The Hero had slain the giant half-fish, half-man monster after a terrible battle that lasted three nights. Finally, the kingdom's days of torment were over.
The king declared the young Hero the benefactor of the Velkaris family. The people of Rhizara went out and celebrated for an entire week. On the eighth day, the King held a grand banquet in honor of the young hero who had saved the last true land.
Knights were sent out to escort the young hero. But when they reached the place where he had been staying, they found nothing but clothes stained with blood.
Soldiers from across the kingdom were sent out in search of the man who had once appeared as their savior. Yet now, when it was their turn to repay him, that noble man was nowhere to be found.
Meanwhile, a few miles away, at a place that had once been a forest—now reduced to ruins—lay the corpse of a gigantic monster.
A man slowly climbed onto the mountain of flesh and bones.
Slicing through its hide, he pushed his hands deep inside, searching for something.
It was the Hero.
The enthusiasm he had while climbing the corpse slowly took the form of desperation.
He kept searching, both his hands now covered in blood and torn flesh.
"Where the hell did it go?"
The man screamed in frustration.
Taking a deep breath, he shoved his head into the cavity he had just made.
"Those bastards. I saved them, and they dared steal what's mine," he muttered angrily.
***
Roy's eyes followed the text when he suddenly felt something near his leg.
A sharp pain shot through his ankle.
"Stop biting me—"
Thinking it was Ricky who had bitten him, he pushed his chair back slightly and reached down, searching for the cat.
Meanwhile, Ricky was still licking his plate near the kitchen counter.
"Maybe it was a mosquito," Roy told himself.
He drank from the water bottle on the table before continuing to read.
By now, the scraping sound of Ricky's metal bowl sliding across the floor had been drowned out by the distant booming of firecrackers outside.
Roy kept staring at the computer screen.
A few minutes passed.
Then the pain in his leg returned—sharper this time.
"Ouch!" he hissed.
He jerked his leg violently.
"What are you doing?"
But his words died in his throat.
A strong smell, almost like that of ocean, hit his nose. His ears buzzed with the distant sounds of insects.
His eyes flew open. He was lying on the ground. His chest heaved as he looked down.
Thousands of ants crawled across his legs. They swarmed into the folds of his clothes, biting and tearing at his skin.
Their bites burned like sparks against his flesh.
Panic surged through him.
He scrambled upright, thrashing wildly, clawing at the swarms with trembling hands. He kicked, jumped, and staggered backward, desperate to shake them off.
He ran blindly through the roots and shadows, branches scraping his arms, until his legs finally gave out.
Roy slowly turned around.
Nothing about this world was familiar.
Gigantic trees rose all around him, their tangled roots arching across the ground like the ribs of a buried giant.
The forest closed in around him.
Endless. Alien.
Suffocating.
Roy's world had changed.
He was now stranded in an unknown land.