Many kilometers towards the north, Marianne crossed a dark forest, with tall vegetation and trees so thick that the branches blocked the path.
Legends said that the forest was cursed, it was a part of the western lands that lay outside the mountains that begin in the north and continue south.
Marianne had crossed a river to get there. She felt a strange affinity with that land, she couldn't explain it, she felt more at home in that wild territory than in other, more welcoming places.
Suddenly she stopped, something was lying in the bushes ahead, whatever it was, was big, really big.
It was taller lying down than she was standing up.
Marianne trusted in her ability to run quickly to get away if necessary, she tried to feel the air around the creature, there was no exhalation, it must have been dead.
Cautiously, she approached closer. She didn't want to be surprised, so she always circled the beast at a distance. The beast was dead for sure, it didn't look injured, it should have died of old age.
Marianne approached, that creature was majestic, it had huge teeth and cutting claws. It was no wonder that no one had managed to conquer those lands, that creature commanded respect when dead, let alone alive. It must have been at least 10 meters long, the canines were as big as her forearm.
She touched the fur, it was soft, however, the deeper fur seemed to be made of steel, and that armor must have been very difficult for even the most powerful of swords to penetrate. Marianne could barely imagine the endless lands of the West beyond the mountains, full of endless forests teeming with untamed beasts.
She dropped to the ground lying next to the dead beast.
Suddenly Marianne's world exploded, she felt a searing pain in her eyes, she couldn't keep them open, it felt like the forest around her would succumb to her wail, and then everything went pitch black.
It was hard to say how much time had passed, she felt herself waking up, but the darkness had not disappeared. She was in a tight, claustrophobic space, she tried to touch around for a way out, but her hands only found cold metal at the top, bars thicker than her wrist, and the walls were nothing but bare soil. She could hear muffled voices coming from outside the hole.
"What do you think you're doing?" One of the voices said, he seemed to be a rude man.
"I'm going to release the prisoner, it's been a week, hasn't it?" Another voice said, thinner, feminine.
"No, this prisoner is different, the boss ordered her time to be longer, much longer..." It seemed her captors had no intention of releasing her soon, how much longer could she survive in there?
Marianne tried to force the bars, but her body had no strength, why her spirit had abandoned her inside that hole, she didn't understand. Could it be that it no longer found her worthy and was just waiting for her to die so it could go inhabit another body?
Marianne closed her eyes, in the middle of the darkness, there was a glimpse, a macabre being sneering at her, "...weak human, pathetic, insignificant, a piece of nothing...", then there was only silence and emptiness.
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