Amazon Rainforest, where dangers lurk

{Amazon Rainforest, July 12th 2003}

The forest was a blur around me as I sprinted, the noise of destruction growing louder with each step.

Trees fell like dominos, their trunks splintering and crashing to the ground, mimicking the sounds of a distant earthquake. Every shadow seemed to hide another menace, another creature from some twisted nightmare.

Just as I prepared to make a sharp left turn, a monstrous creature lunged from the undergrowth.

Its gaping maw, lined with two enormous fangs dripping with venom, aimed to swallow me whole. In a split second, I teleported a few meters ahead, narrowly evading its deadly embrace.

"This is insane!" I shouted, my breath ragged as I pushed myself harder, "Monkey-dwarves, giant snakes, oversized spiders, and now crabs? Why are there crabs in a rainforest?"

My rant was interrupted by a sudden assault from above. A pile of foul-smelling shit splattered beside me, hurled by one of the mischievous drawer-like monkeys in the treetops. I dodged just in time, but the brief distraction cost me a few precious seconds.

Two massive crabs, their pincers gleaming menacingly, closed in on me. Their powerful claws were capable of slicing through the giant trees that stood in their path.

With a quick summoning gesture, I conjured two tendrils from the shadows. Each tendril was lined with barbs, their tips sharpened to deadly points a new technique I'd been creating for the past few days.

The tendrils shot forward, wrapping around the crabs' massive claws. Though their thick exoskeletons shielded them from the worst of the barbs, I had bought myself a precious moment to put some distance between us.

As I continued to run, the ground shaking beneath the crabs' pursuit, I felt a sting on my arm a shallow cut from one of the crabs' pincers.

Blood trickled down my arm, I subconsciously used my own shadow turning it into fine threads and stitching the wound shut.

I pushed on, my muscles burning with fatigue, my lungs gasping for air, after the continuous assault of never ending monsters over the past four days, without sleep, without rest.

The forest seemed endless, the monsters relentless.

Just when I thought I couldn't run any further, a deafening roar echoed through the trees.

I risked a glance over my shoulder and saw a giant snake, its scales glinting in the dappled sunlight, slithering after me with incredible speed. The snake's fangs dripped with venom, its eyes locked onto me with a predatory focus.

With a burst of adrenaline-fueled speed, I dodged between two massive trees, narrowly avoiding the snake's lunging strike. But my relief was short-lived as I stumbled into a clearing, surrounded by a horde of monkey-dwarves, their eyes gleaming with malevolent glee.

Trapped and outnumbered, I summoned all my remaining strength for one final stand. The monkey-dwarves advanced, their claws and fangs bared, their chittering laughter filling the air. Just as they closed in, ready to strike, a sudden snap echoed through the clearing.

In an instant, all the monsters froze; snakes, crabs, monkeys and spiders; their bodies trembling as if caught in a powerful force.

Then, one by one, they exploded into clouds of dark dust, dissipating into the air. The clearing fell silent, save for the soft rustle of leaves in the breeze.

A dark silhouette emerged from the shadows, a figure cloaked in an aura of black energy. Her presence was suffocating, her eyes cold and emotionless. "Hello half-brother." Her feminine, raspy voice proclaimed.

"Who are you?!" I questioned to the monster gripping my spear ready for another battle.

The being's laughter echoed throughout the woods "Hahaha, I am Akhlys half-brother it seems you were in a bit of trouble."

As soon as I heard her name, Akhlys, I couldn't help but see the similar features which was normally associated with her.

An old hag with bleeding cheeks, tear-stained eyes, overgrown fingernails, and dusty hair that seemed to absorb the light around her, it was indeed the daemon of misery Akhlys.

"Running from your fears, half-brother?" she hissed, her voice dripping with a joyful and malice filled tone, the dichotomy grasping my ears.

I tried to muster a response, but my voice laid caught in my throat. Exhausted after the lack of sleep and continuous fighting with the monsters inside this forest, I could only stare at her in fierce silence.

Akhlys stepped closer, her black aura intensifying. "What's wrong brother, frog stuck in your throat?"

I continued staring at her as she slowly kept on approaching, I felt the shadows and darkness surrounding us and with a thought I sent dozens of spear shaped tendrils at her as fast as I could.

The tendrils approached her elderly form, and just as I thought it could work a wicked smile appeared on her face. The tendrils soon stopped an inch in front of her and they started to decay.

"Wait what?" I gasped at seeing that she could decay something ethereal like shadows and darkness.

"Oh come on brother you shouldn't attack family especially when they just saved your ass." She replied hissing.

"I would have been fine." I said between gasped breaths, "Well it certainly didn't look like that." She smiled at me once more.

"Still if you wish to prove your mettle, I have another project that doesn't involve monsters." She said sinisterly, then as if the night itself had blackened a domain of darkness enclosed it in milliseconds.

I tried controlling the darkness as it surrounded me but I just felt my will slipping of the darkness as if they wouldn't respond to me something which had never happened and for the first time in a long while I felt fear gripping my very soul.

"Let's test your fears and feed on your misery."

And with those chilling words, the world around me darkened, swallowed by Akhlys' overwhelming presence.

[Greek Mythos Fact: Today's fact will be about the daemon of misery, Akhlys. Akhlys was the personified spirit, daimona, of the death-mist--the clouding of the eyes preceding death. She may also have been the goddess of deadly poisons. Akhlys was probably numbered amonst the Keres.Probably a daughter of Nyx, though nowhere stated. Achlys, according to some ancient cosmogonies, the eternal night, and the first created being which existed even before Chaos. According to Hesiod, she was the personification of misery and sadness, and as such she was represented on the shield of Heracles: pale, emaciated, and weeping, with chattering teeth, swollen knees, long nails on her fingers, bloody cheeks, and her shoulders thickly covered with dust.]

*Author Note: I started a patreon called Joanjudo Stories it will end up having 10 chapters in advance, access to the secondary fanfic (will write in spare time) and polls to decide some of the future plots/characters.*