Sole Anchor

Every hair on my body stood up at the same time as I threw all caution out of the window and began running even quicker.

'I don't want to die' My eyes began to soak up tears once again as I ran at my fastest, jumping over the enormous tree roots and avoiding all the mud in the way that could have probably swallowed me whole and fossilized me for the future archeologists to find me.

'Wait… That system thing said that I was traveling through time… It said Earth was only around 4.2 billion years old… Earth is 4.5 billion years old… Did I just get sent back to the carboniferous? Wait no, it should be the Triassic. Right? GODDAMNIT! I should have revised!' I felt like all the knowledge I had gained from my geology and geography classes were failing me.

*ROAR*

*SCREECH*

*ROAR*

Countless and continuous roars rang out through the forest yet again, causing shudders to go down my very being. Yet, even after feeling so much pressure...Even after fearing for my life at every step, I swallowed down my fear and ran. Ran like hell itself was right behind me, waiting to devour me into its deepest depths and burn me for my every sin.

*ROAR*

To my dismay, even after everything I had done to run away, I watched as a maw got closer and closer to me from the corner of my eye.

The maw was humongous while the sheer power, that I for some reason could feel now, radiated from it like heat radiating off the surface of the sun.

My instincts kicked in almost immediately, causing me to do something I would have never thought I would be able to do in a million years.

In a split second that it took the maw to reach me, I spun on my heel and performed a roundhouse kick, hitting the creature in its eye.

Even though I didn't think it would have done anything, I was still surprised to see that it did not even receive a scratch.

I did not waste another second because while it might have not flinched, my kick did surprise it to the point where it did not attack me straight away after failing its first attack.

Without knowing what had come over me, I felt like millions of years of muscle memory hit me at the same time, and while I might have not had the physique to perform everything that I was about to do, it was still beyond my capabilities of anything I could have imagined a human to do.

*Swooosh*

Before I knew it, I had already pierced the giant hippo's eye with two fingers sticking straight into them without a single hint of hesitation.

*ROAR*

The hippo's roar shot through the forest and could be heard by almost all the creatures that lived in the forest within a 5-mile radius,

I chose to not waste another second a quickly jumped away from the hippo before sprinting in the other direction of where I had come from and where most of the roars had originated from.

For the next 10 minutes, I ran with my life hanging from an untethered thread.

I could not count the number of close calls I had, from the maws of large lizard-like monsters snapping their maws shut an inch away from my head, to almost landing incorrectly and falling back into the deep mud that would have killed me within minutes, if not even less than that.

'Survive!' Was the only word that rang out within my mind. I could think of nothing else as my brain worked on overdrive to find me the best way to get out of the situation without dying, let alone losing a limb or two.

As if a light bulb went off above my head, I felt like my mind had become clear and my instincts told me exactly what to do.

In the same instance, my eyes flashed with more determination than I had ever felt in my entire life.

'Survive!'

Looking around, I ignored the constant noise from behind me and looked forwards. Immediately, I could spot at least 4 different animals getting ready to ambush me, yet that was not what had caught my eye.

'SURVIVE!'

Within the split second between seeing the vine and moving, I felt as if my whole body began to move on its own again, finding the best way to survive without me having to do anything on my own

I knelt and shot through the forest at a speed I did not think was humanely possible, yet due to my adrenaline, I could not feel the pain of my muscles working to their limits as my heart rate rose to be sky-high.

'Sur-'

I halted my steps for a single second, allowing me to completely avoid the huge maw from biting my body into halves.

'-VIVE!'

My hand blurred as I moved it away due to all the hairs on that arm rising at the same time as a shiver that went down my spine.

In the same millisecond, I watched as something swooshed past me before crashing into the huge dragonfly that was right on my trail.

'I will not die!' Tears began to well up, but they quickly dried up.

Looking forwards, I could finally see the vine from up close.

Luckily, the vine didn't have any spike but even if it did, I would have been forced to use it anyway.

Jumping off one of the enormous roots that I was running on, I grabbed hold of the large vine and swung myself across a lake that I did not know the existence of.

I planned to simply swing to cover more ground, but instead, it seemed like I was fortunate enough to have a lake under me, something I doubted that any dinosaur or animal would ever choose to go through, or that was what I thought anyway.

*SCREECH*

A screech rang out from behind me, causing my skin to crawl in both fear and confusion.

Looking back, I could not help but exclaim the obvious.

"THEY CAN FLY!" I exclaimed, having, completely forgotten about their main ability of flight.

Panic finally started to set in as I slowly swung across the lake, and even though the speed was technically faster than I had been moving before, due to the lack of trees the flying oversized dragonflies and bugs had a much easier time moving, therefore allowing them to also increase their speeds.

'Please! God! God, I beg you!' I cried inwardly. To me, this was the end of my life. The life that I had preserved through the sacrifices of my family and friends. What were the chances that I would be the final human and the last human to perish? Luck... I had been saved purely due to luck, but who knows if I would have been the best choice. The system could have chosen a billion people better than me, yet now that it had chosen me, I only served to fail every human that had died to the hands of those elves.

I had nowhere to run, I had nowhere to hide...

I was powerless.

*SPLASH*

*SNAP*

As I watched my life flash before my eyes, I heard a loud snap alongside the splashing of water echoing from behind me, causing me to look back with hope and fervor lingering in my eyes for one last time.

"Oh my god..." I muttered under my breath, unable to believe my luck.

From what I could see, a large number of huge frogs had come forth from around the lake, snapping their tongues toward the insects that had been flying toward me.

At the same time, the insects were unable to run away, being instantly swallowed whole by the long maw of a crocodile, yet unlike normal crocodiles, this one ran with the same theme of being overly huge.

After a few more seconds passed, I found my feet landing on solid ground once more.

'I survived' I thought while panting.

"I SURVI-" I almost exclaimed out loud in joy, but I quickly covered my mouth and looked around, hoping that there wasn't an animal or beast nearby.

'I survived! How? I was so dead! How did I do it? Is this fate?! Is this good karma? Did I do something good in my last life for this to happen?' Tears of joy started to pour out of my eyes while low muffled sobs could be heard if one were to listen hard enough.

The forest, however, was no longer silent. Instead, it was bustling with noise.

After taking a breather, something finally hit me.

'Wait... Gaint toads? None of this makes sense. Even the centipede and those insects are way too big to be normal. This is supposed to be the Triassic, right? I know the oxygen levels in the atmosphere are high and all, but still. There is no way anything should be that big, especially toads!'

After pondering for a bit, I finally dropped the thought as I had something much more important to think about.

Right now I was stuck in the middle of nowhere and I had been given a mission.

'Survive for one week, huh... If the beasts of the forest don't kill me, dehydration, hypothermia, or malnutrition will kill me first. Plus, there might be some ancient diseases in this place that could probably kill me in less than 24 hours.' I sighed in exasperation before rubbing the bridge of my nose with a complicated glint within my eyes.

'I guess I'll just call this goal something like "Mission Impossible" hahaha' I laughed in self-mockery at the situation I had been dropped into, not knowing that this same laugh would become the sole thing I would lean on for the next few adventures as I struggled to keep my sanity in check.

But eventually, my dreaded laughter had turned into the loud and wretched wails of a boy who was now in pain... A pain that very few would have experienced. The pain of complete isolation with nothing to look forward to, and no hope in sight.

This was too much for any human to take, and it would at least time me a few days to get used to.

Despite being surrounded by greenery and different beasts, it felt like I was stranded alone in the middle of the infinite cosmos, in a ship that was slowly losing oxygen as the freezing cold of space seeped into the ship, slowly but surely killing me, making the very ship I had to put my hopes of survival on, my very grave.

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