The brief rest brought no relief. Every tree looked like a monster lying in wait. But when Eni spotted a crude wooden fence ahead, her heart gave a sudden leap of hope. "People... there are people here..." she whispered. Her lips, cracked from thirst, stretched into a painful smile. She broke into a run, already imagining hot food and a roof over her head.

  That hope collapsed with the twang of a tightening bowstring. On the fence stood a man in rags, his crossbow aimed directly at Eni's face. No warnings. No words. Just a finger on the trigger. "What the hell?! Why does everything here want me dead?!" Eni shrieked, spinning on her heels.

  She ran, when the sky above her suddenly darkened. The shadow was enormous. A blue dragon, its scales shimmering, banked into a turn directly over the forest. The air trembled with its roar. Eni ran blindly, her mind screaming at the absurdity of it all. Six dragons in one mile? This world wasn't just dangerous—it was broken.

  Her stomach cramped. The growling was so loud it seemed to drown out the sound of dragon wings. Hunger was becoming sharper than fear. "Food... where's the food?" she wheezed, throwing herself into the icy river once more to wash away her scent.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  On the far bank, tangled among the roots of an old oak, she spotted something orange. A carrot. Eni ripped it from the ground with such force it might as well have been treasure. The dirty, bitter root, rinsed in the river, tasted like the finest delicacy in the world—though by evening, the sheer amount of carrot left only a nauseating sweet aftertaste in her mouth.

  The world kept mocking common sense. From one of the steep mountains, molten lava flowed lazily like an ordinary stream. The bright orange current hissed as it met the humid air, creating a veil of steam. "Lava? Right here? This... is wrong."

  Thirst forced her back to the river. The water was foul—salty, with grit crunching between her teeth—but Eni drank, gagging and spitting out the mud. The mountain range ahead seemed impassable, so she chose the water again, deciding to swim around the cliffs.

  When she hauled herself onto the shore, a new sight unfolded. Against the backdrop of a giant mountain that pierced the clouds stood a solitary house. Nearby, a small field of wheat swayed, and a short distance away, the dark gap of a broken entrance yawned open. It didn't look like a cave—more like an old cellar or an abandoned bunker, its concrete bones jutting from the earth.

  Eni stood frozen, watching the stalks of wheat ripple in the wind. Wheat meant life. Wheat meant that somewhere nearby, there might be a city. Or, at the very least, someone who wouldn't immediately shoot her in the face.