Kip Rivers exhaled slowly, the chill of early winter making his breath visible.
He stood alone in a small clearing behind his uncle's cabin near the woods, bow in hand, a worn target pinned to an old tree stump twenty yards away. He drew the arrow back—creak—the bow groaned in his hands.
(Breathe in)
(Focus)
(Release)
Thwack.
Dead center.
…Silence.
The same silence that had been following him since the funeral.
Since college fell apart.
Since everything that once grounded him had quietly crumbled.
Kip lowered his bow, his shoulders sagging.
The ache in his back and the bite of cold in his fingers reminded him he'd been out here too long. But he stayed.
"One more," he said, voice dry and cracked with self-pity.
He nocked the arrow, drew it back—but this time, he paused.
For the first time in weeks, his thoughts weren't on the shot.
He was thinking about her.
Hazel eyes. That stupid laugh.
The way she always teased him, said he couldn't hit a bullseye with his gloves on.
Kip's jaw tightened.
He closed his eyes, just for a second.
When he opened them, He stood in a forest—but it wasn't the one behind the cabin.
Everything felt wrong.
There was no clearing.
The trees stretched impossibly high, gnarled and twisting unnaturally.
The wind howled, colder now, more violent.
And then he saw it—ten feet to his right.
A massive, four-eyed beast crouched over a deer corpse, blood pooling beneath its feet.
Kip froze.
The bow trembled in his grip.
"What the—?"
The creature's head snapped toward him.
Its eyes glowed.
Its lips parted—grrrrk—a low, rattling growl echoed between the trees.
(Fight or run?)
(No—this isn't real. A hallucination. A dream. It has to be.)
The beast charged.
His body moved before his mind could catch up.
He loosed the arrow.
Thwack.
Right through one of its eyes.
The creature shrieked—a sound worse than nails on a chalkboard—and staggered.
Its body unraveled, collapsing into a cloud of black mist.
Kip stood frozen.
"What the hell just happened…?"
He turned in place, slow and cautious.
The forest around him was still strange, still wrong.
The air felt thick, almost heavy in his lungs.
He looked up.
No familiar stars.
No constellations he recognized.
Just an alien sky.
And then came the pain.
A sharp, blinding throb in his head.
Visions crashed through his mind like lightning.
A throne of flames.
A burning circle of runes.
And a symbol—seared into his mind—a flaming arrow, wreathed in fire.
He dropped to his knees.
His last thoughts before the darkness took him were:
"Where the hell am I?"