack to their presumed safety.

They went their own way.

I’d go my way.

My blazing branch did the work I expected. The giant mothman-esque bats feared the fire. Several stood like statues, perhaps waiting for it to burn out before they struck, while those in the way got out of my way.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

I labored forward, breaching the knowns of the camp for the unknowns of the woods while dispersing the red eyes that formerly occupied the latter. My pace was slow, but as long as I held my makeshift torch, the bats stayed in the shadows.

Granted, hanger-ons followed, but my descent into the darkness of the everwood would only end with daylight.

Of course, I could aim higher, but I didn’t know which direction led to civilization.

So I settled with my brightest memory, the path I took when I drove the mardekkle to camp.

A few red eyes floated around, usually behind me, but the woods gradually consumed them. Of course, there were those that got close from time to time, and in those terrifying moments, I said my prayers. Which, for me, were usually numbers from my countdown. Between prayers and the numbered temple I sent my mind to, only one kept my mind at ease.

…ninety-four…

Nine hundred eighty-eight…

Nine hundred…

Gradually I stopped counting, the fear leaving me as I grew accustomed to their occasional jumpscares.

And finally, with all the joy my body couldn’t physically give, I celebrated the moment all eyes were gone.

With time to think, I concluded the opobawas didn’t want to risk leaving the camp corpses behind to chase tricky rats like me.

Even super predators went for the easiest meal.

Attuned to the route by memory, I retraced my steps, stopping to listen every few feet for sounds of pursuit. In some way, shape, or form, I had been chased all night. Now paranoia chased me.

I couldn’t deny the possibility that some could circle back and stalk me, especially with their sensory advantage.

But I figured I’d hear them in the skies first. When the opobawa flapped earlier, it smacked the air like a hundred umbrellas opening and closing.

Though, it also floated without flying…

What the fuck was up with that?

This carnival of cryptozoological creatures challenged my ability to stay sane. As my fight and flight hormones retreated from my bloodstream, the time would shortly come when I’d have to accept a terrible truth. Either I was brain dead and trapped in some classified government cerebral terrorizing simulation, or… the less likely conclusion, I was ise—

I froze. No sounds found me, but my sights found something strange indeed. The book, Intelligence for Idiots, had returned and was floating right in front of my face.

Human fingers grasped its spine.

“This yours?” A female voice came at me from dead ahead.

Uncertain at best, I held my embering firewood to a point, ready to stab a vampire in the heart if I had to. In fact, at this point, I almost expected to.

Instead, the figure revealed itself as something more familiar.

A slave?

Her condition was rough and her skin barely kept itself together. She appeared thoroughly abused by the forest and the worst of mankind’s most unkind men.

Her outfit was suitably disregarded, a reflection of the value her owners probably gave her. She didn’t take after the bronze-skinned or purple-hair slaves I met earlier, but all signs pointed to…

“What happened? How did you get here?” She asked.

I softened my stance. “Obviously I ran.”

Her barely visible facial features scrunched up.

“What about you? Flew in by parachute?” I wasn’t trying to be funny — I’m always like this when nervous. You die enough times and you learn to mock the lighter things.

I took a friendly step forward and she smiled at me. Perhaps a bit too much for a slave.

My rising mood didn’t last. I winced as my nerves returned a rare shot of pain. My left arm needed help, and fast. This was my body telling me, despite blood loss, that something needed to be done or I wouldn’t make the next hour.

“Give me the book, I need to wrap my arm. I think I can make a tourniquet with a stick and some twisted paper.”

She gave me a blank look, like I spoke in a foreign language.

“I want to make to dawn,” I admitted. The waterfall of blood coagulating at my charred left hand must’ve given quite the impression.

“I’ll help,” she said slowly. “But first, come with me. I found a hollow we can hide in.”

Why didn’t I think to look for those? With those super bats floating or flying around, deep cover sounded smart. If I hadn’t met her, I probably would’ve dived into the sea of leaves and made it my grave by morning.

She led me to the largest tree outline I had seen yet, which was saying something in a forest where trees inexplicably came in all sizes.

The hollow she hinted at was not in the tree's trunk, but at its base, like a basement.

“This species of evertree grows cavities in its giant roots when it reaches old age.” She stopped to appreciate the earth beneath her. “It’s a crafty way to sleep forever.”

Another mystery for the night. Tree’s ending their own lives.

The heartwood entrance was wide enough for us to enter, but not without carrying a bit of the outside into the inside. I took sap on my shoulders and some crumbling bark with my working head. It didn’t help that I got jumpscared by a giant rodent.

“A chuditch,” the woman explained. “They’re harmless.”

Peeved at my rare moment of mental weakness, I asked her why the admittedly cute fella looked like a rat the size of a cat.

She paused at my question as we sat in the cool but smelly hollow.

After an awkward silence, she opened her mouth. “Where did you grow up?”

The thought of anything prior to tonight immediately grounded me in more peaceful memories. “New Orleans.”

Another smile untouched by slavery crossed her face.

Despite the spongy softness of the root stock floor, I grew uncomfortable.

“Y-you know — Um, where the closest road is? Where we are?”

“I do,” she said languidly.

Almost immediately, my heart fluttered. Thank God.

Civilization… a hospital… My hopes skyrocketed through the trunk and into the beyond.

Returning to Earth, my thankfulness coated my face as she reciprocated with a warm expression.

As I resisted the urge to fall in love with my rescuer, I noticed the fine details of her face for the first time. Her eyes reminded me of fresh water, her lips of my soft bed, and her nose holes… the arched gateways of a classic McDonald’s drive-thru.

Granted, her pull was more Stockholm than seductive. My desperation imprinting is strong, I thought with amusement.

Surprising, considering the stank this damp, underground crevice gives off.

“Then—” I started.

“But it’s a long walk and I’m hungry,” she interrupted. “Let’s eat first.”

“You have something to eat?”

“Yes, but I like to play with my food first.” She leaned in as I felt a tinge of surrealism creep in. “In fact, that’s the whole reason I’m here,” she said, and simultaneously I heard a bat scream in the night. “We’re here,” she corrected.

Of-fucking course.

As I opened my dry mouth, she held her finger to my lips. “Shhhh.”

Utterly alarmed, I flourished my burning rod. It was more a hot red than a fiery red at this point. The magic of its dense cotton materials put up a good fight to last this long, but I’d call on it once again.

“Stay ba—”

“Stay quiet,” she said, unphased by the smoky stick I brandished. In our shared silence, she made no move to attack me.

I didn’t understand what the hell was going on right now. I only knew everything here wanted me dead or enslaved. America is rough, but not this rough.

As the winds beyond the hollow carried nothing more, she moved closer. The slow creep was enough to make me doubt her intentions.

The fresh water in her eyes had gone red. Little less doubt now.

“I guess I’m supposed to eat you now,” she said.

“I kinda hoped you meant that in another—” I swung my stick. “—way.”

Her arm took a direct hit, the exposed skin burned blue instead of black. Her presentation was already strange, but I knew better. She might not be a slave, but she was certainly less than human.

Swatting her extended arm away again, I crouched back to observe my work, feeling disgruntled with my pathetic display of self-defense. The human-shaped being didn’t cry out with any strike. She didn’t react normally at all. In fact, she sat back, her hands up.

“Settle down. I’m not that kind of predator,” she said. She had no smile to give this time. In fact, she looked distant. Like the slaves that left me.

My brain jumped to all kinds of places. Dumb one’s first, but then it grew into a storm of possibility. The sights and sounds of Halloween eventually swirled until they consumed everything. Not every horror hunted for flesh. Did I encounter a beast so powerful it didn’t need to feed to be fulfilled?

“Then what are you? The kind that enjoys the chase?”

“The kind that’s curious.” She raised her arm and a flicker of movement surrounded her wrist. “The others eat because they are young and simple, unaware they’re consumed in equal measure. I hunt to see. To learn.”

The dim lighting from my firewood played tricks on my eyes. It must’ve, because around her wrist grew an assembly of light. A triangular shape rotated and glowed with a life of their own.

Huh?

She placed her out-of-this-world hand onto my shoulder. My chest ran out of air, as if the hollow made me severely claustrophobic. In a dreamy bewilderment, I watched my left arm turned green. A plasmic green. It matched the carnival wrapping her hand and wrist.

“What the hell are you…” I tempered my volume, forgetting how to speak as I watched the show. “…doing to me?”

“Healing.”

Is this like the cage illusion?

Against the green glow of mysterious magic, streams of blood evaporated as my teeth marks shrunk. Pins and needles returned to my arm, and finally a comforting warmth I recognized as optimal health. My shoulder and arm returned to me in mint condition.

“How are you doing this? Are you like those chanters with the mist?” I didn’t have a smart way to ask about it. I was currently driven by a childlike confusion.

“The power of the Charoite is different. They believe the will of the planet protects them. And thus pray for assistance.”

I did get Native American vibes from the purple-haired people. But with the ears, the other vibe came stronger.

More importantly, none of this — I looked to my toothy wound as it melded together — should be possible.

“I don’t rely on…” She hesitated for a moment. “Trickle-down assistance to utilize power.”

While she looked pleased with her word selection, I became inundated with a million questions.

Before I could inject the first, she shoved her hand into my pocket and out again. “These.” She let the coins fall with dramatic flair. “Are power.”

My confusion grew with every clink. The pile rose until it was a pyramid of crystalized goodness and glamour.

“Some are money. Some are magic. Together, they make this world come to life. They are the energy of the System. The blood of the land and its people.”

“So you came to rob me.” I blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

She laughed, a painful clangor that echoed more than it should’ve.

“No, I don’t want the box and bow. I don’t even want the prize within. I want the idea. Freedom.” And then she closed her eyes. “The truth is… I came to escape.” Her whisper was so inaudible I may have imagined it.

Taken aback, I blinked a few times. I wasn’t prepared for a monster car chase, monstrous men, and a monster mystery all in one night. Maybe one week, but a single night was pushing it.

“Um.” After her astonishing admission, I decided to press my luck. “Listen you… bat cryptid.” I said as straightened my and deepened my voice. “Spare me the cryptic speech and tell me what the hell is going on. I need to get back to where I belong.” I pointed in a random direction as her eyes followed my fingers like a cat watching a lizard.

“All things considered, I’m probably suffering a traumatic brain injury from too many volts to the skull. Or, somehow, I’m logging the world’s worst DMT trip. Hell, I might even be in the afterlife already.” I held my hands just shy of my face, my vision just shy of reality.

“These are three problems I can’t afford, not even with your crystal coins.” I took a coin from the top of the pile, gripping it like the lens of a magnifying glass, looking for its true essence. “You see, I have a weak heart. I’m not one for all this violence and monster mayhem.”

“That’s a shame, because death comes for us all.”

“It comes for me all the time. We just aren’t a good match. I leave it on read, sure, but I never let it in.” I spoke easily now. My words flowed in perfect alignment with my true essence.

Her big eyes shrunk as she squinted through my speech.

Sighing, I explained myself.

“My life is not real. Like this place. It doesn’t matter.” I pointed to myself, and then back to her. “Only the mind matters, and mine is really craving some 1st-world drive-thru. And then a hospital. And eventually dawn. Though, perhaps not that order.” My lips stretched as my thoughts came lightly. “I guess I could do delivery. Anything to avoid the hospital jello. But — but more importantly.” I waved my hands since I went off track. “If you aren’t gonna — uh, eat me…” I said sheepishly. “Then I need you to show me the road, so I can get home.”

I didn’t care if I was in self-denial, the idea of home gave me fuel, it kindled my hope. Like the sunlight I wanted to share with Will.

“Please,” I said, trying and failing to keep the emotion out of my voice. “Please help me get back.”

She gave me an entertained expression as she took a red knife from her raggy garments. I pulled my head out of the clouds and eyed its rusty edge ominously, aware she could kill me at any time.

“You’re right,” she said, giving me her first genuine grin. Was it friendly or was it fiendish?

“You aren’t a fit for this world.”

I steeled myself.

“…and what world would that be?”

“Nebunarrik—” she said as she slit her throat.

Grim truth sprayed all over me. Her blood wound its way down my chest until it touched my heart, which beat to a count so high it might burst.

Drowning in a stupor, I wiped my neck of her gooey black lifeforce and gulped down a fear I had never felt before.

…

…N-

Nine hundred —

Eighty-four…