Aman

Ch 3: In the Forest

Aman fled into a forest, running and skipping through the densely packed vegetation. He had just avoided death. He wasn't keen to die again. He rushed, and looked back and above, and found that nobody was chasing him.

He stopped running.

"Those... magicians have indeed left for good," Aman mused, as he gave out a breath of relief.

He walked for what it looked like a good mile before reaching near a huge lake that stretched and shone against the setting light of the afternoon sun. It was going to be dusk. And Aman knew of the danger of predatory wild animals very well, so he wasn't going to stay around here with just a broken shield and sword.

He squatted near the banks of the lake as he saw his reflection gleam on the shimmering waters.

"This..." Aman was dumbstruck.

He looked nothing like he used to look. His face was now sharp to the chin and the nose, and azure eyes stared back at his soul from the reflection. His age was probably around fifteen-years now that he looked at his new-self.

"Well, this is... uh, different. This is so hard to realize and take it in my mind," Aman said, "for me that I really have died and now I have taken total-control of another body just like that by requesting some sort of divine goddess!" Aman sighed. "It would have been better if I had just died and went to heaven! That way I wouldn't have gotten to live again in this life full of endless suffering!"

Aman had now realized it and regretted his decision. Life was full of suffering. And he had let himself plunge into it again. He sighed again as he splashed water on his face before drinking some to quench that thirst bugging in his throat.

After that he rose while holding his sword as he looked around the terrain. There were masses of verdant trees everywhere the eye could see and a few hills in the distance. Birds kept chirping in vigor as a wind found and blew past Aman, cooling his wet skin.

He had weapons, light armor, a dirty cloak to keep him warm if the night tries to bite him cold. There was everything that could have assured him of his safety, but he somehow felt unsafe. He was just a child of twelve living in the body of a young man. And it didn't help.

Aman then measured the sharpness of his blade's edge, and brandished it against an enemy who wasn't there. He practiced himself to deflect the strikes and tried to master the art of feinting against his enemy, and it helped a lit to get along with the sword. With the small practice against the enemy, Aman got to know now that it was useless to defeat an enemy whose all next moves were planned by Aman. The enemy was easily predictable because it was just Aman fighting against an enemy created by his mind.

Aman grunted. If he really wanted to improve and cultivate his fighting skills, he had to practice it against a real-living person.

Before dusk fell he tried to find himself a good shelter and food and also sticks and stones for fire.

He scouted around the forest, his guard up, and soon after a minute or two walking under the shade of the dense foliage he reached a glade. Looking around the glade, his eyes suddenly fell on a creature, not bigger than him, in the distance chewing and biting on what seemed like a furry dog.

The creature was having a good red-brown scaled skin, two sharp claws that it used to cut the flesh of the dead dog.

Seeing this, Aman got his sword up and crouched low in silence to avoid arresting its attention towards himself. He didn't wanted to end up becoming the food of this ugly thing he was currently seeing.

(Snap!!!)

"Crap!" Aman cursed upon seeing the twig that he stamped just now. He made a mental note to always look around carefully before putting his step over.

"Ji! Ji! Ji! Ji!" The creature hissed as it turned back to Aman, forking its thin tongue out from its reptilian head. Its teeth were good long enough to give a good death-bite to a creature like the furry dog.

"I will just kill you, then!" Aman said to himself, as he charged towards the creature.

The creature snarled as it also charged towards Aman. The lizard tried to pounce on Aman and scratch him, as Aman kept his blade steady against the falling creature.

The creature died in just five-heartbeats as the sudden blade stabbed through its heart as it came down to Aman, and warm blood dribbled on his hands.

Aman pushed the lizard away from him.

"Hah!" Aman pulled the sword out from the dead lizard, his hand bloodied. "That was easy."

Then carrying the dead lizard, Aman was able to stop and spot a narrow empty cave while scouting ahead. It was really small but had enough space for him to sleep the night. For food, he could cook the lizard's meat he was carrying. He was easily able to get enough firewood for the fire and cook the lizard's meat.

When night fell the animals howled and the cicadas screeched out a constant lonely tune to keep company for Aman in the dark cave, the fire was the only light inside. He came to know to realization that this new world had a single huge moon just like his previous world. And it was what for which he couldn't sleep: it reminded of his world and how troubled his current life was.

Having experienced so much insanity from witnessing a huge army die in seconds against some flying magicians to realizing he wasn't in his world and then realizing that he wasn't donning his actual body anymore, and then encountering some sort of extraterrestrial lizard-creature, he felt out of place. Thinking all these things did not make him feel safe against a world he did not know.

"No... I am safe... I am safe... I am safe..." He tried to convince himself as he gazed at the flames, but he failed.

The next thing he knew was eating the roasted meat of the lizard and then twirling the signet ring which had a design of a crescent moon cut into it. He had been wearing the signet ring from the beginning, assuming it was the possession of the young man he was currently donning and controlling.

"Goal," Aman said to himself, "the only primal goal I'll have for now is to survive and thrive in this world, and also find whose body I am currently in control of. This will be prudent, then..."

Without knowing, Aman sprung and woke up to find that he had somehow managed to sleep on the cold stony cave-floor. He assumed that fatigue must have devoured him while he was thoughtlessly staring at the dancing flames a good while ago. The firewood had already been reduced to a pile of ashes, and the dark still persisted outside. The mosquitoes were not hesitant from biting him, so he decided he had enough from this cave. He rose and went outside, taking his sword along with him. He realized it was dawn time, seeing the sun slowly rise as hours passed when he reached the lake again and drank from there.

The sun rose and peeked from the horizon as Aman walked around in dismay. He had to find the slightest hint of a civilization if he wanted to assure his survival.

"Huh?" Aman stopped and heard in the breezy silence as a sweat-bead trickled down from his forehead. "This..."

"...gwah!" Something was approaching! And that too in a large group.

Without wasting any more of his time, he reacted and started to climb the nearest tree he found. He loved to climb trees, and in his childhood he remembered climbing on others' trees and plucking their fruits out and enjoying savoring them. Because of that, he climbed the tree well and fast.