His eyes opened to a clear blue sky with a hint of green in the periphery of his vision. Sitting up almost immediately, he looked around to find himself in the middle of a clearing surrounded by a dense overgrowth of trees.

(...)

Needless to mention, his mind was unconditionally blank. Having jumped off the 13th floor, anyone would have transformed into nothing more than a hideous splat on the face of the planet. Yet as if not only blissfully ignoring the events that should have taken place moments ago, a massively mocking happenstance delivered the poor man alive and well to the middle of the woods.

“If anyone can maintain a firm grip on his bearings in this situation, I will certainly love to meet such a person and even lick their feet should he or she, in some unlucky circumstances, be delivered right in front of me within the next three seconds and help me out.”

.

.

.

“Well that was worth a try.”, he said with a shrug.

!?

The lone man in the middle of the forest widened his eyes in surprise momentarily before hastily turning around and inspecting his surroundings. He looked at the trees. No, he seemed to be looking behind them..

“WHO’S THERE?”, he shouted. But there was no response.

He briefly wondered if perhaps he could be hallucinating. Surely, opening his eyes in a place that made no conceivable sense as to how he could have ended up there, the man could not be faulted for the momentary consideration of the possibility. But he shook this thought off, for something on his skin told him that this was very much the reality.

!?

He felt it again. A kind of presence. He hastily turned towards it again to get a glimpse of whoever or whatever was causing him to have such a feeling, but his eyes captured nothing. He looked towards the left, and then to the right but the only thing that entered his sight was a grassed patch of land that extended a few meters in every direction with him at the center. At the perimeter of the clearing started the woods and there was probably something in the woods that was making him feel this way.

He took a breath, keeping up his vigilance level at maximum. His ears strained to the extreme only caught the sound of leaves rustling in the wind which seemed to be getting slowly overtaken by the sound of his beating heart.

!!?

He turned again in panic, again with no result.

“I KNOW YOU’RE THERE! COME OUT!”

He knew there was something or someone out there, he could feel it. His head was running through the numerous possibilities, all of which included ghosts and demons. By no means was he scared of the supernatural generally, but there was clearly something very messed up about his current situation.

It was just a feeling, but he could sense it, something, around him, crawling on his skin. It seemed to only grow stronger the more he became aware of it. Just what was this ‘it’, he couldn’t seem to understand. A feeling of existence is best he would have described if only someone would ask; that he could only feel that ‘it’ was. Yet if to choose for the only possible existence around him to come out to ask him that, needless to say, he’d rather it not.

His clothes were starting to become drenched in sweat, even though there was enough wind..

!?

(There it is again! Every time the wind blows, it carries something that makes this creepy feeling all the more strong!)

He could feel it on his neck, on his back, on his arms and legs and on every part of his body.

“COME OUT!”

*WHOOOOSH*

*DHUSH*

*DREREDREREDRERE*

...

“What the…. actual fuck?”

He stayed unmoving and gawking at the result of whatever phenomenon just took place.

As he had turned around in his insecurity, a tremendous gust of wind followed and ripped apart the trees and their branches that lay in its wake, only to carry them somewhere in a distance the man could not see.

Immediately a look of understanding lit the face of the man, as something seemed to set in him. He looked around once more with a mind renewed with an uncharacteristic mix of bafflement and clarity. He took in the surroundings; the trees in this place were tall, very tall. They could be aptly described as 'humongous'. If not for the clearing he lay in, there was no way he would’ve been able to see the top of these things. Easily reaching a hundred feet high, with a diameter of about 7-8 meters, these things could easily weigh tons.

The man shifted his look back to the scene of the anomaly. The giant trees weren't uprooted but smashed through with considerable force. The ones in the front were broken in their upper halves while those following also suffered some lesser amount of damage.

Finally, he looked at his hand. He could still feel that indescribable feeling, but it was now something he understood. Or that is what he believed he could; that the knowledge was there, just a grab away from reach.

His heart calmed down somewhat, all thoughts of angels and demons gone. He waved his hand steadily, simultaneously trying to pull on the feeling that seemed to be a part of him. Somehow foreign, yet an extensive part none-the-less.

There was it again, the gust, that was nothing more than a gentle breeze, this time. No branches snapped and no trunks cracked, just a healthy melody produced by the rustling of leaves.

It was air.

“That was.. is what I am feeling.”

The atmosphere all around him, he could perceive it. It was unfamiliar, yet undoubtedly, a part of him. His earlier outburst seemed to have been what caused the earlier gale of destruction. Post epiphany, his instinct whispered to him that this power was not that hard to control. The sense of air around him could be described as akin to a sixth sense. He could now not only interpret the stimulus of this gaseous substance that sweetly prickled him all over his skin, as if asserting its authority, but also control it, for its entire might seemed to shift at his command.

It wasn’t necessary to wave his hand either, he realized. The surrounding air moved just according to his thoughts, something that couldn’t be described better than a ‘telepathic impulse’.

He brought his hand in front of his chest, palm faced up, and created a miniature tornado, causing a ticklish sensation where it met his palm. He turned his hand in all directions, twisting and twirling while maintaining the mini-tornado upright, and to finally let it spin on his index finger. He slowly forced the tornado up and away from himself, the task becoming ever the slightly more arduous as the distance grew. Upon reaching a certain distance, he could instinctively feel that this was just a fraction of what he could possibly achieve. Though indeed very hard it would be, the distance he could maintain this was definitely quite a lot; something that was not currently viable to ascertain, neither feasible, for he had a visitor.

*Thump* *thump*

He couldn't see it yet. Though he was sure it was coming this way from the heavy footsteps that seemed to only be getting heavier. And the way the ground seemed to shake with each thud of movement of this mysterious entity, it was evident this wasn't a human being. He had already forgone all thoughts of being on Earth. Well, either that, or he was no longer sane.

“Afterlife…?” He voiced out his thoughts.

*thump*

It seemed plausible at first glance. What did he really know about afterlife? What did anyone, for that matter? Could you even go back to the realm of the living? If you could, would you retain memories of this place. If so, then was the previous life his first life?

“No, that definitely ain’t it.”

*thump*

Because nobody knew. If it were even remotely close to what he was considering, there would have surely been a well-accepted consensus among humanity’s beliefs and there wouldn’t be so many distinct ideas of mythologies and religions. No, again, what did he really know? Maybe what he was unilaterally deeming ridiculous to establish his own idea of afterlife is what caused the divide in the first place. What if there was more than one afterlife?

*thump*

“Now isn’t the time to be lost in idle thoughts.”

He, she, it, or whatever it was that was coming here was definitely big. He had never felt the ground tremble like this. The thumping was dim, as if still in a distance, yet it seemed to reverberate and it was hard to pinpoint the direction of the thing's arrival, neither could he make out any silhouettes among the dense overgrowth. But not for long, after a bit less than a minute, the direction was discernible. It was towards the right of where the partial destruction lay. It made sense if the thing was brought here by the cacophony of his mishap. He subconsciously took steps back to reach a considerable distance away from where the entity would emerge from.

Not long after, he could perceive something moving among the trees, as the thumping grew ever louder. What emerged into his view was a pig. A boar, rather. At least in shape. Over five feet tall and equally wide. From his position, it was hard to discern its length, but it was certainly close to a dozen feet. Its mouth was big enough that it could fit his own self whole, adorned with tusks the size of a grown human specimen, and similarly thick, embellished in a dark gory red. Its hide a deep brownish tinge, it was understandable why he wasn’t able to notice it until it was out. Its legs were short and stout, relative to its body. To him, they were almost as tall and a few magnitudes thicker than his body.

It seemed to observe the mayhem caused by the man for a short while before settling its gaze on him.

!?

Fear instantly gripped his heart. Whether it was the saliva that dripped from its mouth or the ravenous eyes, it didn’t matter. The giant boar thing saw the prey in front of its eyes as nothing more than an afternoon snack.

The man instinctively turned around and ran, but he didn’t even manage 2 steps before he fell to the ground.

*THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMP* *THUMP*

The ginormous boar made a dash of its own in his direction, and each time its legs made contact with the ground, mini-earthquakes spread in the land preventing its prey from being able to maintain balance.

He looked upon the magnificent existence in horror as each tremor felt the last. It would now reach him in about ten steps. Make that 9. No, 8. 7. 6. 5. 4. In a last-minute gather of wits, he made a huge leap in the direction perpendicular to the giant boar’s motion. The unstable footing, coupled with his amateurish disposition, caused him to land side-first into his left arm.

“AAAHHHH!!”

He cried out in pain as his muscles ripped and the bone in his arm cracked. It hurt so bad, his vision went blurry and his mind couldn’t register the thumping anymore. Tears fell out his eyes as he clutched the broken area with his right arm which had seemed to become swollen, all the while instinctively trying to hold himself in a position that caused the least pain. But it did nothing, the pain was there, tearing away at his bearings. He screamed again, probably hoping for some kind of help. It was unbearable.

(KILL ME!)

He felt another source of pain as he hit his head to the ground in agony. And before he knew it, everything started to go dark.. and wet… but the pain refused to go away.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!”

He screamed again as this time his left leg burned in agony. Something ripped it from the knee down. Suddenly, he felt a burst of power swell in him, before the pain started to fade away. He lost all senses, while in his last moments he felt someone pick him up.