Alec's lungs burned as he crashed through the frozen forest, his weak legs threatening to give out beneath him with every stride. He kept looking back over his shoulder, expecting to see the woman pursuing him with that same deadly grace she'd used to kill the tiger. But there was nothing—just empty snow and twisted trees.
"Is she chasing me? Why isn't she chasing me?" Alec wondered.
The confusion only added to his panic. In his world, if you ran from someone, they either chased you or they didn't care. But this woman—this impossibly strong, barely-dressed warrior—just stood there, watching him flee with what looked like genuine puzzlement on her face. How was she not freezing to death with what she had on?
What Alec didn't know, couldn't possibly know, was the truth about this world he'd stumbled into. This wasn't Earth. This wasn't even close. This was a world where men had been extinct for so long that they'd become nothing more than myths—demons from ancient stories used to frighten children. The women of this world had killed them all, every single one, since the beginning of recorded time. Some great war, some ancient genocide that had erased an entire sex from existence.
The woman wasn't chasing him because she had no idea what he was. She saw him as just another scared girl that survived the massacre. His long hair, his delicate features, his smaller stature—everything about him screamed "woman" to her eyes. The concept of "man" simply didn't exist in her reality.
But Alec knew none of this as he ran.
A shadow passed overhead, massive and dark, blotting out what little sun filtered through the gray clouds. Alec's head snapped up, and his blood turned to ice.
A bird. But not like any bird he'd ever seen. It was gigantic—its wingspan easily forty feet across—with talons the size of his entire body. Its beak was curved and serrated, designed for tearing flesh. It looked like something that had crawled out of prehistoric nightmares, like a pterodactyl crossed with an eagle and injected with pure malevolence.
The creature circled once, its shadow sweeping across the snow like the hand of death. Then its head tilted, and Alec knew with absolute certainty that it had spotted him.
"This looked like something right from hell."
"Fuck, fuck, FUCK!" Alec screamed, his exhausted legs finding a burst of adrenaline-fueled speed.
He needed cover. Now. His eyes scanned frantically as the bird began to descend, its screech splitting the air like a chainsaw through bone. There—a dark opening in the rocky hillside ahead. A cave.
Alec didn't think. He just ran, his feet slipping on ice and snow, his naked body scraping against branches and rocks. The bird's screech grew louder, closer. He could feel the displacement of air as it dove toward him, could smell something rotten on the wind.
He threw himself into the cave entrance just as massive talons raked the air where his head had been. The bird shrieked in frustration, too large to follow him into the narrow opening. It circled outside for several minutes, its shadow dancing across the cave walls, before finally giving up and flying away.
Alec collapsed against the cold stone floor, his chest heaving, his entire body trembling.
"I'm still expecting to wake up from this dream. Any second now. I'll open my eyes and be back in my shitty apartment, or maybe in a hospital bed, or maybe even dead on that street corner. This can't be real. This CAN'T be real."
But it felt real. The cold stone beneath him felt real. The pain in his feet from running barefoot through snow felt real. The terror coursing through his veins felt real.
"Am I somehow in a different world?" The thought was insane, impossible, the stuff of fantasy novels and bad anime. But what other explanation was there? The system, the extinct animals, this woman who could kill with a single strike—none of it made sense unless he'd somehow been transported to another world entirely.
"How did I come here to begin with?"
He remembered dying. He was certain he'd died. The knife, the blood, the darkness. And then... this. He'd begged for another chance, and something—some entity, some cosmic force—had apparently granted it. But at what cost? What kind of second chance was this?
Alec was exhausted. The short sprint—short by any normal standard, but he was working with a body that felt like it had never exercised a day in its life—had completely drained him. His eyes began to shut despite his attempts to stay alert.
"I hope this dream is over when I wake up."
But even as the thought formed, he knew it was a lie. Because if this was a dream, waking up meant returning to that street corner, bleeding out in the gutter. And honestly? As terrifying as this world was, at least here he was alive. Here, he had a chance, however slim.
Alec drifted into a deep slumber, his exhausted body finally giving out. He snored loudly, the sound echoing off the cave walls like a revving engine. Hours passed. The dim light filtering into the cave grew even dimmer as the sun descended as a storm began to form.
When Alec's eyes finally opened, everything had changed.
The cave was warm. Not just warm—actually comfortable. And there was light. Firelight. Flickering orange and yellow across the stone walls, casting dancing shadows.
"I didn't light that fire."
His heart began to pound. Someone else was here. Someone else had found him while he slept, had built a fire, had...
"Oh god, I'm completely vulnerable."
Alec didn't move. Not yet. He kept his breathing steady, pretending to still be asleep while his eyes adjusted to the light. He looked around as subtly as he could, trying to identify where the threat was coming from.
There. A shadow in the distance, near the cave entrance. Tall. Distinctly feminine silhouette. Moving with that same fluid grace he'd seen before. The shadow came into view, stepping closer to the fire. And Alec's jaw dropped.
It was her. The same woman from before. The one who'd killed the sabre-tooth tiger. Except this time...
She was topless.
Alec could see everything right in front of him. Her breasts, those impossibly large, gravity-defying breasts, were completely exposed. They were perfect—firm and round, with dusky nipples that seemed to glow in the firelight. Her skin was flawless, unmarred except for a few faint scars that only added to her wild beauty. Her body looked even more attractive with her clothes off, every muscle defined, every curve pronounced.
"Oh fuck. Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck."
Alec could feel his cock getting hard, blood rushing south despite every logical part of his brain screaming at him that this was not the time. He instantly shut his eyes, squeezing them tight, hoping she wouldn't notice. Hoping she wouldn't see the very obvious physical reaction he was having.
But his heart was pounding so loudly he was sure she could hear it. It hammered against his ribcage like it was trying to escape.
"This woman is sexy as fuck!"
He tried to think of anything else. Dead puppies. His grandmother. Tax forms. Anything to make his erection go away. But the image of her was burned into his retinas, and his traitorous body refused to cooperate.
Through his barely-cracked eyelids, he watched her move around the cave. She was checking something—maybe setting up a perimeter, maybe just settling in for the night. She moved with such confidence, such complete lack of self-consciousness about her nudity. Like it was the most natural thing in the world to be half-naked in a freezing cave with a stranger, with a man.
"What is she doing here? Why did she follow me? Does she know I'm awake?"
Alec's mind raced with questions, but he didn't dare move. Didn't dare speak. Because he had no idea what this woman wanted, and he'd already seen what she was capable of. She changed into a fur made out of animal skin before laying down.
All he could do was lie there, pretending to sleep, trying desperately to control his breathing and his body's involuntary responses, while the most beautiful and terrifying woman he'd ever seen made herself at home in his temporary shelter.
Unknown to him, he was the one who was intruding as this was where she slept herself and she knew the storm outside would kill the weak girl in her tent by the morning despite the fire.