I Didn’t Think About It Too Much.

  I simply walked down the hill, alert in every direction—to any sound out of place, any strange smell, the slightest sense of discomfort that could warn me of nearby danger. Every step was taken with caution, even as I tried to convince myself that there was nothing out there waiting to pounce on me.

  I reached the bottom of the hill in about seven minutes… or so I thought. I had no way of knowing. Maybe I had been lying there for hours without realizing it; maybe only a few seconds had passed since I first opened my eyes in this world. Time felt strange, unreliable, as if it refused to obey any rule.

  I just walked.

  And walked.

  I went deep into the forest. Even though I forced myself to keep watch in every direction, I couldn’t help but admire the green that appeared with every step. It was a different kind of green—more vivid, deeper, almost dense. I had always said I wanted a humble little house in the middle of the forest, far from everything, far from everyone. Now I was there… and I didn’t know whether I should feel grateful or terrified.

  Then hunger began to make itself known.

  At first it was mild, almost nonexistent. I thought I could last a week without any problem, that it wouldn’t be urgent. But just a few more minutes were enough for me to realize my stomach had a completely different opinion. I was starving.

  “So many damn trees and not a single apple…”

  I cursed the air as I closed my eyes and kept walking, as if I expected someone to hear me and, by some miracle, place a piece of bread with butter in my hand.

  I was never picky with food, but I would take that a thousand times over before trying a square fruit or something that looked like it came straight out of a nightmare. I had no idea what I was saying or thinking. Loneliness really messes with the mind. Though, if I’m honest, I had always been alone anyway… even when there were people around me.

  I wasn’t paying attention to the path. I could have sworn I had seen a straight passage formed by the trees, a natural corridor. I was pulled out of my thoughts when something thick and thorny struck my face and limbs. My face sank into a formation of stinging leaves, and I jumped back from the sudden pain of the impact.

  “What the hell—?”

  I cut myself off when I saw the full formation of bushes.

  It looked as if someone had placed a massive wall right in front of me.

  “I swear that wasn’t there ten seconds ago…”

  It was strange. The path had been completely straight the last time I looked. I tried moving to the right to go around it, but the moment I turned my head, I couldn’t see any end to the leafy wall stretching into the distance.

  “And behind door number two we have…”

  I joked out loud, remembering those ridiculously entertaining shows I used to watch on TV.

  There was no difference.

  The wall seemed endless.

  I might have been exaggerating when I thought it was about twenty meters tall, but it was definitely high. Too high. And then came the word that was starting to become my automatic response to everything:

  “Damn it.”

  From that moment on, I adopted that phrase for every tragedy that happened to me. Though calling it a “tragedy” was an exaggeration. Whenever something bad happened, all I ever did was stare into an empty point inside my mind and wait for it to end. Maybe fixing or solving things had been within my reach… but I had never wanted to live badly enough for it to truly matter.

  Now it was different.

  I had to keep moving forward. I had been given another chance. I couldn’t let everything go down the drain again.

  I touched the wall of bushes.

  The sensation wasn’t exactly painful, but uncomfortable. A persistent itch, like poison ivy. When I pulled my hand back, the irritation stopped almost instantly.

  I tried again. This time, I pushed my arm in as far as I could, making sure the leaves didn’t touch my face. There was no breeze. No space. It wasn’t just long—it was deep and dense. I doubted that, even if I walked far enough, I would find a way around it.

  The only option was to go through it.

  I didn’t know how far I would have to advance inside those leaves. Maybe I should look for another path, but something stopped me. I could only think about reaching the other side, no matter how. What did a little pain matter? Compared to what I had already lived through, that itch was insignificant.

  I was decided.

  “I can do this… it doesn’t hurt that much. I can handle it. FORWARD, IZAN!”

  That was my battle cry.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The last words of a scrawny weakling, carved into the green world before dying.

  I took in as much air as I could and plunged in.

  I had thought it would be a small challenge—just reach the other side and that would be it. I even convinced myself it wouldn’t hurt that much.

  What an idiot.

  The initial itching vanished almost immediately, replaced by something far worse. It was no longer just discomfort: every brush of the leaves felt like tiny razor cuts, one after another, followed by an intense burning sensation, as if someone were squeezing lemon juice directly onto an open wound. The pain was everywhere—arms, neck, back, legs. There wasn’t a single area spared.

  “I won’t last long…” I thought, trying to calm myself.

  But every step seemed to freeze time. It was as if I were trapped between stone walls slowly crushing me.

  I walked… or so I believed. Twenty seconds passed and I was still inside the green mass, unable to see the end. The leaves were so dense I could barely separate my arms to force my way through.

  The air began to run out.

  I tried to hold my breath, but after fifteen seconds the pain won. My mouth opened by reflex and I inhaled… nothing. There was no air. No space. I tried to scream, but no sound came from my throat. I was suffocating.

  I couldn’t go back.

  I couldn’t move forward quickly.

  I could only keep going.

  I raised my arms in front of me, pushing with everything I had, slowly crossing that threshold of blades. Every movement was punishment. Every second felt eternal. I waited to feel something different—anything that wasn’t cut after cut. I clung to the idea that, if I collapsed at any moment, the feeling of freedom upon getting out would give me the last strength I needed.

  The longest forty-three seconds of my life.

  Then I felt it.

  A cool sensation brushed the tips of my fingers. It was subtle, but unmistakable. With my last bit of energy, I lunged forward, almost throwing myself ahead. I felt air slam into my face, and as relief escaped my mouth in a desperate gasp, the ground crashed into my face.

  I had tripped over a root.

  I fell downhill, rolling and rolling for several meters down a small slope about five meters high. My body bounced uncontrollably until it all ended with a hard impact at the bottom of my tumble.

  “DAMN IT, WHY?!”

  I screamed in fury and pain.

  The sensations of those bushes cutting me hundreds of times hadn’t been imaginary. The clothes I had been wearing since I appeared here were in tatters. My arms, legs, and face were marked with dozens of tiny cuts, some still letting small drops of blood escape.

  “It’s official… I’m back in hell,” I cursed.

  I tried to get up, but the cuts burned with every movement. I shook myself as best I could, brushing off the dirt and grime that had clung to my rags during the fall.

  “If this were a show, everyone would already be laughing at me…” I muttered. “Great first impression, Izan.”

  When I finally managed to regain a bit of composure, I lifted my head.

  And it was all worth it.

  There were trees.

  And bushes.

  I was sick of bushes, but these were different. They didn’t have cutting leaves. Fruits and berries of different colors sprouted from their branches. At last… a real source of food.

  “Damn it, I was already starving…”

  I ran toward one of the bushes, about to grab one of the berries hanging from its stems, but I stopped short.

  “And how am I supposed to know if it’s safe to eat?”

  I didn’t know what was worse: bleeding out and suffocating inside the leafy wall, or dying poisoned by an unknown fruit. The berries looked like grapes, but they were a deep black color, attached to a completely white stem.

  “Well, I’ve seen that things that look safe tend to be poisonous… so let’s test my luck.”

  The moment I touched the black grapes, a shock ran through my hand.

  “Ow! Why?”

  At first I thought it was just me. I used to get small shocks when touching certain things, so I took it as something normal. I tried again, gripping the grapes more firmly and tearing them from the stem.

  “DAMN IT! Why again?”

  This time was different. Something inside me understood it.

  “Alright… I won’t eat you, you bitter thing.”

  I turned my gaze toward a more distant tree.

  “Fruits are safer, right?”

  The fruits hanging from that tree were round, a dull green color with fine golden veins. They were about the size of a small apple. I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed one and took a big bite, feeling no shock at all.

  A burst of juice exploded in my mouth, soaking my lips and chin.

  “The fruit is really juicy and sweet…” I mumbled with my mouth full, “…but I don’t like how it splashes like that.”

  I swallowed eagerly. I was still curious. Hunger and the desire to know always beat my stomach. I approached another tree, smaller, no more than two meters tall. I took its fruit—elongated, brown-skinned like a kiwi, rough, shaped somewhat like a pear.

  I took a big bite.

  “Ugh… that’s really strong.”

  The bitterness was unpleasant, but I didn’t spit it out. I kept chewing.

  “Oh… now it’s sweet.”

  Confirmed. The fruits from the trees were safe.

  Certified by Izan.

  I felt my body grow a bit heavier as I swallowed it. It was strange, but not unpleasant. With just two fruits, I felt satisfied and hydrated. I didn’t need more… though I couldn’t help but notice how those two berry bushes seemed to be giving me flirty looks.

  I knew it was a bad idea, but I approached anyway.

  The bush with the purple berries caught my attention more. They were small, a pale violet color, with a moist shine that made them look fresh—almost appetizing. When I plucked one, I felt no shock. I then tried touching the berries from the other bush, the red ones, almost black when they were in the shade.

  Another shock.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  “They should be fine…” I murmured. “The shock must be a sign they’re absolutely not safe.”

  With that thought, I popped the purple berry into my mouth.

  “It’s pretty sweet.”

  The coolness calmed me. My worries faded for a moment. I had to keep moving; I didn’t know how long until nightfall. Ahead, there was even more vegetation, more trees with similar fruits. I promised myself I would stop eating strange things.

  Or so I thought.

  The path remained the same: an almost straight line between trees and bushes that seemed endless. I walked more calmly now, though I still glanced around from time to time, alert to any strange movement. The idea of setting up some kind of shelter kept circling my mind. Something simple—a pile of leaves, branches, anything that would separate me from the ground at night. I also thought about finding higher ground to get a better view of the terrain; that would help a lot to avoid getting lost… or at least to know where the hell I was.

  So I just walked.

  It was strange. Well, what part of this place wasn’t? I hadn’t found any sign of life besides vegetation. I expected to see some animal—rabbits, deer, maybe wolves—something to confirm that I wasn’t completely alone. But I saw nothing. No birds. No insects. Not even ants.

  Was I completely alone?

  I had been walking for over fifteen minutes without finding absolutely anything. From time to time, I pulled out one of the berries I had stored in my pockets and ate it without much thought. That was when I started to feel a faint tingling in my legs. At first I ignored it. Then it appeared in my arms. I thought it was fatigue; I had never been athletic, and after everything that had happened, it wouldn’t be strange.

  But the tingling didn’t go away.

  When I brought another of those cold berries to my mouth, everything happened in a second.

  My arm froze.

  Then my legs.

  And suddenly I fell face-first onto the ground.

  I didn’t feel the impact. I didn’t feel anything. My body was completely immobile. I couldn’t move a single limb, not even my eyes. All I felt was my heart pounding desperately against my chest, pressing me into the damp, cold ground. I tried to curse, tried to scream, tried to move my fingers… nothing.

  I was trapped inside my own body.

  A few minutes passed like that. I didn’t know how many. Time became blurry, thick. All I could think about was that the paralysis wouldn’t last too long. It couldn’t be permanent. It had to be those damn berries. If I had eaten a dozen paralyzing berries… how many damn hours was I going to be lying there like a corpse?

  My thoughts shifted from anger to fear.

  The ground vibrated.

  It wasn’t strong, but it was real. A deep vibration, like heavy footsteps slowly approaching. Warm air enveloped my body, followed by a muffled growl. Something was above me. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it, as if a massive animal were breathing over me, studying me.

  It was obvious.

  Something huge was here.

  I was sweating profusely. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t run. I couldn’t defend myself. I knew another ending was coming: being devoured by a gigantic beast, one that was probably taking its time. I imagined its fangs, its claws, the exact moment it would tear into my flesh, like a cat playing with a ball of yarn before killing it.

  Once again, I waited for death’s embrace.

  An embrace that never came.

  The ground kept vibrating, but the exhalations stopped. Nothing happened. I was still there, immobile, waiting for pain that never arrived. Little by little, my sense of touch began to return. First a dull burning. Then fatigue. Lying face-down, with my hand pressed into my face, started to hurt for real.

  A finger moved.

  Then my hand.

  The effect was over, though I was still dazed, as if my body didn’t fully respond.

  “I hate… berries,” I muttered once my mouth obeyed again. “I need to leave. Now.”

  I didn’t want to stay there a second longer. I struggled to my feet, using what little strength I had left after the paralysis. I didn’t want to find out what that thing was. I stood up and tried to run, but I could barely drag my feet. I didn’t feel anything following me. There were no more vibrations. No more heat.

  I wasn’t going back.

  Maybe I regret having appeared here. I had always been a lover of nature, someone who said humans didn’t deserve the world, that we existed only to destroy it. Now the world wanted to destroy me. I knew I didn’t belong here.

  And it wanted me gone.

  I felt it too. Despite not having encountered a real danger.

  The forest was aware of it.