Falling without any knowledge of what is happening, you feel the cold and static earth hit your body from all directions until losing all momentum and finally stop in front of a grove. Getting up – badly injured –, you sprint into despair as a dread-inducing growl echoes behind your ears.

  Tree branches hit your face and torso, almost as if trying to prevent your escape whilst the darkness from the moonless night blinds your sight beyond an arms’ length, however, the warm orange light – from what could be a lamp – at only a dozen metres ahead ignites your hopes for a fleeting second, one which is soon followed by deception in the form of an apathic and “unfeeling” barrage of bullets that shred your flesh as quickly as it leaves your body to drop dead on the ground.

  Almost immediately after, you begin drowning helplessly in your own blood, agonising until a furious bark peeks your fight or flee instincts and somehow, you are back on your feet, running again.

  Immediately another peculiarity expresses itself: The dark grove beyond you now presents a clearing touched by a campfire’s light, which is encircled by a small group of mercenaries having a pleasant time.

  No longer in control of your own body, you take a few steps forward – in an attempt to better hear their conversation – but, before your shape can even be touched by the light, a dreadful scream coming from the south prompts you to look at that way for a second. It is true that, before, the groves were dark as dark could be, but now… What “exists” behind you is not a thing, rather is an absolute void which goes beyond not having its own light to actually dimming the one that comes from the campfire.

  With your heart racing and a sudden feeling of vertigo striking your internal ears, you look back at the groups direct in search of comfort but instead, are met with an even more nightmarish view: All of the three humanoid figures are covered in a mix of dried blood and dirt, with some limbs either completely mutilated or simply gone, all staring at you with soulless eyes:

-        Are you lost, chéri? Hehe.

-        … But aren’t you supposed to be the world’s biggest hunter? How someone with such a title could get lost in the groves so easily?!

  Those scornful words echo from the female one as the other two laugh despicably, causing an unnerving, gelid fear to climb your spine. The taller man then adds, irritating something strange – yet, quite familiar – within you:

-        You aren’t “The Greatest Hunter”, lad… You are just a bloody amateur!

-        Heheheheee… Ain’t no need to feel offended, pal… Soon you will join our little gang OF FAILURES! AHAHAHAHA.

  It is with that wicked snarl-mixed laughter that the last member of the trio speaks, soon pointing at you… Or better yet, at something behind you, causing the other two to join into a chorus of psychotic laughter:

-        AHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA!

  Somehow, your hands are now up at chest level, with their blood-covered palms facing up and holding broken arrows. Your instinctive reaction is to just shake them disgusted, dropping the arrows on the ground but, by doing so, tree roots violently emerge from that same spot and impale your legs in a second, then they tangle themselves around your bones in such an agonising manner that – for a second – your consciousness seems to fail.

  You scream from the top of your lungs towards the sky, but regardless of how much strain goes through your vocal cords, the agonising pain does not stop. Yet, your attention is abruptly taken by the sound of a horse trotting your way…

  For indeed, you are no longer at the campsite with those spectres, now you are in the middle of a dirt road – still impaled by the roots – with a literal night-mare speeding towards your from about twenty metres down the road.

  Despair forces you to run away but that only results in the roots digging deeper into your flesh, gushing your blood everywhere whilst that sense of vertigo returns. You are about to drop sick on the ground but as the roads nears your face, so does the mare’s hooves, running over your even earlier than expected.