Seeing the look on Abigail's face, the woman sighed. "I'm guessing you'll still want to visit this laboratory, even though it's likely inside of such a strange forest?"

Trying to be understanding of the woman's feelings, Abigail deliberately tried to use softer language. "I don't think you understand our predicament, currently." Indicated to the forest around them, she continued, "This place has one of those monsters, hopefully just one, roaming around and impaling deers. Not even the community we came from could fight off one of these things."

The woman flinched from Abigail's words, her eyes darting to either side.

"Even though this new forest may be dangerous, it's not as dangerous as where we are now. We'll deal with the forest when we get there." Abigail finished.

Not wanting to waste time arguing with the woman, Abigail looked back at her friends and motioned they would be continuing.

"Fuck me," Michelle groaned.

Liam merely patted her on the shoulder, understanding how she was feeling.

They began walking with urgency towards where the laboratory was likely located, Abigail only able to rely on her memory to approximate where it could be based on their location.

"We going to be able to make it?" Helen spoke softly.

Continuing to walk, Abigail didn't answer her friend's question immediately. As they were making their way through the forest the key was trying to listen for any kind of movement. Satisfied about not hearing anything, Abigail said, "I, honestly, don't know. Part of me wants to think those things just continued the way they were going away from the community..."

Joining in on the conversation, Sheila said, "The problem is we don't know."

Nodding at her friend's words, Abigail kept on moving forward.

Due to the unknown, their group couldn't move quickly through the forest. The sun above them slowly moving through the sky to indicate late afternoon. All of them should be making their way back to the community, but the threat of the creatures prevented the usual plan from occurring.

Turning her head, Abigail checked the forest and their group. She was surprised to notice the woman walking with them. Judging by her fear of the forest, it was assumed she would head off by herself.

"Being in a group would hurt not help when trying to escape from those things," Abigail thought to herself.

Thinking of those monsters as being like a natural disaster was accurate, though she did remember people talking about killing those things early on. There were rumors from wanderers passing through the community about the former universities and larger companies being able to fight the creatures.

The issue was trying to believe the stories being shared about WABAL players fighting off those things.

"If only I paid more attention to sports," She chuckled to herself.

"What's so funny?" Helen asked, sounding surprised about Abigail's reaction to their predicament.

Abigail shook her head. "I wasn't laughing about our situation." Taking a moment, she said, "Do you remember those wanderers passing through and talking about WABAL players fighting off the monsters?"

Hearing Abigail brought up such things, Helen snorted. "Though I didn't watch much of it, I doubt those players would be able to beat the monsters."

"What do you mean? I thought they went up against monsters in the game?" Sheila asked in surprise, confused about her friend's reaction.

Helen looked at her friend. "Are you being serious right now?! Those aren't actual monsters, obviously. It's just something the marketing team wrote up to get people hooked."

"So it's not real?" Sheila asked surprised.

"It's just them playing in some kind of virtual environment. I remember my friends telling me about the government and Star and Moon creating digital-type equipment where you could pretend to be in space of something." Helen tried to explain to Sheila, sounding exasperated about having to waste time.

Interrupting Helen's lecture, Abigail said, "What if those wanderers were right and WABAL players can fight off these things?"

"Then our country is fucked isn't it? We only had a few companies and universities joining the league. On top of not having many teams, the ones we do have suck and aren't anywhere close to where we are!"

Abigail didn't bother responding, the reality hitting her. Even if the stories were true, Helen was right. Their country was one of many that didn't fully participate in the League created by Star and Moon.

The news talked about how the League was only created to push product sold by Star and Moon, so why would the country support a foreign business stealing sales from home businesses. It didn't help that many of the news outlets were subsidiaries of PentaSoft, a local corporation competing directly against Star and Moon in a variety of industries.

After their small argument, no one wanted to talk anymore about hypothetical scenarios. Such things couldn't help their current plight.

Reaching an open field, everyone slowed down.

"What do you think?" Timothy asked everyone, but mainly to Abigail.

"Up ahead is where the strange forest starts," The woman said as if to suggest, again, about their plan being a poor one.

"I don't think we have much of a choice," Rodger said. "I get the feeling those things are around us still."

"Probably playing with us," Liam said in a depressed voice. "I've heard these things enjoy getting their prey scared before devouring them."

Michelle punched Liam on the arm. "Thank for that image. I now have something to look forward to."

"Hey! That hurts!" Liam yelled before quickly clamping a hand over his mouth.

Michelle proceeded to punch his arm, again, for the loud noise, which earned a glare from him.

Understanding how everyone was getting stressed by the monsters and the strange forest ahead of them, Abigail took a deep breath and walked into the open area. Behind her, footsteps were heard as everyone continued, though some more reluctantly than others.

The open area was of a decent size, considering the forest up ahead was barely visible. No longer having the trees to hide them made her a bit nervous. Even if they didn't serve any purpose of concealing them, it was still nice not being fully exposed.

"On my signal, we're going to make a run for the forest," Abigail said to the rest of the group behind her.

"Oh shit. Seriously?!" Liam yelled out.

Ignoring his comment, Abigail shouted, "Run!"

All of them rushed forward to the forest directly in front of them. Not knowing what was in store.

The wind rushed through Abigail's hair, running with all of her strength. She only focused her thoughts on getting to the destination.

A deep roar was heard behind them, far into the forest they had just left.

"What the fuck was that?" Rodger yelled out.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" Liam repeated, not able to formulate a coherent thought beyond the sheer panic running through him.

A panting Helen yelled, "Do you think it's just that one?"

Several more roars could be heard as if responding to Helen's inquiry.

"Run faster!" Timothy called out to them.

When Abigail looked back, she saw Timothy helping out the woman who looked to be struggling to maintain the pace. Sweat was streaming down her face with both eyes wide open in terror at knowing what animalistic sounds indicated.

"Yep. Couldn't agree more." Abigail thought, thinking the expression on the woman's face was identical to what Abigail was thinking. Her body felt like it was going into overdrive and pouring chemicals into her brain to help her think clearer.

"What is that in front of us?!" Helen yelled, pointing a finger as she continued her frantic pace.

Gritting her teeth, now understanding the reason why the woman was so adamant about her plan, Abigail looked at what used to be a forest. Now it looked like something out of a nightmare.