SHOCKED! Kalen was
"What the..."
The beast was nightmare made flesh.
It stood nearly seven feet tall on muscular hind legs, its body covered in matted black fur that seemed to absorb the strange light filtering through the trees. Yellow eyes blazed with feral hunger above a muzzle full of teeth too many teeth, each one as long as Kalen's finger and curved like daggers. Saliva dripped from its jaws as it released a guttural roar that shook the very air around them.
Kalen's blood turned to ice. His grip tightened on the sword hilt, but his hands were shaking so badly he nearly dropped the weapon.
The creature didn't hesitate. It launched itself forward with explosive speed, closing the twenty foot gap between them in less than two seconds.
"Shit!" Kalen threw himself sideways, hitting the ground hard and rolling through the damp grass. He felt the displaced air as massive claws swept through the space where his head had been a heartbeat before. The beast's momentum carried it past him, and its claws gouged deep furrows in a nearby tree trunk, sending bark and splinters flying.
Kalen scrambled to his feet, his heart hammering so hard he thought it might burst from his chest. The creature spun with terrifying agility for something so large, its yellow eyes locking onto him once more. A low growl rumbled from deep in its chest, vibrating through the ground.
It charged again.
This time Kalen brought his sword up in a desperate guard, the way he'd seen in movies. The beast crashed into him like a freight train. He swung wildly, the blade connecting with nothing but air as the creature's shoulder slammed into his chest. The impact launched him backward. He hit the ground hard, the sword flying from his grip, all the air driven from his lungs.
Pain exploded across his ribs. Stars burst in his vision.
The beast loomed over him, drawing back one massive clawed hand.
Kalen's fingers closed on a rock. He hurled it at the creature's face with everything he had. It struck the beast's snout with a satisfying crack. The creature recoiled with a surprised yelp, shaking its head.
That single second was enough.
Kalen rolled sideways, his hand finding the sword hilt. He surged to his feet and ran, his chest screaming with every breath.
His boots pounded against the forest floor as he sprinted through the trees, his breath already coming in ragged gasps. Behind him, he could hear the beast crashing through the underbrush, snapping branches like twigs, its roars echoing through the forest. Every instinct screamed at him that it was gaining ground.
A blue notification flashed across his vision, but he didn't focus .
"Not now. Not now." Kalen whispered .All he wanted was to be safe.
A fallen log appeared in his path. Kalen leaped over it, his training from track and field in high school coming back to him. He landed awkwardly on the other side, nearly twisting his ankle, but managed to keep his balance and keep running.
The beast simply smashed through the log, reducing it to splinters.
Kalen's mind raced as fast as his legs. He'd already taken a hit. One solid strike from those claws and he was done. Game over. Identity erased whatever that meant, he had no intention of finding out.
He cut left suddenly, weaving between two close growing trees. The beast, larger and less agile, had to slow slightly to navigate the gap. Kalen gained a few precious seconds, but he could already feel his lungs burning. He wasn't a marathon runner. He couldn't keep this up forever.
The forest floor began to slope downward. Kalen's legs pumped harder as gravity pulled him into a faster pace. Trees blurred past him. Thorny bushes tore at his trousers, drawing thin lines of blood across his shins, but he barely felt it through the adrenaline flooding his system.
Behind him, the beast's footfalls grew louder. Closer.
Kalen risked a glance over his shoulder and immediately wished he hadn't. The creature was less than fifteen feet away, its massive form bounding after him with horrifying speed. Its jaws were open wide, strings of saliva trailing from its teeth. Those yellow eyes burned with single minded purpose.
He faced forward again just in time to dodge a low-hanging branch that would have clotheslined him. His heart leaped into his throat. One mistake. That's all it would take.
The ground suddenly dropped away.
Kalen's eyes widened as he found himself at the edge of a steep embankment. Below, about twenty feet down, he could see a narrow stream cutting through the forest, its water flowing swiftly over smooth rocks. Dense bushes and small trees grew along both banks.
He didn't have time to think. Didn't have time to plan.
The beast was right behind him, so close he could smell its rancid breath, could hear the click of its claws on stone.
Twenty feet or those claws...
Kalen jumped.
For a moment, he was weightless, suspended in the air with nothing but empty space beneath him. The wind rushed past his ears. His stomach lurched into his throat. Time seemed to slow, stretching the half-second of freefall into an eternity.
Then he crashed through the canopy of a small tree growing from the embankment's face.
Branches whipped against his body, slowing his descent but tearing at his clothes and exposed skin. He tried to grab hold of something anything but his momentum was too great. He tumbled through the foliage in a chaotic spiral, unable to control his trajectory.
He hit the stream with a tremendous splash.
The water was shockingly cold, driving the air from his lungs. The current immediately grabbed him, pulling him downstream. Kalen's head went under, and for a terrifying moment, he couldn't tell which way was up. His boots struck rocks. His skull cracked against something solid a flash of white pain, then darkness eating at the edges of his vision.
Then his survival instincts kicked in. He thrust his arms downward, pushing against the streambed, and his head broke the surface. He gasped for air, coughing and sputtering, his eyes stinging from the water. His head throbbed with a sickening pulse.
The current swept him along, bouncing him off rocks and submerged logs. He struggled to get his feet under him, to find purchase on the slippery stones, but the water was moving too fast.
A roar echoed from above.
Kalen twisted in the water, looking back upstream. The beast stood at the top of the embankment, its massive form silhouetted against the strange sky. It paced back and forth along the edge, snarling and snapping its jaws. For a moment, Kalen thought it might jump down after him.
But the creature seemed to think better of it. It released one final, frustrated roar that sent birds scattering from the nearby trees, then turned and disappeared back into the forest.
Kalen didn't wait to see if it would change its mind. He let the current carry him further downstream, focusing all his energy on keeping his head above water and avoiding the worst of the rocks. His sword, miraculously, was still strapped to his belt, though the scabbard had taken a beating.
After what felt like hours but was probably only a few minutes, the stream widened and the current slowed. Kalen managed to angle himself toward the bank, his waterlogged boots finally finding solid footing on the streambed. He half walked, half-crawled out of the water and collapsed on a patch of moss-covered ground.
For a long moment, he just lay there, unable to move. His entire body trembled not just from the cold water soaking through his clothes, but from something deeper. Shock, maybe. Terror finally catching up to him now that the immediate threat was gone.
His hands wouldn't stop shaking. His chest heaved with ragged breaths that came too fast, too shallow. The world tilted sideways, and he realized he was still seeing stars from where he'd cracked his head against that rock.
I almost died. I almost...
The thought hit him like a physical blow, and suddenly he couldn't breathe at all. His vision swam. His throat closed. For several seconds that stretched into eternity, Kalen couldn't do anything but lie there on the moss, paralyzed by the overwhelming realization of how close he'd come to not existing anymore.
Gradually, his breathing slowed. The shaking subsided to a manageable tremor. He forced himself to focus on immediate sensations the cold water dripping from his hair, the moss soft beneath his cheek, the distant sound of the stream. Real things. Present things.
A blue notification blinked insistently in his peripheral vision. With a groan, Kalen forced himself to focus on it.
[COMBAT ENCOUNTER: SHADOW STALKER]
[RESULT: ESCAPED]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 0]
[NOTE: RUNNING FROM COMBAT YIELDS NO REWARDS]
[CURRENT HP: 3/100 – CRITICAL]
Kalen's eyes widened in horror. Three HP. The shoulder check had cost him one point. The head impact another.
He was now one hit away from death. One mistake. One wrong move.
"Three," he whispered hoarsely, his voice barely audible over the gentle gurgle of the stream. "Three hit points."
He closed his eyes, fighting back the fresh wave of panic that threatened to overwhelm him. This was real. Painfully, terrifyingly real. That creature had been trying to kill him actually kill him. And if he'd been even a second slower, if he hadn't thrown that rock, if he hadn't jumped when he did...
No. He couldn't think like that. Couldn't let the fear paralyze him.
Kalen forced himself to sit up, wincing at the various aches and pains that flared throughout his body. His ribs screamed in protest. His head pounded with each heartbeat. Scratches covered his arms and face, stinging in the cool air. His shoulder throbbed where he'd hit something in the water.
But he was alive.
He needed to find those mushrooms the system had mentioned. Forest mushrooms that could restore HP. That was his priority now. Everything else understanding how he'd gotten here, finding Ben, figuring out how to escape all of it was secondary to the immediate need to survive.
He looked around, taking stock of his surroundings with fresh eyes. The stream continued to wind through the forest, disappearing around a bend about fifty yards downstream. The embankment rose steeply behind him, too steep to climb easily. On the opposite bank, the forest continued, but it looked different somehow the trees were more densely packed, their bark darker, almost black.
Kalen pulled himself to his feet, his legs shaky but functional. Water dripped from his clothes, leaving a trail of puddles on the moss. He drew his sword, checking the blade for damage. Miraculously, it seemed intact, though the scabbard would need repairs.
A rustling sound from the forest made him freeze, his grip tightening on the sword hilt, his heart rate spiking immediately. But it was just a small creature something that looked like a rabbit but with scales instead of fur that hopped across a fallen log and disappeared into the underbrush.
Kalen released a shaky breath. He needed to move. Needed to find shelter, find those mushrooms, find some way to increase his chances of survival in this impossible world.
As he took his first cautious steps along the stream bank, every shadow seemed to hold another Shadow Stalker. Every sound made him flinch. His hand never left his sword hilt.
Three hit points stood between him and oblivion.