I woke up cold and miserable. No surprise there, but I was far too exposed. I could feel a chill wind across my body, and I’d never fall asleep in an area free of anything to block wind and sightlines alike. My ears twitched, scanning the area for enemies, but I didn’t pick up anything more than the creak of trees swaying in the wind.

Trees… woods… The deep woods! The memories came crashing back, and I remembered exactly how I’d gotten here. Fuck. Damn old geezer had actually dumped in the middle of some godforsaken forest. At least he’d had the decency to untie me first, but I suppose he wouldn’t want to get any mud on his precious invincible ribbon, would he?

Satisfied that no one was about to jump me the instant I moved, I cracked open an eye to survey my surroundings and saw I was in the middle of a meadow, face down in the dirt. Of course I was. Why would it be anywhere else?

I pushed myself up and looked around. The grass around me was tall and thick, untamed by man or beast, while the trees towered above with the immense height of old growth. I tensed up immediately. This was bad, very bad.

This was an ordinary seeming forest, albeit one significantly farther from human influence than I would have expected, but I couldn’t hear anything. No birds. No deer. No branches rustling beneath the weight of scampering squirrels.

That wasn’t normal with my normal senses, but with my newly enhanced ones?

It was positively unnatural. What kind of predator would it take to silence everything in a hundred foot radius? And the grass, grass didn’t grow this tall. It was well over the height of an adult human, and there was no way it would ever grow that high with deer chowing down on it.

I knelt down and crept through the grass. My slender frame played to my advantage, even if I’d rather get a few solid meals in me, letting me worm my way through the grass without betraying my position to any potential observers.

It took me a good five minutes to reach the edge, but that was more than fine with me. Getting where I wanted to go five minutes from now was better than dying now, or at any time come to think of it.

I poked my head out from between the stalks of grass, keeping as much of my body behind cover as I could and relying on my green skin to blend in the rest. Unfortunately a closer look at the woods did little to soothe my fears.

Nothing stood grew straight here. Sure, the largest trees shot straight for the sunlight far above, just like they were supposed to, but ten times as many twisted around the the massive trunks of their larger cousins. Their branches spread and weaved in no particular direction, and seemed more interested in sprouting defensive thorns than sun-hungry leaves.

This place creeped me out, and I was a freaking goblin. Leafless trees did not grow, but these bastards had blanketed the ground in their leaves anyway. Still, nothing appeared to be an immediate threat, and I’d gotten my bearings as well as I was in the next few minutes, so it was time to come up with some sort of plan.

First priority: not dying. I needed food, water, and some kind of defense if I wanted to stay not dead, and that would mean exploring. An attack kills faster than thirst or starvation, so that would need to come first. A quick flex of my leg muscles confirmed that the humans hadn’t done a great job of searching me: the chunk of flint I kept strapped to my thigh was still there.

I may not have been able to reach it tied up, but now it would prove invaluable. Or did that mean not valuable? I could never keep human prefixes straight. At any rate, it was a nice rock, hardly a weapon, but more than capable of hacking off a branch for a club.

Next: water. Thirst killed faster than hunger, I ought to know, I’d known plenty who’d died to both. Climbing would be my best option, it had surprised me at first, but on the surface water just straight up fell from the sky. I’d be able to get the best access to any rain from the treetops, I could catch extra in the leaves that only the highest trees seemed to have here, and I could see further, spotting any distant streams or lakes. Three solid ways to quench my thirst gave me enough fallback options to satisfy the little paranoid voice in the back of my head, so I moved on to food, the most uncertain of the three.

Nothing edible grew on the ground, unless I felt like chewing on grass or tree bark. I could peel back the bark to get at the nutritious layer of living wood beneath, but that took more effort than it was worth without specialized tools, which left me to blindly hope for fruit in the canopy above. Not go-

Wait, hadn’t I solved this problem? I struggled to contain a cackle as I remembered my Metabolism Stat. I managed to restrain my joy to a broad grin as I went over the implications. The Stat would reinforce my digestion, hopefully to the point where grass and tree bark went from last chance desperation to easy meals. I could just feast on crap that was lying around!

Actually that sounded kinda shitty. But hey, the shittiest life is still better than the best death. Not to mention that it should make even good food more efficient, so I didn’t have to eat like a deer. I just could if I had to.

Of course, I had to rein in my hunger for the moment. Grass and bark wasn’t just a tough meal, it was a dry one. Eating it before I confirmed a reliable source of water would be dumb as rocks, and if there’s anything I can brag about, its being slightly smarter than that.

The plan’s first step went off without a hitch, excluding some minor cuts and scrapes, giving me a two foot length as wide as my wrist and thorny as a hob’s personality.

Naturally, that’s where the smooth sailing ended. As soon as the branch’s final snap signalled the end of my loud as fuck hacking a new sound became audible: the clacking noise of claws running on wood.

I gripped my club by the bottom three inches I’d stripped of thorns and turned to face my opponent. What I faced was…..weird.

This odd bird had more than mere claws, they were talons, longer than any merciful god would consider reasonable. Sure, they were only a few inches long, but on a bird smaller than me? For fuck’s sake, fully grown wolves would have shorter claws.

It looked the large claws gave it firm purchase on the branches it ran along, even as it’s spindly bird legs kept it’s body safely above the omnipresent thorns, so I reluctantly admitted that it was at least well put together for its equally strange environment.

I supposed it was safer to run than fly here, the bird was certainly closing the distance fast enough. I let my flint drop to the forest floor and raised my club in both hands, preparing to swing the moment it got close enough. The creature was clearly a hunter with its sharp talons and broad blade of a beak, but at the end of the day it wasn’t going to be the one doing the eating.

I began my swing as it leapt from the branch. It was wide and clumsy, more like a child playing at combat than an actual warrior’s strike, but against such a committed target, I couldn’t miss.

The bird twisted in midair, flapping its undersized wings just enough to pass over my attack instead of through it.

Ah, fuck. The bird spiraled through the air, talons spread wide not far behind its razor beak as it fly right at my face. I ducked and the bird sailed over my head, bringing its talons to bear too late to catch me.

Ha! Stupid overgrown chicke-

Burning pain cut through my thoughts as something sunk deep into the muscles of my back and shoulders. “AAAAH!”

I screamed in pain as I fell to the ground. The bird’s deceptively long legs had hooked onto my shoulders and know it was firmly latched onto my stupid ass. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, but it wasn’t enough to block out the pain as it lashed out with its beak, the razor edges striving to separate flesh from the bone beneath.

I flailed my arms behind my back, but I just couldn’t get any leverage, my hands failing to find any purchase on this damn bird as it flayed the skin off my back. “FUCK YOU, YOU STUPID CHICKEN!”

I threw myself backwards and slammed my back into the ground with the full force of my weight.

Which, as it turned out, wasn’t nearly enough. The bird gave out little more than an awkward squawk, and even took advantage of my momentum to drive its talons deeper. Fucking cocky bastard. It’d start reaching more than muscle soon, the tips of its talons were only inches from my more vulnerable organs.

Of course that wasn’t enough for the greedy little fucker, was it? It started reaching its neck around to my front, and it shot its beak forwards as soon as it saw my exposed throat. I dropped my chin with a speed born of equal parts supernatural power and utter panic.

Instead of instant death I got a massive bone-deep gash across my jaw spilling blood like it was water and hurting like the very devil. Wonderful.

With the bastard’s head finally somewhere I could reach I seized by the neck. The bird squawked and screeched, but I wasn’t about to let go anytime soon. A ghastly grin spread across my face as my woulds sent rivulets of blood running between my jagged teeth.

I have you now, you fucking overgrown murder-chicken.

I heaved with all my might, pulling the bastard down with no heed for the pain of the talons hooked into my flesh. It slowly inched forwards, squawked impotently as its talons squelched out of my body. Something finally, inevitably, broke, and the bird shot forward as the last resistance vanished.

I swung the bird around and slammed it into the wicked thorns all around us. I rolled to the side and snatched up my club before I rose to my feet again.

The bird struggled to escape the thorns piercing its body, but their wicked points clung to its feathers and its struggles only served to ensnare it more deeply, right up until my club smashed in its skull.

I let my limbs fall limp at my side, panting in exhaustion as the adrenaline drained from my body. Well… that was the food problem solved.