Reeling for a while, he managed to sit up and check where he was. Looking around, he was definitely not in familiar grounds. There were massive broken trees with red wood and a swamp nearby. The water was eerily blood red in color and looking closely, he saw some kind of movements in it.  

Activating his ability before recovering from his previous backlash, he peered into the water. ‘What the…’ Before he could finish that train of thought, he was already scrambling away and just then, the ‘water’ surged forward and came rushing towards him.

Feeling a primal sense of fear, he shot up to his feet and ran away as fast as his injured body allowed him to. Ignoring a pain in his left leg, he glanced back after a few minutes and saw that the dreadful ‘water’ had already receded. ‘What the hell was that’ he panted. Slowing down, he tried to calm down and ignored his headache. He was getting used to it by now. Stopping, he checked his left leg and there were some splinters stuck into it.

‘At least it’s not broken’, Sighing he carefully took the splinters off and tore off some part of his shirt and wrapped around it around the wound. Looking around, he tried to assess his situation.

Rowan had entered an unexpected warp and ended up somewhere in the Beyond…alone, where it was almost impossible to survive… alone.

‘Great..just great’

‘Well, no point in cursing fate right now. I have to try to survive this place and find a way out…hopefully’

Trying not to focus too much on his slim chance of getting out of here, he looked around to assess his surrounding. There was the giant dead red wood trees around him but other than that, he couldn’t see much from his position.

Looking for a relatively smaller broken tree, he climbed one tortuously and stood on one of the dead branches. Having a better vantage point, he looked into the distance, and what he saw made his blood run cold.

Out there far in the distance, where it looked like it was snowing, the ground was moving in an unnatural way. ‘Definitely not natural’. Sure enough, after activating his ability, he saw the familiar patterns, like tiny dots from the distance, of a living creature albeit being way more complex. Meaning whatever that thing was, it was way above his league.

He was hoping he could avoid going to that direction but that hope was crushed. 

The other areas looked even worse. The place further down his left was full of red vines with blade-like thorns. The one on his right was covered in the same red liquid he just escaped from. And the place opposite the ground dweller was a dead end, a cliff that led down a bottomless abyss. 

‘What is up with my luck today…’

He turned his attention towards the ground dweller and looked beyond it. ‘Wait, is that..’

Squinting his eyes, he could barely make out a tiny blue spark in the horizon, flickering, as if inviting him to it. ‘Hmmm. Do I have to search that area? I mean, do I even have a choice? That’s the part that’s bothering me…’

Thinking for a while, he decided to ignore all of that and planned to recover, collect whatever supplies he could find and continue the journey when he is sufficiently prepared.

Looking down at his leg, he hoped it wouldn’t get infected and climbed down to search for anything that seemed edible. Going towards some wood splinters laying around, he picked one where it could be used as makeshift spear and headed out to search for any lifeforms he could hunt or anything that seemed edible.

After about 3 hours of searching, he stopped with a grim realization. ‘This place seems truly dead..’ Indeed, he could not find a single living creature he could hunt except for that extremely dangerous ground dweller. He couldn’t even find anything he could forage. The dead trees laying around did not even provide any edible or familiar fungi.

‘No choice. I guess I have to go towards that light…but how am I even gonna reach there without food and water?’ Judging from the distance, the journey would probably take around a week or more. That’s without taking into account any dangers he might encounter along the way.

‘Whatever. I’ll search for any normal water body along the way. Water would be a more pressing issue eventually.’ A mundane human can go on without food for weeks but not water. Moreover, his body already has some minor influence from the Beyond, so it was a bit more resilient. Hopefully.

To reach the light, he had to cross the field of white where the underground creature dwelled. Shaking his head, he checked his surrounding and his condition one last time and started walking towards the distant horizon where a flickering blue light seemed to be inviting him warmly.