So. Not an apex predator after all.

I stood up in my little nook, muscles tensing as I prepared to make my own exit. I waited with my ears rotated fully forwards and my eyes...kinda blurry actually. Not super noticeable, but past thirty feet or so and the branches began to fuzz at the edges. Fucking venom fang.

Despite my excuses, I was still well aware of the mystery creature’s position. I just couldn’t see it. Which was unfortunate, cause I was kinda freaking out. The thing sounded like nothing I’d ever heard, wet slapping noises sounding out in a bizarre cacophony along with snapping branches and the flutter of panicking birds.

The trees were shaking so hard that branches were falling against each other and coiling aroun-

Coiling? ... those weren’t branches, were they?

The tentacles exploded with motion and hurled the creature’s body into view. Dozens of tentacles sprouted from the amorphous mass, shooting out to snatch the branches behind it and swing itself to a stop on the ground.

The mass impacted with a thump, quickly turning to loud slurping and crunching as tentacles lashed out and brought back food to vanish into its maw. Goddamn, I was not prepared for this shit. I started to back away slowly. I wasn’t anywhere near ready to tangle with this thing.

The thing froze, and I followed suit half a second later. Sweat trickled down the back of my neck. Don’tnoticemedon’tnoticemedon-

Tentacles shot out and locked around the trees on either side of me. I dodged backwards between the fork I’d been resting in as the creature slingshotted itself forwards. Its mass sent the entire tree to trembling with the impact. It’s body couldn’t fit, but a black beak thrust out from the knot of tentacles and barely missed catching my ankle as I fell backwards.

I twisted midair, managing to land on my feet and rolling to absorb the impact. Turns out that works better when its nice soft dirt you’re landing on instead of jagged thorns and hard roots. Those tend to impale your body. I forced myself forward with pure adrenaline, letting my momentum tear away the thorns still clinging to my body.

Fuck. I was pretty sure that some of those had torn my previous wounds further open, but a quick glance over my shoulder was enough to tell me I couldn’t afford to stop and lick my wounds.

The creature was shooting through the trees with a shocking grace, smoothly transitioning between swinging, slingshotting, and diving. It’s malleable body allowed it to squeeze through impossible gaps, and its thick, slimy skin seemed impervious to thorns.

I pushed my body to its limits, sprinting with a speed I didn’t know I had. I vaulted roots, slid under branches, and dodged through thorns faster than a normal goblin on open ground.

And it wasn’t enough.

The creature’s tentacles were latching on closer to me with every leap. I needed to do something, and for the love of the stars, I had no idea what.

My eyes shot across the forest floor, searching for something, anything, to change the odds. Tragically, powerful magical weapons failed to manifest, leaving me to look for hidey holes instead. I saw plenty potential candidates, but none that I’d trust my life to. The creature’s tentacles would have no trouble wrenching me free from anywhere too shallow, and that beak could crunch right through most of the cover around here.

But I was a little absent on choice and time alike, so when I saw a deeper darkness in between a few large roots I crossed my fingers and dived in head first. I would prefer a nice safe cave to wait out the storm of lashing tentacles currently hot on my heels, but push come to shove a broken neck was probably a much faster way to die.

The stars were with me though, because to my relief I sailed through that gap smoothly and kept on going. And going. And going.

Aaaaand, back to panic. It raged through my veins at the speed of thought, my own supernatural speed dragging out every instant of red-hot panic into an excruciating eternity.

I flailed awkwardly in midair until I got my feet back beneath me. Where was the ground!? A place blanketed in roots like this damn forest was shouldn’t have caves this big!

I crashed into something and heard the crack of my nose breaking. My terrified fall turned into a mad tumble, roots and branches tearing at my skin until I jerked to a sudden stop. The sudden stop sent my blood rushing down my body. Unfortunately, my currently upside down status made the lowest part of my body my head and that rushing blood came down to punch me straight in the brain.

I swayed there in midair, blinking as some adrenaline fueled instincts were still caught up in the chase enough to care about petty details like which direction was up or down or whether anything was about to rip my face off.

I slowly regained my cognizance, sadly including the ability to feel piercing migraines. Bloody stars that hurt. Still, it wasn’t death. Probably. I could still die from internal hemorrhaging I supposed.

Other that the excruciating pain (and the numbness spreading above the tangle of roots that had caught me by the right ankle, and from which I was currently dangling) it was fairly pleasant here. More than that, it was enlightening.

I laughed, not without a slight tinge of madness. This was no forest. It never had been.