Somewhere on an island

Somewhere on the flying island, a boy was sitting on the ground. Barely breathing as he did not want to get the attention of a particular beast that was on the nest island. It was only about 200 meters between two islands. And the distance kept shrinking

"When two islands collide, the beast definitely comes here. It will search for more food, right? What do I do? I am for sure, not fighting it."

Atlas decided his best option was to hide. He gathered all the bodies of stonemoles he defeated in one place, hoping to attract both the cougar and more moles to one place. Then going further from this place, he started to dig a hole. He spent a solid 30 minutes just digging a hole where he can hide. He was obviously not buying himself. He wanted a place where he would not be seen from a distance. After he finished, he put his backpack in the hole and jumped in there. He was waiting.

"Two islands should collide any second now," he said. And right after, a very loud shattering sound was heard and the ground shook.

"Now we just wait here."

1 minute.. 5 minutes… 10…15.. Atlas got tired waiting. He knew that it was best to just lay low, but he needed to check what was going on. Slightly rising from the hole he dug, he looked at the place where he last saw the cat type horror. It was gone.

"Well, obviously it would not be sitting there just doing nothing." Atlas said as he was looking around to find it. But after 5 minutes of careful examination of the distance, he did not see the creature. He was looking at a pile of stonemoles he made, but it was not there.

Now the panic started to set its roots in Atlas' mind. Where is the creature? The fear was slowly crawling in but Atlas knew, after all he already experienced, the moment he lets fear take over, he will lose.

Now carefully observing his surroundings and what is in front of him, he used his ability. He did not use it before, since he wanted his eye to rest a bit. Especially after all those fights against stonemoles.

Activating his ability, he surprisingly did not sense the beast at all. No trace of the creature.

"How is that possible?" He asked himself as he continued looking. Since he was almost at the very edge of the island, his view covered all the island in front of him. So it would be almost impossible not to see it.

"Well, maybe its gone" said Atlas and ducked back in his hole he dug.

"Maybe it jumped down, who knows"

Atlas tried to come up with a reasonable explanation to this situation. He went back in his hole and sat down closing his eyes. He needed to calm his mind down.

"Okay, breath in, breath out"

Having calmed down, he slowly opened his eyes. And that was exactly when he reversed all the effects of meditation he just did.

Right now, Atlas was looking in the very red eyes looking back at him.

The cougar-like creature was lying behind his hole, looking at him.

"How did it manage to get behind me, without me noticing anything?" Atlas cried inside. But what was more important, is what should he do now?

"I need to run, I can't fight this. This stealth killing machine" he said, but then he came up with a thought. "How long was this creature behind me? If it was for the last 10 minutes or so, it would've killed me already if it wanted. Maybe not everything wants to kill me?" Now saying this, Atlas remembered the very first creature he met here. The one that gave him his ability.

Now with that thought in his mind, he tried to move very slowly away from the beast. Going away slowly, he noticed that the beast was looking at him. Following Atlas with its gaze. However no matter what Atlas tried to do, the creature did not react anyhow.

"What is going on?" He kept asking. "It looks like it is observing me. But why? Is it bored. Maybe it did not see any humans before."

Now that he knew that he was safe for now, Atlas decided to walk around the island. Carefully moving away from the beast he went to the other side of the island.

Now watching the beast, Atlas was thinking.

"Now, what will you do?"

And to his surprise, the beast slowly stood up and lazily walked towards Atlas. Slowly pacing through the golden field, it reached the boy and somewhere in a few meters, just layed down again. It was still watching Atlas, but it looked like it was rather curious, than hostile or anything.

"Well, at least it is not going to eat me. At least for now." Atlas was calming himself down.

Now, he needed to focus on the other important thing. How does one get off this island? Looking in the distance, the island he was on, was moving away from the initial point and the hope for its return back, was slowly dying.

"I will run out of food faster, I think. And there is no way I am going to sleep when this monster is around." He said, while looking at a black cougar-like creature. The island the beast came from also drifted away.

"Well, I guess I have two options. Wait and jump down. I will not survive the fall, will I?" Atlas then proceeded to take the body of one stonemole and rolled it to the edge of the island. And with a slight push, he sent it flying down from the island.

Looking at how the remains of a beast were falling down, slowly becoming a small dot until it just disappeared in the greenery of the trees, Atlas sighed.

"What was I even thinking? What was I expecting?" Atlas was running out of ideas.

All this time, the dark furred beast was looking at Atlas with an increasing interest. And now, it stood up, walked to the pile of stonemole remains, took one and went to the edge. Then it proceeded to throw the body down, as did Atlas.

Looking at very weird activity, Atlas could only wonder what was going on.

"Why is it mimicking me? What does it want?... Wait, what if this creature is trying to escape the island as well, and is trying to see if I can come up with a plan of escaping?" now Atlas was looking at the beast with a facial expression which could only be described as:

"You also f*** up, didn't you?"

Now there were two of them. Two of them, who got stuck on a flying island.

After about 1 hour, Atlas was sitting, staring into the horizon, throwing small rocks into the distance. He had no idea what to do. The beast fell asleep some time ago and was peacefully napping. Atlas himself started to feel tired. He was not sure how much time had passed since he came here. Was it still a day on Earth or was it already evening. The sun was not really moving in this world, as far as Atlas noticed, but there had to be a change of day in this world. At least the sky changed, since he remembered it being different from the last time he was here.

Since he had nothing to do, Atlas decided to fight some stonemoles. Walking to where was the large pile of what could be described as a weird mash of rocks and blood and other substances, he was hoping to notice a few new ones. And he was right, as there were few new ones, who were actively consuming their kind. A quite gruesome view.

Walking towards them. He was holding what looked like an almost broken bat, he attacked the closest one. As he already had the experience, he was dealing with them with quite ease.

And when Atlas was about to attack the one who jumped on him, a black lighting swept in front of him, exploding the stonemole in an instant.

"What the…" Atlas was quite surprised. He looked to his right, to see the beast which was sleeping, was coming towards him. Tightening his grip, Atlas was ready to fight, but to his pleasure, the beast started to attack the stonemoles.

For some reason, more and more stonemoles started coming from the ground, as if the beast was somehow attracting them. Now there were about 20 of them. Atlas tried to keep up with the beast, but soon realised that he was just being a third wheel there. Fortunately, stonemoles were not attacking him. They completely ignored him and were full rushing the cougar-like beast. Yet it seemed that the beast had no problem with dealing with them.

Slowly retreating, Atlas harvested the cores and sat down to absorb them. Closing his eyes, he started to feel the energy of the cores. Holding them in his hands, he was absorbing them one by one. He felt like there was some reservoir that he was filling. And now it was coming to an edge. He wanted to know how much more he could absorb. He thought that maybe, he was charging his ability. But before he could fill it, he ran out of cores.

Opening his eyes, he saw the beast still fighting with the moles. It was using lots of different techniques to fight. It was using its fangs, claws and electrical ability to destroy the creatures. It was a sight to see. Atlas was still using his ability, so he saw how the beast was using its energy to fight. He could see its core and how it was acting when the beast produced its lightning.

"Could I possibly try to…"

Atlas closed his eyes again and started to concentrate on his reservoir he filled. He then tried to analyze the patterns of energy the beast was creating, when using its ability. And lastly, he tried to mimic the energy movement of the beast. It was definitely hard to do so, since the energy inside his body was moving easy differently. Yet Atlas was slowly changing the movement, part by part and after about 5 minutes of active concentration, he managed to replicate the energy flow of the beast. Although very crude it somewhat resembled it.

"And now, let's try using it."

Concentrating on his energy, Atlas tried to condense it into the lightning strike. Slowly, the energy started to gather up in one place. Its form started to resemble an electric charge and now, when it was fully charged, Atlas tried to emit it.

"Fire!" he said out loud.

In an instant, a very, very… small spark came out.

Now all the energy he gathered and reprogrammed was back to his normal self.

"All that for a spark" cried Atlas. He was exhausted. This took him more power and energy than any activity he did before.

He fell on his back and closed his eyes. He was insanely tired.

"I hope he won't eat me, while I rest," he thought. Even though he failed to produce an attack, he felt like he was successful in mimicking the lightning power. Who knows, maybe one day he will master it to the point of it becoming his main ability.

Atlas was lying on the ground, peacefully snoring, when he felt something hot touching his cheek. Barely opening his eyes, he saw a bright crystal sphere lying nearby. It was emitting the heat and energy he could feel. He was not using his ability, yet he felt the energy. And now he felt it, the hunger. He wanted to absorb it.

The feeling he was feeling could be compared to a very thirsty or hungry man, craving for food and drinks. Quickly grabbing the core, he started to board it and after absorbing, he felt a bit more active.

Now he could stand up. After standing up he saw the beast standing in front of him.

"Did it defeat all the stonemoles? Already?" However Atlas was not sure how much time had passed.

The creature went back to the battleground, took something there and returned. Now it was holding a horrorcore of the stonemole in its mouth. Putting it down, it rolled it towards Atlas.

"Is it for me?" Atlas said, looking at the beast. "Thank you?"

Atlas started to absorb it and when he finished, another one was already by his side. "Is this creature feeding me?"

And now, Atlas started to absorb all the cores the beast was bringing him, slowly refilling his internal reservoir with horror energy.

That was when after about 22 of those, he started to feel very hot. A burning sensation somewhere inside him. He felt like the reservoir he was feeling, suddenly started to shrink and was now ripping due to the excess of the energy. Atlas tried to hold it with all his strength. But he could not for much longer. And when he gave in, he felt like all the energy he was holding, started to burst through the internal reservoir and rapidly flowing inside every part of his body. This caused Atlas to feel an insane amount of pain. Like every cell of his body was screaming for help. As if he was pierced with millions of needles and every inch of his body was in flames.

After a few minutes the pain started to decrease and he finally felt better. Standing up, Atlas tried to remain his composure.

"What was that?" he could barely ask himself and when he tried to make a small step, he fell.

—---

Somewhere in the sky, on an unknown planet, was an island. There were two creatures alive on it. One was a ferocious beast and one was peacefully sleeping.

—---

Opening his eyes, Atlas was looking at the ground and grass.

"What?"

…