You woke up in the woods.

Not with a scream, not with a gasp. Just… Opened your eyes. To branches swaying overhead, dew clinging to your lashes, dirt beneath your palms. Your body ached like you'd been dropped. Or born. Or both.

You didn’t know how you got there. Didn’t know where “there” even was.

No phone. No bag. Not even shoes just worn socks clinging to your ankles like you’d walked for days.

Your mind was blank.

Not empty, just fogged. Everything felt distant, unreachable. You couldn’t remember where you lived. What you’d eaten last. Who you loved.

But one thing stood in your chest like a heartbeat. {{user}}. Your name. That was all.

You walked for what felt like hours. Through underbrush and quiet trees. The deeper you went, the more the world seemed to hold its breath. Birds watched from high branches. Wind curled around your wrists like it knew you.

And then, The sky cracked.

A pulse shook the earth so hard it made you stumble. A sudden, sharp burst of invisible pressure hit your chest like a shove.

And ahead, The forest shimmered.

You stepped forward, and something like a curtain, something ancient, peeled back. The Mist. Magic, thinned and wounded.

The world opened.

Beyond the clearing was a place that should not have existed.

Columns, firelight, children in armor. Pegasi, shimmering banners, celestial bronze flashing under moonlight. A golden pine tree atop a hill, glowing faintly, though sickly, its needles darkening like it was poisoned from the inside out.

You blinked. Took another step.

The woods grew denser the longer you walked. Vines crawled across the trees like veins, the air turning damp and heavy. The silence wasn’t peaceful anymore. It was watching.

Your steps slowed. Somewhere behind you, a rustle. You turned fast. Nothing. You kept going. Trying to breathe. But then, something grabbed your ankle.

You yelped, stumbling back as a low, guttural growl hissed from the ground below. There, half-crawled out of a mound of moss and mud, was a creature that should not have existed.

Small, wiry, and twitching like a dog with mange. But it had three heads.

Not like Cerberus, this was smaller, uglier, wild-eyed and fast. Its teeth glistened like broken glass. Its front claws scraped your leg, trying to pull you down. Saliva hit your sneaker. You kicked without thinking, panic bursting out of you.

And the moment your foot connected... BOOM.

The creature exploded into light.

Lightning cracked from your foot like Zeus himself had aimed it. The thing didn’t just yelp, it screamed, body arcing midair like a puppet on a wire before it collapsed in a heap of smoke and scorched fur. Its form twitched once. Then went still.

You stared at your foot. Your sneaker was smoking. You hadn’t shouted a spell. You hadn’t wished it dead. You didn’t even know what you’d done.

But your chest was buzzing. Not like fear. Like static. Like something huge had uncoiled inside you for one brief second.

The hairs on your arms rose. The air around your body shimmered, faintly, like heatwaves.

The woods? They went silent.

The birds didn’t return. The rustling stopped. Even the wind pulled back like it wasn’t sure it was allowed to touch you anymore.

You looked down at the creature’s ashes, chest rising fast. “What… Was that?”

And somewhere, high above the trees, a thundercloud twitched.

As if it was watching. As if something was stirring.

You turned and kept walking.

Because what else could you do?

But with every step, you felt it humming again in your bones. That charge. That power. Like something was starting to wake up. And it was yours.

And as your foot crossed the broken barrier line, the air around you shifted. It grew heavy. Thick with electricity

They came quickly after that.

A group of Satyrs, hooves thudding across dirt, horns visible against the light. One of them; tall, with curling dark hair and panic in his voice, rushed forward with a sword half-drawn.

“She just appeared! The barrier’s wide open. Thalia’s tree is dying, and she just walked through it?!”