? RIFT ?

ACT 1: Seedlings, Chapter 1: Awoken Anew

It took a lot of attempts, but the woman was finally able to stumble onto her feet. She felt somewhat embarrassed, feeling like a fawn standing on its wobbling limbs for the first time. After a bit of aimless fumbling in the dark, she came into contact with a hard, ice cold surface... a wall? After a moment of running her hand along the surface, she was able to conclude that it was in fact a wall. Possibly stone?

It seems like it wasn't much of a void after all.

The woman, amidst the aching pain, felt a small wave of relief wash over her. She was glad to could confirm that she wasn't lost in an endless darkness after all... but that begs the question; where WAS she? Keeping her hand on the wall, she started to walk. Could she be in a tunnel of some sort?

Her eyes had somewhat adjusted to the darkness, so she squinted to view her surroundings, she still couldn't see very well but it was better than before. She just registered that her head was ringing and her heart pounded in her ears. After a moment of contemplation, the woman decided once again to follow her instincts, and called out into the dark.

"He..llo..?"

Nothing but an faint echo.

The woman cringed at her own voice... it was hoarse and rough, like she hadn't spoken in years. Now just realizing the scratchiness of her throat, she let out a series of coughs and wheezes that lasted for about a minute as she clung to the wall for support. After this, she continued her trek down the tunnel.

That was she heard it once more in the distance, the rumbling noise. Her breath hitched. What was it? She could only pray it wasn't anything that was coming towards her direction, maybe just some debris falling? But what if it was a tunnel collapse? Her breathing picked up a bit at the thought.

The woman had been walking along the tunnel for roughly a couple minutes, mostly just stopping to rest. But she got better at stabilizing herself and walking. But suddenly, she noticed something in the distance... a speck of light? That small speck was slowly getting bigger and bigger. It illuminated her surroundings and she confirmed she was in fact in a tunnel. But her heart dropped the moment she realized what the light really was.

A large bumbling beast charging toward her, and the light wasn't getting bigger... it was getting closer. The woman immediately turned on her heel and ran as fast as she could, trying her hardest not to stumble as the stones beneath her stabbed into her bare feet. Her lungs already began to ache and beg for rest, but she pushed on. She knew what was coming and needed to get out of the way...

The possibility of her escape being futile crossed her mind and she almost slowed down, but that determined feeling flowed through her like a second wind as she sprinted down the tunnel. One thought that entered her mind was the possibility of stepping to the side of the tunnel, but with one look back she could see that the beast was much too large to evade that way.

All the woman knew was to keep going, she had to.

After what felt like an agonizingly long time running, she saw something at the other end of the tunnel... another light! The thought of it being another beast crossed here mind, but the rumbling only came from behind her and the light ahead of her only grew as she ran towards it.

She could only hope it was an exit. She wondered for a moment how she had not noticed it before, had she not turned that way? She cursed herself for her own lack of awareness but pushed the thought away for now.

With newfound hope combined with the instinct of survival, the woman ran faster than she thought she could to the opening as she felt the beast closing in behind her. The rumbling filling her ears alongside the pounding of her heart. Not used to the amount of brightness that she was approaching, she had to squint as she kept running and entering the unknown.

In a few steps, she suddenly felt completely weightless once more. Almost as if she was floating... 

Then she began to fall.

The woman's eyes opened to reveal that she was in fact falling, she turned her body just in time to see that the path had taken a sharp left around the mountain she exited and the beast she had miraculously outrun was... a giant beetle? It also had a collection of some sort of carriage-boxes on wheels behind it. She was curious, but a particularly large insect was the least of her worries considering she was plummeting to her doom.

In an instant, she felt herself land on and tumble down the steep hill below her and pain coursing through her already sore body as she grunted in pain. But it continued to get worse as she hit several branches, rocks, and other obstacles in the area until she finally tumbled into a creek. The cold water was borderline heavenly even if there was only about a foot of it.

But she was surprised that she wasn't dead yet, and taking a moment to let the cool water soak into her limbs and flex them, she hadn't broken any bones either! Everything just REALLY hurt, but she had a feeling she's been through worse than falling into cold water. At least it washed of the dirt off when she ran a hand through her hair and across her skin.. that being said, the cold was starting to get to her so she had to move on soon.

The woman gripped onto a nearby large rock that she was grateful that she had missed by a few inches as a crutch to help her stand, this also made her take another glance at herself. The dried gold stuff was mostly gone, but it made her wonder why she had no blood on her though. But despite the fall, it was easier than trying to get up before. She waded out of the creek onto one side and held onto a tree that had a LOT of moss on it to help her stay standing like the rock.

Actually, a lot of the trees have a lot of moss, so does the ground. The whole terrain was quite strange if she was honest; moss and foliage at every turn, large trees with leaves that grew far above her head and casted a yellow-green hue over the landscape.

The woman leaned her back against the tree, taking some time to assess the situation; She woke up in a cold, dark tunnel and managed to outrun some sort of beetle... thing, only to fall off of a small sort-of cliff into ice cold water, and now she's in a random forest in the middle of nowhere.

She took a deep breath, this was going to be a lot to process.

But from what she could tell, there was a good chance that the hard part is over! So she took a calm step forward... and  was immediately swept up into a net.

'The hard part is over' I thought, 'let's just keep on going it'll all be fine' I thought. The woman internally mocked her previous thinking. So now she was in a trap in the middle of the forest, alone. "Gh- help! Someone... get me o..out of here!" The woman felt pitiful calling for help with her faint and hoarse voice as she coughed in the middle of her sentence, but she had no other options. She just hoped it wouldn't attract any wild animals that the trap was most likely meant for.

But ripping the woman from her thoughts, the rose bush not to far away began to rustle...