I woke up on a soft, prickly surface. Grass. Taking a look around, I figured that I was in a forest of some sort. The trees were tall, extremely so. Almost prehistoric.
Where the hell was I?
The last thing I remembered was the fall. The Earthquake! Yes! There was an earthquake and the earth.... swallowed me up. My mood plummeted. My legs! I desperately patted and squeezed them. I could feel them and most importantly- they were uncrushed.
I sighed in relief. Was it a dream then? No. Some part of me knew that it wasn't. I died- or certainly came extremely close to it.
So where was I? Did I travel back in time? The thought that I might've landed in the prehistoric era filled me with fear. Fuck, was I really in the dino era? Was that why the trees were taller? Nah, it can't be right?
Right?
The shrill scream of a woman sounded to my left.
"Oh hell naw." Another garbled scream, this time much closer.
Should I run the other way?
That sounded human, but it could easily be some weird dino monster.
Whatever it was, it didn't gave me any chance to pursue it or avoid it- because it was heading my way. There was a pitter patter of feet and through the tall trees came a young girl- covered in alarming amounts of blood, two arrows in her back. Holy fuck.
She gasped when she saw me, her eyes unfocused, dilated and filled with tears. She only stopped for a moment but that was enough to upset her momentum. She fell with a dull thump.
Oh fuck, oh fuck! What the hell?! Who did this to-
I could hear several thumps in the distance and loud shouts. Human shouts and horse hooves? Several horses? Riders? Were they pursuing the girl? Were they responsible for this?
The girl in question moaned. Kneeling by her side, I could tell that she was alive. The shouts were closer now, I could hear words and laughter but I did not know what they meant.
The blonde girl lifted her head and looked at me with the most pitiful grey eyes I had ever seen. Blurry with tears, pain and trampled hope.
I couldn't tell you the exact moment I had decided to help the girl flee whatever monsters she was fleeing from. I picked her up into a princess carry carefully so as to not jostle the arrows in her back, turned around and ran like I had never run before.
Something whizzed past my ear, pain bloomed near the tip of my ear- an arrow. I did not stop to inspect the damage even when I felt a warm liquid trickle down. I did not look back. It was an extremely hard task, and certainly not one for someone who hadn't been as athletic, but somehow, I did it. I lept over roots and ducked under low branches.
The girl gripped my shirt tightly, buried her face into my chest and sobbed.
"Fucking hell," I cursed under my breath. "Who are you? Why are these men trying to kill you?" I asked the girl while dodging arrows. It might have come out a bit aggressive, because she trembled and sobbed even more. Damn it.
Another arrow flew- this time however, there was a sudden red spike of Danger in my vision(?). I dodged to the left and surely enough the arrow went through where my liver would've been.
I had no time to dwell on whatever odd spider sense I had developed- it was the least craziest thing to happen this day.
I could hear them clearly now but still couldn't understand what these barbarians were saying. There was a tingle in my neck and spine and my hair stood on end.
Strangely enough, I understood every word.
"I'll skin you alive once I get my hands on you, fucker!" One shouted.
Another yelled obscenities and threatened to "fuck the bitch good and hard and make her regret ever plopping out of her mother's cunt."
I grit my teeth in rage at what I was hearing. Yet I knew there wasn't much I could do against a group of armed killers and hunters. All I could do was run.
What surprised me was my sudden stamina and endurance. I never knew that I could run for so long and so swiftly too.
Another arrow, another sidestep. Fucker was aiming for my legs now. I hope you choke on hot tar, you bastard.
"Hold on, please." I could feel the girl's breath grow lighter and her body colder.
What a nightmare.
"Oh no..."
Before me was a wide clearing with none of the cover I had used to evade the raiders. In the dead centre of the clearing- a massive tree, gnarly and looming, stretched up into the heavens, beating its neighbours in sheer size. At the base of the tree opened up a wide hollow, an arch that led into darkness.
I couldn't tarry any longer. The blonde waif was nearly dead and a gut feeling told me to enter the hollow. Anywhere else lay danger and death.
My strange spidersenses hadn't led me wrong for the entire chase, I doubt they'd fuck me over now.
I ran to the hollow, making sure to zigzag and not get Rickoned.
A musty, earthy scent clogged up my nose and my throat. My danger senses blew up too late or perhaps I was too slow to react.
I slipped on a slimy root and fell headfirst into the darkness below.
Water. We fell into water. Very deep water.
The girl in my arms panicked and tried her best to imitate a koala bear- a drowning koala bear. Her nails dug sharply into my back.
My lungs filled with water, and she was in a similar situation judging by her panicked kicks.
My lungs burned and my despair grew with each fading heart beat.
'I was going to die here.' I thought with dark amusement. 'Again.'
In the distance, a blue-ish white light bloomed. The light swam towards us, I could make out our surroundings now, just barely. A massive root system that reached down into an abyss, ancient rocks and earth lined the sloping walls of the deep pool.
The light was upon us- a translucent, glowing worm like creature with dozens of tendrils.
Holy shit, I did lose my mind.
Then the worm reached out with its weird glowy tendrils trying to make it a group hug. Oh no you don't, you weird eldritch tree-dwelling snake!
With one final act of defiance, I pushed my hand against the worm's head.
There was a flash of blue lightning and a sharp pain in my neck.
The world split into a canopy of stars. Terrible and wonderful.
I floated amongst them and swam across the vast emptiness between, as if I had done it a million times.
I saw worlds die and stars perish, I saw warlocks battle against terrible demons, I saw worms of shifting crystal spin around each other in a savage dance. I saw a skeleton mage look up at the stars in awe, as if he had seen them for the first time, unknowingly uttering words that would change the world. I saw a man in red and white beating his son to near death on a mountain, his eyes red with rage and unshed tears.
I saw many things and nothing at all.