Maya's POV
The explosion hit like a giant's fist.
One second I was checking my research samples in Laboratory 6B. The next, fire was everywhere—orange and furious and eating the world alive. The chemical storage had blown. Someone screamed. Alarms shrieked. Heat licked my skin like a hungry beast.
Then I saw her.
The little girl stood frozen near the observation window, maybe six years old, clutching a teddy bear. She must've wandered in during the school tour. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as flames rushed toward her like a tidal wave.
My body moved before my brain caught up.
I ran. Smoke filled my lungs. My lab coat caught fire. I grabbed the girl, felt her small body trembling, and threw her toward the emergency exit where her teacher was reaching through the doorway. The woman caught her. Good. Safe.
Relief lasted exactly one heartbeat.
Then the ceiling collapsed.
Metal and concrete crashed down. I tried to run, but something massive slammed into my back. Pain exploded through me—sharp and absolute. I hit the floor hard. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Fire danced around me, beautiful and terrible.
This is it, I thought. This is how I die.
I was twenty-eight years old. I'd spent my entire adult life in laboratories, playing it safe, following rules, being the "good girl" who never took risks. No great adventures. No wild romances. No mistakes worth making. Just work and survival and the same boring routine every single day.
My mother used to say I was wasting my youth. "Maya, when will you actually live?" she'd ask.
I always promised I'd travel after I got the promotion. Fall in love after I finished this project. Take chances after I saved enough money.
After. After. After.
Now there was no "after."
The smoke grew thicker. My vision blurred. I thought about all the things I'd never do. Never see the northern lights. Never fall stupidly in love. Never dance in the rain or do something completely reckless just because it felt good.
I'd been so afraid of failing that I'd never really tried at anything that mattered.
What a waste, I thought as darkness crept in. What a stupid, careful, wasted life.
Fire consumed everything. Heat. Pain. Then... nothing.
Just cold, endless nothing.
I gasped awake.
My lungs burned, but not from smoke—from something else. Something wrong. I coughed violently, my whole body shaking. Ash filled my mouth, gritty and bitter.
Wait.
I was dead. I'd died. I'd felt it happen. So why was I coughing? Why did everything hurt?
I forced my eyes open.
Trees. Massive trees towered above me, so tall their tops disappeared into a gray sky. But these weren't normal trees. Their trunks were twisted and black, their leaves a sick purple color. The air smelled strange—like metal and earth and something else I couldn't name.
This wasn't the laboratory. This wasn't anywhere I'd ever seen.
I tried to sit up. Pain shot through my entire body like lightning. I looked down at myself and froze.
My clothes were gone—replaced by some kind of rough animal skin that barely covered me. My arms were covered in scratches and bruises I didn't remember getting. My hands... my hands looked wrong. Thinner. Weaker.
Panic clawed at my chest.
"Hello?" My voice came out as a croak. "Is anyone there?"
Silence. Then... sounds. Rustling in the undergrowth. Something big moving through the trees.
My scientist brain tried to make sense of it. Maybe I'd survived. Maybe I was in a hospital having hallucinations. Maybe the smoke had damaged my brain and nothing was real.
But the cold ground felt real. The pain felt real. The fear hammering in my chest felt very real.
I forced myself to stand. My legs shook like a baby deer's. Everything felt wrong—my balance, my body, even gravity seemed different here.
Where was here?
More rustling. Closer now. Something growled—low and deep and definitely not human.
"Okay, Maya, think," I whispered to myself. "You're a scientist. Observe. Analyze. Survive."
But I'd never been the outdoor type. I studied plants in sterile lab conditions, not actual wilderness. I couldn't hunt. Couldn't fight. Could barely walk without stumbling.
A branch cracked behind me.
I spun around.
Two eyes glowed in the shadows between the trees. Yellow eyes. Predator eyes. Way too high off the ground to be anything small.
My heart stopped.
The creature stepped into the dim light, and my brain refused to process what I was seeing. It was huge—easily eight feet tall—with a body that was wrong in every way. Part human, part... something else. Its face was almost human but stretched wrong, with fangs jutting from its mouth. Claws tipped its fingers. Dark fur covered its arms and legs.
It looked at me the way a lion looks at a gazelle.
I did the only logical thing.
I ran.
Branches whipped my face. Roots tried to trip me. My lungs screamed for air. Behind me, I heard the thing coming—fast, so impossibly fast.
I wasn't going to make it. I'd survived a laboratory explosion only to die in some nightmare forest being eaten by a monster.
My foot caught on something. I went down hard, tasting blood and dirt.
The creature's footsteps stopped right behind me.
This was it. Really it, this time. No miracles left.
I rolled onto my back, staring up at the thing that was about to kill me. It raised one clawed hand.
Then it froze.
Its nostrils flared. Those yellow eyes went wide—not with hunger, but with something else. Shock? Recognition?
It leaned down, sniffing me like a dog. When it spoke, the voice was rough but understandable.
"Female." The word came out like a prayer and a curse combined. "You're... female."
Before I could process that weird statement, three more shapes dropped from the trees around us. More creatures—different but equally wrong. One had feathers mixed with human features. Another had scales. The third was massive and bear-like.
They all stared at me with the same shocked expression.
"Impossible," the scaled one hissed. "Females don't appear from nowhere."
"She has no tribe marks," the feathered one said, circling me like I was some kind of science experiment. "No mate scent. How is she alive alone?"
The first creature—the wolf-like one—growled at the others. "Back away. I found her first."
"That's not how this works," the bear-thing rumbled.
They were arguing. About me. Like I was a thing to be claimed.
Terror gave me my voice back. "What... what are you?"
Four pairs of inhuman eyes locked onto me.
The wolf creature smiled, showing way too many teeth. "We're beastmen, little female. And you..." He leaned closer, his breath hot on my face. "You just became the most valuable thing in this entire wasteland."
His clawed hand reached for me.
Everything went black.