Time swept fast as the sun began to set. But sleep did not come softly to Hikaru; more like it grabbed him and pulled him down. He did try his best to stay awake. He tried to keep his eyes wide, staring into the darkness, scanning from left and right—watching a forest that never seemed to sleep.
"shit I have to stay awake anyhow," he muttered, his voice a dry rasp. "Just a few more minutes please."
Amidst the lonely night, every tiny sound of a leaf felt like a cold whisper of danger creeping in. Every moving shadow looked and felt like a monster was waiting to jump. But his body was too tired from the previous battle, too tired to care about his plans. His body simply gave up, dragging him into a deep sleep before he could say no.
And before he knew , the wary night turned into morning. With heaven's luck on his side, when he finally woke up, there was no loud noise or sudden scare. Instead, there was a silence so heavy. It felt like the forest was holding its breath. Above him, the strange trees acted like a giant roof. Thin lines of sunlight poked through the leaves, touching his face gently, as if checking to see if he was still alive.
For a long time, Hikaru did not move. It wasn't because he was being brave; his body simply wouldn't obey him. "I am sure glad to be alive ,but I have to move..," he told himself, but his limbs felt like a dead horse. "Heyaah... Come on, get up." Every part of him hurt. The sharp stabs of pain from the day before were gone, replaced by a heavy, dull ache that sat deep in his bones.
He tried to move his arm, which was wrapped tightly in his jacket. He let out a slow, shaky breath. It moved. That was all he needed to know.
Slowly—very slowly—he climbed down from the tree. His feet hit the ground with a soft thud. He stood perfectly still and waited.
The forest did not move. The air felt thick and strange, smelling of old smoke and dead plants. "Great," he whispered, looking at the grey mist. "It even smells like garbage out here."
"...Still here," he whispered. His throat felt dry, like sand. He wasn't happy to be there, but he knew he had to keep going. He tightened his grip, took a deep breath, picked his sword and stepped forward into the shadows.
The next few days blurred together. Surprising as it could be ,it wasn't a chaotic blur, but some kind of repetition. He moved less recklessly now. He watched and listened to his surroundings more. Before he knew it, survival stopped being a state of panic and turned into a kind of daily routine.
He spent much of his time by the river. The fish here weren't normal; they were fast, slippery, and moved with an intelligence that felt like they were mocking him. His first attempts to catch them failed miserably. He tried to grab them with empty hands, but they vanished before his fingers even broke the surface.
"...Seriously..." he muttered, watching a silver flash disappear into the deep.
He realized he needed a tool. He found a straight branch and spent hours sharpening it with the rabbit's tooth he had kept. Better timing. Less force. More patience. Eventually he got one. It wasn't clean or impressive; it was a messy, desperate spear-thrust that pinned a small, shimmering fish to the mud.
"...At last…," he whispered. It was a small victory, but it tasted better than anything he'd ever eaten at a restaurant back home.
He began to improve his "Fortress in the Trees" as well. Using smaller sticks and thick vines, he layered a flatter surface across the limbs. It creaked whenever he shifted his weight, but it was better. It was enough to rest without the constant fear of falling to his death in his sleep.
Each day, the strain felt lighter. Healing was gradual, but real. And the best part …"No infection".
He even used the leftover parts of the monster rabbit to make crude mini-spears. They weren't for fighting ,not yet but they were for staying alive.
"Umm, I guess at least something is better than nothing," he said to the empty woods.
But sometimes, the "Reality Check" visited. One afternoon, while sitting by the river, he stopped moving. He looked at the crude weapon in his hand and the dark marks on his skin where the rabbit had clawed him.
"This isn't Earth..." The thought felt hollow. He felt like an ant trying to build a hill in the middle of a hurricane. "...What am I supposed to do here?"
No answer came. His eyes drifted to the river again, watching the water move endlessly, never stopping, never resisting. A faint memory surfaced—his brother's voice, calm and almost casual.
Every men has face numerous difficulties in life in all aspect .But we have to know that life moves like water.The hard catch is Flow with it... or be left behind.In the end , life is journey so we should trust the process and keep moving on .
Hikaru stared at the current, then exhaled slowly. "Then I'll just have to keep moving ahead."The hesitation faded but not completely, but enough to go through the day. Days started flipping into weeks.
He learned which areas stayed quiet and which didn't. He learned where the ground dipped and where the movement felt wrong. He was beginning to understand the rhythm of this strange world.
One evening, as the shadows stretched long across the forest floor, Hikaru sat on his makeshift platform. His breathing had steadied. The pain in his shoulder had dulled.
"...Getting used to this."
But as soon as the words left his lips, something felt off. It wasn't a sound or a movement. It was the opposite: "Absence"... The forest had gone quiet. The usual chirping of the strange insects had stopped. It was as if the woods themselves were holding their breath.
His grip tightened around the spear. His heartbeat, once a frantic drum, was now a slow, heavy rhythm.
He didn't look around wildly. He kept his eyes forward, his senses reaching out into the darkness. He could feel it now. A weight in the air that hadn't been there a moment ago.
Somewhere beyond the trees, something had noticed him. Something much bigger than a rabbit. Something that didn't care about his "routine."
The air grew cold, and for the first time since he had arrived in this world, Hikaru realized he wasn't looking at a shadow between the trees ,the shadow was moving. It didn't have the frantic energy of the rabbit; it moved with a slow, heavy confidence that made the trunk of his tree vibrate.
A pair of eyes, burning like low embers in the dark, fixed onto his position on the platform.
It was at this moment ,Hikaru relaised that his "Fortress in the Trees" wasn't a high-ground advantage anymore; it was just a cage.
As a low, wet growl rumbled through the floorboards beneath his feet, the creature took a final step into the faint moonlight, and Hikaru realized his spear was much, much too small.Oh shitt!!!!!