Azad woke up to find that he was in a forest. It appeared to be night judging from the color of the sky, but he could still see just fine for whatever reason. 10 feet to the right of him was a stream, which went reached out of the clearing and into the dense forest.

Azad seemed to be having trouble remembering how he got here.

“I have no clue where I am, and no clue how I got here…”

Though he remembered what happened when he pressed the button, he seemed to be having trouble remembering what happened after it.

“No, wait, I remember now!”

The memories took a bit to come back, but he eventually remembered. The God named George, his death, the reincarnating thing.

“Though aren’t I supposed to be a baby?”

What Azad asked was true, if you reincarnate, you have to be born again, right? Though this is what Azad himself thought, he appeared to be fully grown, and still have the body he did in what he will now call the God’s Realm.

“So, no growing up again? I’m fine with that, going through puberty again would suck. Anyways where am i?”

Azad decided it was best to determine where he was and how far from civilization this place is.

“Time to go exploring I guess.”

With that said, Azad pulled himself up and began to walk downstream next to the stream. He did this for what seemed like an hour before he reached another clearing.

“Neat,” was the only thing he could say regarding what he saw.

In the second clearing, what he saw was a pond next to a giant tree, which he didn’t see before on account on the dense forestry. The tree looked like something straight out of a fantasy novel, and made Azad just want to stare at it for a bit, and he did just that.

After he had enough of staring, he proceeded to go into the water to wash himself, as he had gotten sweaty from walking for so long. There was no need to strip, as he had no clothes on to begin with, a fact Azad saw no need to note, as he was fine with being naked.

“Cold!”

The water was indeed cold and caused Azad to shiver. Wanting to get used to the temperature quickly, Azad dunked himself completely under the water and looked around. He then ran out screaming at the top of his lungs.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

What he saw nearly scared him shitless. He saw what looked to be a fish. A 20-foot-long fish, with 12-inch razor sharp teeth. Red beady eyes that were watching him like he was prey. It also had legs, 6 of them, each pair of two being 4 feet away from each other starting from the front.

Azad ran as quickly as he could out of the water, which wasn’t that quick with the resistance of the water, and tried to get away. He tripped and fell, like a moron.

Azad, now scrambling on the ground to run away, heard a loud splashing sound, and felt something bite his leg. There wasn’t any pain, just a pressure. This was all he could register before he was flung into the air.

Azad was flipping through the air, a good 35 feet up, and still screaming.

“FUCKING WHY!?”

Azad then face-plan-

Azad then landed on the ground, once again no pain, and tried to turn to the monster. After turning to it, he was presented with a 20-foot-long fish thing running top speed at him. Azad froze in place and did the only thing he could, pray to George that he survived this. He raised he arms in front of himself and closed his eyes.

The rumbling of the running fish-snake thing grew louder and eventually was right on top of him. Right before he expected to die a second time, he felt an impact on his hand, followed by a gurgled whine.

Azad opened his eyes to see his right hand atop the legged snake’s head, holding it back.

“THE FUCK!?”

Out of surprise, Azad tried to push the freaky fish thing away, and was surprised when it was flung into the trees behind it, and snapped in half after making contact with the trees.

Azad stood there dumbfounded for half a minute before he checked his hand for injuries. He found none, but what he did find were strange marking going up his forearm. They appeared to be black rings, and started at his wrist and ended at his mid-bicep.

As he was trying to figure out what they were and how they got there, a line began to from straight through the middle of them. As is became more prominent, he felt his strength began to disappear and was assaulted by a slight pain. The pain grew worse and worse until he keeled over, unable to breath from the pain.

The pain didn’t last long, as Azad was soon back on his feet and thinking about what just happened. Then it struck him.

“George did mention that he gave me some of his power and placed a seal on it so I could get used to it, didn’t he?”

Azad decided to put thought into this later, as he wanted nothing more than to leave this place and find a town of some sort. He didn’t want another Nessie situation.

‘Fucking puns, never liked em’.’

He began walking the opposite direction of the fish’s body, and continued to walk in this direction for several hours, before it began to get dark, and he decided to sleep in a tree for the night.

….

‘Sleeping in a tree makes your back ache.’

Such were the thoughts of Azad as he awoke in a tree, 10 feet off the ground. He would have climbed higher, but that would require effort, something Azad did not have after his experience yesterday. The same could be say about anyone who’s been attacked by a giant fish, especially one that can walk on land.

Climbing down from the tree was harder than climbing up, and having a sore body didn’t help. People always say that a near death experience makes their body sore, but Azad had no clue why. He figured it was something like over exertion, as that was the most obvious answer.

‘Pain sucks.”

Azad continued to have such thoughts for the rest of the day as he made his way through the forest in one general direction in hopes of finding some sort of settlement. Hopefully one with beds, as Azad didn’t like sleeping on a hard surface.

…

‘Nothing found, once again.’

Azad had indeed found nothing, except but trees and more trees. But he wasn’t exactly having a hard time find those really. They were everywhere and seemed to go on for miles in every direction, at least this is what Azad saw when he bothered to climb a tree to see where he was.

‘Third times the charm, I guess.’