Amanda had no idea where she was. She blinked hundreds of times, confused, eyes a little blurry. All she saw was a strange white cloud, scattered everywhere in her field of vision.
The girl would scream something, however, she saw a light-shaped hand reach out in front of her before she could react. Soon, she felt like, inside her dizzy head, something had been wrenched from her.
A loud noise hissed the air and Amanda felt something wet passing over her head. All the tension that had built up over the past few minutes was released, and she leapt out of the darkness and the silence. She jumped back in shock, coughing water and sand out of her mouth.
Again, Amanda had no idea where she went, where she was. She had a vague feeling that it all happened in a second. She's been in a place as clear as a cotton cloud, now... where was that place?
Closing her eyes, she felt her fingers grip something spongy and wet, and from afar she heard what sounded like the crashing of ocean waves. She opened her eyes again, lifted her head toward a beach bathed in bright sunlight.
Her forehead creased, and she felt a pounding pain in her head. She flinched, moaning in agony, bringing her fingers to where they seemed to burn at the back of her neck. Her hand was still kind of tied, but the knot was a little loose. When she returned her fingers to his eye range, there was blood on her fingers.
She remembered hitting her head as she was thrown backwards into the middle of the ocean by a fish the size of an island. She hit a piece of wood detached from the ship, shattered to pieces by the huge sea monster.
Well, she wasn't sure if she'd been dreaming, except now she woke up on a beach.
The notion of time was vague, she didn't know how much she'd been adrift at sea when her body had been flung into the sand. Next to it, the sea carried to the wreckage the remains of the wood that had made up the ship, as well as the remains of goods and imploded barrels of drinks.
Amanda spun in the sand. She lay on her back, closing her eyes to the clear daylight. Her head was in chaos, and it hurt like hell.
Then, thinking she finally had a moment of peace, Amanda jumped in astonishment. She heard something moan in the middle of the beach. She lifted her head toward the sound, then felt fear catch her breath.
She had a glimpse of a person.
A translucent person.
"I thought you wouldn't notice me, Khasewet!"
Amanda let out a scream, scrambling away into the ocean waves lapping at her waist.
"Oh yes, it seems to me this is the first time you've been here," the creature observed. "Let's stay calm, okay?
"Y-you're... you're a..."
"Yes, I am a sheut, a shadow abandoned in the Abyss Forest." Whatever that thing was, she explained in a proud tone. 'Don't be prejudiced against me, Khasewet.
Amanda felt fear tighten in her chest, and she took a deep breath, trying to fight the daze. Her mouth parted, though she found it hard to believe she wasn't in danger. Very cautiously, she blinked her eyes to understand what the hell she was seeing.
The ghost, whatever it was, looked like the figure of a man. Dressed in clothes that reminded her of Ancient Egypt, though with visible dissimilarities. Amanda had always found it strange that clothes also turned into ghosts.
She shook her head, looking up into the creature's face: if it really was a ghost, a dead one, it was a handsome man. She couldn't make out her skin tone, but the features on her face were rough and her square jaw was a little charming.
"Y-you're... a ghost..." She managed to get the words out, startled.
"I never heard such a word," the thing replied. "I'm a sheut, a shadow. One day, Khasewet, you'll look like me. The only difference is... well, I didn't have the money to get into the Field of Reeds, and I was cast out. Thrown into the Abyss Forest , condemned to wander until he can help someone important".
Amanda frowned.
"Where are we?" She surveyed her, even more cautiously.
"Oh. You don't even know that, Khasewet?" The creature shook its head disapprovingly. "This is the door of the Duat, the thin layer that separates the world of the living from that of the dead.
For a second, Amanda thought she had hit her head too hard. She was delusional, seeing ghosts and hearing nonsense.
"Come on, Khasewet, it seems to me you're bleeding a lot. I was on the beach, sunbathing, and I saw the sea bring the remains of your ship here, then a body that was yours, of course" he shifted in the ground, excited. "It's the first zophet I've seen in years. The last one I saw was my wife during the Red Skull War".
Amanda just frowned.
"I was condemned to wander the forest, as I said. It's been over a thousand years... Well, I don't know if it's important, but I can help you find a place to treat this ugly wound." The ghost pointed to himself. "I'm Egbe. A former nobleman from Andra.
The girl was sure the knock on her head had been too strong, and something unimportant made her a target of curiosity.
"How does a ghost go out to sunbathe?" he asked, feeling headaches.
Egbe laughed.
"It's just a way of speaking." He smiled.
Amanda looked him up and down, fear beginning to dissipate as it was a delusion and posed no danger to anyone.
She felt a lot of headache again, bringing hand to her head.
"Oh, you need medical attention, Khasewet." Egbe waved his hands. "Please come this way, I'll help. I believe there is a village of morphs nearby.
The girl pondered. Even disoriented by the strange situation, she felt neither fear nor threat. Ever since she woke up on Mars, she felt people's evil intentions on her skin, like a weird energy that made her skin itch. She didn't look very different to that person in light form.
She rose to her feet, cringing at an old bruise on her abdomen after spending days getting freed from creatures that seemed to come from a nightmare. She again believed that this was all a strange nightmare. She still hadn't woken up, clinging to the idea that any minute, her phone would go off the alarm at some point of that delirium.
Egbe pointed towards a place she easily glimpsed as a path into a forest.
Lame from many injuries, in her first step, Amanda was startled. She felt the world shake as she heard the roar of some beast within the forest. The strands of hair on her arms prickled as she took a step back.
"Don't worry, Khasewet, these creatures won't hurt you," Egbe assured him. "They like to exaggerate a little, but they're not dangerous at all".
Amanda wasn't quite sure. She brought her hand up to her head again, feeling her fingers wet with her own blood. With that frightening scream, she judged that whatever roared it must be some hungry beast. She wondered with great awe if it was like a shark, and smelled her blood.
"Come on, Khasewet, don't worry, let's go!" Egbe encouraged. "Come on, there. The town isn't far away."
Doubtfully, the girl lowered her hand still attached to the ropes, cautiously placing one foot after the other.
Then, as it couldn't have been any different for her great luck in all that delirium, she saw a giant thing jump out of the woods that circled the beach behind her.
Amanda gasped, letting out a cry of fear. Right before her eyes, she saw an ugly thing. What would expect from alien animals. The mouth full of large knife-clad teeth salivated followed by a deafening roar, designed to paralyze prey in the moment of attack.
In a reflex taken from her desperate survival instinct, Amanda jumped to the side, rolling on the ground as the creature ate sand and rocks.
He braced his hands in a mound of sand, running his eyes over the creature that looked to him like a hyena covered in a carapace like a beetle. Her gaze was red like a Christmas lamp.
It was an obvious and hungry predator, and after its frustrated attack, it swung angrily toward Amanda with the speed and strength of a jaguar.
Frightened, the girl ran into the middle of the forest. She heard the creatures' roars, almost feeling him breathe on her neck. A claw like knives slashed across her shoulder, tearing at her shoulder blade. She screamed in pain, flung forward. But she quickly rose to her feet, pushing herself forward with all the strength she had left.
Amanda again felt the air pass her head, although she dodged it by bending to the left. The thing's claws got caught in a very weird tree trunk that doesn't appreciate belonging to any on Earth. However, the beast broke free quickly, and she put more strength in her legs. She didn't understand how she could be two or more feet in front of the creature, it was an animal whose muscular legs and claws provided animal superiority in any terrain.
She stopped quickly at the fork between two trees, looking for a place to hide. She saw a hole that looked like a cave, and ran in that direction before the thing reached it.
Jumped to the ground, crawling along the ground, entering the small opening like a rabbit fleeing a predator.
Crawled into the corner, cringing. Before she managed to hit a wall, the predator's claw right behind her pinned her to her feet. Amanda roared in pain.
She used her other foot to kick the thing, in so much pain it didn't seem like it would end. Her kicks pushed away the hooked nail on the inside of her foot, and the monster backed away. Again, she lashing out with her other paw while roaring like a panther.
Amanda flinched away before being caught again. She held her knees, crying in pain and fear.
A drop of sweat trickled from her already-wet hair, and as she thought of some way to escape, Amanda let out another cry of astonishment.
The beast roared desperately trying to catch her like a rabbit trapped in its den, and in that blind moment of distraction, another beast even bigger than she was, biting into her husky body in one fell swoop. With her heart roaring in her ears, beating so fast she thought it would flee through her mouth, she had heard a predator fight outside the small cave. Then there reigned only a brief and frightening silence of a fierce battle won by the strongest.
Ten seconds later, Amanda saw the carcass of the beast that followed her hurled to the ground, close to where she was trapped. Killed with a violence she had never seen in Earth nature.
Shrugging in fear, she again wondered if she wasn't living the worst nightmare of her entire life. A long, delirious and aching...
"Damn...!" She moaned, bringing her hand to her shoulder.
The new wounds burned as if she'd rolled over in embers. Her foot was worse than her back. She didn't know if she would be able to run if she got out of that hole, so she decided to just take a second to breathe and wait for the creature outside to go away.
In fact, she passed out from panic, pain and fear.
****
Opening her eyes, Amanda felt a pain tingle in her legs. She jumped with a howl of pain.
She had no idea where she was, except that strange insects were eating her foot wound. Her skin was turning red and almost raw.
She shook her leg, standing up as she patted her clothes full of strange insects. The cave was full of them, on all sides.
Her survival instincts had her dragging herself out of the cave, remembering what had brought her there, only when she was standing beside the remains of the predator that had nearly killed her.
She fumbled with the remains of the thing, looking for danger on all sides. She found nothing but the silence of a dark forest, bathed in moonlight hidden behind gray clouds.
The forest was strangely very silent, she realized.
She fell to the ground, trying to hear any sounds that were from a cricket or other nocturnal animals. Nothing was there.
She sighed, glad she could rest and relieve herself a little. She felt the pain in her foot, and fell to the ground on a root of a huge tree. And she cried. She cried so much, she couldn't think where to go or if she should just stay there.
Spending some time regaining her rationality, Amanda felt hungry. And thirst. She had no food, didn't know if the berries lying on the tree floor above her head were edible. It looked like nothing in this place was edible. The entire forest was a dark color, gray and light like crystal. The flowers themselves were transparent, weird as Mars could be.
Wait, Amanda thought, does Mars have forests?
She pushed her doubts aside, moaning at the ugliness of his foot wound. Eventually, she would end up dying of an infection. She needed to move and find a place out of that place.
"Egbe..." she asked, looking around.
Amanda could only be going crazy, she thought to herself. There were no ghosts. His own Christian concepts said that. She remembered once watching a viral video on the internet, and wondered with all her science student rationality why people believed in ghost stories.
The first explanation she sought was scientific, saying that it was probably human energies or delusion. As an alternative, she looked to the Bible: the Scriptures taught that at death, the body returns to clay and the spirit returns to God.
She came to the conclusion that ghosts didn't exist. Most of these mystical experiences were the result of the human mind. And she was in a miserable state: hunger and thirst, pain, weariness, confusion. A lot of confusion.
Was she so confused, she came to believe that maybe her mind had developed some defense mechanism? Those who hurt her, like the priests in that temple turning to monsters; or, who knows, the reptilians became reptiles due to the conspiracy theories that Rafael told him and showed videos. Gabriel also loved making history. Her mind protected her, so she could absorb the impact of all that damn trauma.
Perhaps Amanda had been kidnapped and sold into human trafficking, now she was delirious with fear of a cold and cruel reality?
A cold tear ran down her face when she couldn't explain despite the theory, however, where she was.
She ran her still-tied hand, looking at the carcass of the creature that had tried to kill her. Her stomach rumbled with hunger. She looked at the remnants of her flesh, and crawled on the floor. She had her stomach against her ribs.
She reached up, pulling out a piece of raw meat. She took her mouth, tasted sour and hard. However, she needed to eat or her condition would only get worse.
She ate the meat raw and hard, in small pieces to make it easy to chew. Feeling satisfied, she walked back. She used one of the creature's fangs to free her hands.
Now she needed to wait for the sun to rise to look for a way out, she thought, looking around. She had no idea where she was, but refused to die without finding answers.
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Footnote
Khasewet ----> is a made-up word meaning "foreigner noble," generally used to politely refer to strangers.