Hello all~ This is a story I've been thinking about for a long time, and I just got the sudden urge to write and cranked out this chapter in an hour. I'll try to update at least once per week, but if it gets to be more than that, please bear with me.

Something wet was touching my face, and there was no reason for something wet to be touching my face. I groaned, trying to get away from it, but I couldn't move. I couldn't even open my eyes. I whimpered, suddenly fearful, mind racing through all the possibilities from being drugged to alien abductions. None of these were fitting exactly right, because the last thing I remembered was being in my room.

Ah. There was the explanation. I had fallen asleep in my room, and I was dreaming. However, I still couldn't move. This was a shitty dream, as I was blind and paralyzed with an unknown wetness on my face. Maybe I was going through that sleep paralysis thing and I had drooled on myself. That would suck, but so far it was the most likely possibility. I wasn't this clear-headed in my dreams.

Slowly, agonizingly slowly, I was able to move my limbs again and open my eyes. I blinked in the sunlight, groaning again. All my muscles were horribly sore, and my skin was super sensitive as it brushed against blades of grass. Wait, blades of grass?

Why the fuck was I outside?

Moments Earlier

I yawned, rolling my shoulders and cracking my back as I prepared the laptop on my desk. This was one of the few times I was actually allowed to relax in my room, since my grandmother was away at a doctor's appointment. For whatever reason, she always preferred that I stay in the living room when she was there.

I felt pressure on the mattress and turned to see my dog laying on the bed behind me, looking like his normal dopey self. He got up really close and laid his head on my lap, letting out a whimper. I chuckled. "What's the matter with you, dog? The neighbor cat not coming out for you to bark at today?"

He whimpered at me again, and I scratched behind his ears with one hand as I logged in to my computer with the other. I jumped a little bit when this time the dog growled. I looked down at him. He was glaring at my computer, growling at it with teeth and everything. "Karma? Is something wrong?" I touched his shoulders, trying to bring his attention to me, but he kept growling.

I sighed, standing up and peeking out my bedroom door. The dog stopped growling as soon as I got off the bed, but I was still slightly concerned. I went around to all the windows and doors, locking them, and pushing the button on my keys to make sure my car was locked. I hadn't seen anything suspicious, and the dog hadn't growled. He was still following so closely that he was stepping on my feet, though.

I went back to my room, confident that nothing was going to get me in my house while I was playing my computer. Karma jumped into my lap, whimpering at me yet again. I patted his head. "Good boy. There's nothing wrong." I clicked the button to start Grimm Eclipse and the dog went nuts, jumping all over me and barking, knocking me backward onto the bed. I flung my arms out, trying to catch and calm the bouncing beast, when suddenly a flash of burning heat coursed through me. My vision went red, and I curled up in pain. I felt like every piece of my body was being stretched and flattened, then broken into millions of tiny pieces.

I sat up slowly, observing my surroundings. I appeared to be in a clearing of some kind, ruined pillars dotting the grass. There was a cliff at my back and what looked like a path in front of me, and I was surrounded by trees. A forest, I guess.

I heard a small whimper next to me, and looked over just as my dog licked the back of my hand. "Hey, Karma… Where did we go?"

He only barked in response, pawing at the ground and licking me more. I scratched his ears as I stood up shakily, looking down the path. In the distance, I could just barely see something moving. Maybe it was somebody I could ask for directions. "Come on boy, let's go for a walk."

Karma trotted happily next to me, becoming more comfortable as he smelled all the nearby bushes and pillars. We moved closer to the moving figure, and I squinted. It looked like it was coming toward me now. At a much faster pace than I was moving. The dog and I both stopped at the same time as it dawned on me that the thing now running towards us was not a human. It was a really big dog. "Oh shit."

I took off running into the forest, praying to every god I had ever heard of that that huge animal would stop following me once I was out of sight. The crashing I heard behind me signified that my prayers had gone unanswered. I kept glancing behind me at it as it got closer. It had to be a wolf. A really fucking big wolf. One last glance made me stumble over a branch, and I flipped over onto my back to stare at one particular feature this wolf had.

It couldn't be. It really couldn't be. This wolf had bone plates. Like a… beowolf. It stood on two legs in front of me as I scrambled backwards, too stuck in the shock of my realization to do much of anything to defend myself.

There was a snarl from behind me as Karma jumped over my head to land in front of the beowolf, barking and snarling up a storm as it snapped at the beast's ankles but staying just out of reach of its claws, successfully diverting its attention. I shook my head to try and clear it, reaching next to me and grabbing a big branch. I stood up, holding it in front of me like I had seen people hold spears in movies.

I ran forward, swinging the branch down on the beowolf's head, continuing to do so several times until it evaporated, dead. I fell onto my knees, panting heavily and clutching my aching side. Then I threw up everything I had in my stomach, falling onto my side. My whole body was unbearably hot. I was probably dehydrated or something. I needed water.

I wiped sweat off my forehead, standing up again after several moments and looking around. I had no idea even what direction I had run. Where was the path that I had been walking on? Now that I thought of it, though, my mind drifted to Grimm Eclipse. If this was, in fact, not a dream and I had been pulled into the game, I must be somewhere in Mt. Glenn. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember the game ever taking me back to Vale, and the path was dotted with grimm. I was weaponless, and I had no idea how to fight grimm or even use aura if I did have a weapon.

Mt. Glenn is supposed to be in the southeast of Vale, if I remembered correctly, and I was sure that the time right now was before noon. That meant that the sun should be in the east, right? Finding that, I started moving north west, the direction I hoped to find Vale in.

I walked for hours, thankfully not passing any more grimm. I felt like shit. My head was throbbing, and my mouth was so dry I could light a match in it. Finally, I saw what looked like the walls of the city ahead. That was the only thing that had made me smile all day.

An hour later, I arrived at the city gate with the dog at my heels, where I promptly collapsed.