The world tree is a titanic oak with a trunk the size of a city. Its canopy blocks out the sun for leagues around. Entire cultures live in its shadow and its leaves bestow power beyond compare. No kingdoms or tribes seek its bounty, however, for it guards its power jealously. Its root system spreads throughout an entire continent and any who approach the tree with avarice are killed swifty.

There are those throughout history who have spent time walking its colossal branches, climbing its endless trunk and slipping through its roots to uncover its secrets. Most are never heard from again, but some survive. They return changed, burdened with fresh perspective and purpose, with new power and insight, but always are they changed.

It is a force of nature in the truest sense, for no mind, human or otherwise, can understand or predict its action. It strikes when it wills, and pity those who's path it intersects. Innumerable cultures have born witness to this natural wonder, and it is certain uncountable more will follow, for when the world tree stirs, empires fall.

- Excerpt from 'a treatise on the wonders of Tsanderos - by Nathlan the Ancient'

Night broke with the snapping of jaws and the yowling of a creature in pain. Thankfully, that creature wasn't me, but once my eyes had snapped open and assessed the scene, I didn't feel much better off.

Beneath my tree, a battle raged. Something resembling an overgrown badger, with banded black and white fur and large yellow claws, fought against a wolf, and it was losing. The two creatures, each of a similar size to myself, clawed and bit at one another in a prancing flurry of movement accompanied by the music of violence; growls, snarls, yips and barks.

The comforting cloak of sleep had been ripped from my shoulders, and now adrenaline took its place, coursing through my system and urging my heart to pump warm blood ever faster through my veins. I scrabbled about for my trusty horn, nearly knocking it from its perch beside me, before turning back to the chaotic melee below.

The badger's shoulder glistened wetly, red tissue visible beneath the matted fur that had been ripped away by the wolf's jaws. The wolf didn't look hale either though, sporting a gash in its flank and trying to put as little weight on one its front legs as possible.

My movement drew their attention, and both creatures seemed to agree to a temporary cessation of hostilities to survey the new threat. The badger's beady little eyes assessed me, then dismissed me immediately. The wolf though? It watched me with interest.

It was a strange looking creature; tall, spindly legs with a long, lithe body atop looking like nothing so much as a house on stilts. It's snout was equally long, but there was a squareness to its jaw that spoke to a strong, crushing bite. The badger's ragged wounds told a similar tale.

Most strange of all though was its neck. It was nearly as long as its body, at least several feet long, and it waved about like a prehensile tail in the air. Yellow canine eyes held my own, and I was entranced for a moment. The head waved about atop its undulating neck, but those eyes never left my own, hypnotising me with its malevolent gaze.

Then the badger barrelled into the creature, knocking it to the ground and once more initiating the desperate struggle between the two. I started to shimmy my way down the tree, having wrapped my red cloak around my shoulders and clutching my long horn in one shaking hand. Perhaps I could slip away while they fought to the death.

A wet tearing sound put an end to that hope, and I flinched as piecing yellow eyes above a red-flecked mouth once more held my own. Slowly, deliberately, the wolf raised its long neck until I was looking up to match its gaze.

And then it howled.

It was a long, mournful note, and I knew what it heralded. The wolf was as good as dead now. One paw was held close to its belly off the ground, clearly injured by the badger's harrying, and the gash in its flank dripped thick blood to the bed of leaves below. It would not survive the night, but this wasn't a lone hunter.

Noble, in some ways, to have done its duty until the end. That howl had been a hunting call. A marker of its death, and a promise of prey all in one. I didn't know how I was so sure of it, didn't care where that confidence came from.

All that mattered is that when I heard the answering chorus of howls echoing around the valley, I knew that I was marked.

"I wish you hadn't done that," I said, voice hoarse from sleep and stress.

There was no answer, just silent judgement from vicious yellow eyes. I gripped the horn in my fist and slipped down from the trunk, pacing out wide to give the injured creature a wide birth. It followed me with its strange, sinuous neck.

"I'm not interested in your kill." I spoke in a low, calming tone, as if reassuring a panicked horse rather than talking to a massive wolf. "Let me go, eat your fill, and neither of us need to die here."

Part of me nearly laughed at the absurdity of the situation. The creature couldn't understand me, obviously, but the talking was more for my benefit than its own, anyway. A way for me to communicate to my body what it needed to do; keep moving, stay calm and slow, and absolutely do not turn and run for your life.

I needed something to anchor to, to avoid doing just that, because every muscle in my body was screaming at me to flee as fast as I could even as my mind was confident that doing so would only result in being chased by this predator.

I had made it to one side and started to back away slowly, keeping my body turned toward the wolf the whole while, when it hopped around and began to follow. It was an ungainly gate, more a hop than a lope, but its long legs let it keep pace easy enough, and I had a sudden premonition then.

I'd be running through the forest with this silent shadow behind me for hours, calling to its companions whenever we moved too far. The moment the pack caught up I'd be cornered and butchered by a dozen hungry mouths, and all because of this fucking wolf. It wouldn't stop, wouldn't rest, until it had delivered to the pack its final prize.

I snorted. Fuck, I was really doing this, wasn't I? I was reminded of a line in a book I'd once read, though I couldn't remember where; 'Once you've a task to do, it's better to do it than live with the fear of it.'

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

There was no point in trying to psych myself up further, no purpose in careful planning or predictions. I just threw myself at the wolf that limped along behind me, horn raised in a lunge. We fell together, my weight bearing us to the ground, and pushing the horn deep into its chest. There was an awful scraping of keratin against bone, and then the splintered point slipped between ribs and the wolf squealed.

I tucked my head as we hit the earth, hoping to protect my neck, and it was all that saved my life. The wolf's teeth skittered off the crown of my head, leaving red furrows and tearing out hair, and then it bit down on my back. The long undulating neck allowed it far greater range than I'd expected, but I couldn't do anything about the fiery lines of white hot pain scorching their way across my back. I roared and slammed my shoulder into the hilt of the horn, and something in the creature's chest gave way.

A choking sound emerged from its mouth as the teeth stopped carving chunks from my flesh and I jerked to my feet with another blinding flash of agony. I staggered over to a nearby tree and slumped down to sit before the corpse I had just made, moaning quietly to myself as I did so.

You have killed a Tarkenzi Maned-Wolf (level 11). Experience gained.

You have reached level 5. Attribute points available for allocation.

The notification was welcome, and I almost allocated the extra attribute point into endurance on reflex, hoping to find something, anything, to numb the pain. Fear prevailed over panic though, as it was meant to. I'd heard the howls, and I knew what was coming for me.

Endurance would not allow me to flee from or fight more of these things, it would simply keep me alive for longer as they feasted. The fear of that future pushed away the pain, and I assigned the attribute point I'd won into strength, glorying in the feeling of power coursing through me for a moment.

I had to move though. I couldn't stay here. The fight had lasted no more than 30 seconds from start to end, but I doubted I'd be moving at a decent pace after this. I needed to get to a river, clean myself off, and try to put as much distance between myself and these corpses as possible.

The thought of a river made thirst rear its ugly head, and I realised I had not drunk anything since this insanity began yesterday. My saliva tasted thick and sour in my mouth, and I tried to spit to the side, barely managing more than a string of drool. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, tasing the blood that coated it. I didn't know if it was mine or not, and by this point, I didn't care.

The world felt off, unnaturally far away from my eyes and moving far too fast for me to keep up with. I was going into shock.

With a jolt, I started stumbling off in the vague direction of 'down the fucking hill', hoping that I would stumble upon the stream that had created this valley when I reached the lowest point. I knew I had only a few more moments of lucidity before the shock took over, so I set my body on a path and fervently hoped it would continue to follow the last instructions I had given it.

Soft sunlight dappled the moss that coated the trees, turning flecks of dew into brilliant gems. A faint mist hung in the air, and the ground was soft and spongy beneath my feet. I looked around in confusion, wondering how long I had been wandering without direction.

Clearly, I was lower in the valley, but looking around made the barely-dried blood on my back crack and drew forth a hiss of pain. I leant against a nearby tree, breathing through the pain until I felt I had mastered myself once more.

It didn't take long to reach the river. The sun was still low in the sky, implying I'd not lost more than half an hour in my fugue state, and I could be thankful at least of that. No quaint mountain stream greeted me when I reached its banks though; this was a river in truth. The narrowest point within view was still well over ten feet wide, and there were pools that looked to be chest deep at the least.

Rocks broke the surface intermittently, disrupting the smooth flow and leaving trails of froth and bubbles beneath them. I crouched down to dip a hand into the free flow and almost recoiled at the cold. I'd guessed it was around mid-spring here, but the water was bitterly cold, leeching all warmth from my hand in an instant.

I gritted my teeth against the chill and plunged both hands in, washing myself of the blood and grime up to my elbows before scooping up a mouthful of the water to slake my thirst. I couldn't say how many followed the first, but by the time I was finished, my throat was no longer parched, and my belly was full to bursting.

I needed to cross the river, that much was obvious to me. I wasn't sure if it would truly obscure my scent from the wolves, but I needed to wash the wounds on my back anyway, and if there was a chance it could help, that was better than nothing.

Trudging along the riverbank a few hundred feet, I found a suitably shallow pool with water flowing slowly enough to confirm there was nothing hiding beneath the banks. My wits had not entirely failed me, and I'd made sure to move upstream from the blood I had released into the water earlier, just in case some species of super leech was hiding beneath the riverbank waiting for me. I shuddered at the thought and stripped off quickly.

I emerged onto the other side of the river, red and raw from the cold and my vigorous scraping. The dried blood and viscera had turned out to be harder to remove than expected. I had resorted to using my nails to scrape away the worst of it, before picking up a handful of rounded stones from the riverbed.

Doing so to the wounds on my back had been an impossibility, and I'd resorted to submerging myself and letting the fast flowing mountain water clean away what it could. The chill water seeping into my back had reignited that dull ache into a crawling, prickling burn, and I'd lasted only a handful of seconds beneath the water before it became too much. I could only hope that my supernaturally enhanced endurance would safeguard me from infection, but honestly, I had no real idea how much danger I was in.

I dried myself off with the cloak as well as practicable, and then dressed quickly. The water, while bitingly cold and painful, also set to wake my mind from the slow gormlessness that it had turned to in the wake of my fight with the wolf. I'd heard no further howls, but that wasn;t enough to make me feel safe just yet.

I set off, up through the tangle of moss-choked trunks and lichen-covered boulders, stepping carefully with the aid of Sure-Footed, and breathing easily in light of my enhanced endurance.

The change in my strength was immediately noticeable, too. I felt… lighter. Each step pushed me just a little further and faster than before, and when I dropped from a boulder to land on the earth a foot or so below, the impact was lessened.

I might be an amnesiac in what was increasingly looking like a new world, but I knew my body. I knew how I responded, knew what my limits were, and knew what it felt like to run through the mountains. This felt different.

I'd worked out before, that much was obvious even without my memories, but never had there been such an instantaneous, obvious feeling of power. Of capability. I knew that I could run for longer than ever before, despite my injuries. I suspected that I could lift more than ever, as well, push things that had previously been overwhelming, pull myself up and over objects far easier.

And I'd only needed to risk death twice to get here. The sardonic thought didn't hit me as hard as it should have, though. The speed of the progress, and the presumable permanence of it, if the system was to be believed, gave me a measure of hope.

I could overcome this challenge. I might not be able to trek two hundred miles through mountains crawling with hostile creatures, but the person I could become might be able to. I could mould myself into a faster, stronger, more enduring version of myself, and if the last day was any indication, I could do so quickly.

How fast could I become? The thought actually excited me for a moment, and I felt a spark flicker within me. Not from blood and pain and hatred and fear, but from joy. From the promise of fantastical, exhilarating and utterly new experiences just waiting for me to grab hold of them. If I could only endure, I could have everything I had never even dreamed of.

I just had to survive.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.