While in oblivion you have lots of time to think. If what your soul or whatever, does is thinking. I mostly think about my family. I never wed or really ever had a girlfriend, never had the time. I was always too busy working to better myself or make my businesses successful. I always had thought I wasn't good enough or something and by the time I decided I was good enough, I was fat and starting to get old. Pretty stupid if you ask me, but I don't regret it. I did good work.

I think about my brother, whether he survived or not. I hope he did, he was going to marry his girlfriend soon... and well just started to get into business. I wonder how my dad will react to my death. Will he keel over out of shock? Or will he keep surviving with sadness in his heart? I hope it wasn't too hard on him, all I ever really cared about was making him proud. What about mom? I hope she isn't driven mad out of grief. I also think about my little sister, she had just graduated from med school, I hope she will have a successful career and I hope my death doesn't slow her down.

I think about how selfish I was for trying to save the day. I didn't know the guys' intentions. Was he just psychotic? On Drugs? Politically motivated? Would we even have been in danger if we tried to escape? I don't know and it burns my soul. How could I have been so selfish, to throw myself into danger for people I don't know, to fight against reasons I'll never know? But, what I did was good. I hopefully stopped a terrorist from killing dozens if not hundreds of people. At least... I can rest in eternity with the knowledge, that I did at least one good deed before I died...

I figured out why newborns cry when they are born. It's because they are pissed. I lived my life, I was starting to get old, and I came to terms that I had died. Now I am back again, as a writhing, cold, and wet newborn. I dealt with all the struggles of growing up, why do I have to do it again? Absolute bullshit if you ask me. I try to make my concerns known but my tongue doesn't work all I can do is scream and cry as I am trapped in a body that I can't even move right. I'm hungry, I'm cold, and I do not want to be here. Worst of all I can't even see right, everything is foggy and it's dim as hell.

My tantrum is instantly stopped as I am pressed against something warm. A soothing voice I can't understand, in fact, the voice sounds like it is talking through a wall, distant and hard to hear, but it's comforting. I realize the person is singing and is female. This must be my new mother. My anger slowly disappears as I am warmed up by the body heat of my mother, I know I must latch on to her if I am to eat but... it feels wrong. I mean I don't even know the lady and well it's kinda awkward, but eventually, I break and I get my first meal in...

In the first years of my new life, I learn a lot. First is where I have been born. It's some different world like that Japanese isekai trope I used to enjoy before it got way too oversaturated and stopped being enjoyable. So far this world isn't too wildly fantastical. I mean there are strange animals that are referred to as "monsters" that are wild beasts that are naturally aggressive toward humans for seemingly no reason, and sometimes have fantastic traits. Usually, this is in the form of strange colors, sizes, hybridization, and extra limbs. Honestly nothing too crazy of these traits, but the monsters are still incredibly dangerous especially to a toddler, even if that toddler has the same wisdom and insight as a thirty-plus-year-old man.

I was born into a strange culture. I have no name because I haven't earned my name yet. I don't know what that means but I guess I'll figure it out later. The culture or nation I am in is odd. It's really a loosely related group of city-states that each is its own racial group that has wildly different customs from one another, collectively we call ourselves the Frontiersmen, but the rest of the world calls us the Outcasts.

These city-states do not get along at all, constant warring and competition between one another, but apparently, the rest of the world hates us so much that we are willing to join together. Within the largest grouping of the Frontiersmen, there are smaller coalitions within them which can be best described as a group of most similar cultures and ethnicities. For example, is me. I am from the racial and cultural group known as Stella Coyote. The city is known as Yotesden. We are in a culture group called the Hounds of Luna, which includes other cities and groups named after canid cuneiforms. Overall we are Frontiersmen. It's somewhat complicated but I got used to it pretty quickly. The worst part is the language issues.

I learned four languages since I was born in this world. First is my mother's tongue, known as the Dance of the Coyote which sounds very similar to the language of the Cherokee back on earth. Then I learned the Howl of the Moon language, a common tongue for the Hounds of Luna group, then finally was the Song of Diplomacy, which is the common language of the entirety of the Frontiersmen that sounds very close to Latin. My last language is known as Merchantillist which apparently is a universal language used by traders outside of the frontier.

The Stella Coyote is a strange group if you ask me. I am not an uncommon sight here, with blue eyes, brown hair, and slightly tanned skin. Culturally it's an unholy mix of, some kind of native American, Tolkein dwarves, the clans from Battletech, and Arabic for good measure. It somehow works. The frontier where the Stella Coyotes live is what I would call western. Pine forests and freezing mountains, to flat sands and burning heat. We live smack in the middle of this in a city carved into one of the mountains. The architecture is somewhat Romantic but seems largely Arab in structure with domes and arches everywhere. The food is absolutely amazing though. Due to the biomes, we call home, most of our food is wild game of various kinds, including monsters. Lots of garlic and milk-based gravy and nearly every meal is amazing.

My parents this whole time are incredibly loving. They are longtime sweethearts and had a kid the instant they got married. My mother is a stunningly beautiful woman who works as a leatherworker, but taking care of me she decided to lower her workload. My father is a decorated veteran who has been allowed to stay home in order to raise me right. It seems the Frontiersmen as a whole dedicate a lot toward raising children, each culture has its own way of doing things, but in all of them, parents are dismissed of duties in order to rear a child.

To say I was trained right is an understatement. I learned every single Frontiersman martial art from my father and the old men of the city. By the time I am twelve I could be considered a force of nature. My previous life training in wrestling helped me along, as I had some base knowledge of combat sports. I learned how to use every weapon I would be able to get my hands on and was encouraged to create my own style of fighting using all that I had learned. I came to enjoy this way of life. Training, fighting, hunting, learning, and playing with my parents. This life isn't so bad. Then it was time for me to become a man and earn a name at age fifteen.

Every city of the frontiersmen has its own naming rituals. Some people go their entire lives without a name to themselves, but aren't lesser, just unable to move into leadership positions. Stella Coyote has a fairly brutal one. It's the same for everyone regardless of gender, stature, or upbringing. If you don't succeed you do not get a name, and you do not get a redo aside from certain exceptions such as a war or sickness.

First I was stripped naked in front of everyone. Then I am given a stupidly strong psychedelic drink. Afterward, my head is bagged and a randomly selected group of people from the city carry me to a random spot somewhere in the wilderness. The goal is to make it back home with a trophy from some kind of beast or monster that must outweigh us. This trial is to keep the city's occupants strong, and those who are unable to survive are unfortunately not worthwhile but are still given proper funerals. The naming ritual happens every year at the turn of spring, meaning the mountains are frozen, and the desert is scorching. Pretty terribly. I am also not the only one sent out, but rules state we are not supposed to help one another, plus we are taken to different parts of the wilderness.

Here I am. Butt-ass naked on top of a mountain coming down from a bad trip where a tall dark figure wearing a wide-brimmed hat kept telling me how useless I am. I am able to remove the bag from my head as soon as my limbs start working again after the powerful drug. The people who brought me up here are long gone by now. The hat man is still here and I hear music coming from everywhere around me. The drug has not worn off, and it will not for another few days. I am above the treeline on the mountain and I see night coming. I am FUCKED.

I semi-fall down the mountain and make it to the treeline with a few hours to spare before dark. Quickly I get to work utilizing the training my father gave me. The trees this high are thin and scrawny not giving much of a wind break, but I am able to rip them out of the ground or break them in half to quickly create a small shelter using the large boulders of the mountain as a main part of the structure. Using the dead wood of some trees I try to start a fire. I begin rolling a stick in my hands to create a friction fire. My hands are calloused from years of learning how to do this exact trick and in a short while I have a small fire just as the sun sets over the mountain. I spend the night asleep on sharp rocks in a very drafty shelter with a small fire the only thing keeping me alive. Tomorrow I will begin the hunt.

I wake up with a start in the morning and find my fire simply cinders so I leave the shelter and continue down the mountain toward the pine forests. The forest is still cold, but it offers a greater windbreak and has non-frozen water, and has animals to eat. I keep my pace somewhat slow in order to conserve as much energy as possible. The hat man continues to mock me from the shadows and the music keeps ringing through the mountains, a constant smooth jazz track, I fucking hate jazz. The whole way I collect rocks that are sharpened by the weather and bang them against bigger rocks to create sharp edges.

By nightfall, I am hiding behind a tree breathing heavily eyes wild with fear. The hat man is snitching to the thing stalking me. I don't know what it is, but it is a very tall and lanky creature. It stands easily fifteen feet tall with long arms and legs, the arms ending in razor claws that cut a tree in half earlier. A fucking foot-diameter tree! I haven't seen its face but I assume it's horrible. The worst part is that this creature is humanoid and is making sounds similar to those of a baby cooing. It creepily stalks around trees sniffing the air and peering around them while hunting for me. It seemingly has poor vision, but its sense of smell helps it follow my path easily. I only noticed it earlier this afternoon when I came around a corner and saw its pale white legs and naturally I screamed and then the hunt was on.

I spend the whole night lunging from tree to tree hiding from this abomination, trying to predict its movements and avoid being cornered anywhere. I've never seen a creature like this before. I've gone hunting with my father and learned about most local fauna and monsters, but this thing isn't normal. Even though my drug haze I sorta know the direction I have to head to get home. Just like the earth, this world's sun sets in the West, and the city is east of the mountains. If I keep heading east I'll find the Coyote river and I can follow it all the way back to the city. I just can't cross the river due to territorial boundaries with another city.

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I keep up this dance with the horrible creature until the sun peeks through the forest trees in the morning. I am horribly cold and thirsty, luckily I come across the dead lake. It's a strange lake where no animals come to drink, but it's good clean water and full of fish, hunters avoid it when they can, but I was never told why. I break through the trees to get a drink of the clear water. I know you normally aren't supposed to drink water right out of a pond or lake, but it's been well over a day without a drop of water. I can deal with parasites and sickness later. I turn around from drinking and see the creature at the edge of the woods. It doesn't step from the trees, it just stands there.

I don't look a gift horse in the mouth and begin moving along the shores of the lake and watch the tall creature turn around and leave the edge of the forest. I laugh nervously and keep walking as the hat man continues his verbal assault. I get to the opposite end of the lake from where I started and start creating a small lean-to shelter using the sharp rock I created earlier to cut branches and plant fiber to hold the structure together. I use rocks from the lake's shore to create more sharpened stones and fit the sturdiest one onto the end of a stick and bind it with plant fibers, creating a really shitty spear.

I manage to catch a fat fish of some kind out of the lake and cook it over a small fire within my shelter. It's really bad tasting but it fills my grumbling belly. I keep an eye out for that horrible tall creature but don't see it anywhere and I can't hear the baby noises it makes so I should be safe. My drug trip seems to get worse with hunger and thirst so now that I am fed and watered only the hat man remains. It's still day but I decide to take a nap having a hunch that the tall creature only comes out at night. The sounds of the forest lull me to sleep as I sleep on the soft soil on the ground.

I wake up suddenly for some reason. I try to see if there is some noise that woke me but instead I find a terrible lack of noise. I lie still on the ground fearful that any sound I make will result in something terrible. It's still daylight out so it shouldn't be the tall creature, but thinking back the tall creature refused to approach the lake. Why is that? As if to answer my mental question I hear footsteps on the rocky shore of the lake. The distinct sound of something heavy walking on gravel. There is no smell aside from that of the branches I used for my shelter. Within the steps, I also hear the sound of something being dragged too. Slowly the smell of blood reaches my nose, not overly pungent but present nonetheless. I remember those old greentext stories from earth and my heart starts beating faster out of fear.

Slowly I sit up careful to make no sound and my hand closes tightly around my spear as I peer through the branches of my shelter. I feel like throwing up when I see what's outside. The tall creature is sprawled out on the ground, its lanky frame broken and bloodied. I can see its face which looks terribly human and see an expression of terror on its deceased face. Then I notice what is dragging it.

A large creature standing easily eight feet at the shoulder while on all fours drags the tall creature easily as it walks along the edge of the lake. It is covered in thick and matted dark fur with some horrible claws on its hands. Just by the way it moves around I can tell it has some real power behind it. I can't see its face or head clearly due to it dragging prey in its mouth. It has a long bushy tail like that of an anteater from back on earth that drags behind it.

Suddenly the hairy creature drops its prey and sticks its head down and I hear the sound of sniffing. A deep and deliberate sniff, right where I earlier walked. It walks around this area a few times sniffing in different spots before turning toward where I am at. It was dragging the tall creature while tracking my trail, where it stopped is the furthest I walked in that direction around the lake.

I find myself holding my breath as the creature follows my trail toward me, only five meters away at most. It stops suddenly at the ashes of my fire and kicks the embers around with its huge front paw. I watch as it expertly uses its claws to pick up the small sharp rock I used as a knife to gut the fish. It inspects it seemingly out of interest. It then makes a warbling sound that slowly becomes a horrible deep laugh. This thing isn't just huge and powerful it also has some form of intelligence. To my horror, it then talks to me in a voice that is closer to a growl,

"Come out scared hunter...Make it easier on us both."

I sense a small amount of smug satisfaction in the voice of the creature. I then make a rash decision.

I bust through the backside of my shelter and begin sprinting into the forest, I keep heading east as the sun is threatening to go below the mountains below me. A name means nothing if I am torn apart by that thing.

I've seen chimera-like creatures, bears the size of elephants, and multi-headed abominations. Despite that, deep inside me, I can tell, this thing is a real monster, those things before were more like animals, just special in their own little way. This thing is the true definition of a monster.

I run through the trees the pine needles sticking into my bare feet as I look for anything to bring me salvation. Then I see it, a tree with some low-hanging branches. I run forward and leap onto the tree, the bark digging into my skin as I pull myself up in desperation. I just keep climbing further and further up the tree until I reach a point where going any further and the branches would no longer support my weight. I sit down on a sturdy fork in some branches and catch my breath. The oppressive silence still persists and I try my best to slow my breathing so as not to alert the thing.

Eventually, my breath slows and I simply listen, and I listen as the sound of sniffing along with heavy and deliberate footsteps grow closer to me. I gauge I am over thirty feet up the tree and try to calculate how tall the creature is. To my best guess on its hind legs, it should only be about twenty. With as heavy the steps it makes, I can assume the branches won't support its weight, and the tree is quite thick so even if its claws are as sharp as those of the tall creature it shouldn't be able to cut the tree down.

It slowly walks to the base of the tree I am in and looks up. In the dimming light, I get a good look at the face of this abomination. I really wish it had razor fangs. Instead, I look to see a large smiling mouth full of human-like teeth, luckily it has a long snout similar to that of a lizard or dinosaur or something, but the teeth are unsettling all the same. I can't see its eyes as they are covered in that thick fur covering its entire body, as thick as the fur is I am surprised the creature doesn't reek like a bear or other shaggy furred animals that have diets of meat.

It simply looks up at me for a few moments and then asks calmly in that horrible voice,

"I can shove this tree over quite easily scared hunter, but that would be too tiring on my old bones. I am patient, and I have access to all my needs down here. Water, food, and shelter. What do you have up there scared hunter? Come nightfall will exposure take you or will you dehydrate to death?

I am not one to make something suffer, come down, it will be a far... quicker death."

I take heed of its words, I don't know this thing or what it is capable of, but I also don't think it's lying. I can't come up with a truly coherent thought as fear makes the psychedelic in my system more potent, all the colors and sounds that don't exist cloud my judgment, but one question escapes my lips,

"What are you?"

The creature stares at me baffled for a moment and then says,

"It's quite rare when something asks about me. It has been ages since something like that has happened. I am the drake known as Silus. A simple name. I am a dragon of a sort. I am known as a brown dragon by your kind."

I nod while a Tom and Jerry cartoon plays out in my peripheral vision where I cannot see it fully. I will have to wait and see if this dragon is truly as patient as it claims. I just hope it isn't that cold of a night...

The night passes and I survive if only barely. My joints are stiff and I can't stop shivering I have to do something, I won't be able to survive another night. Hunger and cold make my trip worse, mixed with my fear I am slowly becoming delirious, I can't make sense of what is real and what is a figment of my drug-addled brain.

In the end, desperation is one hell of a drug, and I really don't want to freeze.

With my spear in hand, I drop from the tree and onto the back of the dragon. It makes a surprised noise as I land heavily on its back. I knock the wind from myself and feel a couple of ribs break. The dragon's fur is tough and matted, but very warm and I take a couple of seconds to let the warmth wash over me, then I see one of its paws reach back toward me and I plunge the spear into its back.

It shouts in pain and easily bucks me off along with my spear. It then turns toward me bearing its flat teeth in a vile snarl. I hold the spear toward it defensively and slowly start to circle it. Then the dragon lunges. It misses me by a hair and clamps hard onto the tree behind me, shattering the wood easily, I bring my spear into its underside and it kicks me in the chest. I feel the rest of my ribs break and I fall to the ground gasping for air. The dragon turns while snarling and I manage to find my footing again and start running.

It chases me at an impressive speed but is slowed by the thick trees and I make sure to weave between them all. I, unfortunately, run into a clearing and I can feel it catching up with me. I drop to the ground and stick the dull end of the spear into the ground behind me hoping to do a maneuver as I've seen in movies. The sharp stone embeds itself in the face of the dragon and it rears back in pain screaming like a banshee and taking the spear with it. I am now defenseless. The dragon lands back on all fours and I get a good look at its eyes. All remaining three of four, all of them looking exactly like human eyes. They are bloodshot and filled with anger. The dragon then speaks,

"You... are a pretty good hunter, but I have remained dormant for long enough."

The dragon then stands on its hind legs and pulls my spear from its face and tosses it expertly to me. It stares down at me and then says,

"You will fight me hunter, and I will fight with all I have."

Then it starts spasming. I watch in horror as the dragon's bones break and reform, its flesh bulges, and its skin shreds as it starts growing larger and larger. Two massive bat-like wings tear from under its flesh and spread in the morning air. After the painful transformation is done, a different and far more horrifying beast stands before me.

It stands almost like a man with four forward-facing eyes with the same human-like teeth. Its neck is now long and far more mobile allowing it to look at me more clearly, now two rams horns sprout from its head. Its arms no longer look like walking appendages, but skilled and dextrous arms with powerful muscles show even through the long shaggy fur. Everything else looks similar except much larger. Now it stands easily thirty feet tall.

It then takes a step toward me and I begin running the opposite way. My chest screams in pain from my broken ribs as I run. I can hear the dragon take flight as a horrible gale threatens to knock me over while running. I keep running East in the hope I can make it to the river and then to the city where they can kill this thing. It swoops down occasionally to take swipes at me that uproot trees like garden weeds. This thing is a force of nature. I then come to a screeching halt, kicking up soft soil as I nearly fall down a deep gorge.

I feel tears well up in my eyes as the hallucinations grow worse with my fear. In a last desperate attempt, I wind up a throw and throw the poorly made spear at the dragon. I expect it to bounce off the thick hide, but instead, a clean hole is torn through the fragile skin of the bat wings causing it to veer off course and collapse as it falls toward me. I feel something heavy slam against me as we both fall into the gorge together and I pass out while falling.

Waking up sometime later with the sun high above I am surprised to see I am alive. I feel myself lying on something hair and turn to see the dragon, still and unmoving a pine tree impaled through its chest all the way to the ground. I did it! I start to celebrate but crumple in pain from my broken ribs. I have to bring this in as a trophy. I manage to break one of its claws loose and begin the long process of decapitating the creature. Once that task is done I eat a bite of its rotten-tasting meat to stave off pangs of hunger and with a sled made from some fallen logs, I continue all the way home...

I have earned my name...and hopefully an excuse to avoid any chores for a good while...