A content grin lazes on my face as I sit down by the edge of the brook, stomach bloated with cool, fresh water.

Water is so underrated.

The trek towards the sparkle in the distance took longer than I expected. Enough that the sun was firmly at its height in the sky and my mouth felt full of glue. But as I bask in the sliver of shade cast by the surrounding hills, listening to the soothing babbling of water over its bed of pebbles and stones, I can check debilitating dehydration off of my checklist of impending dangers.

I reach over and pluck a handful of smooth stones from the ground and idly toss them into the small stream. Watching the ripples form only to be quickly washed away by the moving water. It gives me something to do while I turn my thoughts towards the future.

Food stands tall in my to-do list. It hasn’t even been a full day since I was thrust into this land, less since I last ate, but I’ve becoming increasingly hungry none the less. It really isn’t about the length of time, but what’s occurred during it. My terror filled midnight run, blood loss, and the morning hike from the crack of dawn to midday. I’m in no danger of starving, but the intermittent pangs of pain in my stomach are making it hard to focus on anything but.

From where I sit, the surrounding hills block the lay of the land. Only the spaces in between can be seen from my vantage, where the brook winds its way until it too passes out of sight.

I grab my dagger and make my way to the top of a nearby hill. Emerging back into the sunlight, the land unfolds before me in a tapestry of green. I trace the water back and forth until it disappears into a distant tree line. Blurred to a hazy palate of brown and green, the forest stretches far to my left and right.

Besides the large solitary tree I first appeared by, and the equally remote boulder, these fields have been more of the same: rolling hills of grass. I haven’t reached the point of eating grass to fill my stomach and neither do I want to. All signs point towards the distant forest as my best bet for food. I can’t shake the lingering worry over how I will procure said food, seeing as I’ve neither hunted nor foraged before in my life. But that’s getting ahead of myself. It’s a direction, a step forward, and I don’t have the luxury of going back.

* * *

After an awkard yet thorough washing of my wound in the small stream, accompanied by a surprisingly constrained string of curses, I start out towards the woods. Staying in line with the pattern so far, I encounter neither human nor animal while I make my way, sticking to the meandering path of the brook.

A few stops for water and rest later, I’ve made it within spitting distance to what I now know, with certainty, is a forest. Tall evergreen trees rise up to the sky like watching soldiers, their long trunks wrapped in thick, scaly bark. Each one reaches upward in a rigid line before bursting into a scattering of branches and needles near their tops. Thankfully, this doesn’t seem to be an old growth forest. Wide empty spaces surround each trunk, little in the way to slow me down as I travel through. A heavy layer of dead and dried pine needles coat the forest floor, struck with beams of light here and there where the sun has broken through the canopy.

Decidedly happy with a change in scenery I turn around for a moment to look back towards the fields from which I’ve came. I can’t see my little boulder, let alone the tree with its wide and sweeping branches. And as far as I’m concerned, good riddance. It’s where I first arrived, but there’s no way of knowing if the location held any significance.

Maybe it was a door of sorts, or held a key to returning home. Maybe it was just a place, a starting point, but nothing more. My fingers curl into a tight grip around my dagger. Someday, when I know more, when I have the power to do so without fear of the things that slink in the dark, I will return. To seek answers to the questions that leer at me with taunting faces. Because as much as it hurts, all I can do is scramble like a mouse in a field, trying to avoid the attention of those bigger than me. Trying to simply stay alive for one more day.

With a heavy weight in my chest I return my gaze to the forest. Blade in hand, I gather one large breath and take my first steps into the shadows of these looming giants.

* * *

Nope NOPE NOPE!

I break free from the tree line and burst back into the sunlight, tripping over myself into a heap of tangled limbs. My dagger skips away onto the bank of the brook and I claw my way towards it on my hands and knees. Headless of anything else but the glinting piece of metal on the ground, I dive the last few feet and snatch up the red corded handle. In the same motion I twist my torso and flip myself onto my back, the blade held in front of me in two trembling hands.

My breath rasps out in heaving gasps as tears trail unbidden down my face. From my back I flick my eyes side to side, scanning the edge of the forest in manic vigilance, the dagger held in desperate deterrence.

I barely even register the flaring pain of my shoulder or the wet, sticky stream of blood down my back. My thoughts are caught in a stuttering loop of shock. All I can do is point the dagger towards the trees and hope against all hope that this isn’t the day I die.

But this world has not proven itself kind, nor caring, and soon enough, countless pairs of burning red orbs dot the tree line, appearing one after another in a dread parade of flickering wrath. They cast twisted shapes with their hollow light and collectively pause for a second at the very edge, where forest meets field. My hands begin to shake as I watch in numb terror. Then the second ends, and they advance.