Chapter 3

Max began to feel lightheaded. He blinked, fighting the odd sensation that he was floating up to the ceiling. He looked at the floor, confirming that he hadn't moved an inch, despite what he was feeling. He turned to say something to Alva, but Alva wasn't there.

Nor was the room.

In fact, Max found himself staring at a dense carpet of pine needles. He stood up, looking around the pitch-black forest. The pines were dense, blocking out what little light the night sky might have produced. If not for Max's dragon-eyes, he would've been totally blind in the darkness. As it was, he could barely see anything. He looked around, but all he could see was trees going endlessly in every direction. He had always felt comfortable in the forest, even at night, but this forest, though vaguely familiar, felt off, putting Max on edge.

"Welcome to my world." A deep, slightly distorted voice said from behind Max.

Max nearly jumped out of his skin, whirling around to find his face mere inches from a pearly white mask which practically glowed in the dark, its face twisted in grotesque laughter. Max cried out, stumbling backwards and falling to the ground on his butt as he backpedaled away from the mask, which as Max got a little distance, he saw that it was situated in a cloak darker than the night around it that covered its entire body and drug on the ground.

The figure barked out laughter. "Who are you?!" Max yelled at it.

"My name is inconsequential. I'm simply here to bring you a warning."

"What's that?"

"If you stay here at the Academy, you will regret ever arriving. Go back home to your family, where you were happiest."

Max shook his head. "I can't. They'll-"

"Oh, I know what they said," It said, interrupting Max. "but it's far better to take that chance than to experience the horrors of this place. No one leaves the same, and a nice guy like you? I bet you'll wish you were dead by the time you finish. You'll get a taste of what's to come tonight, and I promise you that tonight's as easygoing as it'll ever be. Oh, and, I suggest you keep moving. Wouldn't want it to find you so soon."

The figure turned and walked away from a wide-eyed Max, melting into the gloom. His heart was still racing. What did it mean by 'it'? The woods were just like the ones back home, if a bit denser, which offered Max some comfort, but what could be in these woods that Max would fear? He knew how to handle wild animals, but given what Blair said, maybe he couldn't rely on any of that knowledge.

Not that it mattered, anyways. "None of it's real." Max muttered under his breath. "It's all a dream, just in my head."

Though it felt as real as anything he'd felt in the 'real' world. He put his hand on one of the nearby trees, feeling the bark through the black pads on his hands. Around him, Max heard all the normal sounds of the woods at night. The sigh of the wind through the trees, the occasional hoot of an owl. Though it felt so familiar, Max was still uneasy. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it felt like a part of the woods that he'd never been to before, alien despite its familiarity.

He looked around himself as he considered what he should do. The thing had told him he should get moving, but he saw no reason to move. Waiting out the effects of the Focal made the most sense, rather than wandering aimlessly and possibly running into something nasty.

Looking around, there was no immediately obvious places to sit, so Max took a seat at the base of a particularly large pine. He sat there for a few minutes, his mind wandering off, until something made his ears perk up. At first he thought he'd heard something, but then as he listened, he heard nothing else. Then it occurred to him what he'd 'heard'. It wasn't a noise; it was the forest going deathly silent. The creatures of the night were suddenly absent, and even the wind had stopped. It was as if the whole forest had stopped and held its breath, and he unconsciously did the same, ears straining for the sound of anything.

A minute passed, and he started to relax again, letting out his held breath, but his ears pivoted towards the sound of a heavy footfall directly behind him, spurring his heart to speed up again. Whatever it was, it was slow, deliberate. Getting closer to where he was seated. He stood up as quietly as he could, pressing against the pine tree. He dared to peek around the tree, though what he saw caused him to dart back behind the tree, clapping a hand over his muzzle to hold back a squeak of fright. It was hard to tell in the darkness, but whatever it was had to be the biggest creature he had ever seen. It was too big to be a panther, too big to be a bear even. And he could've sworn there had been two glowing points of light in the dark that seemed to be looking right at him.

He was painfully aware that its footfalls were only getting closer, and now he could hear it snuffling, grunting to itself. He pressed himself against the tree, trying to make himself as small as possible, hoping the thing wouldn't notice him even as he fought the urge to run. The only thing that held him in place was the fear that if he ran, it would chase his. And he was pretty sure that it wouldn't have any trouble catching him.

The footfalls were now painfully close, just on the other side of the tree. He now caught the smell of something that had died months ago, and he was forced to swallow bile that rose up in his throat. He caught movement to his right, and when he turned his head to look, had he not had his hands clapped over his muzzle, he might've made a sound. The thing's massive head was mere inches from his, and what he saw made him struggle to remain perfectly still. It was a bear for sure, by far the largest he had ever seen. But it was not even merely an ordinary bear. Most of the flesh around its head was missing, the bare bone visible around patches of rotting flesh. This close, he could hear the flies buzzing around what should have been a rotting corpse. Instead, he could hear the air whistling through the holes where its nose should've been, spewing out the smell of death. He found himself oddly mesmerized by the fact that one ear dangled from its head by a thin, ropy piece of flesh, and it didn't seem to care one bit. At least, he was mesmerized until his eyes fell on its eye socket. Where its eye should have been, there was just a pinpoint of unmoving red light in the empty socket, which seemed to stare directly at him.

He stared back into its 'eye', knowing he was a dead man. He could not hope to move fast enough to keep those bony jaws from latching onto him. If he was lucky, it would accidentally grab his neck and end his life with a quick snap, but he had seen enough half-eaten deer carcasses to know that normal bears didn't make sure their kill was dead before they started eating, so he doubted he'd be that lucky with this one.

It stopped, moving its head dangerously close to touching him, its putrid breath blowing onto the side of his head. He squeezed his eyes closed, waiting for the searing pain. But nothing came, and he heard it huff in frustration, lumbering footfalls moving away from him. He listened harder than he had in his whole life, not daring to open his eyes, lest he find it was all a ploy. But the footfalls faded. Only when a good minute had passed in utter silence, save for the blood rushing through his ears, did he dare to open his eyes, and take a gasping breath.

His mind became consumed with the thought that he needed to get away from whatever that thing was. After a quick look around, Max left the safety of the tree, resisting the urge to run as he walked in the opposite direction of where he'd heard the thing go.

Time seemed to crawl as he walked through the silent forest. His ears strained for any sign of the thing, and he could've swore he heard its footfalls following right behind him, or sometimes the faint whistling of its missing nose, once even its disgusting odor, but every time he looked all around himself, there was no sign of the thing whatsoever. But he could not relax, even as he wearied from the feeling that it was hounding him, only inches away in the thick darkness surrounding him.

The trees started to thin, and eventually gave way to a short, rocky outcropping that ended abruptly in a chasm. He walked to the edge, peering down into the blackness, feeling queasy from the height. He took several steps back away from the edge, feeling much safer away from the deadly fall.

Until he turned around and saw it standing only a few feet from him. Exposed, with no place to hide, he stood still hoping it couldn't see him for some reason. The thing let out a series of short, whistling huffs through its nose. It took his a second to understand that the thing was laughing. Laughing at him, its bony jaw locked in a stupid grin.

Now in a blind panic, he pivoted to run, aiming to run along the edge of the cliff. But when he took the first step, his hoof found no solid ground. Max cried out, then screamed as he fell into empty space where there should have been solid rock. As he slowly tumbled in the air, the wind whipping his clothes, he turned over so he could see the ground, tensing himself for death as the ground rushed up to obliterate him.