I tried my best not to look back as I ran through the dark forest, my clothes drenched with sweat.

I heard the loud screeching behind me inching closer to me and my already panicked mind was working overtime to find a way out of this situation.

As I approached the edge of the forest, hope started growing in my heart with the thought of escaping the endless darkness that permeated this forest. That, and the frightening creatures that inhabited it.

With a loud, primal growl I braced myself and jumped through a thick gathering of branches and leaves and landed on all fours. As I scrambled to get up on my feet again I didn't, at first, notice what was in front of me. When I did, my heart got stuck in my throat.

I was standing at the precipice of a large cliff, at least two hundred meters high, looking out over a vast forest that went all the way to the horizon in almost all directions. There was nowhere to run.

The sound of a branch breaking behind me reminded me of the danger that was chasing me, and I rapidly turned around to face the sound.

From the thick, dark foliage came a menacing growl and the head of a dark wolf emerged with its teeth bare.

Soon the entirety of the wolf's body followed, and I looked with trepidation at the beast that was large enough to reach my chest.

With my back pressed against the cliffside and a terrifying monster at my front, I couldn't help but wonder, how the hell did I get into this situation?

That morning I woke up with a large sigh as I sat up in bed. 

Another day, another year. 

Today I turned twenty, but I didn't feel much older at all. In fact, I still felt like I should go to school for a few more years before I even started thinking about work, taxes or anything else for that matter.

Just the thought that I was supposed to be an adult with responsibilities that went further than just cleaning my room and doing my homework felt weird.

I wasn't a manchild though. Just because I didn't like the idea of being an adult, it didn't mean that I refused to act like one. I had a job and was currently studying computer engineering. Heck, I even had my own car.

Although I did still live at my mom's place. But that's just called effective saving. Besides, ever since my dad left when I was twelve, I'd been all the family she had left. I didn't want to leave her too. 

 With that pensive thought I got out of bed and got dressed. 

As per usual I ate breakfast and socialized some with my mom, but because it was my birthday, she'd also made me a cake, so I ate a bit more than I usually did.

After that I left the apartment for the day. I didn't have much studying to do, so today I only had a few shifts at my work before getting some time off and because it was my birthday my shift manager let me go home earlier than usual.

That left me with a lot of time to spend on my favourite hobby. Video games. Namely, an MMORPG called 'The Wayfarer's Realm'. 

It was, without a doubt, my most beloved game and I'd been playing it for the last nine years. I'd probably spent more time playing it than I had spent hanging out with my friends. Although most of my friends also played it so time spent in the game often equalled time spent with my friends. 

'The Wayfarer's Realm' wasn't the only large MMMRPG out there on the market at the moment, there was a couple more that were similar in size, however it had a few things that made it stick out to me when compared to the others. 

First of all. It was class free. It had a large focus on character customisation, where players allocated their stats as they wanted and created their own archetypes out of a large set of skills and spells. 

Secondly, it had an interesting setting and interesting story that didn't always follow the normal conventions that most games in a medieval-styled fantasy setting had. 

Lastly, and most important to me, the lead designer for the game during its creation was none other than Larry Yates. Not that famous of a guy, but he was famous to me.

After all, he was my, Shawn Yates, father. 

Up until he left, I'd always looked up to him and to be honest, I still did. He was the one who had originally introduced me to RPGs and awoken my love for them. He used to say that when he designed 'The Wayfarer's Realm' he'd often had me at mind and was hoping for me to love it. And I did. I really did.

As I got home, I tossed my things on the floor in the hall and went directly to my room after saying hello to my mom. 

I turned on my computer and left it to start itself up as I went and took a quick shower. 

After wiping myself dry from the shower I put on some comfy clothes and sat down in front of the computer, ready for several hours of playing. 

When I started up the game, I couldn't help but smile as I looked at the character choice screen. I only had one max-levelled character, but I was proud as heck of him.

Garlyn Grandwell. The first character I ever created and the only one I've stuck with for a longer amount of time. 

He was a mix of different skills and abilities from the chronomancer and spatial magician trees with some melee fighter abilities thrown in here and there to even things out. 

Even though chronomancers and spatial magicians were mostly casters I'd built him as a combat magician that used his magic to quickly move around and use close-range attacks to deal damage. 

To do this however, I mostly had to sacrifice some of his strength and constitution which meant that I had to rely on magic to both attack and defend myself. 

To me it was a fun play style that I knew not too many players had adopted and I could still remember the day I first thought of the idea. 

I was eleven at the time and the game was brand new. As my dad worked on the game himself, he had made sure that I got it on launch, and he'd stood behind my chair almost the whole time during my first day of playing the game.

When I started thinking about what kind of path I wanted to take with the character I'd looked through a manual my dad had made of the skills and abilities that existed and after making and changing my mind for almost a whole hour I finally decided that a chronomancer sounded really cool, and if I could add in some teleportation magic it'd be perfect.

When I told that to my dad he'd only smiled and said "That sounds like a really cool character, son. I'm sure that you'll by far exceed my expectations with it".

I'm not sure if I can say that I managed to exceed his expectations, but I do know that I've gone really far with it and Garlyn can do some pretty darn cool stuff.

Finished with my reminiscing, I selected Garlyn in the character choice screen and logged into the game.

"Thx for the run man, and gz on turning 20!!" My friend wrote before he logged out of the game for the night.

I'd been playing since three and the clock was now nearing twelve.

Me and some friends had gathered up and run a couple of raids. To celebrate my birthday, they'd even offered me most of the loot that people didn't need.

But tomorrow was an ordinary workday, so the majority of people were starting to log off. I should probably have logged off too, but I felt like playing a bit longer, so I went into a lower-level dungeon and grinded for some quest items instead.

I'd only been doing that for about ten minutes when all of a sudden, I felt that my eyelids started getting heavy. I barely managed to kill the mob I was currently fighting before I fell asleep.

I woke up because I felt something soft and moist beneath me.

When I opened my eyes, everything was hazy and as I tried standing up, I almost fell down from the shock. 

Something felt off. My body felt weird. I felt like I'd just had the greatest nap in my entire life and every part of my body felt full of energy. But at the same time my body felt sluggish and when I tried moving, it felt unfamiliar.

As I shakily tried taking a few steps, my eyes adjusted, and I got a clearer view of the environment around me. What I saw made me forget any thoughts about the current state of my body.

Instead of seeing the dark, cramped but comfy scene of my own room, all I saw was the dark outlines of trees that surrounded me in all directions.

I was in a small clearing and above me I could see the star-covered night sky. The full moon was also out, which was odd because I distinctly remembered that there was a new moon just a few days ago.

I tried recalling what had happened before I woke up here. What did I do?

The last thing I remembered was grinding a quest in 'The Wayfarer's Realm' before falling asleep. Nothing between that and waking up here.

I'm pretty sure I didn't drink or take anything that could affect my memory like that, so I doubt that I went here by myself.

Did I get kidnapped? If so, then where were my abductors? There didn't seem to be anyone around where I was, and just leaving someone you’ve kidnapped unconscious in the middle of the forest didn't sound like something most kidnappers would do.

Unless this was some kind of ritualistic kidnapping?

That's when I noticed my clothes. The clothes I had on me weren't the same clothes that I'd fallen asleep in. Those had just been a normal set of clothes. A normal black t-shirt and a pair of loose-fitting jeans. But what I wore right now was something completely different.

With brown leather boots and cloth trousers and a leather tunic atop a white shirt, my current style didn't even look remotely similar to anything that I’d ever worn before. Or anyone else that I knew either. It did actually look a bit similar to some of the outfits the NPCs could wear in ‘The Wayfarer’s Realm’ though.

But not only had someone possibly kidnapped me, but they’d also changed my clothes whilst I was asleep? That bothered me on so many levels. 

A sudden noise from amongst the trees caught my attention and I strained my eyes to see whatever it was that had made the noise. I couldn’t see much though as the darkness in the forest didn’t allow me to see further in that a few meters.

Then I heard the noise again.

It was a long and guttural sound and it only got louder and closer. My eyes darted about, trying in vain to peer into the darkness and pinpoint its origin.

As I heard the noise again, I recognized what it was.

It was growling. 

My muscles tensed as a large, black-coloured wolf jumped out from the blackness that had concealed it and bared its sharp teeth at me.

With sweat running down my forehead, I watched as the large predator stood still for several seconds and just stared at me as it continued to growl, saliva dripping off its white teeth.

Then, from nowhere, it dashed towards me at great speed. All I saw was a large mass of black fur that quickly reduced the distance between us.

I twisted my body around as fast as I could and started running for all that I was worth in a random direction. I could end up in hell for all I cared, as long as I got away from that monster.

Before I knew it, I had reached and passed the closest trees, my amazement mixing with dread as I craned my neck back and saw the wolf closing in on me with its teeth exposed, ready to pounce at me any second. 

I let out a loud primal roar as I willed my muscles to strain themselves even more, to run faster.

And to my surprise, I did. Despite the unfamiliarity I felt with my body, running with it felt easier and more natural than ever. I felt the wind blow against me forcefully as I passed by blurry trees. I must have been running at least twice as fast as I had ever done before and I almost chuckled with glee when I looked back and saw that the wolf wasn't closing in on me anymore and that it was starting to fall behind.

My smile didn't last long however as the wolf gave out a loud howling that shook me to the core and almost caused me to stumble. With horrific cracking sounds it body started growing. It had almost doubled in size and with its veins now bulging out and bloodshot eyes it looked like the stuff of nightmares.

But worst of all; it picked up in speed.

It was no longer falling behind and was now managing to hold almost the same speed as me now. This had become a battle of endurance. 

I just kept running and running and running. I don't know for how long. I didn't dare waste any time looking back anymore but I still heard the wolf's growling, which had turned into screech-like noises as we ran, and so I continued on straight through the forest. My heart constantly beat in my chest with a loud and quick rhythm like a drum and my sweaty clothes pressed onto my body.

This was amazing. Because of this indescribable newfound speed and stamina of mine I’d been running at an incredible speed for who-knows how long, whereas before I would have fallen down dead after only a minute or so at even half this speed. Despite this, I was now really tired and unsure for how long I could keep this up. 

If I even lowered my pace a little bit the beast would be upon me in the matter of seconds. 

Then I saw a faint light ahead of me and what looked like the edge of the forest.

There I stood, stuck between the edge of a cliff and a murderous predator, with no way to escape.

Caught between a rock and a hard place, so to say. 

Perhaps noticing my position, the wolf didn't immediately jump at me like I'd expected it to. Instead it started walking back and forth around me in a half-figure, as if expecting me to have another trick up my sleeve.

It must be smarter than it looked. I'd also assume that someone who could run like that for that long was more than what met the eye.

Sadly, for me, there was nothing else I could do. Hell, I didn't even know I could do that much.

I desperately tried to think of a way out of this, but I couldn't come up with anything. The wolf was covering my escape and if I tried anything that wasn’t just jumping straight off the cliff it'd be on my before I could say 'insta-death'. Maybe jumping off the cliff was actually the better option?

I glanced down the cliffside again and quickly shook my head. That was high. No way I'd survive that. I'd rather take my chances with the wolf.

Refocusing my attention on the wolf I noticed that it had stopped pacing about and was now standing in a threatening pose.

Then, it moved. I freaked out as time seemed to move slower when it lunged at me with a screech-like growl.

My eyes could see how its dark fur pressed against its body from the strong wind and how the blood pumped through its bulged-out veins. Watching my impending doom move closer and closer, I was shocked to realize I even had time to think. I'd thought the wolf would've been upon me and torn up my throat in a flash, but it was moving through the air as if in slow motion. Then I realized that it actually was moving in slow-motion. Time seemed to have slowed down for the wolf. Despite this, the wolf moved at a decent speed and would be upon me in just a few seconds.

Even if I had no idea what was happening, I didn't waste my chance and threw myself out of the way of the large beast.

A second or so later it landed on the spot where I had stood, and time returned to normal. I could see the shock in its eyes as I used all the force that I could muster to throw a kick towards its abdomen. Not moving fast enough to avoid it, my foot hit it with more force than I expected, and the wolf was knocked just over the edge of the cliff.

With a loud whimper I heard how the wolf fell down into its demise, the sound of branches breaking followed by a loud thud that resounded in the forest beneath the cliff a few seconds after the beast fell. 

For a minute I just lay there, breathing heavily. Then I crawled away from the edge of the cliff and tried standing up. I was a bit shaky but after a few tries I managed to stand up. I stood there for several minutes before and let my heart calmed down and I'd gathered my thoughts enough to think over what had just happened.

Bending over the edge I looked down onto the forest beneath me but saw no traces of where the wolf had landed. Not that I cared much. As long as it was dead, I was satisfied.

All of this was crazy. Just a couple of hours ago I'd been in my room and playing games with my friends and now, I was stuck in some dark forest straight out of some horror-flick and my body could do things I'm certain it couldn't do before. Things I'm pretty sure not even Olympian athletes could do. 

My body still felt a bit weird, but after running through the forest like that for that long at that speed the unfamiliarity of body had mostly disappeared.

I started inspecting and my eyed widened as I pulled up my shirt too look at my arms and abdomen. Not only were my arms more muscular and well-defined than before, but I'd also somehow even gotten a six-pack.

With rising suspicions, I inspected my hands thoroughly and saw that they looked unfamiliar.

I didn't have a mirror on me so I couldn't know for certain, but I had a pretty good idea as to why this body was so unfamiliar to me... 

Just then another thought struck me. A thought that had been nagging me from the back of the head ever since I first saw that wolf. 

Weren't wolfs pack animals? 

Shivers ran down my spine as I thought of encountering another one of those monsters. I'd only survived my first such encounter because of some kind of miracle. I couldn't be sure that I'd be that lucky again. 

It was clear however that the wolf hadn't been an ordinary wolf and that this forest wasn't an ordinary forest. Perhaps that meant that this wolf didn’t travel with a pack? I wasn't willing to put that theory to the test though, so after collecting myself I started moving away from the spot where the wolf had cornered me. 

My escape through the forest had drained a lot of my energy and I was soaking wet because of the sweat. That, together with the low temperature at night here in the forest, made my body shiver from coldness. But I could still walk.

Unwilling to go into the forest again immediately, I instead started following the cliffside. The scenery stayed almost exactly the same as I kept walking. The forest still stretched in all directions, both up here and down beneath the cliff. 

But when I had walked for what must have been at least an hour or so I could see something stick up above the trees in the distance. I couldn't be sure, but it looked like a grey tower. The thought of a dry, hot living room entered my mind and I decided to head for that tower. But to reach it I had to climb down the cliff. 

Clenching my teeth together I kept on following the cliffside, hoping to find a way to get down without putting myself at too much risk.

After another twenty minutes or so of walking I found a part of the cliff's side that looked like it was descendable. I was freezing and really tired, but I could see the structure clearly from here and saw that it was really a tower. If I kept walking at a decent pace, I could probably reach it within the hour.

I did have a few close calls where my cold, numbed hands had a hard time getting a grip, but I managed to descend the cliff without too much effort.

But that put me in the forest again, which made me uncomfortable, but I pressed on despite that, the possibility of reaching a warm place to rest taking priority over all else. 

The forest made it harder to know in which direction the tower was, with the tall trees and the dark night sky making it difficult to see much. I had to make do with the few glimpses I caught of the tower now and then when the moons light reflected of its walls just right. It wasn’t much, but it was at least enough for me to walk in the general direction of where it was. Once I got close enough to the tower the sheer height of it would make it easier to see.

After having walked through this part of the forest for a while I caught sight of a small clearing, similar to the one where I had first awoken here in the forest. Situated in the middle of the clearing was a small pond that was illuminated by the moons light with beautiful white flowers growing all around it.

I was awestruck for a minute as I observed the magical scene before me. I was so taken in by the view that I almost forgot about one of the biggest questions I had at the moment, and how something like this was exactly what I had been looking for in order to either confirm or deny my suspicions.

I gingerly moved into the clearing, being careful not to step on any of the delicate flowers as I also carefully watched the edges of the clearing for any signs of danger.

When I reached the pond, I took one last look around to make sure it was safe before I bent down over the pond and looked straight into it.

I had already suspected that this body wasn’t my own so what I saw in the reflection shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. That was because, even though it wasn’t my face that I saw in the reflection, it was a face I knew all too well.

That dishevelled light brown hair with bangs that ended just above the eyebrows. Those bright, bright blue eyes that almost seemed to glow by themselves. And that mouth along with those cheeks, always giving off a hint of a cool smile even when wearing completely neutral expression.

That was the face that I had created nine years ago with my dad’s help. It was the face of my avatar in ‘The Wayfarer’s Realm’. Garlyn Grandwell.

All kinds of questions popped up in my mind. How did I get inside this body? How can this even be real? Is this some kind of simulation? Where is my real body?

I had no way to answer any of the questions my mind was asking. Right now, I had no way of knowing how I got here or where my own body was.

Neither could I ascertain whether this was a simulation or not. But there wasn’t really any point worrying about that at least. Virtual Reality was barely a thing right now, so the odds of someone being able to create a simulation this life-like were slim enough, but them also using that technology on a nobody like me? Yeah, fat chance. I was better off assuming all of this was real, at least then I wouldn’t have to second-guess everything I saw.

I stopped looking at my own reflection and stood up. Looking around one last time just to be safe, I sighed heavily and started moving away from the clearing towards the tower again.

I could see it clearly from here and it looked to be only twenty or so minutes away now. I had a lot of questions on my mind right now, but they could wait until I’d reached somewhere safe. Not that the tower was necessarily a safe place, but it was better than being out here where a monster could jump me any second at least.

As I was walking, I couldn’t stop thinking about my new body. In the game I hadn’t put much points into Garlyn’s strength. But because he was a mostly close-combat battle mage I had at least put some points into it, and a bit more into his agility and stamina. As he was a max-levelled character he was bound to be better than a normal person at those things, even if I hadn’t put much effort into increasing those stats.

My performances up till now with this body fit those specifications pretty well, which implied that Garlyn’s stats from the game translated into this new body of mine. And if his stats translated over, then maybe his magic did too? Thinking about it, it made sense.

It would explain why time seemed to slow down as the wolf attacked me earlier. That was simply Garlyn’s chronomancer spells at work. He had plenty of spells that could have caused similar effects.

But slowing down time for his enemies, or more likely just speeding up his own time, for just a few seconds… that fit best with one of the low-level chronomancer spells called ‘Chronal Shift’. The first and simplest chronomancer spell you could learn. It sped up your own clock by up to 100%, depending on its level, for a few seconds and had a cooldown of around forty seconds at its lowest level.

I tried remembering how I’d done it. What I’d felt or thought for something like that to activate. Thinking back, I remembered that I was scared. My heart was beating really fast, I was sweating like crazy and I was really warm from sprinting through the forest. That was all to be expected. But what had been different? What had I actually done?

I remembered a warm feeling, a sense of warmth that had passed through my body as it happened. I’d just brushed it aside as I’d already been warm because of the running, but now that I think back on it, that warmth had been different.

Trying to imagine that warmth, I tried putting myself in that position again. I forced myself to think that I needed to move swifter, think faster and react quicker. I needed more time.

Like the hot feeling that spreads through your body as you drink something warm, that same warmth from before intuitively moved through my body towards my arms, legs, head and every other part of me, filling my entire body with that warmth. Suddenly I saw everything in slow motion again. The leaves around me swayed slowly in the night breeze and all the sounds of the forest slowed down to distorted copies of themselves.

I was filled with almost childlike glee as I thought about what this meant. I could use magic! It didn’t matter if this wasn’t my own body. This was awesome!

Everything stayed like this for what I counted to be almost four seconds before everything reverted to normal.

I immediately tried performing the spell again, feeling the same warmth as before spread through me in the same manner, filling my entire body. But instead of everything but me starting to move in slow motion, the warmth inside me instead instantly changed and into coldness, making my entire body shiver and feel numb. It came so abruptly so I fell over and almost landed on my face, but luckily one of my numb arms was close enough to my face that it lessened the impact a bit.

I lay there for a half a minute before I regained full feeling in my body and the coldness disappeared.

I waited another minute to get up and, ignoring the previous failed attempt, I tried performing the spell again. This time it worked like it had the first two times and the warmth spread throughout my body as everything started moving in slow motion. When time returned to normal, I then tried doing it again directly after, but more carefully now. This time I noticed that there was a slight resistance to it, almost like the warm feeling was fighting against me, not wanting to go the exact same path again so soon.

This pretty much confirmed my suspicion. There was a cooldown timer on spells here too, just like in the game, and ignoring that cooldown had its consequences.

I thought about it for a minute. The fact that I could use ‘Chronal Shift’ should also mean that I can use the rest of Garlyn’s spells, shouldn’t it?

At this thought a wide grin grew on my face. There were some really cool spells I wanted to try out.

Still sitting down, I closed my eyes and tried moving around the warm feeling inside my body again, but this time instead of wanting time to speed itself up for me, I thought about how I wanted time for everything around me to just stop. ‘Time Stop’. A spell that stopped time in a large sphere for everyone except the caster.

Opening up my eyes I looked around myself with anticipation, only to be disappointed as I saw the leaves and branches still move.

The warm feeling inside me also hadn’t spread itself out inside my body like it had with ‘Chronal Shift’. It had just moved around aimlessly in my body, as if unsure what to do.

That was disappointing. But maybe I could perform all the spells Garlyn could, I just didn’t know how to? After all, I’d just learned how to perform ‘Chronal Shift’, one of the first spells you learned and supposedly the easiest one. Perhaps that meant that when I learned how to control that warm feeling better, which by this point I was pretty sure was some kind of mana-like energy, I could perform the more complicated spells.

Only time would tell.

A cold breeze reminded me of how cold and tired I was, and the matter of magic got pushed to the back of my mind. Right now, I had to reach that tower. Getting up on my feet again I turned towards where the tower stood. It was now close enough for me to be able to see it from here without any troubles. Soon. Soon I’d reach the tower, and then all would be well.

Hopefully.