Chapter 8: Run

Instead of hurling a fireball at the frost wolf, Rael slammed the fireball into the ground. Dried leaves and brittle twigs covered the forest floor in thick layers. The impact sent a burst of smoke rolling upward, thick and choking. The wolf’s claw swept through the haze an instant later, missing him by a hand’s breadth. Rael snatched the wand up again and shouted, "Split... Split up! Run!"

They all got out of daze and started running they scattered. Alex and Suzy veered one way. Rael and Lila the other. As some cleared the monster saw the pair running towards the upper slope and behind them the frost wolf lunged after the first pair, its heavy body crashing through undergrowth. Rael did not look back. He threw himself down the slope with everything he had left, lungs burning, legs driving hard. If he turned, he knew he would see the creature. That single glance might be enough to freeze him in place.

Lila ran beside him, close enough that he could hear her ragged breathing. The ground changed under their feet without warning. Grass that had felt firm a moment earlier turned slick and treacherous, as if the whole hillside had been coated in ice. Lila’s foot shot out from under her. She pitched forward with a short, startled cry.

Rael lunged sideways and caught her around the waist. He knew her vitality was nowhere near his. A fall like that would break her bones. They slid together, his boots skidding, her weight dragging him off balance. A tree trunk rose out of the blur. His head struck it hard. Pain exploded behind his eyes. Consciousness flickered like a dying lamp. He locked his arms around Lila and held on as they tumbled.

Darkness closed in, then cracked open again. Lila’s face swam above him, pale and close. Her voice came from a long way off.

"Rael... Rael... wake up."

The words slipped away. Darkness took him once more.

When his eyes opened the next time, the world was moving. Stone scraped against his back. Someone was pulling him by the wrist, dragging him across rough ground. Distant screams reached him—high, terrified, cut short. He tried to lift his head. The effort cost him another stretch of black nothing.

He woke in a narrow space that barely deserved the name of cave. More like a hollow scraped into the rock, low ceiling, damp walls. Lila crouched at the entrance, shoving bushes and broken branches across the opening until only thin slits of light remained. Rael pushed himself up on one elbow. Pain slammed through his skull so hard he nearly blacked out again.

Lila was at his side in two steps. She pressed him gently back down.

"Don’t. Just stay still. We’re safe for now."

Her voice still carried that distant echo, as if his ears had not finished waking. She pulled a water bottle from her storage ring and tipped it carefully against his lips. He drank, spilled half of it down his chin, then coughed. Blood came with the cough, bright against the dirt floor. His hand went to his head and found a sticky, cool paste already spread across the wound.

"Medicine," Lila said quietly. "It’s the best I have."

Rael let his head fall back. The thought drifted through the fog: he should have copied Suzy’s class when he had the chance. A priestess skill might have fixed this. Instead he lay there with Lila’s presence a steady warmth at his side and let sleep take him again, the only safety he could feel.

Hours—or days—later he opened his eyes to find her asleep in the far corner, knees drawn up, head resting against the stone. The pain in his skull had eased enough that he could sit without coughing blood. The memory of the frost wolf returned in a rush.

A level 50 monster in the first awakening realm. Impossible. It could not happen. It simply could not.

The small sound of his movement woke her. Lila’s eyes opened, still heavy with sleep. For a second she stared at him as if she had forgotten where she was. Then color rose in her cheeks. She straightened quickly, brushing dirt from her sleeve.

"You’re awake."

"Ah.. Yeah."

She studied his face. "Do you remember anything?"

"Last clear thing is hitting my head on that tree and going down the slope. After that it’s pieces. You pulling me. Screams. Not much else."

She nodded. "That’s about right."

Rael shifted closer, careful of the low ceiling. "Thank you for getting me here. I owe you for that. I’ll make it up to you when I can."

"You don’t owe me. You caught me on the way down. I just dragged you the rest of the way. We’re even."

"Still. Thank you."

He was quiet a moment, listening to the faint wind outside the blocked entrance. "How long have we been here?"

"I’m not sure. More than five days, I think. You had a fever while you were out the whole time. I applied medicine on your wound but the bleeding didn’t stop until yesterday."

"Five days?" The number hit harder than the tree. He had believed it was one day, maybe two. Five.

Lila’s voice dropped. "When I was pulling you toward this place I saw others. I heard them killing others. The mountain was covered with corpses. Monster and High-level at that. Not just the wolf. Several of them moving through the trees. That’s why I stayed put. Moving felt worse than waiting."

Rael sat with that. One frost dire wolf had already been an anomaly. Multiple high-level monsters in the first realm was something else entirely. He looked at the narrow walls, the carefully blocked entrance, the thin light filtering through the branches

He felt trapped. When he got the class he thought all his problems are gone away but now it’s like whole other dangers has come to him. Rael was sure of one thing he doesn’t want to die here just when he started to walk towards his dream.

"So how do we get out of here?" he muttered. "Feels like we’re sitting inside a giant cage."

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