Uploaded July 17th, 2022.

Jenny opened her eyes and flinched as the light assaulted them. Her head throbbed lightly, but the pain was ebbing. She vaguely heard a girl's voice telling her to wake up and wondered what happened. There shouldn't be anybody out here on the property line.

She was suddenly yanked on, as she heard some howling in the distance. Coyotes at this time of day? She caught her balance and jumped up. While coyotes shouldn't target her, she wasn't going to sit around and find out if they wanted to test their luck on a human.

"We need to run. Can you?" A young girl with a higher pitched voice asked her. Jenny glanced at her warily before looking towards the direction of the howls.

Jenny froze. The scenery around her was very different than what it should have been. She wasn't able to think about that too deeply as she was full on sprinting the next second. Her and the girl next to her ran as fast as they could.

Considering they were in a very dense forested area, Jenny questioned whether the canines chasing her were coyotes. Instead of turning around to check like an idiot would, she glanced at the passing trees. Her ears could only hear her heart pounding. She wanted to climb a tree, but cursed when she saw that the closest branches were too high up.

Jenny was used to climbing trees and there weren't a lot of options right now. She flung her adrenaline fueled body and caught a branch. She swung from one hand as she noticed the girl had fallen down.

"Hey! Can you get up?" Jenny yelled to the girl as she got her other hand on the branch. It bounced with her weight and she swore. Looking back at the girl, Jenny bit her lip. She wasn't in a position to help. It would haunt her if the girl died in front of her, but she wasn't ready to get killed over it. She was sure that adrenaline didn't give her enough of a boost to beat down wolves with her bare hands.

Before the girl could respond, an extra large leopard jumped in front of them and roared. The wolves backed up long enough for the leopard to grab the girl and put her in the tree. Jenny hurriedly pulled her legs up and tried to swing the rest of her body onto the branch. She hazarded a look at the girl and leopard, but the leopard jumped back down and attacked the wolves.

Jenny couldn't even appreciate the odd behavior. Her mind kept telling her over and over that leopards shouldn't belong anywhere near her parent's property, even though she was well aware that she wasn't there anymore. Her logic wasn't matching her common sense.

Before Jenny could really think about the situation, the wolves ran when the leopard tore out the probable alpha's throat. The leopard roared one more time and jumped up in front of the girl. The girl screamed and Jenny felt all the blood rush from her face. It wasn't logical. None of this was. If the leopard was hungry, it should have eaten the wolf it killed, not gone back for the girl. Unless it was a man eater that had saved its meal.

Jenny gulped as her mind tried to play a hundred scenarios a minute. Before she could think anymore, the leopard suddenly became a man. Jenny blinked and blinked some more. She was sure the severity of the situation must have twisted her mind. The man started speaking as the girl yelled at him. The man introduced himself as Parker and the girl, Bai Qingqing.

Jenny's heart stopped for a second. She recognized those names and this situation, but she couldn't comprehend it. Parker did not give her the time as he shifted back into a leopard and carried the girl from the tree to the ground. He did the same for Jenny.

"You are my female now, I will take you to my village," Parker addressed Bai Qingqing. He turned to Jenny and added, "I will take you back as well." He shifted and made both of them ride them back to the village. He stopped part way to put mud on Qingqing's face.

Jenny watched, unable to comment. Everything was too real to be a dream. She had lucid dreams before, but none of them came close to this. But what was her other option? Being sucked into a novel? One that she didn't even like?

Parker didn't give her time to think before running off. Jenny bounced and held on for dear life while Bai Qingqing did the same. Once they were in the village, Parker took them both back to his place. He shifted and turned to Jenny. "Ugly female, you can go back and find another male to take care of you."

Jenny scoffed and then giggled. It wasn't the most appropriate time, but she had always met ridiculous and crazy situations with laughter. When she encountered a wild black bear, she did the same thing once it left her sight.

The giggles continued and she received pointed looks from the other two present. Although Jenny did think she was less than attractive with all of her acne scars, the insult meant nothing coming from the immature and superficial character in front of her.

"What's so funny?" Parker asked the female.

"Nothing," she tried hard to suppress her giggles, but failed. "I handle stress this way," Jenny added.

Parker insisted that Jenny leave, but Bai Qingqing begged him to let her stay. Parker looked peeved, but humored 'his' female. Jenny introduced herself properly, while trying to get a handle on her situation.

Jenny was familiar with this story. She had read a novel about it. She ended up dropping it and picking it back up again. She didn't like how the story glorified Curtis's actions or how unreasonable Parker was at first. But it was the only story about polyandry she had ever read and it made her stick around for a little while.

She was sure that this was that story as everything played out the same except for her presence here. She wanted to come up with some plan of action to ease the incoming panic, but Parker ran out of the room with Bai Qingqing to get her foot treated, leaving Jenny behind.

Now alone, she laid down in the hut and took the panic attack with as much grace as she could. She faced away from the door and focused on her breath. The scent and taste of urine did not help her efforts and it took some time to calm down. Thankfully, she controlled herself before the other two came back and saw her in that pathetic state. She didn't want anybody seeing her so weak and vulnerable.

Jenny went to place a dirt crusted nail into her mouth, but paused. She had long since kicked the habit of nail biting, but she almost relapsed. It had been a while since she got her last panic attack too. She wasn't too hard on herself and figured this situation called for some panic.

Jenny gave herself a once over just to confirm she was still her. She was, in fact, herself as she knew it. She was wearing her favorite sneakers and cargo pants with an athletic t-shirt. She was still shaking slightly from the aftereffects of the panic attack, but too much coffee did the same thing to her.

She checked her pockets and found her small pocket knife, two chapsticks, mini flashlight, cell phone, whistle, and a granola bar still there. 'Long live cargo pants,' she thought to herself. She preferred having her hands free when she walked the property line.

Jenny applied the chapstick to her flaky lips. Accutane had done a number on her skin to get rid of her terrible cystic acne. She never left the house without a chapstick or two and had to apply every hour to make her lips happy.

She checked the watch on her wrist. The digital numbers showed 16:11. Jenny wondered if time here was comparable to their time.

Jenny searched her phone. Of course, there was no signal. She did have a full bar and decided to save the battery by powering it down. She flipped her little blade in and out, feeling a little stronger. She scoffed at herself. A little three inch blade like this wouldn't save her from one wolf, let alone a pack of them. Still, it made her feel a little more in control.

Jenny took a deep breath and steadied herself. She had always thought she was adaptable with a fair sense of humor. If she couldn't calm down by taking this seriously, maybe she should do the opposite. This was a story so treating it like a game could work. She knew a lot of the plot, at least for the beginning. She doubted that she could have fun with it, but she should be able to get though long enough to manage.

She replayed the words of her friend in her head, 'fake it till you make it.' She could do that. She could pretend that she was okay and could handle this. She might have to.

She took a minute to recall everything she could about this story. It wasn't too difficult. She always loved reading and had a great memory for detail. It's why she did so well through school even though she hated that place. At least college wasn't terrible.

Jenny collected her wandering thoughts and tried to recall what she could. As soon as she started, Parker and Bai came back. Parker asked about cooking and Jenny didn't comment. She knew that the wood was used for flavoring meat. She took the meat given to her and did her best to chew and swallow. It was terrible.

Jenny loved cooking. It was one of the few skills she felt she was good at. To eat this nearly flavorless cardboard was truly difficult for her. Unfortunately, she would have to worry later about improving the culinary arts here. From the original, she knew that Qingqing would contribute.

Bai Qingqing mentioned something about rice and Parker snapped. Watching the man-boy pin the girl to the wall was a lot scarier in person. Jenny moved without thinking and tried to force the hands off of Bai Qingqing's wrists. They didn't budge and Jenny never figured herself as being that weak.

"Your hurting her," Jenny said through clenched teeth. Fear was rising in the pit of her stomach. It was more terrifying than she thought to confront someone who could easily overpower her. Before she could devolve into a shaking mess, Parker released Bai Qingqing with an almost apologetic expression that soon morphed to one of irritation.

"I hate entitled females. Because of them, so many males die trying to cultivate rice," Parker ground out while his ears remained pinned. Bai Qingqing assured him that she wouldn't ask again. Jenny wanted to say that rice was normal food where they were from and they didn't know better, but she held back. They ate the rest of the meal in awkward silence.

Bai Qingqing insisted that she bathe and chased Parker out. The girl looked at Jenny who turned her head away before asking, "You want to bathe after me." Bai Qingqing felt embarrassed. She would dirty the water like this.

Jenny felt complicated towards the girl's consideration. Jenny was always acted sensitive around others and went out of her way to make them comfortable. She didn't enjoy that, so she tried to avoid people in general. She didn't like being a butt-kisser, but she had yet to kill the habit.

"It's okay, I can bathe out here," Jenny answered. She arranged herself so the peeping Parker won't see her and wondered if she should warn the girl. She refrained for now and tried to used her now soaked shirt, to wipe herself down.

A scream scared the crap out of her, but Jenny immediately calmed herself when she realized it was just the girl reacting to Parker. Jenny listened to her complain about it for a minute and agreed without much thought. She scrubbed quickly and put the rest of her clothes back on. They were dirty and she hated that, but there was no other choice. She was definitely not going to ask Parker for clothes.

Parker grumbled to himself. He wasn't pleased to have the other female around, but he wanted to make his female happy. He would take her into the village tomorrow so she find another male to take care of her. His tail swished excitedly, thinking of having his female all to himself.

The three settled down awkwardly for the night. Although Jenny couldn't remember the exact dialogue that occurred in the original story, she was sure that everything went similarly. Except for the obvious; her presence.

Jenny laid with the painful straw poking at her. She had gone camping before and missed her sleeping bag. It was amazing compared to this bed. She tried not to think of her actual bed that she was missing and instead, went over the events in her head.

This was still the first part of the story. At this point, Bai Qingqing has met Parker, Harvey, and maybe, Eudora and company. Unfortunately, Jenny had no idea about how time progressed as the plot went on. Bai Qingqing could've been in this village for a couple of days or a couple of weeks.

Bai Qingqing goes on the run with Curtis for a little while at least. Jenny wondered what she should be doing in the meanwhile. She felt her worries bubble up and decided to put more effort into sleep. Maybe she would get lucky and find herself back in her reality the next time she got up.