The medium-sized rock in my hands comes crashing down on the incoming shadow, narrowly missing it as it easily dodges to the right while tearing a huge chunk of flesh from my right arm.

I drop the rock as my arms throb with pain and weakness, and turn to look at my newest enemy.

The honey badger screeches at me, its pinkish silver fur furiously bristling as it readies for another attack.

It hadn’t taken me long to run into another monster after I started walking through the forest.

I just never thought it would be a fucking honey badger.

It looked pretty peaceful just minding its own business.

Well, that’s until it saw me that is.

You’d think I killed the fucker’s whole family considering how aggressive it suddenly became.

And now I’m standing here, my body littered with scratches and even a few places where whole flesh had been gouged out.

I knew that directly attacking these monsters would just end with me breaking my hands and feet so I thought I’d use a rock instead.

The trees here are abnormally tough compared to trees on Earth and considering the magical nature of basically everything in this forest, it wouldn’t really be a leap to assume that maybe the rocks were also abnormally tough.

So that was my plan: Savagely bludgeon a honey badger to death with a rock.

Unfortunately, the fucker was so fast that I couldn’t land a single hit on it, instead I became its own personal scratching pole.

Chest heaving with exhaustion, I stare at the honey badger, preparing myself for its next rush.

The pain keeps smashing against my consciousness and it’s all I can do as my vision blurs.

The moment the badger’s legs twitch, I throw myself sideways.

The badger’s lunge barely misses me and I’m back on my feet immediately as to make sure I don’t miss its next lunge.

A screech of frustration shrills out of the badger as it starts to circle around me.

Finally, it stops but instead of lunging it stays still as its fur starts to spark with electricity.

Eyes widening, I start backing away.

“Alright buddy, how about we just calm down a little with the magic bullshit-“

A flash is all I see before my right arm is torn away, the muscles and nerves ripping away and blood vessels rupturing in a sanguine arc across the lush green grass.

A beautiful sight, if it wasn’t my own blood that is.

Oh, there’s also the mind numbing pain piercing through my mind like a red hot knife.

I barely have time to process all this before my left leg is torn away by another flash and I begin to topple over as the grass beneath me begins to turn crimson as it’s splattered with more crimson blood.

Darkness encroaches on my vision and overtakes me before my body even hits the ground.

The last thing I see is the stupid fucking badger just standing there with my leg and arm lying to the side.

He looked so fucking smug or at least that’s what I think he looked like...

When awareness returns to me, I’m back at the oh so familiar void.

‘Sigh, well that didn’t go well’ I lament as I think back to the fight with the badger.

I can barely survive if it isn’t a large monster as long as they don’t use any magical abilities.

The moment they do though, I simply stand no chance against any of them.

If I don’t find a way to hurt them then leaving this forest is just a pipe dream...

‘Ok enough of that. While I’m here, I want to try something’ I think to myself while clearing my mind.

I concentrate on the forest and thoughts of going back.

Immediately, the void responds by lighting up until the forest appears around me.

“Nice! So I don’t have to wait, I can just will myself back when I appear in the void” A grin stretching my lips as I look around.

Just more of the same.

“Now what do I do? Fighting any of those monsters without a way to hurt them is just going to end the same way...” I ponder while admiring the surrounding treetops.

“Indeed, it would only end in your demise.” Chuckled a smooth voice behind me.

If it was possible for my soul to leave my body then I’m pretty sure it would’ve done that at that moment as I whipped around in the voice’s direction.

There, standing in the forest clearing, was a man adorned in a dark brown suit.

His salt and pepper hair was neatly styled and kept short while his clean shaven face had a slight smile that seemed a second away from stretching into a grin.

His brow-..blue?.....no...his eye color seemed to shift anytime I tilted my head even slightly.

The cane in his right hand only added to the image of a gentleman.

The man looked completely out of place in a wild forest.

Heart pounding against my ribs, I took a deep breath and warily observed the man before me.

“What’s wrong, Jack? Squirrel got your tongue?” The man said, his slight smile being replaced with a wide grin.

Whether it was the fact he knew my name or that he knew about the...incident...with the squirrel, I’m not sure which surprised me more.

Actually, it’s been so long since I’ve heard my own name, it’s honestly surreal.

Or at least it feels like a long time.

I’m not sure how long it’s been since I first ‘died’.

Rubbing my face and clearing my mind of such thoughts, I focused on the man and finally spoke, “what are you?”

“Do I not look human?” The man asked, his grin not fading in the slightest.

“Yeah, and that squirrel also looked just like a normal squirrel so excuse me if I’m a bit skeptical.” I retorted, perhaps a bit more bitingly than I intended.

The man just laughed, “I don’t blame you lad but does it truly matter what I am?” He asked.

It really didn’t.

Whether it’s a beast or a human who can just magically appear behind me, I basically stand no chance against anything in this world.

Not even the fucking trees...

“Well then, you wouldn’t happen to know how I got here, would you?” I ask, gesturing at the forest around me.

The man’s clearly been watching me for a while now, knows who I am and is practically projecting an ‘I am overpowered’ aura.

I’d be pretty stupid if I couldn’t put two and two together.

“I do indeed but why don’t you take a seat instead of just standing around and we can have a civil conversation.” The man smilingly said, gesturing at the table in the middle of the forest clearing.

The table that clearly wasn’t there a second ago.

Any train of thought I once had comes to a crashing halt as I suddenly realize the existence of the table.

There were no flashy effects or any indication of how the table suddenly appeared.

In fact, a small part of my mind insists that the table had always been there but I hadn’t noticed it.

But that can’t be.

I’m sure that the table hadn’t been there moments ago but the moment the man mentioned it, reality seemed to bend to his words.

If he says there’s a table there then obviously there’s a table there.

How or why I knew that to be the case, I’m not entirely sure.

“My boy, it’s just a parlor trick. You’ll blow a fuse if you keep thinking so hard.” The man chortled, having already sat at the table.

Shaking myself out of the trance, I noticed the man gesturing to the seat opposite himself which I immediately sat in, attempting to stave off the sudden feeling of disorientation.

“First of all, allow me to introduce myself or at least I would had I not long forgotten my name. For now, you can just think of me as an observer, a gentleman who has far too much time.”

“Then are you the one that brought me to this world?” I asked the smiling man.

“You could say I had a hand in the matter but I was not the one who brought you here. I can assure you though that you are not ‘the chosen one’ or a hero summoned to fight some demon lord.” The man replied jokingly.

I couldn’t help but chuckle at that before asking my next question.

“If it wasn’t you, then who did?”

“Why, it’s your dearest friend, one you’ve become intimately familiar with. Time and time again, you’ve felt it’s dark comforting embrace.” Said The Gentleman, manic grin stretching his lips and a kaleidoscope of colors flashing through his eyes.

DEATH