"Ow...God damn... "
The sharp pain that stung the surrounding area of her head was such a bother. Maybe it was a concussion, whatever it was it hurt. The pain stung so bad she couldn't even see past the shadows of whatever was above her.
She raised her hands and pressed her palms into her temples as she sat up. A bad idea as her vision spun through her opened brown eyes.
"Ohhh no. No, No, No.... Clarence turn it off." she said weakly as slowly returned to a laying down position.
"Clarence.... What setting was that? I thought you said it was normal."
No response was heard as she sat up again and held herself up with the strength of her arms.
"Clarence!!! Would you answer me you little-"
Her eyes opened wide as she stared at her surroundings.
"What..... The fuck." she said as she stared around what looked like a forest. She couldn't believe it.
"It worked."
She smiled as she looked around her at these giant trees, with beautiful mahogany bark with green lichen spreading around the trunks. These trees were massive, the smallest one she could see was likely around twenty-seven feet tall.
"Oh my God! It actually worked!" she said again with a chuckle as she stood up.
Admiring the beauty of this forest was the only thing that stopped her from truly taking into consideration the events that had occurred.
Her name was Dahlia, a twenty-eight year old female with ungroomed black hair and a gentle tan tone to her flesh. Her uniform was sloppy, a knee length black skirt and a grey dress shirt. The third button from the top was missing and two more down from that was an odd green button against the other white. It had fell off awhile ago and she attempted to replace it with a green one. Maybe it wouldn't have been so odd if her shirt also didn't have a huge yellow paint stain on her right sleeve.
Her feet were regular and thin for a female, adorned with black flats with a faded mushroom drawing done in metallic sharpie on both of the outsides of the shoe.
Little miss Dahlia with the sweet rounded face of a teen, five foot four, one hundred and sixty pounds. Worked with her father in a company that was disguised to the public as a marine life rehabilitation facility. But the deep truth of the matter is that the people here were performing experiments to try and open a fold in reality to lead to a more supernatural dimension.
One moment she was standing on a platform, and the next here. Wherever here was. She herself were always fascinated in biology, the structures, a species' natural behaviours, the unique sounds, reproductive mating rituals, evolution, and a creatures natural strengths. But fantasy of creatures only read about from books were much more intriguing to her so she followed along beside her father to attempt a portal to a more supernatural setting.
What was worse was not even having a cell phone. Protocols to test their machine require absolutely no electronic devices to be on the Personnel in case of technological difficulty, malfunction or electronic interference. Without access to her cell phone or GPS she had no way of knowing exactly where she was located or if she was even on Earth at all.
"Hello!? " she called out into the forest hearing nothing but a very distant echo of her own voice. There wasn't even a sound of any birds in the area, oddly suspicious in a place with such a vivid plant growth. The massive trees provided such huge canopy that despite the bright Sun through the Leaves, the area of which she stood and that surrounded her as far as her eyes could see, was very dark.
The smell here was absolutely amazing. So much greenery and oxygen filled her nostrils. Mud, and water, and the moist smell of stone, perfect for a research outing. But she had more important things to worry about. Was she even on earth at all? A fold in reality? Another universe maybe? How did she get here if so? Why would the machine send her to a forest?
She began to walk slowly, and quietly through the forest. If the test was successful and she truly was in another world, predators would be a very big problem for her.
She listened for anything suspicious, not a single bird sung here, not a squirrel chattered, no bunnies rustled the groups of bushes, nothing at all accept a fat green catipillar that inched its way up a tree. She smiled and bent closer to it. It had black glossy eyes, red horns, and white spots all the way down its four inch body, orange legs, and a red dot on the end of its bottom.
"well ain't you a chunker." she said as she raised a finger and poked it, enjoying as the fat little critter moved up the tree with immense speed to flee her.
Her enjoyment of the catipillar ceased immedietly and she froze as she heard a rustle in the long grass to her right just a few meters away. Long blades swayed with the movement of something there. Something dark and fuzzy that swayed in it.
"Please be a very dark deer..." she whispered to herself as she watched the creature approach.
Dread filled her as she heard a menacing growl at her feet. She looked down slowly and met a face. A long snout, two pointed and pinned back ears with piercing yellow eyes. What she had been watching distant in the grass was a tail. The tail of a wolf.
"Oh fuck...." she said taking a step back in an attempt to turn and run as her body was painfully shoved down against a rounded rock.
"Ahh!!!" she shouted in pain as she felt her chest and face take the most of the impact and growling was in her ear as claws that felt huge dug into her back and she could see the teeth in the corner of her eye.
With a swift look she gazed to the right to see a wolf head, much bigger than any wolf she'd known or seen in a zoo.
A mix of fear and excitement shot down her spine as she stared unblinking at the jaws that approached her.