Age 761.
In the vast, uncharted wilderness of the North Galaxy's Sector 7, a planet known as Earth sat bathed in the glow of a fierce yellow sun. To the interstellar traveler, it was a gem of blue and green. To the average citizen of West City, it was an era of technological prosperity. But for a young man who had appeared out of thin air seven days ago, it was a primeval nightmare where the food chain was a daily, bloody reality.
Jack huddled in the suffocating shadows of a narrow limestone cave, his breath coming in shallow, rhythmic hitches. He was eighteen years old, or at least he had been when he'd fallen asleep in his cramped apartment back home. Now, he was a ghost in a world that defied every law of biology he had ever studied. Through the jagged mouth of his refuge, he watched a dragonfly the size of an eagle dart across the sky, its iridescent wings humming with a vibration that he could feel in his teeth.
This was the Earth of the Dragon Ball world, though Jack didn't know the name of his prison yet. He only knew that the "wildlife" here was built on a scale of absurdity. Dinosaurs, monstrous saurians that should have been dust for sixty-five million years, roamed the valleys with thunderous steps. He had seen a long-necked herbivore strip a tree bare in seconds, only to be brought down by a pack of bipedal lizards with scales like serrated steel. Even the plants were predatory; he'd seen a vibrant, pitcher-like flower snap shut on a passing rodent with the force of a bear trap.
Jack took a cautious, measured sip of dew from a broad, waxy leaf he'd propped up near the entrance. It was 4:00 AM. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth, crushed ferns, and the lingering musky odor of something massive that had passed by an hour ago. The predators were either finishing their nocturnal massacres or hadn't yet stirred for the dawn. This was his only window of safety, the thin, grey line between the terrors of the night and the hunters of the day.
"Seven days," Jack whispered, his voice a dry rasp that sounded alien to his own ears. "One more day of licking leaves and chewing on bitter roots, and I'm going to keel over."
He leaned over a small, stagnant puddle in the corner of the cave, catching a glimpse of his reflection in the moonlight. He looked like a corpse. His face was sunken, his cheekbones jutting out like knife edges, and his skin was a sickly, translucent pale. Yet, beneath the exhaustion and the starvation, there was something else, a strange, persistent warmth glowing deep in the pit of his stomach. It wasn't the heat of a fever; it was a flickering ember of vitality, a pulsing energy that seemed to be the only thing keeping his heart beating against the vacuum of his hunger.
"I don't know who brought me here or what kind of sick cosmic joke this is," he muttered, a spark of primal defiance lighting his dim eyes. "But if you wanted me dead, you should have dropped me in the ocean. I'm not dying as a snack for some overgrown lizard."
His mind drifted back to the moment his life had shattered. Seven days ago, he had woken up in the middle of a scorched wasteland, disoriented and screaming from the heat of a sun that felt far too close. After an hour of wandering through the jagged rock formations, he'd sat on a large, flat boulder to rest his trembling legs. He had been trying to make sense of the purple-hued mountains on the horizon when the sky had suddenly vanished.
At first, he thought a storm cloud had rolled in. Then, a thick, viscous drop of liquid landed on the crown of his head. It was hot, and the stench was instantaneous - a foul, copper tang of fresh blood mixed with the rot of a thousand carcasses.
Jack had looked up, his neck clicking in the silence, and frozen. A giant tiger, at least fifteen feet long from nose to tail, was looming over him. Its fur was a burnt orange, striped with charcoal black, and its fangs were ivory daggers that dripped with the same foul saliva that was now matting Jack's hair. Its eyes were pools of molten gold, fixed on him with the casual boredom of a god looking at an ant.
In that split second, something inside Jack had snapped.
It wasn't a choice; it was an evolutionary leap. He didn't just run; he exploded. His legs felt like they had been replaced by hydraulic pistons. In a blurred heartbeat, he had covered nearly fifty yards, his feet barely touching the scorched earth. The wind whipped past his ears with a deafening roar, and the world became a smear of brown and green.
The tiger had actually paused, its feline brain unable to process how a tiny, hairless ape had moved with such impossible velocity. By the time it let out a roar that shook the very foundation of the hillside, Jack was already a streak of dust.
He hadn't thought about logic. He hadn't thought about his "good luck" or the laws of physics. He just saw a narrow crevice in a limestone cliff and dived into it headfirst.
CRASH!
The tiger's massive paw, heavy enough to crush a car, had slammed into the rock just inches behind his heels. Claws screeching against the stone like a industrial saw on metal, the beast had spent the next three hours trying to dig him out. The cave entrance had groaned, gravel raining down on Jack's head as the predator roared in a fit of frustrated rage. Eventually, the beast had slunk away, but its presence remained, a heavy, suffocating pressure that Jack could still feel whenever he closed his eyes.
Jack had stayed in the back of that cave for two days straight, paralyzed by a terror so profound it felt like lead in his veins. But fear was a luxury for the well-fed.
Back in the present, Jack forced himself to stand. His legs shook, the muscles protesting the sudden movement, but the "heat" in his chest flared in response, steadying his nerves and numbing the ache in his joints. The giant tiger still prowled this territory, he'd heard its bone-chilling roars every night, a reminder that he was still on the menu. But he couldn't wait any longer.
If he stayed here, he would become too weak to fight back when the end eventually came. If he went out, he had a chance, no matter how slim to turn the tables. He reached down and gripped a sharp piece of flint he'd spent the last few days whetting against the cave floor. It wasn't much, but it felt like a part of him now.
"Tonight," Jack vowed, his eyes tracking the first faint purple light of dawn as it touched the jagged peaks of the distant mountains. "Tonight, I stop being the prey."
He didn't know it yet, but he was standing on the threshold of a world where the limit of one's power was only restricted by the strength of their will and the fire in their soul. Jack was a stranger in Age 761, but he was a stranger who refused to be eaten.
And more importantly, Jack was very, very hungry.