Chloe stumbled back to her cave. She wasn't used to walking in her newly evolved body as yet.

It was awkward, and she felt gangly like a spider. She was taller, but she was more hunched over now. She was really starting to feel like a monster. She just hoped that if she evolved again, she wouldn't turn into a thing of nightmares.

Chloe went through her nightly routine. She climbed into the cold water and washed the mud and blood off of her body. She sat there letting her new muscles relax and thought about what the hell had just happened.

She'd blanked out again. It was starting to become a habit, and she wasn't happy about it. This time there was no message for her to follow.

The one thing she had noticed just before her evolution was that her amulet was warm to the touch. It was obvious that the amulet had power. She’d seen Garrick use his own to create a sword of ice. He also used it to communicate with his familiar.

Maybe I can do the same thing with this one.

She pulled her hair back into a tight bun and lifted the amulet and studied it. It looked just the same as ever. Golden with a symbol of an open hand on it and strange letters that she could not read.

She focused on the amulet. It was hard to concentrate when she was constantly on guard.

If I want this to work, I need to let go.

She closed her eyes, letting the distractions around her fall away.

The sound of the waterfall faded, the scent of blood on her clothing vanished, and she opened her mind, letting the amulet in.

At first there was nothing.

To be honest, she hadn't expected it to work the first time.

She took a deep breath, not that she needed the oxygen, but it was a habit from being human, and it still calmed her.

As she slowly exhaled, she had the sudden sensation of long grass caressing her naked skin and the taste of sweet roots in her mouth. There was a note of alarm, followed by curious prodding in her direction.

Black rabbit, is that you?

The reply came in the form of images and emotions. She saw her cave and felt a sense of wonder coming through the connection.

The wind shifted and blew a small cloud of dust across the marshes. On the wind, the rabbit picked up a clear and unmistakable scent.

It was Fire.

The connection broke and Chloe stood up and just as she was about to get out of the water, she heard low murmurs outside her cave. She drew back into the dark waters and waited.

A sense of urgency came from the rabbit, and an image of burning torches flashed through her mind.

Footsteps drew near, and someone shouted. A large barrel was tossed into the cave. It smashed open and the smell of oil perforated the air.

A moment later, a torch was flung in, and the cave burst into crackling flames.

The flash of light revealed a group of men and women standing in front of the cave. They were dressed in animal hides, just the way the fisherman had been dressed. They had torches and spears in their hands and grim looks on their painted faces.

They shouted words Chloe couldn't understand, but their intention was clear enough. They had come for her life, and she had no idea why.

A second barrel of oil was tossed into the cave and this one exploded closer, sending a ball of fire right at her. The cave exit was completely blocked. There was no way out, and the fire was getting hotter by the minute.

Chloe had played enough video games to know that the biggest threat to zombies, apart from decapitation, was fire. She really didn't want to be burnt to death. That had to be the shittiest way to go.

Panic welled up inside her chest, but she didn't have time to panic. She could do that later when she survived this mess.

She dived under the water and looked up and saw oil burning on the water above her head.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Her mind raced. She needed to do something, but what?

Her hands and feet floated by her head as she tried to think of some plan. She knew that if she stayed underwater, they would find her and kill her.

She looked down to where the waterfall ended and became an underground river. She had no choice. She flipped over and swam down. She heard them shouting above her. They’d probably realized that she was escaping.

She ignored the shouting and clawed at the rocks until the hole was large enough for her to fit through. She pulled herself through the hole and felt the sharp rocks tearing her clothes and her skin. Soon the resistance faded as she landed in the river and was carried along by the current.

It was pitch black underground and the space was so tight that a human would have drowned on the way down. The water became rougher up ahead, and she heard the sound of water crashing on rocks far below.

Oh shit, here we go.

Chloe went over the edge and fell through the air, her limbs pointing in all directions as she tried to grab onto the ledge.

Her fingers slipped and she continued to fall. The wind wiped around her ears and her eyes stung.

How far down is this?

The thought had barely entered her mind when she reached the bottom.

She plummeted into the underground lake. It was deep, but not deep enough for the height she had fallen from. Her legs smashed into rocks and her arm bent backwards and popped as it dislocated from her shoulder.

Chloe sucked in a breath, she didn't need to breathe, but her instincts kicked in, and she gulped in a mouthful of water. She kicked her legs, sending bubbles of air into the water as she tried to reach the surface.

Something grabbed her foot, pulling her back. She struggled and tried to kick away, but whatever held her had great strength. Her silent screams faded as she sank deeper into the water.

Hands gripped her legs, pulling her down. Glowing moss on the rocks cast enough light to reveal long green hair flowing all about her and hands clawing at her skin.

Something blurred in front of her and a face appeared inches from hers. The face was full of long shark-like teeth, with two eyes black as night.

Chloe grabbed the creature's hair and yanked it closer. She sank her teeth into its skull and bite as hard as she could. She felt the skull give way to her teeth and tainted blood washed into her open mouth.

The creature’s shrieks of pain reverberated through her head like a brick colliding with her brain. She rotated and pressed her legs against the bleeding creature and kicked off, pushing her towards the surface.

She breached the surface and dragged herself onto hard ground. She was exhausted, her ears were ringing, and her arm was dislocated.

She rolled over and spat the creature’s skull fragments and blood onto the ground.

It tastes the way rancid seafood smells.

She grabbed the wrist of her injured arm and pulled it forward and straight in front of her.

"Mother custard!" she moaned as the joint popped back into place.

She sat up and looked around and saw that she was in a cavern lit by a bubbling pool of lava. There were bioluminescent fungus and moss growing on rocks and on the roof.

She saw movement by the lava. A thin creature with a long tongue was lapping up the red lava. It wiped its mouth and turned to watch her with mild curiosity. Its look reminded her of how a lion would look at an ant that had crawled into its den.

She could feel many eyes watching from the dark, and a large bat-like creature flew overhead.

I can't stay here.

She pulled herself to her feet and ran.

She stumbled several times and had to grab at rocks to keep from falling. Each step she took made her more anxious.

She wasn't sure if she was being pursued, but she didn't want to take the risk. She ran faster and harder until she came to a series of small holes in the wall. She entered one and crawled into it and collapsed against the cool wall.

A figure stepped into her vision, it had human features, but its skin was pale, and it was covered in fur. It growled and advanced toward her hole. She backed away, but the hole was too narrow to go much further.

She knew that the creature could easily stick its arm into the hole and pull her out, like a bird catching a worm.

A low hissing sound filled her section of the chamber. The beast spun around and stopped. A ball of fire hit it square in the chest, incinerating it instantly.

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A figure, with eyes that looked like burning orbs of fire, strode past Chloe’s hiding spot. It wore a red robe and carried a staff made of bone.

Chloe put her hand to her throat and felt a lump forming.

The figure bent down and retrieved a gem that was all that remained of the incinerated beast.

As the figure stood up, its burning eyes locked with Chloe's, and she realized that it was not human. Its body was covered in Draconian scales, and its long tongue flicked in and out of its mouth, tasting the air.

It slipped the gem into its robes’, ignored her, and strode off into the darkness.

Chloe watched the figure walk away, and then she dropped to her knees. She felt weak, exhausted and terrified.

She waited for sometime until she was sure that there was nothing else close by. Then she left her hole and found a deeper one. She crawled into the new hole and wiggled as she dragged her body deeper and deeper in.

She felt claustrophobic, but the fear of being caught was far more terrifying at the moment. So she kept moving deeper and deeper.

When the tunnel got too narrow, she clawed the hole wider and continued on. It took hours or days. In the constant dark, with no sign of the sun or moon, she could not tell the time.

The tunnel stretched far back into a small room about the size of her father’s car.

She chipped away at the rock until she’d made the space as wide as possible. She pushed the debris into the tunnel as a door. When she was sure that nothing could find her there. She let her head fall to the stone floor, and she cried.

Through the sobbing and tears she thought of home and her sister and she began to sing in a low voice, “Don't stop believing, hold onto that feeling.”

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