High above the forest canopy, the sun slipped across the treetops like liquid gold. The leaves—each broad as a shield and veined with faint, pulsing luminescence—shivered with the energy they absorbed from the daylight. In the distance, something massive moved, its footsteps rolling through the earth in slow, tremoring waves, shaking loose petals the size of a child's palm.
Sunlight speared through the thick foliage, fracturing into beams that painted the forest floor in stripes of amber and deep emerald. The air itself seemed alive—damp, warm, and dense.
Amid that raw and untamed wilderness lay a woman who didn't belong there.
On a patch of moss as soft as velvet, Lavayla slept with the serenity of someone who had never faced hardship in her life. Her raven hair spilled across the ground, and her skin was a smooth, fair contrast against the earth.
She was swaddled in a blanket that enveloped her, curled around a pillow. Her breathing was slow, steady, and persistently peaceful—as if the forest weren't watching her with several hungry eyes. The ground around her bore claw marks larger than her hands. The bark of the nearest tree still steamed from the heat of some gigantic beast that had passed hours earlier. Even the insects here were bigger and more aggressive.
Yet she slept on, oblivious and utterly defenseless.
The carnivorous plants and animals surrounding her didn't come to use her as a snack yet, as if they were wondering what sort of soft, fragile creature had dared to fall into the forest's jaws.
Suddenly, Lavayla stirred, shifting and stretching her arms as she murmured in her sleep,
"Hmm… gimme my thousand-dollar Dior bag! I want it…! Gimme, gimme the Louis Vuitton gown, haha."
She hugged the blanket to her chest, her face splitting into a wide grin.
Then she frowned and stretched both hands as if trying to snatch something.
"…No, I want—"
A thorn sliced into her palm, sharp as a needle, and pain jolted through her nerves, snapping her awake.
"Ugh, what the fuck—" She stopped mid-curse as she looked around, realizing she wasn't on her bed in her room but lying on a forest floor. With tangled vines creeping in the bushes barely a meter away from her.
She froze in shock.
Then she squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again, and repeated the process to confirm she truly was where she thought she was because she wasn't staring at her ceiling.
She wasn't in her penthouse bedroom.
She wasn't anywhere remotely civilized.
She was on the ground, surrounded by giant plants, inside a forest.
It was technically daylight, but the trees were so impossibly tall and broad-leaved that only muted rays slipped through, painting the area in a perpetual dawn-like dimness. Lavayla swore she had never seen trees this large — not in nature documentaries, not in movies, not even in CGI-heavy fantasy films. It was almost fucking terrifying.
Her breathing picked up as she looked around. Thorny vines wrapped tightly around the bushes beside her, and it was one of those damn thorns that had stabbed her awake.
She shut her eyes again, mentally chanting, Please, please, please, oh God! I want to be back in my bed with its Egyptian cotton bedsheet. I want my ceiling-mounted rainfall shower. I want to wear my new Chanel outfits and go to work at my company like I do every day. Let this be a nightmare. Let this be a nightmare.
But when she opened her eyes… she was still in the same cursed place.
"Oh fuck me."
Lavayla closed and opened her eyes again. And again. And again. Then she abruptly sat up and whipped her head around.
She was really in a fucking forest.
She looked down at herself and saw she was still wearing her Morgan Lane Ruthie top and Yana Pants in midnight pajamas. She touched the blanket wrapped around her legs — it had come with her. Her pillow was here too.
But her bed? Nowhere. Why the hell wasn't it here? She had been lying on it right? No, that was not important right now. What was important–
"Wait! Where the hell am I?!"
As she stood, something slid off her blanket and hit the ground with a thunk.
She looked down, eyes widening before she frowned and tilted her head.
"What the hell is my BOTTEGA VENETA Arco tote bag doing here? Why are all my high-end luxurious things appearing with me?!"
The blanket and pillow made sense — she had been holding them.
But her bag? That was on her bedside table before she slept.
Still… having it wasn't the worst thing right now.
As weird as it was.
She sighed loudly.
"Great. Fantastic. Just me, my pajamas, my blanket, my pillow, and a designer tote bag. What the hell am I supposed to do with this — block a tiger?"
Then she shook her head aggressively.
"No, Lavayla. Focus. Focus! What you should be concentrating on is the fact that you suddenly appeared in the middle of a forest that definitely doesn't look like anything you've seen before except—"
She froze. Her eyes went wide.
"Except… I might not have seen it, but I've read it." She clutched her head with both hands. "Oh my God. Don't tell me. No, don't tell me."
She was in her late twenties, not old by any means — and she read novels. A lot of them. Paperback. Kindle. Web novels. Everything. So of course she knew the concept of transmigration and reincarnation. And she had read Beastmen novels too — where worlds were primitive, wild, and everything was twice the size of Earth. Twice as sweet, twice as dangerous, twice as terrifying.
"No, no, no, no. Not you, Lavayla. Not you!"
Her breathing hitched and her eyes stung. She bit her lip, trying not to lose her mind.
"Calm the fuck down, Lavayla. Control yourself. You can't have a panic attack now. Not now."
When she finally steadied her breathing, she opened her eyes and scanned the forest again. Trembling, she rubbed her arms, her neck, then gripped her hair as reality slammed into her for the third time.
"Oh my god!" she whispered. "Oh my god — oh GOODNESS! This is not happening, no, please…"
She bent down, shaking, staying like that for several seconds when—
A faint cry echoed.
She shot upright instantly.
Her eyes darted around, wide and shadowed by her tousled hair.
She had heard a baby cry.
The soft sound came again — clearer this time.
A baby? In a forest?!
Or—
Lavayla's eyes widened in horror.
Was it a cunning, vicious beast mimicking a baby's cry to lure prey?
She stumbled back, heart hammering.
"Oh fuck."
She grabbed the nearest thick fallen branch — one with a pointed end — and held it like a sword she absolutely did NOT know how to use.
Lavayla forced herself to think positively.
Maybe there are humans. No — Beastmen. Maybe they have a baby with them. Yes. Maybe that's it. Please let that be it.
She walked forward step by step, bare feet sinking into the dirt. Each step was guided by sheer terror that something would leap out and snatch her first. She swatted branches aside, ducked vines, and peeked around a trunk, praying she wouldn't run into a tiger with anger issues.
The baby cried a fourth, then a fifth time.
Lavayla pushed through one last curtain of leaves — and stumbled into a clearing.
A round patch of open earth. No trees for a hundred meters.
No Beastmen. No humans. No signs of life.
Her stomach sank. Was it really a vicious beast luring prey?
Then she saw it.
On a mound of bushes… a tiny baby.
Wrapped in nothing but fur. Soft, downy pelts were arranged carefully around its small body.
The child wasn't crying now — just making soft hiccupping sounds, exhausted from calling for help.
Lavayla's heart squeezed painfully.
Who the fuck would leave a baby alone in a forest like this?! Even if it was a beastbaby, it was still a damn baby. These people were fucking insane.
She stepped closer, staring at the little bundle, and a smile tugged at her lips despite everything.
She always loved babies but never found a man to have one with. Sure, there were options — but even with money, she couldn't handle raising a child alone.
"Aah—!" the baby cried again, snapping her from her thoughts.
Lavayla stepped forward.
"Aww… you poor little—"
Hssssssssssss.
Every hair on her body stood up.
Slowly — horror-movie slowly — she turned her head.
Two meters in front of the baby… something massive uncoiled.
A python rose from the tangled undergrowth. Its head alone was nearly two meters long, shaped like a wedge. Dark bronze eyes, cold, fixed on the tiny bundle. When it inhaled, its nostrils flared wide, tasting the scent of tender flesh.
Its body followed in a slow, terrible reveal—scales as large as Lavayla's palms, each one shimmering black and storm-bronze. The serpent was so thick around she would need four people with outstretched arms to encircle it. Every coil was a pillar of muscle, heavy enough to crush a boulder with a lazy squeeze.
And it kept uncoiling.
Ten meters. Fifteen. Twenty. The tail still dragging behind the roots.
Lavayla's breath left her in a silent scream. Her entire body locked in place — her deepest, ugliest fear staring at her.
"Hell. Fucking. No," she whispered, face draining of color. This had to be a nightmare. That giant python was NOT about to eat that baby. Lavayla, you are so fucking unlucky…
What to do?
What to do?!
The python slithered closer to the baby, who began crying again — whether from fear or hunger, she didn't know.
But she knew one thing.
She could NOT watch it die.
Come on, Lavayla. You can do this. Or you're dead too.
She took a breath, opened her eyes — and acted without thinking.
She hurled the stick with all her might. It spun end over end, whistling through the air in a shaky, desperate before, by some miracle, grazing the python's eye.
The Dreadcoil Python recoiled violently, its massive body jerking back as the stick scraped across the soft flesh near its eye. A guttural, low-frequency growl rolled out of its chest — a sound so deep it made the leaves quiver and sickness slam through her gut.
Then its head snapped toward her.
Lavayla screamed, "AAAAAAAH!!" and bolted, running like her life depended on it — because it absolutely fucking did.