1: Crash landing

You know how stories often start with their main character peacefully waking up under soothing beams of sunlight? Well, that wasn't at all how is was for me. I got woken up by a burning pain throughout my entire body. I opened my eyes screaming. Not that it made any difference though, my surroundings were drenched in darkness. A panick fuelled by adrenaline pumped through my veins as I tried to dull the agonizing pain by rolling around in the wet grass. Of course that didn't help me one bit though. The fire I felt was burning inside me. Inside every fiber of my being. It came and went in waves and I just laid there gasping for air inbetween. A red haze covered my vision, causing me to see nothing but that deep red color in the night sky. And then my mind thought it's first though.

'Blood...' It thought, referring to what I was seeing. 'That's the color of blood.'

I winced as another burning wave of pain shot through my body, but slowly I began noticing how they were getting weaker each time. After a while my breath settled down and the haze I was seeing withdrew from my sight. Now the adrenaline had worn off I could finally look around and see where I was. I was surrounded by trees, unable to see anything other than countless trunks seemingly lurking in the dark. My eyes automarically widened to their fullest, attempting to get as much information about my invironment as I possibly could. And I guess it somehow helped. I saw the faint edges of a path a little further and hesitant at first, I tried to get up. I was still weak and trembling on my feet, but I managed to pull myself together after a few tries. As I stumbled forward I stretched my back, attempting to loosen up the stiffened muscles, but I was awarded with a sudden burst of pain. I cringed and hunched my shoulders, trying to avoid it.

"Agh... What the..."

I felt something hot trickle down my back and carefully brought my hands to my lower back to find out what it was. As I'd expected it was blood... I had smelled the iron scent from my fingertips and worried what other creatured might have noticed it as well... I grunted as I felt how the pain kept on surging through the spot on my back, right inbetween my shoulderblades. Right now there was nothing I could do about it. I just needed to find somewhere to spend the night and rest up... So I clenched my teeth and started walking.

As I was moving my way through the dark forest I tried to block out the pain by keeping my mind busy and started asking myself some questions.

"How did I get here?..."

I didn't have any memory before waking up in this dark forest, screaming out in agony. My mind seemed like it had been erased. Like there was something really important I should've remembered. But nothing... There was only a big gaping black hole where my memory should have been. Like a wound, infected and in need of curing. I sighed. Next question...

"Who am I?"

I did my best to look myself up and try to find out what I looked like, but as you can imagine, that didn't go so well. I did however find out I was definitly a woman and was wearing clothing made of interlinked leaves and branches. Like they were grown around me... I frowned at that thought. That frown only deepened when I realised I couldn't even answer the simple question of who I was.

What happened to me that was so bad that I forgot everything, even my own identity?

A feeling of worry started to nest inside my heart as I went on my way. Time passed slowly as every single step took all my concentration to perform.

Time passed slowly and I had walked for hours it seemed when I saw a small cavern showing its face out from the darkness. An exhausted grin formed on my face as I stumbled towards it. On all fours I crawled into the cavern that was shrouded in complete darkness, even more so than the forest around it. But I didn't care to look anyway. And that was my very first mistake. Not noticing the remnants of a devoured prey nor the lurking eyes watching me from the depths of the cave behind me...