**Sunny** Kimarya wake up right now!!!

Kimarya woke up to her body roughly slamming down onto a branch and heard a crash immediately followed by a loud cracking sound right above her.

She awoke dazed and in shock; she felt such a terrible presence with an intense killing intent that made her body shiver.

But her body kept moving on its own. Sunny had control and was escaping something that was in the air by diving headfirst to lower branches. She felt highly disturbed by this feeling and easily got control again, but because of that, she missed a branch and tumbled down with no control.

She looked up and saw that branch that she missed getting impaled by six black two-foot-long objects and realized she almost got nailed to that tree as an easy meal for whatever was chasing her.

Kimarya shouted in her mind, “Sunny, what’s chasing me?!?!”

**Sunny** JUMP NOW!

Her body took control. It wasn’t her, nor Sunny, but still something mysteriously compelled her body to move. She crouched and sprang forward like a cannonball, right between two thick branches and into the empty abyss.

Immediately after, she heard a thunderous cracking sound. She sensed a large body crash with great momentum behind her and onto the branches that she just dived through. Something enormous that was only just barely slower than her forceful dive downwards into empty air. Actually, it wasn’t any slower, but faster. It wasn’t expecting her speed to be so fast and merely struck down where its prey should have been.

This existence was a hunter, yet not a hunter. This was a strikingly intelligent and brutal creature that had no care if its meal had long stopped breathing with the miasma of rot. Or if it still labored to do so as it fed on it while it lived.

Kimarya had the sinking impression that it was often the latter.

Her panicked mind and memories of this body told her this was…. a Murder Crow!

The Murder Crow opened its maw and it unleashed a terrifying cacophony of sounds that Kimarya had never heard. A combination of sounds that didn’t seem possible to come from a living creature. She had the impression that it sounded like the death throes of dozens of people, hundreds of creatures, even the thunderous cracking of a tree as it collapsed under its own weight. I could hear these noises within this dreadful call.

All of those cries were really in the background of its genuine caw that, if the rest made your goosebumps and hair raise from the message of fatality within it, this caw would be the final straw that broke the camel’s back. A sound so terrible, that contained a fatal message that said ‘I am the reaper that caused all of these noises, and you’ll be the next one to join in my orchestra of death’.

She didn’t notice, or she couldn’t notice the nearby tree branch from a nearby tree quickly coming into reach, but her instincts did and grabbed on forcefully. Her hands gripped hard onto the rough bark to counter her incredible momentum that was strong enough to leave her palms with no more external skin.

Kimarya didn’t feel any of that.

All she could focus on was that call, as it finally made her mind buckle. The innocence of Draeneoy and the past life of Kimarya, whose most dangerous encounters were the smog of her city, nearly being hit by a car a few times, or the several fights she had as a teenager. None of that could compare to this moment of absolute horror. None of that got anywhere near to preparing her for this moment.

This was too much for her as a full-blown panic attack was building up where she’d likely let go of the branch and surely be the next cry added in the crow’s note, or maybe panicked and maniacal laughter that she heard in between the majority governed by screams and cries.

*ZZZZZZZT*

Electricity ran through her nerves. Tightening her grip on the branch as she instantly pulled herself up and kicked off seconds before the branch she was on was shredded by the fearsome talons of the Murder Crow.

She felt small stabbing pains on her back as the furious splinters reached her. The boiling adrenaline rampaging through her veins swallowed up her full-blown panic attack as she masterfully glided like an Olympic acrobat between branches. Heading deeper into the tree where branches grew thicker and more densely packed together.

She crouched as she slid between four massive branches, each as thick as her waist. She looked back again and saw the Murder Crow angrily caw at her before fiercely grabbing the branch with its vicious beak, pulling on it before violently crunching right through it.

It continued towards her, for every step it would violently bite down, jerk its head and the loud crunching of the branch sounded off as it got closer to her.

Kimarya noticed the space between the thick branches getting smaller and smaller, so she immediately ditched this direction before she eventually and foolishly got stuck in between these branches and become an easy meal to that monster.

She screamed in her mind, “Sunny, what do I do? Where do I go?” before jumping and diving to a tree nearby.

The Murder Crow’s eyes glinted with intelligence. Its fake outrage didn’t trick its little snack into trapping itself like its other, less interesting meals. It silently jumped into the air once more to continue its chase.

Kimarya swung through branches, kicking off at random times. Her decisions seemed to be random, seemingly lacking whim or reason. But every time she made those calls, she would hear the thundering crash of the Murder Crow pouncing on where she should have been. This went on six more times, but then she was not hearing the resounding crash of the Murder Crow, who began to strike less frequently.

For some reason, this didn’t make her feel any bit safer as she tried to increase the randomness and directions as Sunny furiously scanned and pointed out all available paths she went through looking for the best escape route.

**Sunny** Kimarya! Right over there, there’s a gorge between those trees! That might be a path the water takes during a storm rush as it cuts through the land!

Kimarya made sure not to make a direct beeline towards the gorge. She had the sinking feeling the Murder Crow was much smarter than it appeared.

She kicked off of the branch, before feeling the intense pressure in her heart warning her of intense danger. The Murder Crow attacked as she was in mid-air! She heard snapping branches above her as she realized this and swung her arms and roughly caught onto a branch that stopped her mad dive forward. This tactic was not without its consequences. She felt like she nearly popped both arms out of her shoulders before a millisecond later, a massive shadow covering up her entire vision crashed through the area she would be at if she continued her dive forward in the air.

Her heart beat extremely loudly, as if she just saw her own death before she dropped onto the ground and madly rushed towards the gorge less than 30 feet away.

“I’m going to make it!”