Episode III

Predateor

The sun lifted up over the horizon, shining its welcoming beams of life onto the forest below. Baby birds released their morning song onto the world, squirrels poked their heads out of their hidey-holes, and somewhere a deer lazily strolled along a morning walk, munching at the sprouts of green jutting out of the ground; sure signs of winter shifting into spring.

Resting in a large but not particularly tall tree, however, was something that definitely didn’t belong. From a distance, one could be forgiven for thinking it was a massive egg juxtaposed in the tree’s branches. Anything that got close could easily identify the object wasn’t made of shell, but of blankets and cloth; dirty, scuffed blankets wrapped up into a warm, cozy ball. Every few seconds, the bundle rose and fell with the breath of whatever lay within.

As the sun hit the bundle directly, it began to stir more and more. Eventually, its occupant let out a yawn and made the attempt to stretch. This motion was just a little too much for the position the egg-like bundle was in, and it flipped off the edge of the branch, unraveling like a rolling carpet.

Amaris let out a scream of terror as she was twirled around in a cyclonic pattern, unable to make heads or tails of what was happening. Fortunately for her, the previous night’s Amaris had been much more aware of the situation and had tied an end of the sheet to her backpack, just in case something went wrong. Which it had.

Her scream was cut abruptly short by the sudden upward pull of her backpack on her shoulders, forcing the breath out of her. She could barely wheeze as she hung there, suspended from a tree by her backpack and extended sheet-rope.

After she regained her breath, she felt kind of silly, hanging there like a piñata.

She was less than a foot from the ground, so she slipped out of the backpack’s straps and dropped to the ground. With a frown, she looked up to assess the situation, already plotting her path to climb back up the tree, dislodge the blanket and sheet, and bundle it all back up nicely.

Her plan was for naught, for at that moment the branch decided it’d had enough, breaking completely from the strain and dropping the backpack firmly on Amaris’ face. She let out a cry of alarm as she was pushed to the ground, followed by a comical “oof” as the branch itself landed on top of the backpack. The blankets and the sheet rope drifted down a few moments later.

“…What a great start to the day,” Amaris grumbled, removing the backpack from her face and sitting up. The motion made her wince—her shoulders were sore from taking the brunt of the impact from that fall. It meant little since she was used to a little pain at this point. This was the beginning of day four walking through the forest, after all. While she hadn’t fallen out of the tree on any of the previous nights, it was basically par for the course so far.

When she found Dad she was going to kill him for saying “and now you’re ready to rough it in the wilderness!” at the end of their last camping trip. Basic survival knowledge did not equate to easily trekking through a forest, as Amaris had learned rather quickly.

Still, she hadn’t frozen to death yet and hadn’t been eaten by anything, so that was something at least.

With a series of slow breaths to calm and prepare herself, Amaris stood up. She looked terrible. Her jacket and pants were covered in nicks, her face had more than a few scrapes on it, the tangled knots that were her hair desperately needed a comb, and every part of her ached—though, naturally, her shoulders worst of all.

And yet, she smiled, feeling more than a little proud that she’d been smart enough to anchor herself to the tree just in case something like this happened.

Humming to herself, she opened the flap of the backpack. “Good morning, sleepysnake.”

Pitch lazily looked up from his coil in his enclosure.

“A new day, a new adventure! Maybe we’ll see something other than trees today!”

Pitch stared at her.

“…As long as it isn’t the wolf again, right.” With a twist, Amaris set to work picking up camp. The benefit to not traveling with a tent was that it didn’t take long. All she had to do was bundle up the pillow in the blankets and then tie them to the backpack with the sheet, and she was done. Sure, the blankets were getting really dirty at this point, but they retained her body heat, and that was the most important thing.

The only thing she didn’t attach to her backpack was her stick—a long, narrow pole sharpened to a point at one end. After her encounter with the wolf two days ago she figured it was best to have a weapon, even if she didn’t really know how to use it. Any animal that didn’t buy the “be loud and scary” trick might think twice after being thrust at with a weapon.

Amaris attempted to twirl the spike in her hands, but she lost control and it clattered onto the dirt below. With a sigh, she picked it up, this time holding it tightly in both of her hands.

She reached into one of the backpack’s outer pockets, taking out the bag of cat-shaped trail mix. It had been a rather large bag, and it was running low, even with the edible greens she’d picked and placed within it. Her other source of food—the thermos she had filled with the oatmeal paste back at the orphanage—was doing a little better, but that was only because she found it hard to stomach eating the stuff cold. While she could make a fire, she didn’t exactly have a safe way to heat it up, so she had no other options.

Plus, she hated making fires without matches. Dumb things were more effort than they were worth, especially since sleeping on the ground was a bad idea given how wet it was. There hadn’t been any deluges since her journey started, but there was enough of a sprinkling that up in a tree was infinitely better than on the muddy ground.

The fact of the matter was, she was going to run out of food in a day or two, even with her rationing. In theory, a fit human could survive about a month without food, but she wasn’t an adult and she was exerting extreme amounts of energy every day just hiking through the forest.

Luckily, water wasn’t a problem. Not only was the air humid and dew easily available every morning, but ever since she had abandoned the idea of “going straight” on the first day, she’d been following a rather large river downstream. It was a great source of freshwater for whenever she got thirsty. Though, in the back of her mind, she wondered if she was going to contract some kind of water-borne illness if she over-relied on it. Not that she had much choice.

Amaris marched over to the river, stabbing her stick into the muddy sand at the bank. She used it to support herself as she leaned down to take a drink, wash her hands, and wash her face. A few times she had considered taking a full bath in the river—she felt filthy—but even at midday, when the weather was warm, the river itself was still extremely frigid. She had not yet reached the point of willing to subject herself to a freezing bath in order to feel clean.

She took some of the water to attempt to get her hair to behave, with mixed success. Deciding she’d spent enough time on that, she stepped back onto the bank, picked up her stick, and set off downstream.

The terrain wasn’t difficult, though it wasn’t even either. Her legs, while strong and used to carrying the load of her backpack everywhere, wasted no time in complaining. She wasn’t taking as many breaks as she did on the first day, but still, she had to sit down and take a breather multiple times an hour.

More than once, she had told herself it probably would have been better to walk off along a road, or at least have a road within line of sight, just so she had some attachment to civilization. All she had was this river, now, and the hope that some people had decided to place a settlement along it somewhere down the line. Or at least a road.

Unfortunately, just like all previous days, nothing changed as she moved. The river remained the river, the trees remained the trees, and her legs remained sore. Strangely, she was actually somewhat thankful for the monotony. As pained as she was, at least it was peaceful. The rings of distant birdsong made it to her ears, putting a smile on her face. Fish would jump out of the river every now and then, and she caught sight of more than a few squirrels. Nature was beautiful and consistent.

The hours of the day wore on. She took regular breaks, though rarely did she do anything other than sit and occasionally talk to Pitch during them. She needed to conserve energy.

Morning left, and it became afternoon. The day was quite pleasant with a comforting warmness in the air and just the right amount of fluffy clouds in the sky. Amaris would have been tempted to call it idyllic were she in a better situation.

Suddenly, she got the feeling like she was being watched.

Had this feeling come to her a week or so ago, she would have dismissed it out of hand as just being paranoid. However, that was before she had been attacked by an evil mirror doppelganger, conditioned by a witch, and spent several days roughing it in a forest.

Her new response was to stop dead in her tracks and point her stick aggressively forward. She rotated slowly but looked around rapidly. Sensing her tense disposition, Pitch poked his head out of the backpack and used his own eyes to scan the area. Though, in his case, his tongue was doing more “seeing” than his eyes actually were.

As far as Amaris could tell, there was nothing out there, no one watching her at all. But there was also no birdsong. No sounds aside from her breathing and the bubbling of the brook. She didn’t trust any of it.

However, not able to get even a glimpse of whatever was out there, she had no choice but to continue on. She did this at a considerably slowed pace, angling her stick left and right, trying never to let any direction stay out of her sight for long.

The feeling didn’t go away. Something was out there. And she wasn’t about to just trust the world not to throw something at her.

After all, I am cursed.

There came a rustle to her left. She whirled to face it, but saw nothing aside from a bush. It couldn’t have been the wind rustling through it—the air was at a dead calm.

She glared at the bush for several seconds, looking for any sign of something passing through it. But her eyes gave her nothing.

There has to be something here…

Pitch hissed in alarm. Amaris whirled around, swinging her stick as hard as she could—smacking a spiked limb made out of pure brass a second before it would have plunged into her chest. Had Pitch not given her that warning, she wouldn’t even have gotten a look at her attacker before it was over.

Now that she could see the monstrosity, she wasn’t sure what to make of it. The creature had five legs, all made of pure brass, as though it were a twisted horn of some kind. With no hands or feet, each limb ended in a brutally sharp point, so narrow that the holes it made in the ground were nearly impossible to see. Adorning the limbs from the midsection to the beast’s core were a massive number of bones—femurs, ribcages, and skulls worn as marks of pride on its shimmering body. Most of the skulls were animal, but several were human, and those were the kind of skulls it wore closest to its core. Its head—if it could really be called such a thing—was a clock face without numbers or hands, adorned with mother-of-pearl-like backing.

It had to lean down considerably to place its “face” close to Amaris, reducing its two-story height to her level. This close, she expected to feel breathing. None came—all she heard was a faint, almost nonexistent ticking coming from the creature.

It lifted another of its limbs.

Amaris let out a roar and stabbed the creature in the face. Her stick hit dead in the center—and snapped in two, unable to pierce the glasslike veneer.

The beast had no such difficulty with Amaris. It thrust forward, and she was easily lifted off the ground like a ragdoll.

Looking down, she noted that the spike had gone clear through her. Strange, this doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would…

The pain came when she tried to cough and her entire body seized up. She attempted to scream, but there was nothing left to scream with. All she could do was stare at the empty clock face as the ticking got louder and louder… until it was deafening…

~~~

Amaris fell down, clutching her chest—grabbing at the zipper on her jacket, desperate. She all but tore the zipper apart and looked down her shirt.

She was fine. There were no scars. No blood. …Come to think of it, her jacket and her shirt didn’t even have holes in them.

“…What…?” She looked around in disbelief. There was no creature of brass and clocks. She wasn’t even in the same place she had been before. She was just resting at a rock by the edge of the river, heart pounding in her ears.

“Did… did I fall asleep?” she asked, frowning. “I...” She held a hand to her head, trying to rub away the headache.

Pitch slithered out of the backpack and licked Amaris’ cheek.

“Yeah, I’m okay…” she said, shaking her head. “I think I just had a nightmare. Or a vision. Or there was some kind of dream demon that wanted my soul or something.” She laughed bitterly. “This is my life now, perpetually wondering if my dreams want to kill me…”

With a sigh, she stood up—finding that she felt surprisingly well-rested. Her limbs were still sore, sure, but she felt ready to take on the day.

So, with more than a little trepidation, she made her way downstream once more. She moved a little slower than she had previously, and she kept a tighter grip on her stick. But, as before, the forest remained idyllic. Happy, even.

Until she noticed the birdsong sharply cut out.

“Pitch…” She tightened the grip on her stick and started moving slower. “Let’s be careful…”

She made it maybe ten meters before she had the unmistakable feeling of being watched again.

Oh no…

Amaris didn’t wait for a rustle or even another sign. She ran. Pushing herself to the limit, she leaped over rocks, roots, and bushes, paying attention not to trip and fall, but not caring in the slightest if she got a few scrapes and cuts from passing branches. She just needed to move.

With every slam of her foot to the ground, pain shot up her leg, begging her to stop. She ignored it, caring only that she could push further and further, farther away from whatever that creature was. Even though she hadn’t seen it, she was sure it was there. Chasing her. Preying on her.

Even now, as she was running at full speed, she heard nothing and saw nothing. All she had was that feeling, that utter certainty, that she was being watched. That was enough for her.

But it was not enough to save her. A flash of golden brass came to the corner of her eye. Turning to the left, she saw it, running along the sides of trees like they were rungs on a ladder. It faced her with its clock, keeping up with her without even touching the ground, its spikes making only the slightest noises as they embedded into the tree trunks to propel it forward.

It was keeping speed with her easily.

It swiped out one of its legs, tripping her. She rolled head over heels, falling onto a rock. It hit her directly in the ribs, shooting pain through her entire body. There was no question in her mind that something was broken—the only question was how many ribs had been hit.

Amaris couldn’t get enough air to move at full speed anymore, but she tried anyway. She rolled off the rock and into the river, its frigid water scraping like a bed of nails into her body with a rush so intense everything went numb before she could fully process it. Her limbs locked up and she floated downstream—yet, some part of her was thankful for the numbing.

She was only just conscious enough to avoid taking in breaths of air while her head was below the water, holding everything shut tight as she tumbled under the waves. Even so, some of it got up her nose and into her lungs, prompting every breath to be taken in the midst of sputtering coughs.

Sensation was slipping away entirely. The border between air and water became fuzzy, and the pain in her lungs began to feel distant. So when the river carried her to a large rock in the midst of its waters, depositing her roughly on top, she didn’t register that she wasn’t drowning anymore. She shivered and twitched, coughing up water involuntarily. Her consciousness returned—and with it a sense of disdain at the rising level of pain. Expending considerable effort, she attempted to move her arm—to no avail. It was like she was only a passenger in her body, unable to do anything but experience the pain. One of her legs was an exception; she felt nothing from there.

Her eyelids responded to her panic first, fluttering open. The forest was beautiful, and the sun shone exactly as it had when she thought the scene was idyllic. And there, on the bank, was the creature—standing. Watching.

It walked into the river, finding the rushing current no obstacle as it leisurely strolled over to her, eventually blocking out the fleeting beauty of the sun. It leaned in, not stopping until its clock face was inches from her face. The ticking was almost unbearable.

It… it let me get this far.

It thrust its leg into her stomach. She didn’t consciously feel much of anything, but that didn’t stop her from letting out a piercing cry of agony amidst the infernal ticking…

~~~

Amaris jumped off the rock. “Nope. Nope. Nope!” She shouted to the sky and then took off in a random direction—away from the river, that seemed like the best shot.

Pitch poked his head out and hissed in confusion.

“Monster!” Amaris gasped. “Killing me and resetting me! Thinks this is some game! Well, nope, I’m not falling for it again! We’re going… this way!” Already she was fairly sure this wasn’t going to work but she’d already started running, no point in stopping now.

Frantically, she looked around. Not for the creature—but something she might be able to use to her advantage. Anything she could defend herself with, hide in, or something.

But she was in the middle of a forest far from any signs of civilization. Trees weren’t going to help her face this beast, and neither were rocks. It began to dawn on her that she really had nothing besides her body, her wits, and whatever was inside her backpack.

That’s not enough…

The birds stopped singing. She took note of that as the first event that occurred every loop. Continuing her sprint, she nonetheless kept her eyes and ears peeled. Sure enough, the sense of being watched came over her.

The only problem was, at this point, her entire body was in agony simply from running. She had covered a lot of distance in a short time, running at absolute top speed. While she may have been fit, she was most certainly not an athlete. She could only run so far before she had to slow, or else her legs were going to give out.

The moment she slowed, the creature revealed itself to her side, skittering along the trees effortlessly. Already, she could hear the ticking. She let out a haggard scream and pushed herself forward. It tried to swipe her legs out from underneath her again, but she expected this, jumping over it just in time to maintain her speed.

Using one arm, she flipped the backpack off one shoulder. With the other she swung it around, giving Pitch just enough time to jump onto her arm before she released everything she had as a missile, hitting the creature right in the face. The force of the backpack knocked it out of the trees, and the sudden lightening of Amaris’ load gave her a significant speed boost.

Amaris’ heart pounded, but the adrenaline from seeing the creature drove her further than she thought possible. She leaped, jumped, and scrambled forward—tearing off her jacket somewhere in the process, leaving her with just her normal outfit and Pitch, running breakneck through the woods.

Adrenaline can only go so far.

It wasn’t the pain in the legs that made her slow—she could work through the pain. Force it into the back of her mind and ignore it if required. No, it was the fact that her legs stopped doing what she asked them to. The left foot slid a little to the left, forcing the right foot to scramble and keep up with it. It was impossible to keep her pace up with such imprecise movements, so she slowed once more.

Like clockwork, the beast appeared. She knew she had to go faster.

Her legs could do no such thing. They locked up, and she fell face-first into the dirt, breathing so heavily that she snorted some of it into her lungs. She didn’t care. She was too exhausted to care.

The ticking was deafening.

Stop that infernal noise!

It skewered her through the back of the head…

~~~

Amaris stood up from the rock. She didn’t run this time. Instead, she took off her backpack and rooted through the contents. Nothing was any more of a weapon than her pointed stick, and that wasn’t even able to pierce the creature’s “skin.” She didn’t find anything that was particularly helpful, though she plucked out the magic mirror. Maybe she could use it to scare the beast off or something? No… that was ridiculous.

But she had some time. It was only a few minutes, but it was time. Not enough to build a spike trap, but enough to make use of the nearby trees. She set to work, tearing up the sheet into thin strands of fabric that she used as a rope to tie the tree branches into place, and then adhered all of it to a rock. She smirked—it was going to get a surprise when it showed up. Just in case she needed to be fast, she removed her jacket and the backpack, giving herself all the speed she could manage.

She looked up. The birds had stopped singing, but she’d been expecting the feeling of being watched sooner. As of yet, it hadn’t come. She just sat there, waiting…

With a sigh, Amaris looked at the sky. The sun was… lower than it should have been. Not by much, but enough that Amaris was sure it had moved. What does that mean…?

Her musings were put to an end by the feeling of being watched coming over her once again. She brandished her stick in her hands and tried to look threatening—ready to stand her ground. She hoped the creature thought she was ready for a direct fight.

She heard the ticking before she saw it, this time. She pointed her stick in the direction it was coming from but saw absolutely no movement or even a glint of brass. Yet, she was absolutely certain it was there.

What even is that ticking!? It used to be so quiet!

It revealed itself slowly and in plain view, this time, walking out of nothingness—as though there was a flat portal running perfectly parallel to Amaris’ line of sight. One moment it wasn’t there, and then it was, bearing down upon her slowly.

She yanked the fabric rope.

Her construction job was shoddy and only one of the branches successfully flung out and hit the beast, snapping harmlessly on its brass body.

Amaris went with plan B—throwing the magic mirror at it. The magic artifact sailed true and struck the creature in the face, to no avail.

“Guess we try this the hard way…” Amaris brandished her stick. She knew the pointed end wasn’t worth anything, and if she hit the beast directly it would just shatter. But it wasn’t useless.

The beast lazily strutted forward and drove a limb toward her. She jumped under it, taking position between all five of its limbs. She drove the flat end of the stick upward, hitting the underside of the creature. Naturally, it was just as hard and resilient as everywhere else on its body, but she hoped that annoyed it. With a jump, she rolled back, avoiding another swipe. Then she whirled around and grabbed hold of one of its legs with a hand.

It felt exactly like the trumpet in the music room at school. Actual brass.

She swung herself upward, not entirely sure where she was going with this, but she wasn’t dead yet. Shimmying her way up the leg using the adorned bones as handholds, she came closer to its face.

One of its free legs ran right through both her hips, skewering her effortlessly.

This time, her agonized scream came with words. “Again!? What is your deal? I just… can’t… even…”

~~~

Amaris immediately set to work setting up the traps again, this time paying more attention to the design. She went over the fight she had with the beast in her head—maybe if she learned enough of its movement patterns, she could take it on directly, outplay it after… what, a thousand deaths?

As brutal and terrifying as it was, the repetition of the agony was making it bearable. She was starting to fully come to terms with the fact that losing didn’t mean actual death, just pain. And she could deal with pain. With a grin, she cinched a branch back and—

She was being watched.

Already? But… I have time! I… She realized with some horror that she hadn’t heard birdsong at all this time.

How? Why? This breaks the entire pattern, how e—

She heard ticking.

Then, and only then, did a full, live, grown deer get thrown from all the way across the river to her feet. She took up a defensive posture with her stick, finding the brass creature already dashing across the water with impressive precision—each spiked motion not even making a splash.

But it ignored her this time. It went right for the deer, stabbing it through the heart right in front of her. She couldn’t help but gasp in horror at the gruesome sight—was that what she had looked like all this time?

Then the deer was gone, as was the stain it made on the ground and the scuffmark it had made in the dirt. It was reset, just like she had been. Though, unlike her, it hadn’t been sent back very far—since it came flying through the air again, landing in exactly the same spot it had before.

Once again, the beast skewered it. And this time it didn’t reset.

The message was clear.

I can kill you whenever I want.

It backed away from her, dragging the deer with it. With one swift motion, it vanished in much the same way it had appeared last time, as though passing through a rift Amaris couldn’t see—taking the deer with it, no doubt to harvest its bones.

Amaris’ eyes remained wide, and she continued poking the stick at where the creature had vanished. She still heard ticking… but it got quieter, and quieter, and quieter. Until all that Amaris knew was that she was being watched. And, a minute later, even that went away.

“It… it’s giving me a chance to run again…” Amaris swallowed. “To… entertain it…”

Pitch poked his head out of the backpack, staring right at her. Amaris could sense the fear coming from him as well.

“There’s so much going on…” Amaris furrowed her brow. “Here’s what we learned. One: the creature can reset prey back to the past, possibly however far it wants. Two: it can choose not to do this. If it ever does this, we lose. Three: it seems to enjoy toying with me and letting me learn. Four: It doesn’t actually wind back time. It just resets the prey and anything it interacted with. Five: It has a physical location. It may be able to “teleport” me by resetting, but it either can’t or chooses not to do the same for itself. It was so close this time since it killed me here. So… I can lead it off in one direction and… do what? There’s nothing for miles and miles around that could be helpful. All it would get me is more distance to get somewhere. To…”

She looked up and across the river. A short ways past the bank was a tree significantly taller than all the others. It would provide an excellent lookout.

Immediately, she decided to wade across the river. Hefting her backpack over her head, she walked into the waters. The cold that had kept her from taking a bath felt pathetic to what she’d recently been through. Dripping wet and shivering, she made it to the other side—and forged on until she reached the base of the massive elder pine tree. She dropped her backpack on the ground and stretched her arms in preparation. Pulling her hands into her jacket sleeves so she could use them as gloves, she began to climb the tree.

It was a relatively easy climb once she got past the first few levels of branches, for it was a tall tree with sturdy supports and she had enough clothing on to keep the needles from causing too much damage. She didn’t even try to make it all the way to the top—all she did was go until she could easily see over the tops of most of the other trees.

No roads, buildings, or signs of civilization revealed themselves to her. There were just trees, trees, trees… and six large rocks that jutted out of the canopy downstream, forming what looked like a perfect hexagon from Amaris’ vantage point.

There, she thought. Maybe those rocks have something to do with the creature. Its nest, maybe? She started climbing down. Who cares, it’s something to go for. Dropping to the ground, she hefted up her backpack and her stick and broke out into a run, using the river as a guide so she wouldn’t get lost. Focusing on her mental image of the forest from above, she kept a careful eye out for a particular bend in the river.

Unfortunately, before she found the bend, she felt the watching presence of the creature return. Don’t worry, you still have time. It takes its time to strike. Keep looking, keep looking… She ran forward a little bit until, yes, there it was! The bend in the river! Glancing up and to the left, she was able to make out the six stone pillars. Up this close, they clearly had shallow, worn-out runes carved into them all the way up to the top. Surely, this was worth something.

Go go go go go!

Amaris dropped her backpack immediately, taking only the fraction of a second she needed to grab Pitch.

The instant she started running for the stones, the ticking started—to her left. She tried to jump, anticipating the attack.

If only it hadn’t flown out of the nothingness like a bullet, attacking with all five of its limbs at once. She dodged one and only one; the other four struck her right through…

~~~

Amaris grinned. “It doesn’t want me there.”

Pitch tilted his head in confusion.

“So, I lead it away, going back up the river, then on reset I make a run for it! …Except…” She did a quick calculation in her head on her relative speed to how fast the creature seemed able to move. “Yeah, that won’t give me anywhere near enough of a head start to be safe, and it might get bored after chasing me through a full run again…”

Pitch shrunk back into his hole in the backpack, only keeping the tip of his head out.

“Aha! It let me stay alive before to do interesting things—fight back, keep running, try to duck through the river… all I have to do is keep looking interesting. And it’ll let me live until I can fool it!” She rubbed her hands together. “Here goes!”

She forged across the river again, a wild smile on her face the entire time. Once on the other side, she didn’t bother with the tree—she simply rummaged through her backpack and pulled out the sheet, tearing a few strings off of it. She only fast-walked along the river, going downstream, taking a moment every few steps to kneel down to pick up a stick, or a rock, examining it, and then continuing on.

She wanted to look busy. Like she was making something, something that would help her defeat the creature. She hoped and prayed that it wasn’t very intelligent, or at the very least that it had never seen something like this before. Because, otherwise, it was going to catch on and she would be doomed.

However, she was confident she could look like she was fighting for her life by digging through random objects and branches. Because, to be perfectly fair, she was. It was just that the tool she was “building” to help her win was a mind-game and not any sort of tool.

That said, she did at least try to make it look like a bow and arrow. She found a suitably curved stick and tied the string to it.

The moment she felt the presence of the beast watching her, she mimicked a few arrow-shooting motions with the bow and then sat down at the river to pick out the oddest colored rock and sand the edges of the bow away for no reason other than to look busy. Then she continued walking, looking every which way for more “ingredients” for her “tool.” She jogged forward a significant distance, found an interesting piece of bark, and stuck it to the edge of the bow.

At one point, she even bothered to take out the magic mirror and her GameBox, turning the latter on and waving both over the bow as if she were performing some kind of magic ritual.

The sense of being watched did not go away.

But she didn’t hear any ticking, either.

It’s buying it. It’s curious to see where this goes.

And so she continued on at a brisk pace, always on guard, always adding new things. Sanding the side, splashing water on it, even bothering to chase down a frog and feed it to Pitch, harvesting a wart from the amphibian, and placing it on a piece of flint that looked vaguely like an arrowhead.

Amaris couldn’t help but giggle. “Poison!” she declared, knowing full well the frog wasn’t a toxic variety. “Hibbibibbity wibbivissiggy woffleboffity!” she added, as though she were making an incantation.

Still no ticking. The beast was content to watch.

Amaris made it all the way to the bend in the river. Her heart was pounding—but she made sure to not even glance at the six stone pillars, even though she knew full well they were there. She carefully plucked a reed from the riverbank and stuck the “arrowhead” on the front of it. With her back to the stone pillars and her face to the river, she began to walk backwards—lifting the fake bow and arrow as if she were going to shoot the arrow across the river.

Let’s see just how dumb you are…

As it turned out, it was fairly stupid. But it wasn’t an absolute moron.

Tick.

It had come from behind her. Cover blown! Move! There was no time to ditch anything, there was only time to run. She whirled around, running directly toward the direction the first tick had come from. As expected, the creature leaped out nothing with all five limbs poised to stab her all at once.

She ducked, skidding along the ground like a master limbo player. It wasn’t quite enough—the lowest leg caught her face just below her left eye, shooting intense pain through her face while simultaneously taking out half of her vision.

She wailed and screamed—but she pressed on, running at breakneck speed for the rocks. With her right eye, she could see the edge of the stones less than ten meters away. She could be there in seconds.

But so could the creature.

That is, it could have been, had it not launched itself at full speed in the other direction just moments before. It reached out to use trees to stop its motion, but found none, as it had launched itself all the way to the river. It crashed into the water, taking a few precious seconds to use the rapids and the rocks to slow itself down. It could not roar in anger, but the trembling clatter of its head as it changed direction was the best it could manage.

Amaris ran, pushing herself as hard if not harder than all the other times the creature had had her pinned. At this point, the pounding adrenaline rush and pain shooting through her face were almost expected.

But not normal. It could never be normal.

Letting out one final roar of wailing pain, she jumped.

The ticking of the creature was right behind her.

She felt something tap the sole of her shoe.

And then she crashed into the grassy ground, knocking the wind out of her—but not breaking anything.

The creature had it worse. It slammed into an invisible wall at full force, flattening its face and its five brass limbs against it, shattering several of its ornamental bones in the process.

Shakily, Amaris managed to stumble to her feet and give the creature a one-eyed glare.

It banged its head against the invisible barrier a few more times before backing off, dragging its legs angrily through the dirt, leaving great gashes within the soil. But it knew that Amaris was now out of reach. There was no further use in staying here.

“We’re… we’re alive…” Amaris let out a long, deep breath. “Pitch, we made it!”

Pitch hissed back at her.

“Yes, you made it! That was a close one!”

For a moment, Amaris thought that Pitch was talking to her in the voice of a sweet, excitable girl. Amaris shook her head and slowly turned around. There, standing before them, was a creature made almost entirely out of leaves, yet nonetheless took the overall shape of a human. She—for it was clearly a she—was either wearing a dress and hat made out of wide, green leaves with red veins and pointed tips, or she wasn’t wearing anything and the leaves were effectively replacing any hair she might have otherwise had. Two larger-than-life eyes took up the majority of her face, and the pupils within them were so large one could be forgiven for thinking her eyes were solid black. She was slightly taller than Amaris, and was holding out a four-fingered hand in what Amaris assumed was a friendly gesture.

“I’m Coleus. Welcome to Glen Vest!”

“I’m… Amaris… and…” Amaris’ eye rolled back into her skull.

While the beast’s abilities had reset Amaris’ body back to full health each time, it had made sure she remembered most if not all of what happened. Which meant that, while her physical nature had been getting a recharge, her mental had not.

Now that she was convinced in her own mind that she was safe, her brain decided it was time to shut down.

She passed out unceremoniously on the grass of Glen Vest.

~~~

Once again, Amaris found herself waking up in a strange bed—if what she was currently lying in could even be called a bed. It felt slightly spongy under her hands, and somewhat damp. With a deep intake of the clean, fresh air, she opened her eyes—both of them. Brilliant morning sunlight poured into her sights from between two of the stone pillars. In another time, another place, she would have found the glaring light of the sun an intolerable inconvenience.

Today, it told her she was alive.

With little effort, she sat up. There wasn’t a sore muscle in her body. In fact, feeling herself over, there was no sign of hardship. Her skin was clean, her clothes dirtless and mended, and even her hair was combed. Although, tracing her hand under her left eye, she felt some roughness. A scar, most likely.

Her first instinct was to reach into her backpack and get out the multitool, so she could see her reflection in its metal, but it was at this point she noticed what exactly she’d been sleeping on. A mushroom. A cartoonishly red mushroom with white spots. Around the mushroom bed were flowers of various intense colors adorning a soft carpet of verdant grass among which bees and butterflies lazily danced about. A small, clear pond sat a short distance away, surface glistening like glass that perfectly reflected the boughs of the many twisting, lush trees.

Amaris would have stared at the vibrant scenery for quite a while longer had her eyes not rested on the leafy, humanoid creature sitting at the base of the mushroom bed, snoring quietly. It was the same one she’d met when she first came in here—Coleus, wasn’t it? To her side was Amaris’ backpack, which Pitch was resting on top of. Apparently even he liked to be outside in this place. This Glen.

Amaris waved her hand in front of the sleeping plant person. Getting no response, she let out a soft cough that startled the poor girl awake.

“Uwah!” The girl waved her hands rapidly. “What’s happening!?”

Amaris waved. “Hi. Awake.”

“Oh, hi Amaris!” The girl jumped to her feet with a chipper smile. “Welcome back to the land of the living!”

“…I died?”

The girl’s smile immediately vanished. “Oh no no no no! I just—wait, you probably did die several times when facing the Predateor. So, uh, yes! But wait, you weren’t talking about that…”

Amaris leaned in, blinking a few times. “…Predateor?”

“Yep!”

Amaris couldn’t help but chuckle at the name.

“Oh, you like it? I came up with it myself!” She pointed a thumb at her chest in pride. “Everyone else calls it the ‘Clock-faced Brass Predator’ but that’s just boring. Then I noticed the pun and I was like… gold!”

She talks a lot. “So… uh, Coleus, right?”

Coleus pressed her hands to her cheeks and gasped. “Ohmygreen, you remembered! I thought you wouldn’t remember anything, you passed out so quick!”

“It’d be hard to forget you…” Amaris looked down at her backpack. “Do you mind? I want to get something.”

“Oh, not at all!” Coleus gestured at the backpack. “I, uh, went through it looking for things a while ago. I have no idea what half of the things in there are. Hope you don’t mind.”

Amaris wasn’t exactly thrilled about a hyperactive plant girl going through her things, but at this moment it wasn’t worth making a fuss about. She flipped open the backpack and pulled out the multitool, taking out the tiny, metallic blade that was part of it. Dumb thing was useless as a weapon and terrible at cutting most things, but it was a very reflective surface. Tilting it back, she got a good look at her eye. Sure enough, there was a rather impressive scar running from her cheekbone all the way through her eyebrow.

“O-oh…” Coleus looked at the ground and shuffled her feet. “I did what I could, but… natural healing can only go so far, and the others wouldn’t do any of the fancier stuff.”

Amaris nodded like she understood what Coleus said. “It’s okay.” She grinned and gestured at her eye. “It’s the mark of a warrior!”

Coleus let out a sigh of relief. “Oh, good. You like it. I think it looks good too.”

With a kick forward, Amaris jumped off the mushroom, landing upright on the ground. She couldn’t help but grin cheesily at it all. “I made it. I’m alive. And I’m talking with a plant girl in the safety of six large rocks.” She looked around, finding what she thought was the direction she came in. “You suck, Predateor!”

“Yeah!” Coleus joined in with a nervous laugh. “You suck!”

“…You don’t have to copy what I do.”

Coelus’ eyes grew wide. “But I want to… You do so many strange things and have so many things that I’ve never seen before…”

“And you’re made out of leaves.”

Coleus blinked. “So?”

“That’s weird.”

“No, it’s not.”

“I’ve never seen a plant girl before.” Amaris crossed her arms and corked her cut eyebrow.

“Well, uh, uh…” Coleus stammered a few times. “I’ve never seen anyone like you before!”

Amaris blinked. “Really?”

Coleus faltered immediately. “N-no! I know what humans are… sorry…”

This girl is full of complexes, oh boy… Amaris forced a smile. “It’s… fine. I just…”

“Oh!” Coleus brightened up considerably and started jumping. “I just remembered something, take a look at… this!” She reached under her leafy dress—that may or may not have been part of her—and pulled out a curved wooden bow with a high-quality string and a dozen arrows.

Amaris stared at it dumbfounded.

“I noticed your bow was busted, so I had the plants grow a new one for you!”

Amaris carefully grabbed the bow in her hands, running her fingers across the well-fashioned grain. “Woah…”

“Is it good? I don’t know what makes bows good; I just made it like the ones I’ve seen before, but smaller, for your hands. I got off a few shots, I think it’s good. You?”

“I have no idea.”

Coleus tilted her head. “Come again?”

“Er…” Amaris rubbed the back of her head. “I was only pretending to know how to use a bow so the Predateor would find me interesting. I fooled it.”

“Oh! Well then, consider this a gift!” She smiled and held out both her hands. “A… Bow-nus!”

Amaris narrowed her eyes. “You really like puns, don’t’cha?”

“Ab-soul-lute-ly!” She pulled a flute out of the leafy folds of her “dress” and played a tune on it.

Amaris gasped. “The double pun! Oh no!”

Coleus let out a laugh. “Yes, fear me and my pun-ishable puns! Ahahahaa!” She looked from left to right awkwardly. “But, uh, not really, this is just for fun.”

Amaris awkwardly patted her on the back. “Yeah… yeah…” She glanced at the bow. “I have no idea how to use this.”

“Oh, I do! Sorta.” Coleus shrugged. “I, uh, took the bow from one of the travelers the Predator found… boring. I like to think I got pretty good over the years!”

“Years?” Amaris tilted her head to the side. “How old… are you?”

“Thirty-six!”

Amaris nodded slowly. “And how long do your… kind usually live?”

For a moment, Coleus’ face twisted into confusion. “What do you—oh, right, you have a limit.”

“Youngest little immortal…”

“Yep!” Coleus grinned. “The others all call me ‘the baby’!”

Amaris wasn’t sure if that was meant to be endearing or insulting, but she was fairly sure Coleus didn’t know either way. However, it did lead to some questions. “What… are you?”

“Oh, I’m a dryad. We’re a race of people connected to life itself…” To demonstrate, she held her hand over the ground, prompting a brand new flower to germinate, grow, and flower into a brilliant purple tulip. “Most of us spend our time as trees, though.”

Amaris glanced at the trees circling the lake again. Now that she was looking closer, she did note what appeared to be armlike protrusions coming out of the trunks, rather than the normal branches, and perhaps even a head here and there. “Do they… do anything?”

“Well, yes. Sometimes. Not very often, and generally only one at a time.” Coleus shrugged. “I’m not old enough to form bark and put down roots like they can. I have to stay like this and… wander around. But they say I can’t go far from the circles. So that’s what I do.”

“What do they say about me?”

“They think you’re too fast. But they say that about me too, don’t worry.” Coleus waved a dismissive hand. “You were a creature in need of our aid. We provide sanctuary to any and all that come within our circles and respect our rules.”

Amaris froze. “You… better tell me the rules.”

“Uh… don’t harm any of us, don’t harm the stones, and know that once you leave we are not obligated to help you again.” She leaned in, loud-whispering into her ear. “Though if it were up to me, you’d always be welcome.”

“Sounds simple enough,” Amaris said, relaxing her shoulders. “You hear that Pitch? No biting.”

Pitch let out an indignant hiss and retreated into the backpack.

“So…” Amaris looked outside the circle of stones at the chilled evergreen forest beyond. “…What’s the deal with the Predateor?”

Coleus sighed. “I don’t know. None of the others know, either. One day Glen Vest sat in the middle of a vibrant forest full of life… and then it appeared out of nowhere and started playing its games on the poor wildlife. It can’t get past the Glen’s protective enchantments—it only wants to kill, and we can’t have that. We just can’t bear that type of darkness.”

Amaris put a hand to the bridge of her nose. These puns are going to be the death of me.

“Anyway, it can’t hurt you in here.”

“…How am I going to get out, though?” Amaris asked. “As far as I know, it’ll be waiting for me when I get back.”

Coleus waved a dismissive hand. “Pff, when you’re ready to leave, I can take you to one of the other Glens. We’re all connected, after all.”

Amaris perked up. “Say… do you know of Nuk?”

The plant girl shook her head, rustling her leaves loudly in the process. “No. What’s that?”

“It’s my hometown.” Amaris looked up and into the distance. “I’m… trying to get home. Some freaky mirror tore me away, and I just want to get back.”

Coleus nodded. “I don’t know what I would do if I was separated from the other dryads…” She stood up tall and put her hands on her hips. “That settles it! I’ll do what I can to help you get home. Most of the Glens are in the middle of wilderness, but there are a few nearer to settlements. Though… I don’t know what the names of any of those are...”

“Thanks.” Amaris took a moment to stretch, examining the bow in her hands. “Let’s… worry about that later. I haven’t had a break in a while.” Been running nonstop for over a week. “I’m ready for a break.”

“Oh, okay! In that case…” Coleus pointed at Amaris’ backpack. “There’s a strange grey box in there. Can I… see what it does?”

“My GameBox? Sure.” Amaris took it out and turned it on. “Though I can’t run it very long, it will eventually run out of batteries, and I don’t have an outlet to charge it with…”

Coleus nodded as though she understood the words Amaris was saying. Amaris was sure she didn’t.

“Anyway, it’s a game. Here, watch, I control this white sheep thing with the buttons…”

“You have a pocket slave!?”

“What? No!” Amaris let out a laugh. “It’s a game, there’s nothing alive in this.”

Coleus poked it. “Woah… you’re right, I have no power over it! A nonliving thing that can move and change like that…”

“You’ve never seen a car, have you?”

“A what?”

This girl is hopeless, Amaris thought. However, she couldn’t help but smile at the dryad’s cluelessness. The two girls laughed and talked the rest of the day away easily, all while under the watchful gaze of the elder dryad trees.

As was to be expected, they found the whole thing rather annoying. But the way of the dryads was the way of the dryads, they couldn’t force Amaris out until she left of her own will.

And besides… she did seem to make Coleus happy. That meant something.

~~~

The Predateor was a beast, plain and simple. It had no thought of morality, darkness, or even of social structure. It only knew the joy of the hunt—the kill wasn’t even the point. And yet, the Predateor was such a way that it could never imagine a hunt that didn’t end in death.

So in the very rare, sparse situations where its prey got away, it had the bestial equivalent of a mental breakdown.

With no mouth, it could not scream. But it tore through the forest as though it were, taking its wrath out upon the trees, the leaves, river, and boulders. It’s normally quiet and stealthy mode of approach was completely forgotten as it tore a trail of destruction through the trees.

It wanted her. The girl that got away. The girl that should not have gotten away. The others that got away had shown off strange abilities, endless creativity, or were simply immune to the Predator’s tricks. The girl had not been.

It was not quite intelligent enough to hold a grudge or fully contemplate the idea of revenge, but its thoughts were constantly occupied by the cocky grin of the girl—followed quickly thereafter with images of her being torn limb from limb by its brass spikes.

It had to have her. It had to have her. And no circle of mystic stones was going to keep it from her!

The Predateor took off in a run as fast as it could manage, not caring for stealth or precision, only for pure speed. Every ounce of energy it had, it pushed forward. Barreling through the forest like a bullet, it launched itself at the stone circle.

There, sleeping in the Glen with the dryad girl, was its prey. It jumped forward, driving all five of its legs into the barrier, hitting it with enough force to send a visible green shockwave through the otherwise invisible shield. Focusing its energy forward, it twisted the barriers local perception of time in different directions, attempting to break its cohesion…

A simple tree branch flicked out of the stone circle, smacking the Predateor in the clock face, tearing it away from the Glen’s barrier before even minor damage could be done.

The tree glared at the Predateor with old, authoritative eyes peeking out of the folds in the bark. The eyes carried with them a message. Don’t make me come out there.

The Predateor understood none of this. All it understood was that it couldn’t puncture the barrier, not even using all its tricks.

It cut down a few trees out of rage. It wasn’t the same.

Amaris slept soundly. She wasn’t aware the Predator had been there until much later when she noticed the felled trees outside.

Even then, it had not forgotten her.

It would never forget her.

It wanted her skull hanging around its neck, more than anything in the world.