[Short POV change – a couple minutes prior]

Arrine wanted to call out to the young man inspecting the pond in the clearing to warn him of the giant wolf slowly creeping upon him, but she found herself frozen in fear. For that wolf haunted her every awake and sleeping moment.

Ever since she had crash-landed on this planet everything had been going wrong for her. First, she had barely been able to make it to a pod in time when the alarms rang out on the ship because she had been in the middle of a nap. And being forcefully woken up from one due to a splitting headache did not go down well with her body. Significantly slowing her down in her escape. She had managed to find a pod with some luck despite the fact most of them had already been taken. Then the descent had knocked her out, and when she woke up, she had found herself in the middle of a forest with nothing to her name other than her clothes and her phone.

When she had thought things couldn’t get worse the damn wolf had shown up. A hulking mass of made of perfectly chiseled muscles whose only purpose in life was to hunt its prey had shown up. Alerted by the noise the impact had made, it had snuck up on her while she was still getting her bearings. It had tried to silently kill her in a single bite by snapping her neck. But by some incredible stroke of luck, it had slipped on the muddy soil when it lunged at her. Instantly alerting her of its presence.

What followed was easily the most terrifying moment of her life. She had run away immediately upon seeing it. And the wolf had given her chase. The only reason she had survived was due to the densely packed forest which she could maneuver through swiftly due to her small size, whereas the wolf was too large to do so, significantly slowing it down. She, however, had far less stamina than the apex predator did. Where she began to slow down the wolf kept up. It was only a matter of time before she would have been caught.

When the gloomy thought that she was going to die had almost entirely consumed her thoughts, a huge tree stump, easily three stories tall and fifteen meters in diameter came into her sight. The wood looked to be very sturdy yet ancient. She could see through multiple small holes in it that the stump was entirely hollow, all that remained was the outer bark. Most importantly she had spotted such a hole at ground level that was large enough for her to fit through. And she did just that.

The wolf tried to follow her in, but it was too large to fit through any of the entrances, too weak to destroy the bark and incapable of jumping over it. Therefore, it quickly gave up on her. Arrine was safe.

And so, she had spent the rest of the day in there. Over the course of the next few, she had made multiple trips out to gather food and water. But the wolf wouldn’t leave her alone. On multiple occasions it had ambushed her during her trips, almost killing her a few times. The wolf seemed to have extremely powerful hearing, noticing every time she left her hideout. Thus, she dubbed it the awarewolf.

It haunted her every dream, making them horrific nightmares, never leaving her alone. This is why, on her third day on this godforsaken planet, when she had seen the young man, during one of her exploration trips, she had been filled with joy. Finally, someone she could speak to! It would no longer be just her and the awarewolf.

She had wanted to call out to the man when suddenly she spotted a large shadow slowly creeping up behind him. A far too familiar shadow. Causing her to freeze in fear. In fear that this creature which had relentlessly haunted her in the past few days would notice her. Even when it crept up on this man who she didn’t know and yet deeply cared about, for he was the only human she had met since the crash.

Things, however, didn’t go as she feared they would. The wolf let out a low growl in excitement at finally being able to catch this new elusive game, completely ruining his sneak attack. Causing the boy to bolt at the sound. Unintentionally running away towards Arrine.

‘Oh god! What do I do? What do I do?’ she began to panic; social interactions weren’t her forte. In fact, she had spent most of her life barely interacting with anyone. So, she was at a loss when confronted with the fact that she had to talk to him.

The wolf howled.

The man was almost there.

‘Aaaaaah! Just say something!’ She yelled out internally.

The man was next to her. She reached out for his right arm with her hand and blurted out the only line she could think of.

“Quick! Follow me if you want to live!”

‘OhmygoddidIjustsaythat,’ her face reddened in embarrassment.

[Back to Siton]

Siton jumped back in surprise as the mysterious stranger’s hand grabbed his forearm. Glancing at his potential savior, he quickly got a good idea of what they looked like. If the voice hadn’t given it away yet, she was clearly a female. Her build was rather small, probably standing at around 160cm tall, she was still rather slender. Her hair was long and light brown, possibly lighter but that was hard to tell due to the dirt. Likewise, somewhat dusty, her face wasn’t very striking, but neither was she ugly. If anything, she was unremarkable, much like himself. However, she did look a little angry at him, judging from reddening face under all the filth and grime.

He quickly decided that he’d have a better shot at surviving with her than alone. Even if she somehow seemed angry at him, even though he couldn’t recall doing anything to warrant that kind of reaction. Maybe she was pissed off at having to save him. Somewhat intimidated, he replied with an equally cliché line.

“Lead the way, I’ll follow.” He nodded at her.

She nodded back and began running. Siton followed. She began weaving around trees and bushes with far more grace than him. It felt more like he was bulldozing through the woods, hitting branches and twigs at every turn. One of the disadvantages of being tall and never going outside.

Focussing on his ears he could clearly hear the sound of the wolf giving them chase. It was kinda hard to miss considering it was actually bulldozing through the forest, unlike Siton’s poor imitation. Which made it really easy to notice it getting closer to him by the second. It was slowly gaining ground and was currently located somewhere behind him and to his right.

Siton kept monitoring it as he was running, but it was proving hard to do so when he was also trying to run through a forest and follow someone. But for the time being, it seemed like the wolf wasn’t going to try anything, it looked happy with just keeping up with them.

Noticing this, Siton began to switch his focus from monitoring the wolf to running. A grave mistake. This was exactly what it was waiting for. As soon as it noticed the opportunity it leaped with its maw wide open. Aiming to crush the life out of Siton in a single bite. As he still remained blissfully unaware of the attack.

When the beast’s jaws slowly wrapped around his head and came into view, he realized just how fucked he was. As they were about to snap closed something tripped Siton up and caused him to fall face-first on the ground and roll for a few meters, carried by the momentum. Allowing him to narrowly escape certain death.

Looking back at what just save his life, he was surprised to find the mysterious woman lying on the ground.

Through these past couples of days, she’d had multiple encounters with the awarewolf. And by now she knew its attack pattern very well. It was do or die after all, and she lived. So, when she heard the distinctive noise its feet made when it prepared to jump, she threw herself at the ground. Causing Siton to trip on her, unintentionally saving his life.

The woman looked up too and made quick eye contact with Siton before yelling out.

“Almost there! Run!”

Siton didn’t need to be told twice as he got back on his feet and resumed running. He tried to look for the wolf, but he couldn’t find it. He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice, although he’d be a bit clumsier this time, what was a couple of scratches from twigs and the like compared to losing your head.

Quickly checking on his savior, he found that she had gotten back up already and was just behind him. She also happened to be glaring at him, as if telling him ‘Stop wasting time and keep running!’. He quickly turned around, wholeheartedly agreeing with that message.

After a few more minutes of frantic running with no sign of the wolf, they finally arrived at their destination. The lady had taken the lead once more during their run. When the huge stump came into sight, Siton once again was in awe. ‘This tree must have been gigantic when still alive!’.

“This way! Through the hole!” His helper said as she crawled through one a little larger than a basketball located near ground level.

Siton threw himself on the ground and tried to follow her inside. Unfortunately, an issue quickly arose. He was too large to fit. Unlike the place’s owner, he wasn’t short and slim. Okay… he may be a bit skinny. But he was still too big.

As he was struggling to get through, he heard a panicked voice shout out.

“Behind you! The awarewolf was waiting here this whole time!”

His blood froze. This was the worst time to be stuck. Sweat beads began to roll down his face as he tried to push through. He could see the woman looking through a hole near eye level, keeping an eye on the wolf.

“Shit! I can’t get through here! It's too tight!” He yelled out while furiously trying to drag himself inside.

She came over to assist him but even then, nothing would work. Meanwhile, the wolf was delighted to see its pray frantically trying to survive. It slowly covered the distance between himself and Siton.

“You have to try another entrance! There’s a wider one at the back!” She told him when noticing the wolf’s approach.

Understanding that it was the only way in Siton complied and dragged himself out only to end up face to face with the massive creature. He was completely cornered.

“Open your hands! I have a plan!”

Desperate and without a better idea Siton did as he was told and opened his hands. For a fraction of a second nothing happened, and the wolf lunged at him. This was it.

Then everything went down in very close succession. A pristine metal spike materialized in his hand. It was roughly a meter long and ended in an extremely pointy cone on one side. Seeing this his eyes widened and the will to live was re-ignited within him. With a powerful desire for strength, EX surged within himself and flooded his body. He took a stance that he remembered from martial arts classes he took back on Earth.

And he thrust forward with the spike.

Impaling the wolf through the roof of its mouth and straight into its brain. Immediately ending the wolf’s life. The weapon then suddenly disappeared, as quickly as it had burst into existence.

The beast’s corpse continued to fly carried by its enormous momentum and crashed straight into Siton. Causing him to hit his head extremely hard against the bark behind himself.

Slumping on the ground with the corpse Siton could feel a very sudden release of EX, akin to an explosion, yet without any physical strength. His brain barely registered it, only managing to formulate one last thought as he felt himself slip into unconsciousness once more.

‘Awarewolf? Really?’

Siton was floating amidst a dark and limitless empty space. His mind not quite there, it felt distant and fragmented, separated from himself. He spent a long time aimlessly drifting in the pitch-black ocean slowly feeling the pieces of his consciousness slowly flow towards himself. It took what could have very well been minutes, hours or even days to gather, there was no way of knowing. Eventually, his consciousness slowly began to join once more. Within a few minutes most of the pieces had fused and he was once more able of complex thoughts.

“What is this space?” He thought. That… wasn’t quite right. What should have been his thoughts were somehow vocalized.

“What the…”

“This is weird.”

He looked around, trying to find something in this vast empty space, but his search proved in vain. With nothing to do, he began to think about various subjects and topics. Most of which concerned the events which had unraveled since he had landed. It was a very curious experience to be left with nothing but your own thoughts. Thoughts that you couldn’t hide from yourself or repress. In this place everything that crosses his mind was vocalized, impossible to ignore. He didn’t have a body, which meant no senses, there was nothing around him but a pitch-black abyss nothing to turn to but his own mind.

Siton stayed in this state for a while until he decided to try something. He had hypothesized in his thinking session that this space had to do with EX. But with no idea what to do his mind got distracted and drifted to another topic. It was only after a while that he realized; he could try to sense EX as he had previously done. If this place had anything to do with it, it wasn’t a far stretch to assume he could sense it.

Thus, he tried to clear his mind and reach the same state he had previously. Initially, this proved to be a significantly harder task than before due to how loud and distracting each of his thoughts was. But this also proved beneficial. Thoughts were normally elusive, they came and went, hard to grasp. Sometimes even unnoticeable; the brain was always thinking. In this space, however, that wasn’t the case. Every thought was loud and clear, making them far easier to grasp. Allowing him to repel them as they came. It was still a monumental feat of self-control, but Siton managed.

He could feel the hints of EX throughout this space. It was thick, almost liquid. Far denser than even the wolf’s EX release. And then, suddenly, it clicked in his mind. The way to sense EX. He shouldn’t try to sense it with his physical senses but with his mind. It wasn’t a material thing; it was purely psychic. Hence why it was triggered by his emotions and thoughts. So, he reached with his mind in a way he never had before, like using a limb he never knew he had.

And the world lit up. Revealing a gigantic space, ensnared by an equally large shining purple dome and filled by a humongous and incredibly radiant white sea below him.

“What is this place…” he whispered in wonder.