Introduction

-"I don't know how I got here. It's been three days and I'm as lost as ever. This world seems familiar to me, yet I know nothing about it. The land, the creatures…even the air is foreign to me.

Something just isn't quite right."

The young woman looked up from the scroll she had in front of her – her bare arm smoothing out where she roughly tied the ram's fur coat around her. The early mornings here seemed to be the coldest time of day, and she must focus hard to keep her teeth from chattering. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, trying to slow down her breathing and focussing on her core where most of her heat resided. Suddenly from behind her closed lids she saw a red flash part the black – the unexpectedness of it causing her to jerk backward and fall off the smooth rock she was sitting on.

She scrambled to her feet and smoothed her fringe out of her face, hearing the crows flapping and cawing away at the entrance of the cave.

"Damned birds, giving me a fright," she mumbled slightly embarrassed, keen to place the blame of the little fall on someone or something other than her should someone be watching. Out of habit she crossed her arms over her torso in a display of irritation but also in an attempt to keep her warm, when she realised she wasn't cold any longer.

She walked forward to the entrance of the cave, where the sun just started to peek across the mountain's jagged edge in the distance.

"Such unknown beauty…" she sighed.

It had been three days since she awoke, naked and cold in the middle of the farm fields about 1 kilometre from the cave she decided to make her temporary home. She remembered a bright flash before she woke, and then only the silence of the night. She had realised that she was naked and tried fashioning something to cover herself from the leaves of a tree nearby, but lucked out when she came across an abandoned tent. There she found some food, some scrolls and the ram's fur coat – the only wearable thing, but way better than the nothing she had.

Since then she'd been scavenging for fruits, berries and water.

Her stomach softly growled as she reflected on this, her eyes jumping to a ram crossing the planes before her and deciding that she had to hunt for some meat if she wanted to stay strong.

Chapter 1 – The Birth

A muddy face peered through the greenery, eyes focussed on the ram grazing a few meters away. A low stomach growl sounded almost predatory, and the woman nearly punched herself in the gut to quiet it. Her eyes immediately shot back to the ram, certain she had scared it away with her movements within the bush.

It stood still, ears twitching and nose in the air as it seemed to survey its surroundings. She held her breath, her heart echoing the sound of war drums as she stared at it, unblinking.

It resumed grazing, and the woman had to stop herself from exhaling loudly in relief.

A twig cracking behind her made her swing around, roughly-made spear at the ready. Her eyes met with the glowing ones of a black wolf and she let out a startled yelp, causing the ram behind her to dash off in the opposite direction.

The wolf lowered its head, spittle dripping from the corner of its mouth – teeth gleaming in the afternoon sun. The woman took a step backwards, attempting to straighten herself up so that she appeared taller.

In doing so, she spotted three more pairs of yellow-green eyes approaching from different angles. "Oh shit…a pack…" she tightened her grip on the spear and tried to swallow the fear she felt away. "I can't die like this…"

She got herself up, closed her eyes and gathered her courage – she could feel it hotly shooting through her veins and into her eyes. She felt a hazy sort of comfort - and sheer anger at herself for becoming the hunted:

Her eyes shot open, and she screamed with all the anger she could, allowing the warmth she felt within her to carry her voice. The wolves seemed to stop in their approach, their predatory stance momentarily disturbed. The woman took the spear and drove it into the ground in front of her, using their hesitation to her advantage, when she felt the hotness in her explode in and around her – blinding her – and then there was nothing.

The woman fell to the ground, smoke bellowing out from beneath her.

"What…what just happened?"

Her throat felt dry, her limbs felt like they were glowing. She opened her eyes, a sudden splitting headache causing her to blink several times before she managed to open them up slightly and keep them open. Her hands showed no marks, yet they felt intensely hot. She looked past her hands at the scorched earth beneath her and fell back in horror when she realised that she wasn't the one smoking – the earth was.

She looked around her, time slowing down within her mind as she did so:

All around her, for a radius of about 35 metres the earth was burnt away. An awful smell of burnt hair and flesh hung in the air. Her eyes flicked towards where she saw her predators last, and noted only black, smoking unidentifiable heaps.

Before her the spear she had made came into focus – undamaged, but at the centre of the cracks in the ground snaking outwards.

She slowly got to her feet, her mouth agape in both shock and wonder: What happened?

"I did this? It can't be…" she stepped backwards, the burnt twigs falling into ashes around her feet. She turned around, unable to process the damage that had originated around her. There in the distance she saw another burning corpse: The ram that she had hunted earlier.

Everything around her was in ashes, and the girl became afraid. Very afraid.

"I…did…It can't be."

Her head started spinning and the headache became more intense. She had to steady herself as she bent over, her hands resting on her knees. She tried breathing deeply but only the sickly smell of burnt corpses filled her nostrils and she vomited.

She had no idea what was fuelling the amount of vomit leaving her body, her poor stomach playing host to very little food – but she couldn't stop.

When her stomach seemed to finally run clear after what seemed like hours, the woman looked up and felt dizzy. She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth, her watery eyes squinting at the sun.

She felt finished: She had no energy left and the feeling of pure dread in her heart weakened her muscles even more. She slowly turned around and dragged herself towards her cave.

She would not eat this night. In fact, she wouldn't mind if she fell asleep, never to wake up again from what felt like a very real nightmare.

After what felt like hours, she reached the cave and collapsed to the cold, rocky floor. She curled up into a little ball, her fur coat wrapped tightly around her, her eyes focussed on the opening where she could see the smoke rising from the burnt earth, the wind gently blowing it away from the cave's entrance – and the world became black to her once more.