Cilen was never quite sure why he was so afraid of dying. It was illogical, like how some people feared bugs, or tight spaces, or the sea. It was a gut feeling, instinctual, never concrete, yet he had the feeling that if he died, something terrible would happen. He was just quite not sure what.

In his dreams, Cilen was falling.

Falling forever, falling without end.

Falling through the memories of the little chapter of life he was able to experience.

He saw his mother, with her gentle and sunny smile lighting up the room. He saw his father, radiant with laughter and shoulders that bore the weight of the world. His classmates, whose faces he had long forgotten, and a short-lived love that ended just as sweetly as it had started. He saw his face on the day of the accident. Distraught with sorrow and clouded with disbelief. The spiral out of control, the decline of his mental health, the descent into insanity. Pain, grief and contempt accompanied him, from the start to the finish, without a single moment apart.

...

Cilen woke to the sound of gentle rain, drumming the leaves and stirring the grass. His arms felt like lead as he tried pulling them out of the damp soil. From what seemed to consume all his energy, Cilen managed to prop his body up and inspect his charred limbs.

Glancing down, he saw his badly burned leg and the carbonized remains of the other. His mind, weary with fatigue barely registered the information before turning its attention to his arms, one of which had also been completely seared down to his elbow.

"No, no, no, no"

"This can't be happening," murmured Cilen, his mind filled with questions as he observed his surroundings.

The vibrant trees of the forest reached for the sky as he calculated that they must have surpassed the height of some skyscrapers that he had seen in the city.

The air felt light, clean unlike the carbon drenched atmosphere of Earth and the colorful plants and dense undergrowth was not something he had ever seen before, even in the fantastical world of his video games.

However, his disbelief was quickly washed away by sorrow as he took another glance at the charred stumps of where his left hand and feet used to occupy. Cilen had broken his arm once, as a child and he could say with absolute certainty that it was not an experience he wanted to relive. At least with a broken arm, it had the potential to be fixed, a chance for recovery, "it was just on a summer holiday," as his mother put it. This, on the other hand, was not a holiday. More like permanent retirement...

While being distracted by his thoughts, a furious roar from the depths of the forest sent shockwaves throughout the trees and shrubbery leaving specs of green, purple, and azure in its wake.

Cilen did not know what exactly what had happened but he did know for sure that he was not on Earth anymore; the almost fantasy-like setting was not remotely possible anywhere in his old world.

No matter how confused he was, an overwhelming fear of death filled his mind, and as annoying as it was, it had cleared away most of the confusion and indecision in Cilen's mind. He knew that he must survive.

With his usable hand, Cilen crawled his way to the base of an enormous tree whose trunk was as thick as a large bus and searched desperately amongst the foliage for materials to use as a splint. His fingers curled around a small branch the length of his leg. After flexing the branch a few times, he was satisfied with its sturdiness and proceeded to gather several tufts of long grass that grew around the perimeter of the tree.

Cilen had no knowledge regarding the skill of weaving so he simple twisted grass into a bundle and tied knots at the ends. After securing the temporary splint to his left leg, he managed to shakily stand up and hobble his way towards another tree which he had noticed, had a small indent, large enough to fit a moderately sized human inside.

Cilen had never bothered to learn any survival skills in his spare time, (I mean, why would you?) however, his brief exposure to survival sandbox games like Minecraft had allowed him to understand that his first priorities were a shelter, food, and source of water. Although a hollow in a tree was a drastic downgrade to even the most run-down of apartments, anything was better than braving the night in the middle of a forest.

Upon reaching the tree, Cilen noticed the hole's inhabitants, a small rodent-like creature the size of a bucket lay sprawled out on the soft grassy floor. Freezing in his tracks, Cilen made a split-second decision to remove his makeshift splint and fiercely run it through the body of the creature.

It was met with some resistance as Its skin was surprisingly tough and as a result, a full-strength thrust of a stick only penetrated halfway through the body of the animal. Unsurprisingly the animal woke up and started struggling after learning of its fate however, it was quickly incapacitated by another swift blow the head.