The Weight of a New World
Matheo woke to the sound of a nightmare.
His eyes snapped open, but his vision was blurred by salt and grit. He was lying on a beach, but the sand felt wrong—it was heavy, like tiny shards of lead. As he tried to push himself up, a crushing weight slammed into his chest.
Gravity. This wasn't Earth. Every breath was an effort, his heart hammering against his ribs just to keep his blood moving.
"Where..." he gasped, but the word died in his throat.
The evening sky was a bruised purple, dominated by moons so large they felt like they were falling toward the planet. Then, the sound came again—a horrifying, guttural roar that vibrated through the very marrow of his bones. It wasn't just loud; it was massive.
The ground beneath him shivered. Vibrations. Something was moving deep in the jungle behind the treeline. Panic, cold and sharp, spiked through his chest. He didn't know where he was, but his "Option C" instincts screamed: Move or die.
He scrambled toward the treeline, his muscles screaming under the increased gravity. He barely made it into the shadows of the colossal, twisted trees when a searing pain exploded in his calf.
He shrieked, collapsing into the dirt. A black, chitinous insect the size of a dinner plate was clamped onto his leg. Before he could kick it off, the creature tore a jagged chunk of meat from his calf and scurried into the underbrush.
Blood erupted, hot and uncontrollable.
"Calm down... calm down!" he hissed through clenched teeth. He watched the blood pool in the dirt. He knew if he fainted here, the scent would bring every predator in the woods.
He ripped his T-shirt into a jagged strip, binding the wound with a desperate, bone-crushing tightness. He grabbed a handful of dry soil and rubbed it over the bandage to mask the scent of the copper-rich blood. Then, he looked up.
The trees here were titans, their lowest branches thirty feet in the air. He climbed. He ignored the agony in his leg, the "itch" beginning to burn in the wound, and the way his lungs felt like they were bursting. He climbed until the beach was a distant memory.
Below him, the monster that had been stalking him finally emerged. It was a lean, reptilian nightmare with six legs and eyes that glowed like dying coals. It slammed into the trunk, shaking the massive tree. Matheo gripped the bark until his fingernails bled, praying to a God he didn't know if he believed in.
The beast snarled, clawing at the wood, but the tree was too thick, the wood too hard. Eventually, the monster gave up, prowling away into the darkening woods.
As the night stretched on—an impossibly long night that felt like it would never end—Matheo sat in the fork of the branch, shivering. The darkness was filled with roars that sounded like thunder.
I died, he remembered. The hospital smell. The sound of his own heart monitor flatlining. The faces of his parents... gone.
He felt a wave of crushing sadness, but he bit his lip until it bled. Not now. If I get a second chance, I won't waste it by crying in a tree.
"Status?" he whispered. "System? Power?"
He thought of every anime he had ever watched. He tried punching the air, imagining fire. He tried to "feel" a mana core in his stomach. He focused his mind until his head ached.
Nothing. No blue screen. No voice in his head. No flame.
"I'm fucked," he whispered, his voice cracking. "I'm just... me."
Eighteen hours passed. The sun finally began to rise, but it brought no peace. From his high perch, Matheo watched as a new monster—a feathered horror with four mandibles—casually tore apart the reptilian beast from the night before. It ate the predator like it was nothing but a snack.
Matheo went catatonic, hiding behind the giant leaves. The monster's head snapped toward his tree. Its eyes were cold, horizontal slits. Matheo stopped breathing. His soul felt like it was leaving his body. After a heart-stopping eternity, the creature turned away, dragging its kill into the shadows.
Matheo was starving. His throat was a desert of dry sand. Because of his blood loss, his body was demanding resources to fuel the slow, agonizing "itch" in his leg. His healing factor was working, but it was eating him alive from the inside to do it.
Suddenly, a new sound cut through the forest.
Clang. Shiver. Shouted commands.
Steel hitting scales. Human voices.
His heart leapt. Civilization. He began to climb down, but his foot slipped. He looked down and saw a massive, boulder-sized monster resting at the base of his tree, its armored back covered in moss.
He looked at the direction of the voices, then at the beast below.
Take the risk and find the humans, or stay in this tree and die of thirst?
Matheo closed his eyes, his "Business Mind" calculating the odds.
I choose the risk.