There was no room on the other side. No walls, no floor, no ceiling. Just an endless expanse of sky, so vast it made her head spin. For a split second, Saya hesitated, staring into the void. Then, with a resigned sigh, she stepped through.
For a brief, disorienting moment, there was nothing. No ground beneath her feet, no air in her lungs, just a sensation of falling, of being sucked into a void. The sensation of falling hit her like a slap in the face. One moment, she was standing on solid ground; the next, she was plummeting through the air with nothing but wind rushing past her ears. Saya’s scream tore from her throat, wild and terrified, the kind of scream that should only belong in nightmares. The trees below her, the door behind her—everything was gone, replaced by the sickening drop of empty space.
The air screamed past her ears as the ground below rushed up with alarming speed. Apparently, running blindly into mystical doorways was what she did now.
“Great plan, Saya,” she muttered, or at least she tried to. The wind swallowed her words, leaving her with only the sound of her own panicked heartbeat for company. “Absolutely brilliant.”
The ground was coming up fast. Too fast. Saya squeezed her eyes shut, as if the simple act of not looking would somehow change the laws of gravity. She could practically feel the hard, unforgiving earth waiting to turn her into a pancake. And she was not ready to be a pancake. Not today, not ever.
I’m going to die, she thought. And not even in some heroic way, just... splat. A stupid, pointless splat.
She could almost hear the universe laughing at her.
I’m going to die, she thought. And not even in some heroic way, just... splat. A stupid, pointless splat.
She could almost hear the universe laughing at her.
The ground was approaching fast. This was it. This was how she was going to die. Squashed like a bug on a windshield. Her mind was a whirlwind of fear and confusion.
In a last-ditch effort to not die a splatty death, Saya clenched her fists, held her breath, and wished with every ounce of her being that she would survive. She wasn’t even sure who she was wishing to—fate, luck, or maybe the universe itself—but she put everything she had into that desperate plea.
She didn’t want to die. Not like this, not now. There was so much she hadn’t done, so much she hadn’t figured out. She didn’t even know why she’d been running in the first place. She couldn’t just end like this, in a freefall.
Saya clenched her fists, the fear twisting into something else. Something stronger. She wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet. Not like this.
She didn’t know what happened next, not exactly. It was as if something inside her snapped, or maybe clicked into place, and suddenly she wasn’t just falling anymore. The wind, which had been clawing at her, suddenly pushed back, as if she had hit an invisible cushion. There was a strange pressure beneath her, like the air itself was pushing back against her fall.
The sensation was strange—like being caught by a giant, unseen hand—and it slowed her descent until she was hovering just above the ground. Saya opened one eye, then the other, her heart still hammering in her chest.She was alive. Somehow, against all odds, she was not a pancake.
Saya hovered there for a moment, suspended just a few feet above the ground. She had no idea how she was doing this. It felt like she was balancing on a tightrope made of air, and she had the distinct impression that if she lost focus, she’d plummet the rest of the way down.
Slowly, tentatively, she let out the breath she’d been holding. The air cushion beneath her seemed to respond, gently lowering her the last few feet until her feet touched solid ground. Her legs immediately gave out, and she collapsed onto her knees, her whole body trembling with the aftershocks of adrenaline.
For a moment, she just sat there, breathing heavily, trying to process what had just happened. Her mind was racing, a chaotic mess of thoughts and emotions. She had been falling, and now she wasn’t. She had wished to survive, and something—somehow—had answered that wish.
Saya lifted her head, finally taking in her surroundings. And immediately wished she hadn’t.
She wasn’t in the forest anymore. In fact, she wasn’t even anywhere close to it. Instead, she was sitting on the edge of a ravine, its jagged cliffs stretching out on either side of her like the gaping maw of some ancient beast. The air was dry and still, and the landscape around her was barren, devoid of the life and greenery she had been running through just moments before.
A shaky laugh bubbled up in her throat, and she clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle it. It wasn’t exactly appropriate to be giggling like a madwoman after narrowly escaping certain death, but then, nothing about her situation was particularly appropriate.
The forest was gone, replaced by this new, unfamiliar landscape.
But that relief was quickly replaced by confusion. Where was she? How had she ended up here? And, more importantly, what in the world had just happened?
“What… what is this place?” Saya whispered to herself, her voice sounding small and hollow in the vast emptiness.
Saya stared at the canyon, which looked like Mother Nature had thrown a tantrum with a box of crayons. The rocks were a patchwork quilt of mud-brown, ketchup-red, and mustard-yellow, the kind of colors you’d get if someone mixed up an artist’s palette with a picnic lunch. The air smelled like the back of a dusty old cupboard, with a hint of what could only be described as “eau de forgotten sandwich.”
A lazy breeze fluffed up small dust devils that pranced around like they were auditioning for a role in a bad circus act. Every now and then, a rock tumbled down with a dramatic clatter, as if the canyon was trying to get her attention: “Look at me! I’m not just a big hole in the ground; I’m also a terrible comedian!”
The canyon stretched out before her, a desolate expanse of rock and dust. There was no sign of the forest, no sign of the portal, and certainly no sign of anything that made any sense whatsoever. It was like she had been dropped into an entirely different world.
Which, she supposed, she had.
Saya slowly pushed herself to her feet, her legs still shaky. Her mind was a whirlwind of confusion, fear, and—somewhere buried beneath all that—relief. She wasn’t in the forest anymore. She wasn’t being chased by… whatever it was that had been after her. She was alive, and that was something.
But now what?
She had no idea where she was, no idea how she had gotten here, and no idea what to do next. The canyon stretched out before her like a vast, empty canvas, and she had no map, no guide, and no plan.
She ran a hand through her hair, wincing as her fingers caught on tangles. There were no immediate answers to any of her questions, which was frustrating, but not exactly surprising.
“Well, that’s just fantastic,” she muttered to herself, glancing around at her new surroundings. “No idea where I am, no idea how I got here, and no idea what to do next.”
Of course, those stories also usually involved some kind of quest, and Saya was definitely not in the mood for a quest. What she needed was a place to rest, a chance to catch her breath and figure out what on earth was going on.
Her eyes were drawn to the canyon's top. It seemed as good a place as any to start. If she was lucky, maybe she’d see someone from the top who could give her some answers. And if she wasn’t lucky—well, she’d deal with that when she got there.
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