Finding himself staring down the maw of a strangely beautiful creature as it was about to gobble him entirely.
He was wondering how he got into this… well, toothy situation.
'It was supposed to be a simple fake and run operation; how did it turn out this way?' he thought to himself.
Snapping out of his dazed state, he ducked under the beast, causing its teeth to miss his head by a few centimeters.
Turning away from the beast, he ran through the unfamiliar forest
He kept thinking to himself, 'Don't look back, don't look back', betraying himself, he turned his head to look at the creature.
It had the body of a wolf but with a strangely humanoid face staring at him with hunger in its eyes.
Averting his gaze, he could hear the harrowing creature closing in on him.
He slowed down to duck under another tree branch and felt a sharp pain as its claws tore apart his left ankle.
A documentary he had watched of prehistoric lions chasing and tackling their prey popped up in his head.
His situation was a bit like that.
He fell down hard and rolled over to get away from the beast.
Picking a branch that lay nearby, he hobbled to his feet and faced his attacker since he couldn't run anyway anymore.
Today, he had no intention of dying; they stared at each other like they were in a "Wild West" movie; the beast broke the still moment and lunged at him in a fury of claws and teeth.
Shoving the branch in its mouth while toppling over with the beast on top of him, just then he remembered watching a kids' movie "L*on king" Remembering the move S*mba pulled against Scar'.
He shoved his legs against the monster's underbelly and pushed, or at least he tried to.
He felt a stabbing sensation in his ankle, a reminder of his injury. The beast, meanwhile, was trying to chew through the branch.
It finally broke; thinking fast, he shoved his right arm into the maw of his attacker; another wave of pain assaulted his senses, so much so that he only so red.
Just then, a bang rang out in the forest.
Relief came as the jaw released its grip on his arm, followed by a thud beside him.
Looking to his side, he found that someone had made a clean hole in the beast's forehead.
Trying to stand up, he yelped and fell to the ground in pain; he turned on his belly and tried to crawl away from the dead beast, but his right arm, which now resembled a discarded chew toy, exerted no strength. After that escapade, he just lay there, pain racking his body.
Just then he felt a pressure in his loins like he had never felt before.
'I am going to survive this without wetting my pants!' he thought to himself.
'Ah, that was a close call.'
Two boots appeared in his field of view from his current position, assuming they belonged to the one who fired the shot.
He felt a lurching sensation as his supposed savior lifted him onto his shoulders like a sack of potatoes.
"Don't move," he said in a gruff voice.
'It is not like I can,' he thought to himself.
Every movement of the man caused a jolt of pain to course through his body.
But then something strange started happening; the wounds on his arm started closing, albeit slowly, and the pain was lessening bit by bit every minute.
Eventually, he gained the presence of mind to notice his surroundings.
There was a strange mist in his surroundings that was swirling around his body, particularly his arm.
He assumed this mist was healing him.
The forest he was in had a strange ethereal beauty that he had not noticed while being chased by that monster.
His savior was moving through the forest almost as if he knew it inside out.
Periodically, unknown gazes locked in on their figures, and at those moments he would freeze and not move until the gaze passed.
Some gazes were more sinister and forceful than others, some weaker but more wily, though freezing always seemed to do the trick at least so far.
They were going on in this manner until they arrived at a crack in a cliff face. The wounds on his body had mostly healed, though he still pretended to be injured.
His savior had told him not to move, anyway.
Passing through the crack, they reached a cave, where the man promptly dropped him to the ground.
He was almost expecting another wave of pain when he hit the ground, but thankfully nothing of the sort happened since the mist had healed him.
The man looked at him intensely for a few moments and spoke.
"The name is Gordon"
Pausing for a few moments, he also replied.
"Rephan"
Gordon joined him on the floor, pulling a bright, luminescent orb out of thin air.
Rephan was stunned, staring at Gordon with his mouth agape for a dozen seconds before holding it shut and asking.
"How did you do that?"
"And, What was that thing that attacked me?"
"What is this pla-"
Gordon held his hand, asking him to pause. Rephan let out a breath he did not even know he was holding.
Gordon then started speaking.
"First, I will begin with what this place is, this place… Well, you can call it a mirror version of earth except for one key difference, the existence of this energy you felt the one that healed your wounds…if you wanted to call it a name well magic would be the first to come to mind."
"M- magic?" Rephan said before slumping against the cave wall.