Breathing heavily, Kai felt his very conscious slowly fade away. Crimson blood flowing out of his mutilated body. His screams were pained and full of terror, but eventually died down, the life within his voice gone.
Looking around the ruined laboratory, which used to be where he spent most of his time.
He felt pained, everything he built up, gone, in just a matter of seconds.
The usual fully lighted laboratory is currently shrouded in darkness. Somewhere within there, lies the creature which killed him.
Thinking about it filled Kai with resentment.
'It doesn't matter anyways, my life is nearing it's end'
Accepting his fate, Kai finally gave in and fell into the embrace of death.
***
The thunderous sound of branches swaying assaulted Kai's ear.
Slowly opening his eyes, ice-cold wind brushed past his skin, making his hair stand on end.
His vision was blurry, but he could see bits of white branches swaying together with the blow of winds.
Kai eventually got up, feeling confused, he sat down and began pondering what happened.
He has no memories of where he is, who he is or why is he even here. Simply put, he has absolutely no memories of what happened.
After a while, his vision was restored.
But what he saw gave him a sense of unease, his entire surrounding is devoid of any life, just enormous white trees, with no end to it. But what mainly gave him the sense of unease was that there was also no leaves in sight.
Seeing that he was sitting on pure black grass, at least that's what Kai thought, he was instantly filled with dread.
There was absolutely no life anywhere near him, and only ominous white trees.
Quickly standing up, ready to defend himself if anything came out to attack him in this unfamiliar place. Only to realise he was bare naked.
Although there was no one around, he felt extremely embarrassed.
Quickly looking around to find something to cover himself up, he looked and looked, only to find nothing within the vast expanse of white forest.
Panicking, he ran around, only to realise how far the trees were from each other, and how large they actually were.
The trees each were towering above Kai for more than 30 metres and were as wide as 3 metres.
Touching the nearest tree, Kai found them as hard as obsidian.
But with this knowledge, he still can't solve his nakedness problem.
"Damn it! Where the hell am I?"
Kai cursed out as loud as he could.
Suddenly, Kai was filled with an immense amount of terror, looking around, he saw nothing unusual. But his instincts was ringing alarms. As if it hundreds, no, thousands of eyes were looking at him.
Terrified, Kai stood still, petrified, unaware of what to do.
A few second passed, which felt like an eternity, he felt as if he was free from the stares of these mysterious beings.
Moving rigidly, he looked around, the forest of trees was just like how it was a few seconds ago.
Feeling tensed, he kept his mouth shut.
'Wh-what was that...'
Completely lost, he stood still for a while.
Eventually, he began moving again, towards the faint blinding light which has been striking on him for a while far away.
Walking slowly, a few seconds passed, then a few minutes passed, and after what felt like an hour, he started growing frustrated, the light was still far away almost the same as it has always been.
'What if those eyes appear again? What am I supposed to do?'
Scared, Kai started speeding up his steps.
An hour passed, and then another. And then countless more hours passed.
And eventually the light started growing more faint as absolute darkness began to wash over the world. As if it wasn't dark enough in this forest.
Laying down on the ground, Kai was exhausted, he had been walking nonstop. He was tired to the bone. But in his mind, there was only fear.
Fear that they eyes would return.
Fear that he would be stuck in this forest forever.
Trying to come up with a desperate attempt to escape in his mind, he kept his fear away, only trying to form a strategy to escape, escape from this damned hell.
But his mind was clouded with fatigue. He couldn't think straight, his mind was wandering all around.
Feeling fear once again, he felt furious, furious that he couldn't think straight at all.
But there was nothing he could do, all there is to do is continue walking.
But it was at that moment when the sound of swaying branches was also filled with an unfamiliar sound.
The sound on an inhumane shriek.
Kai tried to stand up, preparing himself, but he couldn't, he was exhausted, both mentally and physically.
But thinking about his life, which he has never ever gotten to enjoy yet, at least from his memory, he felt furious again.
Standing up, he looked around. There was nothing.
He looked high up into the sky, which was blocked by white branches, he saw an monstrous figure fell down.
Landing a few metres beside him.
The fall was enough to cause the ground to shake, causing him to lose balance and fall.
Quickly trying to see past the dust while getting up.
He saw a faint figure of made out of white branches rushing towards him.
It wasn't big, barely reaching his knees, but he felt fear again when he finally got a good look at it.
It was an abomination made of white branches of the trees. With it swirling around it's body, made of hundreds of this thin branches, with multiple end on the branches serving as it's legs. As well as some multiple branches swirled together to form a short human-like hand with a total of 3 fingers on each hand on both side of it's tiny body.
Although it looks small and tiny at first, Kai instantly recognised what it is. The single eye in the upper part of it's body, which makes it resembles a Cyclops, is exactly the eyes that was staring at him when he first got up. And is what made him feel fear.
But at that moment, the single-eyed creature extended it's hand forward and lunged at Kai's neck, aiming to quickly strangle him.
Completely terrified, Kai let his mind loose and tried fighting back, but his strength compared to the tiny creature was nothing.
The creature tried catching his neck, but was met with a frail hand, swiping the hand away, the tiny creature plunged his hand towards Kai's neck.
But that moment of having his hand swiped away was enough for Kai, immediately he leaned right, barely dodging it's hand.
'What in the hell is this thing!'
Throwing a punch at the tiny creature in order to shrug it off of him, but it was to no avail. Only hurting his hand in the process, blood flowing down his fist.
Running away, the creature quickly followed and lunged at him, catching his left leg, causing Kai to stagger and fall.
This time, the branch creature managed to take hold of it's prey's neck. Strangling Kai's neck.
Feeling his neck about to explode, Kai desperately threw as many punches as he could at the creature.
"Damn it! Get of me!"
Throwing a violent attack right into the creature's eye, his hand was covered in a disgusting liquid, which was entirely black. Bit at the same time, he heard another shriek from the creature.
And immediately he felt it's grip on his neck let loose.
Throwing another punch right into it's eye in an attempt to throw it off, another inhumane shriek sounded across the forest.
Letting go of it's grip, the creature, rolled back on the ground, shrieking in agony.
Kai took this chance to get up, feeling his neck on the verge of breaking.
And it was only at this moment that he finally managed to get a good view of the entire creature.
Behind the creature's back, there was a mouth, which was where the shriek was coming from.
Standing up, Kai started running towards the direction where the light was supposed to be as fast as he could, despite his pitiful physical state. After what felt like an eternity of running, he layed beside a pale white tree. Trying as best as he could to mask his presence.
Looking up at the sky, which was full of countless lifeless branches from across a wide network of trees just a few hours ago.
But now, it was drowned in darkness.
Looking back, he couldn't see much from the way he came, it's entirety drowned in darkness.
Despite not being able to see far ahead due to the darkness, he could feel the bone-chilling wind blowing straight at him, hinting him that the exit is not far away.
Kai suspect that space within the forest is different between day and night, considering how far he has moved just in a few minutes of running compared to hours of walking.
Finally feeling respite for the first time since waking up, he let himself drown into his own thoughts...
'Where am I?'
'Who am I?'
Realising that there's no way of knowing, he steeled up his resolve, and began heading towards the exit.