Richard sat up, blinking. He glanced around, his breath coming in deep. Trees grew everywhere, and it appeared he had slept in the middle of the forest. Richard didn’t remember if this had been the strangest thing he’d ever done. Besides, the sun was up. This wasn’t sleeping, was it?

  Most of his memories faded from his mind, like he was waking up from a dream to his true existence. But his dream… it had been his life, hadn’t it? Part of him panicked. He couldn’t forget his life! Yet even as his memories faded, an eerie calm came over him. His entire life from before tucked deep into the recesses of his mind.

  He could get back to that, right? Remember his life? His entire life of… twenty-eight years? Twenty-nine? He’d remember if he were thirty. Right?

  An explosion shook the forest, and he spun around, hands up as though preparing for a fight. This was a thick forest, but he still noticed a plume of smoke rising above the tree line. An explosion most likely meant humans. Did that comfort him to know humans were in this forest with the ability to explode things?

  No. No, it did not. He spun around and slipped through the dark trees, making up a plan to get out of this forest as he went.

  Branches behind him crunched, and Richard spun toward the sound, eyes wide. How far away was that? Was that closer than the explosion? He heard the roar of an animal he couldn’t identify. Nothing in his recently forgotten life could deduce what that was.

  A figure broke through the trees, and Richard’s entire being froze up. He should run. He couldn’t trust the guy running from the place of a recent explosion. It also didn’t help that this man’s blonde hair was matted with blood. He wore a strange, thick vest and pants. He looked to be about the same age as Richard himself.

  The man glanced behind him as he kept moving. He then noticed Richard and seemed to freeze in place, too. The man’s eyes glanced over Richard’s body. Richard glanced down as well, realizing he wasn’t sure what he wore. It looked like a simple cloth shirt with equally simple trousers.

  “Did you just get here?” the man asked.

  It took Richard a moment to realize the man had asked him a question. “Yes? Where… where is here?”

  Another explosion hit, far closer. The man swore, and Richard flinched, backing away from whatever the thick trees hid.

  The man’s face hardened. “Look, kid, base camp is a quarter mile that way.” The man pointed somewhere behind Richard. Richard bristled at being called a kid. This guy had to be the same age as he was. “We’re in the middle of an apocalypse right now. If you can survive the quarter-mile hike to base camp, you’ll earn two weeks of system training to help you get stronger.” The man took a step closer. “Just know if I get an opportunity to push you in front of a demon hound to save myself, I will. Whatever world you forgot, I guarantee this is worse. Survive until you can’t, kid. That’s life here on this lovely planet you wished yourself on.” He slapped Richard’s back, then kept traveling through the trees.

  Richard stared after the man, his brows furrowed. “What the hell?”

  “Now you’re getting the picture. Hell opened its portal and dumped all its monsters from a few realms onto this planet. Welcome to the fight. Let’s see how long you last.” The man disappeared among the trees.

  Another tree branch crunched far too close for comfort. He sprinted after the man.

  “Wait, wait,” Richard said.

  “No, kid. I’m not doing this. If you survive to base camp two, then we’ll introduce ourselves. But…” the man glanced at something in his vision. “I intend to survive long enough to enjoy my stronger skills.”

  “What?” Nothing this man said made sense, except for the doom and gloom parts. That, unfortunately, made perfect sense. The explosions punctuated his meaning.

  “It means shut up so I won’t feel as bad if I have to push you in front of a demon hound. Remember?”

  Richard clenched his jaw, wanting to snap back. But with all his memories gone, he had several questions he needed answers to.

  “Are you going to tell me your name?”

  “You’ll find out at base camp, if you survive,” the man said.

  “Seriously?”

  The man said nothing. In fact, he glanced over his shoulder before picking up the pace. There was no way Richard was staying behind. He hurried after the man.

  This guy would willingly throw him in front of a demon hound, but he offered safety. Actually, Richard wasn’t sure if this guy knew what safety was. Perhaps Richard was more intrigued by the answers this man offered at base camp.

  “I’m sorry, have I… teleported to another planet?” Richard asked.

  The man groaned. “Shush. Some of these monsters have insane hearing, and we don’t want to get caught.”

  Richard barely cracked his lips open, letting the word eek through as quietly as possible. “Really?”

  “No.” The man broke off a branch and threw it at a pile of mulch. The mulch grew jaws and gobbled the stick up. “I just want you to shut up.”

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

  The jaws on the mulch mound distracted Richard so well that it didn’t occur to him that he needed to be offended by what the man said.

  “So if you won’t tell me your name, does that mean you won’t tell me why you’re covered in blood?”

  The guy gave Richard a dry look, complete with a twitching eye. “Did you seriously just ask that after watching that mound of dirt devour the stick?”

  Richard sucked on the inside of his cheek, glaring at the man. He wanted to say something else, but the man’s gaze shot to somewhere behind Richard’s shoulder.

  “Shit,” the man said. He then broke into a jog, dodging the thick trees. Richard didn’t want to know what was behind him. If it spooked this guy, he saw no reason to stay.

  The man kept running, and it was a struggle to keep up. This man gave off the impression that he could sprint a marathon. If they hadn’t been in the middle of the forest that was forcing the man to slow down to dodge trees, Richard would have been left in the dust.

  Sweat formed on Richard’s forehead, partly from running, partly from a deep instinct that urged him to run faster. The twisted trees were too thick here, and he needed to seek shelter.

  The man swore again and skidded to a stop. Richard ran into his back, and the man threw his arms out. Richard’s gaze darted around, his heart plopping into his stomach. In front of them was a leopard, something his repressed memories brought to the surface. Yet he never remembered a leopard with burning flames for eyes.

  “Shit. What… how?” Richard asked.

  “This is your death, newbie. I’m getting out of here,” the man said.

  Richard gave himself all of one second to acknowledge the man wasn’t joking. Richard didn’t think this man could joke, but he also didn’t think the man would go through with it either.

  The leopard pounced, claws out. Richard was frozen in spot, too terrified to move. Faster than he could comprehend, the man grabbed him and pulled him to the side. The leopard sailed past Richard, and he started breathing again since the first time he saw those glowing red eyes.

  “Th-thank you,” Richard said.

  “You thanked me too early.” The man forced Richard to turn around, pinning his arms so Richard faced the leopard again. “You make a good meat shield, newbie.”

  “Wh-” Richard couldn’t get the word out as the leopard pounced into the air, roaring. He didn’t have the time to scream as claws dug into his chest and teeth ripped out his throat.

  ***

  Richard screamed, clutching his throat. Things were hazy, his mind struggling to understand everything. He was dead. No way he survived a leopard attack. He tried to sit up, but overwhelming nausea kept him down. His scream somehow made him nauseous. He wanted to shout again, but the pain silenced him. In fact, all he wanted to do was sleep. He kept hold of his throat. It was fine, not even a scratch.

  This couldn’t be the afterlife. Not with a heart monitor beeping in the distance. His heart monitor.

  “It’s alright, Mr. Walker,” a female said.

  Richard turned, but his body ached with the sudden activity. A woman dressed in scrubs was calming him. He was in a room with machines. His bedroom, yet full of machines. Like a… hospital? Was that the word?

  Hospice. Twenty-eight years old, needing hospice. Seeing this image brought back memories from the heavy fog that had kept his previous memories tucked away.

  Richard wanted to vomit, but he always needed to. The nurse fiddled with the bag next to his bed, talking to him. His ears felt stuffed with cotton. Richard glanced at his arms, eyes widening. Needle. IV. Medicine. These words also escaped the fog of forgetfulness. He wore a simple fabric to keep him covered, but that was about all it did. His arms were so thin, as was his face. He was back. Somehow. This was his life. His life before…

  Sick. He was sick. Had been his entire life. Constantly in and out of hospitals. No, not just sick. Cancer.

  He lifted his bone-thin arms and touched his bald head. What more could he remember? Did he have parents? Siblings? No. No siblings. Parents… he must have them, but the fog fought with him to keep their identities hidden.

  “Mr. Walker?” the nurse asked again.

  Richard ignored her as he stared ahead. He wished he had gotten another chance. This thought came to him as though it were someone else’s thought. He didn’t feel like he had done any good with his brief existence on this planet, as most of it was being sick or going to hospital appointments. Couldn’t he have another chance in a body not so broken?

  Richard furrowed his brow. Those had been his thoughts before. In the strange fog of his repeated existence, he had wished that to the empty room from before. He had gone back in time somehow, to before he had found himself in that forest.

  A man materialized in the room. Richard stilled, a chill creeping up his body. This man was ageless. He wore a black suit and shirt with a black hat. He had black eyes that seemed too big for the whites of his eyes. All the black contrasted harshly with his pale skin. If Richard hadn’t known better, he would have assumed sunlight never touched that skin. The chill reached his entire body as darkness flitted around his vision.

  “Who are you?” Richard asked, his words slurring together. The nurse glanced at Richard, then followed his gaze to the corner where the man stood. Judging by the look she gave Richard, she saw nothing.

  The invisible man cocked his head to one side, studying Richard with his large black eyes. The man pulled a device out of his pocket, tapping it. Richard tried to scoot away, but the nausea made him not want to move.

  The nurse held him on the bed, her voice soft. “Hold on, Richard. It’ll be alright.”

  The nausea hit his stomach in waves, and he truly thought he would vomit this time. “Who am I seeing? Who are you?”

  The nurse glanced again at the corner before stepping out of the room, pulling out her phone to call someone. Richard kept staring at the man in the corner reading his device. Was this the key? A dying man’s wish to have done some good? And then whisked away to an apocalypse from this dark-suited pale man? Was this some disturbing wish-granting genie who heard his plea and decided to give him a better body to fight in an apocalypse?

  The invisible man finished reading whatever was on his device before his black eyes shot to Richard again. A smile grew until it stretched inhumanly over his face, showing too many teeth.

  Richard’s vision darkened as he found himself drenched in cold sweat. He was so exhausted, and his heart was giving in.

  The man in the corner placed a finger on the brim of his hat, tipping it in Richard’s direction before he turned, walking through the wall. Gray crept across Richard’s vision, growing faster before he let out a final breath, and everything went dark.

  ***

  Then everything was twisted and dark green again. Richard remained on his back, staring at the canopy of trees, his eyes large. He was a few shallow breaths away from a full-blown panic attack. His body wasn’t full of… cancer. It was the word the fog allowed him to remember.

  He died. That man must have brought him to this strange world. Richard felt his lungs breathing deeply as he acknowledged the lack of tubes and monitors. His bones didn’t ache, and he felt healthy. Which world was the real one? This one? Or the one where he just died? Was this some sort of afterlife? That supernatural being made him think there was something to that theory. But… why was he back here? Had he traveled back in time?

  The explosion in the distance, identical to the first explosion he heard, told him yes. He went back in time and could now try again at his second chance. Third chance? Either way, this time he scrambled to his feet, awed that his body didn’t hurt, and sprinted into the trees toward where he hoped was base camp.