Arin woke to the smell of earth. Damp, loamy soil pressed against his cheek, cool and sticky with morning dew. For a long moment he didn't move, didn't even breathe too deeply. His mind floated somewhere between dream and awareness, tangled in fragments of a life that didn't quite belong here. A desk, a screen glowing faintly. The sound of rain on glass. A train rushing by.
And then—all gone.
The world replaced itself with birdsong and the whisper of leaves.
His eyes fluttered open. The sky above was a dim wash of color, pale blues and grays threaded with the last hints of dawn. Branches framed the patch of sky, crooked fingers heavy with green. A forest. Not one he knew. Not one he could place on any map he'd ever seen.
Arin pushed himself up slowly, dirt clinging to his palm. His head spun, not with dizziness but with a disorienting clarity—an awareness that this place wasn't home. Could never be. His clothes were the same ones he remembered wearing—simple shirt, worn trousers, scuffed shoes—but they were stained now, streaked with mud and the faint metallic scent of blood he couldn't account for.
His throat was dry.
The silence pressed in as he sat there, trying to breathe past the tightness in his chest. He remembered—something. A life. It wasn't gone, but it was sealed behind a fog, a weight pressing at the edges of his thoughts. He knew his name. He knew what a city was, what a bus was, what a novel was. But none of those things fit here, beneath these trees. None of them explained why the air tasted so sharp, so alive, or why the call of a crow echoing through the canopy sent a chill down his spine.
He had no explanation.
But he had a feeling.
Something had happened. Something impossible.
And when the words appeared, floating just before his vision as if written into the air itself, he nearly screamed.
[Status Window Available]
The letters hung there, faint but undeniable, their glow soft as moonlight. He blinked once. Twice. Rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm. They didn't vanish.
"…What the hell…" His voice cracked, hoarse with thirst.
A part of him wanted to laugh. He knew what this was. He'd read things like this, seen things like this in stories, in games. A "status window." A System. The idea was absurd, yet here it was, solid as the dirt beneath him.
"…Open," he whispered.
The air rippled. Another window bloomed into existence, neatly framed and perfectly legible though no parchment, no ink, no screen held it. His stomach lurched.
Name: Arin
Level: 1
HP: 10/10
MP: 5/5
Strength: 8 (Max: 76)
Endurance: 9 (Max: 83)
Agility: 10 (Max: 71)
Dexterity: 7 (Max: 68)
Intelligence: 9 (Max: 34)
Willpower: 8 (Max: 32)
Unallocated Points: 0
Arin's breath caught.
He reached for the window instinctively, but his hand passed through it like mist. Still, the numbers seared into his mind. Strength, Endurance, Agility—the values were higher than the others. Intelligence, Willpower—those maximums barely scraped into the thirties. His potential leaned one way. His fate, perhaps, already chosen.
He shut his eyes. He should have felt panic. Should have felt despair. But what surged through him was something quieter, steadier. A strange calm, threaded with a current of unease.
If this was real—and every fiber of him insisted it was—then he wasn't just lost in some unknown forest. He was in another world.
And someone, or something, had given him a System.
Arin let the window fade with a thought. It dissolved like mist at dawn, leaving only the forest—the unblinking trees, the whisper of wind in the leaves, the earth under his palms. Yet the numbers clung to him. They weren't just information. They were… a sentence. A prophecy of limits written into his very being.
He stood, brushing dirt from his clothes. His legs wobbled slightly, not from weakness but from the sudden awareness that he had no idea what belonged out there in the shadows. His ears strained. The forest was not silent. Birds flitted through the canopy. Somewhere water dripped steadily, hidden by roots and stone. Every sound layered on top of another, and Arin realized with a cold shiver: the silence he thought he had heard before was only his mind recoiling.
He had to move. Sitting still was an invitation.
Arin picked a direction at random. The light filtering through the canopy gave no clear sign of where the sun hung, and he had no compass. The forest floor was thick with ferns, moss slick on fallen logs, the damp soil soft enough that his shoes sank slightly with each step. He clutched a branch he'd found near where he woke—long, straight enough to be useful if sharpened.
Useful against what?
The thought lodged in his chest like a stone.
He remembered flashes of a past life—train wheels, wet city streets, the weight of a bag slung over his shoulder—but not once could he recall fighting for his life. And yet, here he was, moving as quietly as he could, scanning the shadows like a cornered animal.
His stomach growled.
The sound startled him, loud in the stillness. Hunger. He hadn't noticed until now, but his body was already reminding him of its needs. His throat, too, was dry enough that each swallow scraped raw.
Survival came first. Food. Water. Shelter. He repeated the words in his head like a mantra. He had read them once, somewhere—guides, stories, games. But repetition didn't soothe the fear that coiled tight in his belly.
He pressed on.
Minutes stretched into something longer, the rhythm of his footsteps syncing with the birdsong overhead. The air grew thicker, damper. A new sound trickled into focus—the faint burble of water. His heart jumped. He quickened his pace, weaving through roots until the trees opened slightly. A stream lay ahead, cutting through the forest floor, its surface glimmering with flecks of reflected light.
Arin dropped to his knees, cupping his hands into the cool water and bringing it to his lips. The taste was metallic, earthy, but clean enough that he drank deeply until the dryness in his throat eased. Relief pulsed through him, sharp and dizzying.
When he pulled back, wiping water from his chin, he caught sight of movement in the mud along the bank.
Tracks.
Arin froze.
The shape was unmistakable—four paws, clawed, the impressions deep. Too large for a fox, too heavy for a stray dog. His breath quickened. He forced himself to look closer, tracing the line of prints as they trailed down the bank and disappeared into the underbrush across the stream.
Something lived here. Something big.
He gripped the branch tighter, though it was nothing more than a stick in his hands. His pulse hammered in his ears.
You don't belong here.
The thought wasn't just fear. It was instinct, bone-deep. Whatever had left those prints hunted in these woods. Whatever it was, it would see him not as intruder but prey.
He backed away from the stream slowly, trying not to snap any branches underfoot. His heart screamed to run, but he forced each step to remain measured, careful.
The air shifted.
A sound whispered through the trees—not birdsong, not water. A low rustle, deliberate. The brush of fur against foliage.
Arin's grip on his branch turned white-knuckled.
The sound came again. A shift of weight through brush, deliberate and heavy.
Arin's mouth went dry all over again. His eyes darted between the trees, searching for the source. The forest was all angles of bark and shifting shadows. Every leaf that stirred looked like movement. Every gap between branches seemed to hold a watching gaze.
He crouched, pressing lower to the ground. The stick in his hands suddenly felt pathetically small. A child's toy against whatever prowled just beyond sight.
The rustle stopped.
Silence fell—a deep, suffocating silence, as if the entire forest held its breath. Even the birds cut off mid-song.
Arin's pulse pounded. He could hear it in his ears, feel it in his throat.
A shape slid between the trees. Gray, low to the ground, moving with the precision of muscle and instinct. The wolf emerged by degrees—first a flank brushing against fern, then the gleam of an eye, then the full form stepping into a patch of filtered light.
It was bigger than he expected.
Its shoulders rose nearly to his chest, its body lean but corded with strength, each motion silent but devastatingly efficient. Its fur bristled in shades of charcoal and ash, the darker streaks making it blend effortlessly into shadow. And its eyes—amber, sharp, unblinking—locked on him the instant he was spotted.
Arin couldn't breathe.
The wolf lowered its head. Not charging. Not retreating. Watching. Measuring.
Predator.
His whole body screamed to run. Every nerve, every drop of blood told him to turn and sprint until his lungs burst. But some part of him, some thin thread of reason, whispered louder: If you run, you die.
The wolf took a step closer. Silent. Intent.
Arin's grip on the stick trembled. He shifted his stance, legs bent, heart trying to batter its way out of his chest. He wanted to scream, to shout, to do something to break the crushing silence—but his throat closed tight.
The wolf moved again. Faster this time.
A blur of gray muscle, closing the distance in a heartbeat.
Arin reacted without thinking, jabbing the sharpened end of his stick forward. The wolf twisted aside with terrifying agility, teeth flashing as it snapped for his arm. Arin stumbled backward, barely yanking his limb away. The jaws clamped shut on air with a sound like breaking bone.
He swung the branch wildly. It cracked against the wolf's flank, more noise than damage, but the beast snarled and skittered back a pace, tail lashing.
Arin's breath came ragged. His arms shook. His legs wanted to collapse under him. But the wolf wasn't done.
It circled now, low and silent, amber eyes never leaving him. Each step was measured, almost casual. It wasn't rushed. It wasn't desperate. This was a game it had played before. The hunt. The test.
Arin's stomach turned to ice.
I'm going to die here.
The thought hit him like a hammer. He saw it—his body torn open, blood soaking into this alien soil, forgotten under these indifferent trees. No one would ever know. No one would ever find him.
The wolf lunged again.
This time Arin dove sideways, rolling across damp leaves. His shoulder screamed as it slammed against a root, but the motion carried him out of reach. The wolf's claws raked dirt where his chest had been a second before.
He scrambled to his feet, stick still clutched tight. His vision swam with panic, but instinct screamed louder now, flooding him with raw desperation. He jabbed again, wild but forceful. The point of the branch scraped along the wolf's shoulder, drawing the faintest line of red.
The wolf snarled, a sound that shook the air. Its lips curled back, fangs bared in white arcs. No hesitation now. No patience.
It came at him with all its weight.
Arin braced, half-screaming as he thrust the stick forward with everything he had.
For a heartbeat, the world slowed. He felt the resistance—the shocking, sickening give of flesh as the sharpened point pierced the wolf's chest. The impact rattled his arms to the bone.
The beast let out a guttural, choked sound, twisting violently. The stick snapped halfway, jagged wood cutting into his palms. Arin was thrown back, landing hard on his spine. His lungs seized as air burst out of him.
The wolf staggered, snapping its jaws in fury, blood darkening its fur. But it wasn't dead. Not yet.
Arin scrambled backward, hands slipping in dirt, broken weapon still clutched like a lifeline.
The wolf's eyes locked onto him again.
It lunged.
Arin screamed and drove the broken branch upward.
The jagged wood rammed into the wolf's throat. The force of the beast's own leap carried it down onto the weapon, the point driving deep. Warm spray hit Arin's face. The wolf convulsed, a horrible sound caught between snarl and gurgle.
Its weight slammed into him, crushing the breath from his chest. For a moment, all was teeth and fur and blood, the world narrowing to nothing but the fight for air.
Then, slowly, the struggle ceased.
The wolf's body sagged, heavy and unmoving.
Arin lay pinned beneath it, gasping, trembling from head to toe. His arms felt like lead. His chest heaved with each ragged breath. His vision swam in and out, the edges dark with shock.
He had killed it.
He was alive.
For now.
The System stirred again, faint against his sight.
[Level Up]
HP: +3
MP: +1
Unallocated Attribute Points: +3
Arin stared at the message through the haze of his exhaustion. He wanted to laugh, wanted to cry, but all that came out was a broken, shuddering breath.
He shoved weakly at the wolf's body until he managed to roll it aside. His arms burned. His palms stung with splinters. His face was sticky with blood that wasn't all his own.
But he was breathing.
And in this world, that was victory.
The forest was quiet again.
Not the silence of waiting, but the silence after violence. The kind that pressed in, thick and suffocating, as though the trees themselves bore witness and now held their tongues.
Arin lay there for a long time, the weight of the wolf's blood cooling on his skin, his breath rasping like torn paper in his chest. Every muscle trembled. His fingers wouldn't unclench from the broken haft of the branch, no matter how he willed them to.
Alive.
The word circled in his mind, fragile as glass. He was alive.
The wolf beside him was not. Its amber eyes had gone dull, fixed on nothing. Its body sprawled in awkward stillness, blood seeping into the earth. The sight made Arin's stomach twist, but he couldn't look away.
He had killed it.
The thought hit harder than the fight itself. He had taken life. Not in a story, not on a glowing screen, but here—with splinters cutting his palms and warmth still dripping down his cheek.
His throat tightened. He swallowed hard, fighting the surge of nausea.
If you hadn't… you'd be the one bleeding out right now.
The truth steadied him, but only a little. His chest still shook with each breath.
Slowly, painfully, Arin rolled to his side and pushed himself upright. His body screamed in protest—shoulders bruised, ribs aching, legs jelly beneath him. He staggered to his feet anyway, leaning on a nearby tree until the dizziness passed.
The smell hit him next. Blood—thick, coppery, cloying in the damp air. It coated his skin, clung to his clothes. He wiped at his face with a trembling hand, smearing red into streaks.
He needed water.
The stream wasn't far. He stumbled toward it, each step unsteady, the forest floor shifting beneath him. When he reached the bank, he collapsed to his knees and plunged his hands into the current. The cold shocked his skin, but he scrubbed anyway, splashing his face, his arms, trying to wash away the gore. The water clouded, drifting downstream in crimson threads.
Arin bent forward and drank greedily, the coolness cutting through the taste of blood in his mouth. It grounded him, though his reflection in the rippling surface nearly undid him—pale, wide-eyed, streaked with dirt and red.
He sat back hard on the damp earth. His chest heaved. His mind spun.
The window still hovered faintly at the edge of his sight, waiting.
He couldn't ignore it forever. With a thought, he willed it to expand.
Name: Arin
Level: 2
HP: 13/13
MP: 6/6
Strength: 8 (Max: 76)
Endurance: 9 (Max: 83)
Agility: 10 (Max: 71)
Dexterity: 7 (Max: 68)
Intelligence: 9 (Max: 34)
Willpower: 8 (Max: 32)
Unallocated Points: 3
The changes were small but undeniable. His heart gave a strange flutter at the sight of it. HP, MP—higher. A reward, if it could be called that. And three points waiting to be placed, obedient, as though the world itself bent to his choice.
He shut the window with a sharp shake of his head. Not now. Not yet.
What mattered was surviving the next hour. The next day.
He leaned forward, burying his face in his hands. His body ached, his mind reeled, but beneath it all ran a thread of something else. Not joy. Not even relief. Something harder.
Resolve.
He could die here at any moment. But for the first time since opening his eyes in this alien world, Arin understood something with painful clarity:
He wanted to live.
Arin sat by the stream until his trembling eased. The cold water had cleared his skin, but the stains beneath his nails and the cuts in his palms lingered like proof he couldn't wash away. He pressed his hands into the earth, grounding himself with the damp soil.
He couldn't stay here. The wolf's corpse would draw others. The forest was too quiet now—too watching.
He rose stiffly, his joints creaking as though he had aged decades in the span of minutes. He retrieved the broken branch he'd wielded, staring at it for a long moment. The splintered wood was still tacky with blood. His stomach twisted again, but he gripped it tighter.
Weapon. Tool. Lifeline.
It was crude, barely more than firewood, but in his hands it had been enough. He couldn't afford to let it go.
He turned from the stream and moved carefully, scanning the undergrowth with every step. His senses were sharper now, nerves raw and strung tight. Every snap of a twig, every whisper of leaves set his heart hammering.
He didn't know where he was going—only that he needed distance. Shelter. Safety. Something he could control.
The forest shifted as he walked, shadows stretching long in the lowering light. The sun, what little of it pierced the canopy, was sinking. Dusk crept in like a tide, pooling in the hollows of the land.
Arin's breath quickened. Night was coming.
And with it, who knew what else.
He searched desperately for cover. Trees, underbrush, fallen logs. Then he saw it: a shallow rise in the ground, where the earth had split around an old tree's roots. A hollow gaped beneath the trunk, half-hidden by moss and creeping vines.
It wasn't much. But it was something.
He hurried to it, pushing the vines aside, crouching low. The hollow was just big enough for him to crawl into. Damp, cramped, but enclosed. He brushed out the loose soil with shaking hands, widening the space. It smelled of rot and earth, but no animal scent lingered inside.
Good enough.
He ducked in, tucking his knees tight against his chest. The tree roots arched over him like ribs. Darkness pressed close, the muffled sounds of the forest beyond. He curled around himself, gripping the bloodied stick, and finally allowed his body to sag.
His ribs ached. His arms throbbed. His hands burned with splinters. Every breath reminded him he was alive, and every ache reminded him how close he'd come to not being.
In the dim hollow, his mind wandered. He tried to piece together the fragments of memory still floating like broken glass in his head. A bed. A desk. A faint glow of a screen. A name—his own, repeated in the void.
And then nothing.
Had he died? Was this some afterlife, or another world altogether?
The system window said one thing clearly: this place had rules. Numbers. Limits. And those rules applied to him.
He thought of the wolf again. Its weight slamming into him. Its teeth inches from his throat. The panic. The desperate swing. The way its body had gone still beneath him.
He shivered violently and pulled his arms tighter around himself.
Sleep came slow. Fitful. Every rustle outside the hollow jolted him awake. Sometimes he thought he heard paws in the leaves, or the low growl of something hunting. Sometimes it was only the wind.
At last, exhaustion dragged him under.
When he woke, the hollow was dim with morning light seeping through the vines. His body ached worse than before, stiff and sore. His throat was dry, his stomach hollow. Hunger gnawed at him, sharp and insistent.
The memory of the wolf returned in full clarity. Not a nightmare. Real.
Arin pushed himself up with a groan and crawled out into the cool morning air. Birds chattered high in the canopy. The forest looked almost peaceful in daylight, but he no longer trusted the stillness.
He needed food.
The thought tightened his gut. He scanned the ground for anything edible—berries, mushrooms, roots—but his knowledge was thin, patchy at best. Anything poisonous would kill him faster than a wolf's teeth.
Water, at least, was sure. He made his way back to the stream, sipping cautiously. His reflection stared back at him, gaunt and pale, his eyes too wide.
The system window tugged at the edge of his vision again, insistent. He finally called it forth.
Name: Arin
Level: 2
HP: 13/13
MP: 6/6
Strength: 8 (Max: 76)
Endurance: 9 (Max: 83)
Agility: 10 (Max: 71)
Dexterity: 7 (Max: 68)
Intelligence: 9 (Max: 34)
Willpower: 8 (Max: 32)
Unallocated Points: 3
The numbers felt alien, yet oddly comforting. A map of himself, quantified. Proof he wasn't powerless.
His stomach growled again, loud in the quiet. He dismissed the window with a flick of thought.
Numbers or not, he couldn't eat them.
Survival came first.
---
The forest stretched ahead, deep and endless. He tightened his grip on the stick, squared his shoulders against the ache, and stepped forward.
One day at a time. One fight at a time.
Whatever this world was, whatever rules bound it, Arin knew one thing:
He would endure.
---
[End of Chapter 1]
Name: Arin
Level: 2
HP: 13/13
MP: 6/6
Strength: 8 (Max: 76)
Endurance: 9 (Max: 83)
Agility: 10 (Max: 71)
Dexterity: 7 (Max: 68)
Intelligence: 9 (Max: 34)
Willpower: 8 (Max: 32)
Unallocated Points: 3