Winston was huffing and panting in an unknown forest trying to escape a weird rat looking creature which he has never seen on any of his favourite nature channels.
Even in all the prehistoric documentaries of fossil excavations he could swear on his big ego to not have seen anything remotely familiar to the monster that was tracking him down.
It was a creature one could only encounter in nightmares or fantasy novel, a beast, not an animal.
But he did not have the leisure of contemplating of that, he would have to put his reasearcher personality to the side or he would burn to a corpse from the acid the rat was spewing but thankfully due to the dense cover of trees the poor souls were taking all the hits on his behalf.
Behind him, the trees cracked and collapsed, each one hissing from the acid's touch and the sound of the monster running on two like those velociraptors portrayed on those films he used to watch as a child.
Bam!
Another tree that fell behind him missing his head by just half a second and he realised the demonic rat had changed his strategy by throwing acid on the trees ahead on him as projectiles, gambling on a tree to fall on his juicy prey.
'what an intelligent bast*rt ',Winston cursed.
He ran zig zaging through the trees.
'well atleast all those torturing exercise sessions with that old coach are paying off'
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
It hadn't started like this.
Just yesterday, Winston was a 17-year-old high schooler—football team's star forward, average grades, above-average charm, and a head full of National Geographic reruns. He and his friends had gone on a weekend camping trip upstate, hoping to ditch civilization and embrace their inner cavemen for two days.
The sun was just starting to dip when they reached the clearing. Tents were half-pitched. Marshmallows hadn't even met the fire yet when the first growl came.
A bear. Big. Real. Furious.
Before anyone could scream, it charged. Chaos broke out. One of Winston's friends, Eli, was tackled almost instantly, dragged into the trees with a scream that was too fast to be processed.
Liam tried to run but tripped. The bear turned on him next.
Winston didn't run. Something in him—pride, adrenaline, madness—made him grab the nearest thing: a camping pole. With a yell that came from his soul, he charged the bear.
The pole made contact with the bear's side, a desperate swing. It roared, staggered, but only for a moment.
With a violent swipe, it hit the pole away and sent Winston tumbling to the ground. The others had already vanished into the forest.
Now he was alone. Just him. A massive bear. Two bloodied, unmoving friends.
The bear reared up, charging at it's fallen prey and pounced on him, he saw the bear more clearly then in any show and braced for the impact or whatever that will come but it never came.
The pendant around Winston's neck—a family heirloom shaped like a tiny dragon's head, gold-outlined with a glowing gemstone—shone.
At first, just a faint shimmer.
Then, a searing white flash.
A pulse like thunder echoed in his ears, and the world fell away.
---
When Winston opened his eyes, he was no longer in the woods.
He stood in a world washed in alien colors. Trees spiraled into the clouds, their leaves glowing softly under a sky painted with two suns. Strange calls echoed in the distance.
"Where am I..." he muttered.
That's when he heard the screech.
The rat.
The acid.
And now, here he was—running for his life once again, trapped in a nightmare that had begun with a camping trip and a bear… and escalated into something beyond comprehension.
But deep in his chest, against his skin, the pendant still pulsed. And Winston could feel it wasn't done with him yet.