The lizard was in the water but it landed on top of him and it was sinking, like a stone. It was panicking and thrashing about and managed to grab a hold of his torso with its claws, Adam somehow managed to maneuver his body from under it and managed to lift his head out of the water and managed to take a breath just before the lizard dragged him down once more.

At this point Adam had already let go of the lizard’s head as he was dragged under water and he was getting horribly mauled by the creature, its claws cutting through Adam’s torso like daggers in a frenzied attempt to reach the surface. But it was only struggling in vain as it was slowly being dragged to the bottom due to its own density and with it Adam.

As the creature kept up its frenzied but doomed attempt to escape it kept using Adam as a climbing post and proceeded to leave cuts and puncture wounds with its claws as it made way up Adams body. Adam in a desperate attempt to keep the creature from ending his life, garbbed a hold of its throat and using both arms pushed the creature away from him and towards the bottom of the pond.

As he was pushing the creature away the creature kept clawing and biting at him, even under water and greatly weakened, the creature was putting up a fight. Adam had to sacrifice both arms in order to prevent the creature from getting closer and doing him more harm, so the creature resorted to bite and claw and tear adams arms till they were little more than strips of flesh on bone. The creature was desperate to escape but its end was drawing close, its struggle was slowly getting weaker and that gave Adam hope, but Adam himself wasn’t doing so well either.

He had multiple wounds all over his body and his arms looked like they had gone through a meat grinder. His Health bar was already well below half and it continued to go down. He had multiple notifications telling him that he had torn muscles and multiple wounds that were causing him to bleed out. He was already feeling faint from the blood loss and the lack of oxygen. The lizard was dying but so was he.

In no time his health had reached a dangerous level and his vision was failing. He could feel strength leaving his body and the lizard was still thrashing around. It was going to die but it felt like he was going to die first.

NO!! No fucking way in hell!! Adam felt it than. The rage that he had felt before back in the he was killed. He could feel the rage simmering inside him, raging against his weakness, against his helplessness, thoughts of the lizard killing him, of prey reducing him to such a sorry state filled him with mindless rage.

At that moment, as Adam lay bleeding in the pond, the hate he felt towards the lizard drove him on. He wanted to hurt it. To watch it suffer. To make it bleed as he did. He wanted to kill it and devour it.

Adam’s body moved, he ignored the creature’s claws and brought his face close to the lizard’s own and then he bit the creature’s throat and ripped out a chunk before swallowing and repeated to do so again and again.

The creature’s fear reached new heights and it fueled its struggle once more. It sensed that the end was close and the creature responsible for its plight which had been trying to protect itself suddenly moved closer and then proceeded to tear into the lizard’s throat, over and over again. The lizard desperately tried to fend the creature off, it tried to bite and claw the creature but the creature kept close and never gave it enough space to do so. The lizard sensing that it could not win against the creature, desperately tried to get away instead. but the creature wasn’t going to let it go, it used it arms to prevent the lizard from pushing away and proceeded to lock its legs around the lizard. It then continued its efforts to bite and tear out the lizard’s throat.

Adam had grabbed a hold of its front limbs to prevent them from cutting him up further and his jaws never stopped biting into the lizard’s neck. He kept ripping chunks of it’s throat out and swallowing it in haste. He did this again and again till its dying struggles slowed down and it finally stopped.

He would have continued ripping into the lizard but as soon as it died the lizard rapidly decomposed into a black tar like substance which quickly dispersed into the water and all that was left of the creature was a sliver of crystal barely longer than a thumb, green in color and shining with a weak pulsating light.

The water which was quickly turning pitch black brought the shining crystal into Adam’s sight. In his near delirious state he grabbed it using his jaws and swallowed it. It was like liquid fire had poured down his throat and into his gut.

For a brief instant Adam felt like he was lit on fire from the inside, everything burned and then the pain started to fade like an echo but the pain was enough to shock Adam out of his feral state and coherent thoughts finally started forming in his head. He was still lightheaded and weak from his wound but his lungs needed air so he pushed off the bottom of the pond and breached the surface and his lungs greedily sucked in air. I’m alive. I won.

Adam swam back towards the reeds as soon as he could breathe normally. He needed to hide himself before he dealt with what had happened. It took him a while before managing to reach the reeds, he was weakened, his hands were horribly mangled and he was forced to stop multiple times to catch his breathe.

He managed to make it to the reeds on the far bank but he was continuously getting weaker and weaker. Probably because of the bleeding. He was dangerously close to passing out but the fear of what would happen if he did, continued to inject adrenaline into his body. He could not afford to pass out. Not out in the forest with no safety. He needed to get back to the cave.

But Adam had nothing left in the tank, he was running on empty. He hadn’t had a chance to recover from his struggle with death but he knew he couldn’t afford to stay near the lake.

He took mud and wet soil from the bank and slathered it over himself and his wounds. Can’t be worried about infection right now. He couldn’t do it properly due to his injuries but he made sure that the mud covered all of his open wounds, regardless of the chances of infection he could not afford a predator to catch the scent of his blood. The mud felt cool against his warm skin. Fever is setting in. Shit! It’s much too soon for this! Fuck. I can’t worry about this now, I need to reach the cave before the fever fully sets in.

And so Adam started his journey back towards the safe zone. Weakened, mauled, physically and mentally exhausted and now with the fever setting in, the return journey was looking to be ridiculously difficult and long even though it was just a bit more than half a kilometer.

He tried to go as fast as he could but he couldn’t throw caution to the wind. The forest was dangerous and he was wounded. He couldn’t escape if he was seen. He shuffled from tree to tree and crawled from shrub to shrub. He reached maybe halfway and he was beyond exhausted, he stopped thinking and let his training and instincts take over. He moved using the trees for cover and used slow and steady motions to move forwards and towards the cave. The light in his eyes was slowly dying and then the fever set in.

The rest of his journey back to the cave was a blur. A few moments of lucidity followed by blank patches in his memory and the blank periods started getting longer and longer until during his last moment of lucidity he saw black and grey walls and a pool of crystal clear water. He had made it. And then he shut down with the fading thoughts about whether the passive skill from his Legendary title would work.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Adam turned off his alarm and got up. He brushed his teeth and took a cold shower before he put on his joggers and headed out for his daily run. The morning was crisp with a nice breeze that set his blood flowing. He took the same route he always did for the last 3 years and went through the forest trail near his home. The woods were beautiful in the early morning light and Adam felt blessed that he got to see it everyday. Part of the reason why he never missed his morning runs was he enjoyed seeing the forest bathed in the light of dawn.

He proceeded to complete his run and reached back home half an hour later and then proceeded to do his workout in the garage. The guys in his old unit were always about giving 110% in everything and even more so in the gym. Back than being fresh meat Adam hadn’t much of a choice but to join in and now years later that habit of going hard still persisted.

Got just enough time for a quick breakfast before I need to hit the road. He thought as he finished his workout and proceeded to go back inside his house.

Got to get to the mine early, got that supervisors meeting and after that I need to give that local news channel a tour of the site. Not to mention I need hound engineering to speed up repair of rig 4. Adam mentally sighed. It’s going to be a long day! Well at the least I can look forward to tonight. Date night with Alayna. The thought put a spring in his step as he walked out of the shower. No matter what happens I need to get home by 1800 and grab a change of clothes before I take her out..

He had finished his toast and oatmeal breakfast and washed it down with a carton of milk before leaving for work. His truck started acting up halfway to his site but luckily he managed to reach the end before it gave out.

Need to get Ol’ Betsy checked out…Tomorrow..yeah tomorrow for sure. He had a meeting to get to and he didn’t have enough time in the day to get his truck checked out and so he settled it with a promise to do it tomorrow as he got out of the parking area and through the gate towards the admin building. He looked at his watch and then his quick walk turned into a dash. He had never been late to work and he wasn’t going to start now.

The day turned into a long one, with the meeting taking up the better part of the morning and after hearing arguments and breaking up a few fights between supervisors over resource allocation and some other bullshit, Adam managed to find time for a small 15 coffee break before the news crew showed up.

He was all smiles and laughs and did his best to act as a good host and to talk about how the company was committed to the about the environment as he took them around the entire site.

He showed them a few dig locations and a few rigs and ended the tour with a late lunch in the admin cafeteria. He sent them off with a smile which faded as soon as they were out of sight before he started the real work of the day. Now to go and hound those boys down at engineering. Sigh.

It was late in the evening by the time Adam got home and almost full dark as he got into his truck and drove to Alayna’s house. Thankfully Betsy was being merciful and didn’t act up along the way. Alayna would throw a fit if he was late, she had a temper when the mood took her. But she was just as quick to forgive. That was one of the qualities she had that he found endearing.

He reached her house and pulled up alongside the curb and got out of his truck. After doing a final Check of his hair in the side mirror and walked up the to the door with flowers in hand. He was lucky that the boutique 6 blocks down was still open otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to get her sunflowers. Alayna loved sunflowers and he was sure his gesture would earn him points.

He knocked and waited, a few seconds later he heard the catch being opened and the door opened to show his spring goddess in all her glory. She was dressed in a bright yellow summer dress with white flower prints. The dress had a large neck and had a low cut showing off her tanned valleys. She was wearing white sandals and had a matching white hand bag, a tiny thing with a long strap.

And then he took in her face. She was beautiful. Her skin was sun kissed with a small beauty mark near the right corner of her lips. She wore red lipstick that made them look extremely inviting and she had just a hint of blush on her cheeks that brought out her grey blue eyes. She wore her long dark her pulled back in a loose braid which he knew came down to the small of her back. She was beautiful and for a moment he almost forgot to breathe and then she smiled and his heart skipped a beat.

“ Adam are we going out or are you just going to stand there staring at me all night?” Alayna teased with a smile. Adam managed to rein himself in and presented her the flowers he brought.” For you.” “ Thanks love. You’re a real gentleman aren’t you. 5 years we been dating and you still bring me flowers.” Alayna replied with a laugh as she took the flowers. She went back inside to put them in a vase.

She came out and he escorted her to his car and then they set off for their date night. He kept his fingers crossed and prayed that ol’ betsy didn’t start acting up tonight and promised himself that he was going to get her to a garage tomorrow.

Thankfully betsy didn’t act up during the entire night and Adam managed to take Alayna out for dinner and afterwards they went on a drive and went up lovers point. But throughout the entire night Alayna was absent minded. She laughed and smiled but it never quite reached her eyes and she got quieter and quieter as the night wore on.

They reached the top of the hill over looking town in silence and even Adam as dense as he was knew something was not ok with her. He stopped his car and finally asked her what the matter was. “Alayna you can tell me anything. I know something’s bothering you and I want to help. So please talk to me.” Adam was sincere in voicing his feelings and Alayna looked at him. She looked at him for a long time before she spoke. “ Adam I’ve been thinking these past couple of months. About us and our future. I realized that I enjoy your company and going out with you and having fun. But I cant imagine a future with us married. I want to but I just can’t see us like that. I know you’ve been wanting to pop the question to me and believe me I want to make you happy but I just can’t see us together like that no matter how much I try. You’re a sweet guy and you deserve-“ STOP! That one word asserted itself over the memory, everything started to fade until nothing was left, for an instant Adam felt as if he was in limbo before he started to regain consciousness.