Strike of Misfortune

Soon they had made their way inside the forest. It was as he had expected it, lush, green and full of vitality. Yet as they walked further and further in, he felt like something was a bit off, he couldn't quite put his finger on it, as if a very obvious thing that he should have noticed and questioned long ago has still eluded him.

After some time though it finally hit him, "wait for a second, why is everything so …. Normal. All the vegetation in this forest, as well as in all the places I have seen ever since I came to this world as well as the animals are…. Normal."

"Why are they all pretty much the same as the ones back on earth? This is supposed to be another world, maybe another timeline or universe or reality or whatever. So why is everything so familiar, so … similar whether it be fauna or flora." William thought as he found this whole thing very strange.

"Even if I assume that this is earth but far into the future, for civilizations to regress so much and forget about not only all of our achievements up to the twenty-first century, but to not even be remembered as if we never even existed. It would have taken a colossal event the effects of which should have taken thousands of years to dissipate and subside, so life should have evolved differently from what we had."

William was so absorbed by this realization of his and its possible implications, that he completely forgot about his surroundings.

William just let his horse walk on its own as the guards followed their young lord in front of them, content with not speaking unless they deemed it that they had strayed too far into the forest which they were soon about to.

"My lord, maybe we should head back a bit, we have gone deep enough as it is." One of the guards finally voiced his thoughts, after all, their priority was to ensure William's safety, not satiate his curiosity.

William was dragged back from his trance like questioning of his surroundings. "Already? I haven't seen much yet though, let's pick left or right and continue that way, it doesn't count as going deeper right? How long have we been in the forest Anyways?" William asked his guards.

The guard that reminded William thought about his proposition and couldn't find an argument against it, so he decided to let it go and simply answer his question. "I don't know exactly how long my lord, but if I had to guess it would be about an hour and a half or two."

"WHAT. I have absorbed in my own thoughts and missed at least an hour and half of potential exploration." William almost screamed in his head.

He sighed. "Let's just go right for now, lunchtime is still ahead of us, not to mention that we have our rations so we could delay as much we want. Let's go."

As they walked through the forest William tried to stay focused on what's in front of him, doing some actual exploration instead of asking questions to which he had no answers.

Yet he couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed, sure the scenes were beautiful but there was nothing alien about them.

Soon they came upon a few broken trees, looking like something snapped them in half.

"Do woodcutters use this place as a source of trees?" William asked the guards around him.

"No my lord, I do not believe so, the nearest village is half a day's distance from here." The second guard answered as he observed the broken trees.

He dismounted and walked to take a closer look and so did William, the first guard stayed on his horse to keep a lookout but he was nonetheless intrigued by what they had found.

The second guard who had approached the broken trees soon concluded. " I am pretty sure this is not the work of woodcutters my lord, these trees have been snapped in half not by tools but pure force, as if something huge broke them."

"I think I just found what did this." William swallowed hard as he pointed at a spot next to the tree. As soon as the two guards saw what it was they swallowed hard as their heartbeats quickened a bit.

What William was pointing at was a paw mark, probably a bear's. Yet it was not the mark itself that scared them, rather it was its size. It was massive to the degree that no bear back on earth as far as William knew could come even close, to rivaling this 'ridiculousness' he had just witnessed.

"Ah great, I was just complaining about this world having no surprises for me, now look at what you have William, the mother of all surprises, you just had to open your god damn big mouth and jinx it didn't you". William reprimanded himself in his mind using the third tense, which was a habit of his whenever he was annoyed at himself.

"Ok this place just got dangerous, let's go back and alert my father, even with a dozen guards this thing can still give us a run for our money, our only hope is that it's by now as far away from her as it can be." William ordered the two guards, as he turned around to walk back to his horse and as he did so he froze.

"What the F**k In god's name is that!" William couldn't help but involuntarily say as his legs started to shake a little.

The other guards, the one still on horseback and looking towards them and therefore away from whatever William just witnessed and the other who was still intently observing the broken trees, turned around to see what William was looking at, surprised by his sudden profanity.

As they did so, they both couldn't help but clench their jaw and swallowed hard as they witnessed a monster they had never seen before standing on all fours about twenty meters from where they were. Yes a monster because this bear's size surely deserves such a description

It was gigantic, truly gigantic. If William had to approximate its size, it should be around 3 meters from the ground to its shoulders as for when it stood; he did not want to see that as his legs would probably give out completely.

The guards though a bit shaken, immediately assumed their duties as their training kicked in and slowly tried to position themselves between the giant bear and their young lord.

How did the bear sneak upon them? Was it here all along? Were they that blind? All these questions did not matter anymore; the priority was for them to get out of here first.

Unfortunately for them, the moment the guard on horseback tried to move closer to the due near the broken trees with the rest of their mounts the bear pounced on him, though not before it released a roar so great, it drove the horses into complete panic mode.

The two belonging to the second guard and William simply ran away in panic. The one that was mounted by the guard struggled with him for control, as both tried their best to assert their will. Unfortunately for them, the monstrous bear was not going to wait for any of them.

By the time these events happened the bear had already reached the horse and guard duo and with one bite it ripped the horse's head right off, yes ripped it off completely.

It all happened so fast, that William as well as the guard next to him were completely caught off guard and left there standing.

The headless horse soon fell on the ground trapping the guard that was on top of it, as his leg got stuck under its now lifeless corpse.

The guard near William immediately drew his weapon as well as a dagger that he gave to William. "My lord, flee now, flee the way we came, I shall try to hold it for as long as I can, NOW." And charged the beast.

In this situation, many people think that they will hold their ground, help their companions and slay the beast. Unfortunately, that was just fantasy, without training, preparation, experience and equipment as well as some luck it was simply a sweet delusional dream.

So William did what anyone would do, anyone who had never even gone on a single hunting trip, or came face to face with as much as a normal bear not to mention this behemoth.

He turned around and fled; he fled as fast as his legs could carry him, fueled by adrenaline and fear, fear for his life and well being and the desire to live burning stronger than it ever did before.