A place known to many as the “Heart of the World” was a holy garden of sorts. Aberrations of nature stem from every corner of the universe, but none so significant as what was produced from a single tree planted in the center of it all.

It was a heavily guarded area, filled with beasts beyond the realm of normal human comprehension. Twisted monoliths rose from what can only be assumed to once have been mountains piercing above the heavens, forming intangible shapes of stone and metal that could drive a man into insanity.

But, if one was to brave these dangers and make it to the center, they may obtain a reward from the tree. 

This was a tale passed down through generations and generations, gradually becoming more and more far-fetched until there were hundreds of interpretations of the story floating around, making it impossible to determine which was the original. Ever since then, the Heart of the World was never seen again and vanished from all records.

 

“That being said, I find it hard to believe it just disappeared,” muttered Seni.

Logically, a place of that size would have never been lost, if the stories were true. It was impossible for such a large area to simply disappear without anyone noticing. And considering that the Immortals (known as the Children of the Tree in the south) were still popping up around the globe, it must still be fully intact and functioning.

He swept his waist-length brown hair over his shoulder and pumped on a bellow, lighting up the stove. But before he could pour a modest amount of cooking oil onto the pan, a couple of frantic knocks landed on his front door.

Instead of answering, he stood and waited as the gears in his brain began to turn. It wasn’t until they knocked again that he jumped to his feet and flung the door open.

“I was hoping that you’d leave me alone this time,” he sighed upon coming face-to-face with a middle-aged man that towered over him. "What now? Asking for more herbs? You know that I shipped out the last harvest a couple of days ago. I think it's time you learned to wait."

The other man had a trimmed beard and a hairline that was not yet receding all the way. He was also quite muscular for someone in their 40’s, but that was only to be expected from a member of a hardworking farming village. His skin was olive-colored and his face was wrinkled from a combination of his age and his long days toiling under the sun. Compared to the youthful, milky-white skinned Seni, he looked incredibly out of place.

“Seni, my man! I need your help to go on this expedition -” Chief Min began to say, then was cut off when Seni held up his small hand.

“Stop right there. I heard you say a forbidden word and you know I don’t like to be away from home without a good reason.”

“When I say expedition, I mean that I’m going to go check on something in the forest and I need a bodyguard to keep me from getting eaten.”

Seni stared for a bit, then narrowed his eyes and glared at Min as if he were a lunatic. “I’m sorry, what? There hasn’t been a monster sighted in the forest for at least a century before I was born. The last time I went on a hunting trip with you, the deadliest thing we killed was a small boar.”

Min snorted and glanced backward at his village half a kilometer away from Seni’s hilltop cottage. “Apparently not. Three guys disappeared on a hunting trip two days ago.”

“I find it more likely they just left the village. Or committed mass suicide.”

“Frankly, I disagree. They had a healthy relationship with their families as far as I know.”

“As far as you know? Uh, okay. Well, could you have come later? In the afternoon? I was just about to cook for lunchtime.”

“That’s also why I’m here.”

When Min stepped inside the cottage, it became quite clear that it wasn’t him that was tall, but it was Seni who was short. The ceiling was ever-so-slightly too low to avoid the feeling of claustrophobia for normal-sized people, and the small chairs caused Min to hear his aged knees pop when he sat down. He could’ve sworn he heard the wood crack and splinter when he leaned his full body weight against it.

“Y’know, if you can’t get a wife, you could just learn to cook by yourself,” Seni complained.

“I tried. Turns out I’m not that great of a chef.”

“I ought to start charging you for coming to my house and eating all my food.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“W-well, I know you like meat, but the only thing we ever eat when you come around is vegetables...or something like that.”

“Oh, I don’t care that you can’t eat meat. Your cooking’s the best I’ve ever tasted. I’m surprised you never set up a restaurant in the city and cooked for a living.”

Seni turned back towards the stove and didn’t utter a word until he finished. 

They discussed business over soup and bean sprouts. 

Min found the portions to be quite small. As talented as Seni was at cooking, he never seemed to make any larger servings.

 

It wasn’t long before the duo took a good, long look at the forest and pinpointed their destination. A set of trees grew taller than all the others, rising high above the canopy like a beacon. With an entire settlement living near the forest for generations, it was hard to believe that nobody ever noticed it.

“I’ll be damned if that isn’t the most suspicious thing I’ve seen in my life,” Min commented.

Seni turned and looked at him. “How did you not notice that before?”

“Well, it wasn’t there the last time I checked. Or I just didn’t notice it. I blame it on perspective.”

They followed the hunting trail, with Seni scampering up a tall tree every once in a while to confirm they were still traveling in the right direction. After the 6th or 7th time, he dropped down and led them off the trail to travel in a straight path.

Min took a step and suddenly heard a sickening, wet crunch beneath his foot. It startled both of the men as they jumped and shot their eyes towards the source of the sound.

A dead body was lying face-down in the tall grass that reached their knees. They wouldn’t have noticed it if it weren’t for the incessant buzzing of flies and the rancid stench. The fact that Min had just so happened to leave a dirt-covered, foot-sized imprint did wonders for their perception of cadavers on the floor as well.

He slowly lifted his boot, which was now caked with blood that slowly dripped off the heel.

Seni stepped back and motioned for Min to approach.

“What?” said Min.

“Go on. Do it. Turn him over so we can get a good look,” Seni ordered.

“Why me? You do it.”

“Hell no. You’re the village chief. You’d recognize him.”

“And? Couldn’t you turn him over and then I look at his face which may or may not be ripped off?”

Seni stretched out his hands under Min's face. “Look, I’m the delicate flower here. You’re the...less delicate flower. Let’s compare the number of calluses we have on our hands - oh wait, I have none. You have dirt under your fingernails, and I keep mine clean. See the difference now?”

“As your village chief, I order you to-”

The sound of a tongue click interrupted Min. “I don’t even live in your village.”

“You visit the marketplace so much that you might as well.”

“Uh, no. Last time I checked, the border hasn’t changed.”

“You live, like, fifty meters away from the border.”

“I’m still in Huan City territory.”

Min scowled and knelt next to the body. “You’re insufferable. It’s been twenty years since the last time I was staring at mutilated dead guys.”

“Wait, mutilated?”

Quickly, Min withdrew his hand as they both backed off and inspected the dead man’s state. His shirt was torn and terrible bruises were inflicted upon his back. There was no evidence of any claw marks - just a terrible bludgeoning that crushed his bones like matchsticks and burst his internal organs like paper balloons. Part of his leg was torn off and had blackened, and his limbs were bent at all the wrong angles.

“For a moment I thought this guy had three elbows,” Seni commented. “I vote we go back right now -”

An awkward silence filled the air, and Min waited for Seni’s response before becoming agitated and curious.

Min tilted his head up from his crouched position. “What?”

Seni was staring at something behind him and Min slowly turned his head to look.

“I swear to god if this is a prank - holy shit." He muttered that last bit in a forced whisper.

Instinctively, Min dropped down to his belly in the grass, carefully positioning himself far away from the corpse (which was probably infested with maggots and parasites at this point), and pushed the dumbfounded Seni down with him. A set of enormous bipedal legs stomped their way past. They couldn’t catch a single glimpse of the rest of the creature, which was obscured by leaves and greenery.

The set of legs was stocky and seemed to end in stumps for feet. What was most unique was its hide, which resembled tree bark and blended in with the surroundings. Min slowly tried to angle his head to hopefully catch a glimpse of its upper body.

It didn’t stay for long. With a set of long legs like that, it carried itself quite quickly thanks to its enormous strides. 

As foolish as it may have been, they broke into a sprint the moment it was out of sight, hoping and praying that the sound of their heavy footsteps wouldn’t attract the beast.

Although they were supposed to be heading back towards the hunting trail, they found themselves even deeper in the forest when Seni nervously climbed a tree to check their position, quaking with fear of the monster that had just passed by.

They were only a few dozen meters away from a clearing surrounded by the abnormally large trees they had spotted earlier. The trees suspiciously formed a circular pattern around the large patch of grass.

The wind blew freely in this area, and the tall grasses and flowers gently swayed. Other than the faint rustling of leaves, there was an eerie silence that was devoid of life. Unlike the rest of the forest, the birds had stopped singing at some point.

“We’ve been had!” Seni lamented. “I’ve heard of this in tales of old. Guys wander into an enchanted forest that causes them to lose their sense of direction and they never find their way out again!”

“If that were true, then we would’ve had people disappearing a lot earlier than a few days ago,” Min skeptically replied. “I’d say this is more of a misfired curse. What possible benefit would maliciously targeting a random forest near an unremarkable village full of idiots - where you going?”

Before any of them even noticed, Seni found himself in the center of the field holding a black, wrinkly stone in his hand, staring at it intensely. It was as if all they had to do was blink, and he had suddenly vanished and reappeared in a different position. 

Both of them were stunned, gaping, and unmoving as if they were frozen in time.

Min filled his lungs and slowly let go of his breath before shouting, “You idiot! Why in the world did you think it was a good idea to touch it!? This is how we die!”

It was as if Seni didn’t even notice it in his palm before he turned around and looked at his hand. “Damn, it’s even worse! I unwittingly picked it up, like I was hypnotized! That’s an even bigger red flag that we’re in some enchanted territory!”

“Oh, so you couldn’t tell by this clearing, which forms a perfect circle in the middle of the forest, and all the trees that surround this field being extremely tall?”

“Well, at least it doesn’t form a pentagram. Guess we’re at our destination now. Should we scan the area for the bodies of the three guys?”

“No, I’m pretty sure they all got killed by that tree thing we saw back there. Why haven't you dropped that stone yet? It's obviously cursed or something.”

“Hey, I think something’s happening to this rock.”

Min ignored his companion. “If there were any bodies, we would have noticed already. It’s an open field.”

“...Uh, Min? Can I get a little help?”

“What is it?”

Seni held up his hand, where the black stone was squirming and seeming to be burrowing into his skin. “I think I might die here today.”

“Oh no. No, no, no, no-no-no-no! Prophecies have said that if you die in the first chapter, there’s a 95% chance the entire story becomes one of those Korean webcomics where you travel back in time and get wrapped up in a convoluted revenge-drama plot, utilizing your knowledge of the future to enact your vengeance on those who wronged you in the past until the series abruptly ends due to the original creator going into indefinite hiatus!”

Min rushed over and tried to pry the rapidly melting stone from Seni’s open palm, but his fingers just sank into the goop and slid right through as if he were swiping at air. 

Oddly enough, Seni was calm and felt no pain throughout the process, yet also incapable of tearing his eyes away from the horrifying sight of a black liquid seeping through his pores and beneath his skin.

He hardly flinched or reacted in sudden movements, but was heavily sweating and out of breath. Perspiration ran down his forehead and stained his loose-hanging tunic. His heart was pounding with fear and confusion.

His eyes clouded over and rolled back as his body went limp, with Min clutching to his hand and screaming out his name. 

The sound of the yelling gradually grew more distant as Seni began to close his eyes.

 

It was during that time Seni found himself awake somewhere else. He knew he was still in that accursed field with Chief Min looking over him, but he was also here at the same time. How a person could be in two places at once, he had no idea.

An odd place shrouded with thick mist made up the entirety of what he could see, wreathing his body in the chilly air. The floor was a pure, bright white. His footsteps made ripples on the unstable surface, and he suddenly noticed that he had no shoes on. No, not just his shoes...

“Wait, where are my clothes? Why am I naked?” he asked, directing the question towards nobody in particular.

It wasn’t meant to be answered, but someone did so anyway.

He suddenly came face to face with a clone of himself after wandering for a few more seconds.

Except this version of him was different. This Seni had his hair bundled up into a fashionable braid and had a silver hair clip with an emerald set in it, which conveniently matched his green eyes. He donned a tight dress that outlined the curves on his hips, and the hem of the dress was split apart into the left and right sides to reveal his shapely thighs.

“W-well, I think we’re in our subconsciousness,” Fashionable Seni replied shyly with a flushed face, averting his gaze to not look at Seni’s bare body.

“Oh, lords above. Don’t do this to me,” Seni groaned. “When are you gonna change out of that hooker looking-ass outfit?”

Fashionable Seni flinched. “I-I’m very sorry. Marquis Xue likes it when I wear this.” 

“Man, that hair looks good on you, though. Or me. Yeah, it looks good on you, me. I wish I knew how to tie a braid.”

“Sorry. T-the servants do my ha-hair for me.”

“I know, I know. Hm, maybe Min knows how to do it?”

Suddenly, a hand reached out from within the mist and clapped Fashionable Seni’s shoulder, then shoved him to the side for another Seni to appear.

This time, Seni was wearing a set of formal green robes nearly torn to shreds and wielded a rusty, chipped sword with a fancy hilt that had a white gem embedded into it sheathed in a scabbard that was equally damaged. He had his long hair tied back into a ponytail, sporting a rougher look about him. 

It didn’t fit very well since he still had his soft, feminine, youthful features that the other two Senis shared.

“...Looks like your dick is as small as ever,” Warrior Seni commented.

“Hmph. And you call yourself a warrior. You look more like a wannabe soldier who got caught in a black powder explosion. At least Fashionable Seni fits the title,” Seni shot back. “Your battle scars? Show me.”

“This is why I don’t argue with idiots. You’re literally me. You should know how your own body works, you brainless hoe,” Warrior Seni sighed.

Seni scowled. “Was that a joke about how I grow herbs for a living now, or something worse? And can you give me your robes? I’m in the nude out here, and the air’s cold, in case you couldn’t tell.”

“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure you’re ‘in the nude’ every night whenever that Min guy shows up. You do know he’s, like, forty years old, right? And he’s a human?”

“Oh, alright. I can’t have friends now? Guess that says a lot about your loneliness. Wandering warrior, my ass. More like forever alone.”

“And you’re forever a hoe.”

“Again with the same insult, huh?”

“It’s not an insult, it’s a fact.”

“You couldn’t tell fact from fiction even if it were staring you in the face.”

“Can’t blame them. Everyone loves staring at my face.”

“My face?”

“No, my face. Your next line is, ‘We’re literally the same person.’”

“We’re literally the same person - keuk! Impossible!”

“Face it. I was always better than you are now, and you know it.”

“Just ‘cause I’m more mature now doesn’t mean that I’m worse than me in my heyday. Besides, you’re absolute garbage at swordsmanship.”

“It’s better than not trying to improve at all.”

“Hmph. You were always a third rate duelist, with a fourth rate-”

Just as Warrior Seni was drawing breath, about to spit out another insult, a loud crack boomed overhead.

The other versions of Seni flickered and disappeared into the fog. He stood stock-still and silent, waiting for someone else to show up. He was once again met with silence and started to wonder if another version of him was preparing for a grand reveal. 

Wait a minute, he thought to himself. Isn’t this, like, super bad? Am I trapped in my mind? Was it because of that creepy rock? No, it was definitely that creepy rock.

 

Min pressed his forehead against Seni’s to check for a fever, which was still slick with sweat despite his peaceful expression. His closed eyes would shift and flutter every minute or so.

He heard a couple of heavy thuds land behind him, and he didn’t even need to turn around to know what it was.

“Oh, Seni. Please wake up right now,” he whimpered, slowly twisting his head to stare at a set of enormous shifting tree trunks behind him.

It was the most disgusting tree he ever witnessed in his life. Some may have had fungi and moss growing on their bark, or ants crawling all over it, but this was a different kind of revolting.

He lifted Seni into his arms and slowly backed away.

The thing looked like a heavily bastardized version of a normal person. While the legs were the largest part of its body, its torso was incredibly small, and two slender limbs that ended in stubs replaced where the arms were supposed to be. A mass of thick branches that grew out in all directions replaced its head, wriggling like tentacles. Pustules and odd-looking blobs grew all over it, with a thick, yellow, saplike liquid constantly leaking from where its flailing neck-branches originated.

I really should have been suspicious when we found ourselves in an empty, arena-shaped field, Min lamented in his mind.

It was clear that no ordinary human was capable of fighting it. 

Alright, I’ll carry Seni and run into the forest, where it’ll be blocked by too many trees to catch up with us.

The monstrous tree suddenly crouched down on all fours and began crawling at a great speed towards them, spraying its sap everywhere as its body rocked back and forth. The ground shook when it dug its stumps into the dirt, and its lumps of strange substances swayed erratically with each wide movement.

Min could feel his aged muscles and joints screaming in protest when he began to pump his legs as hard as he could back into the depths of the forest, not knowing where to go other than to get as far away from this madness as possible. His arms were already sore from holding Seni in a princess carry. When he looked back and noticed that the creature was gaining on them, he slung Seni over his shoulder like a sack of vegetables and redoubled his efforts. His ragged breath was clogged in his throat, with his heart slamming so hard that he could feel spikes of pain stabbing at his chest like hot knives.

He had been mindlessly sprinting for a while before he suddenly noticed that the field of grass was suddenly a lot larger than it originally was. It certainly appeared the same, but no matter how long he ran, he seemed to be moving at a snail’s pace. After peeking over his shoulder, noticing that the monster closed a bit more distance, and once again desperately trying to reach the safety of the forest, the incessant rough handling of Seni roused him awake.

Seni felt his head slam against Min’s back and a large calloused hand squeezing his posterior the moment he woke up.

“Oi, perv. I know it’s tempting when I’ve got these hips, and I’ll have you know I just woke up after witnessing things that mankind was never meant to come into contact with, but - wait, what’s going on?” he said. 

Min released a sigh of relief while simultaneously panting and sweating. “Alright, I’m about to throw you off in the next 5 seconds if you don’t find us a solution for this.”

Seni blinked his eyes and took a good look around before immediately hurling the contents of his stomach onto the ground after getting a full view of the monster chasing them.

“Oh, that’s something that shouldn’t even exist. Like mosquitos. Or roaches,” he groaned. “I don’t know who made it, but they need to suffer capital punishment for their crimes - HOLY SHIT GO FASTER! IT’S GETTING CLOSER!” 

“What do you expect me to do!? I’m old! It’s a miracle I can still run this fast!”

“Damn, we’ve been running circles around this clearing the entire time! It’s like it doesn’t want us to leave! We need to kill it.”

“Okay, who’s saying that?” Min demanded between his heavy, labored breaths. “I know it sure isn’t you, Seni, ‘cause your voice sounds like a young woman’s. Who’s the one with the deep voice?”

Seni squirmed out of his grasp. 

“Hey, are you insane? I know that you’re a-” Min began to say, stopping for a break while the monster had its attention focused on Seni, but gaped wide-eyed when Seni launched himself at it with a speed that Min could hardly track.

The monster stomped around erratically when Seni darted around its arms and legs, then grabbed onto a knot of wood on its side and launched himself up onto its back. Before it could figure out what had just happened, he had pressed his small, insignificant-looking palm upon its back.

It began to attempt to shake him off, but its movements grew sluggish after a few seconds, before coming to a complete stop. It lost power in its limbs and collapsed.

Just a light, anticlimactic thud, muffled by the grass beneath their feet. As if it were nothing more than crushing a bug for Seni.

“...Mate,” he said. “What the actual fuck just happened? I never knew you had that courage in you. That thing looked like it could take out an entire imperial battalion before kicking the bucket.”

Seni wobbled and collapsed, breathing heavily. “I, I don’t think that was me. L-let’s go home, Min.”

“Say what you will, but I’m not about to carry you again. Now get up. I think I almost broke my back after that whole ordeal.”

“...You calling me fat?”

“What? No, no! You’re the most charming and proportionally heavy woman-er, man I’ve ever met in my life! Believe me, if you weighed as much as a normal guy, I’d have thrown you off long ago.”

Min nervously approached the edge of the clearing, closed his eyes, and took one big step forward. He slowly opened one eye, then yelped in joy upon noticing that he had crossed into the forest.

“Well, I guess the curse is broken! You think it was that horrifying tree thing?” said Seni, staggering to his feet and following after.

“Maybe it was that creepy rock you picked up?”

“Rock? Hold on.”

They realized that Seni may very well now be possessed by a spirit lurking in the stone.

“Oh, shit,” Seni cursed.

“I’ll prepare for your funeral.”

“Look, nothing bad has happened yet, right? I haven’t tried to kill you - which would probably be as easy as smashing a fly for me - so maybe I’m alright?”

“...I don’t buy it. But I’ll go and tell those 3 guys’ families that they’re all dead, and then I’ll come to check on you in a couple of days with an armed escort when you've got your entire body taken over by a bloodthirsty ghost.”

“Whatever could an armed escort do against me?”

“They’ll be the ones who die first because I’ll be the one running faster than them.”

 

AN: Writing this story so I can practice and prepare to write a sci-fi story that I've been wanting to write since the dawn of time. Please take the time out of your day to comment if there are any flaws in my grammar, spelling, story structure, exposition, dialogue, etc. I thought that I may have too much dialogue and not enough descriptors, and I probably don't do so well with writing the action scenes either. Feel free to be an asshole too, I guess. It's the internet, so I'm pretty sure nothing's gonna stop you.