The last traces of sunlight began to fade from the sky as Lucia found her means of survival. She arrived in a loosely wooded area devoid of any animals that hosted a calm stream filled with clear water and a small tree overflowing with yellow-green berries.

  The first thing the woman did was charge at the berry tree as fast as she could with her right shoulder extended. She braced herself against the pain in her rib and managed to even jump into the air a second before making contact with the bark. Her arm collided with the wood and the force pushed her shoulder back into its socket.

  “AAAH! Oh god, that fucking hurts!” she screamed as she landed on her knees. “But that’s one problem down.” She chuckled morosely, flexing her now working hand, despite the immense pain she still felt. She’d need every advantage to survive.

  The second thing Lucia did was wash the dried blood off her face and nostrils, allowing her to start breathing normally again, albeit slowly so as to not cause any pain. She took several gulps from the stream, quenching her thirst and her biggest concern for the night.

  With her most severe needs now handled, the woman headed back towards the tree and picked a handful of its berries. After giving them a sniff and feeling confident that they weren’t poisonous, she popped one in her mouth and began chewing.

  “Sour!” she cried with a wince, the exaggerated facial expression causing her even more pain through her broken nose. “Fuck me, these are gooseberries!”

  Lucia spat out the pit and looked back at her hand, and then around the otherwise barren land, feeling her stomach grumble.

  “Couldn’t even finish making lunch before being dragged over here, just my luck.” With a sigh, she held her breath and began to chew on another pair of berries.

  By the time the woman was confident enough that she wouldn’t starve to death, the sun had fully set, leaving her standing in total darkness.

  “Oh that’s right, I probably should’ve started a fire first. I knew I should’ve gone camping more often as a kid, but no, girl scouts are lame! Great job, ten-year-old-me. You’re probably about to get yourself killed twenty years later.”

  Lucia slumped down beneath the gooseberry tree with a grimace, trying to slide down the bark slowly enough not to aggravate her cracked rib any further. It was a miracle she was able to make it this far without succumbing to the injury, but she’d need several more miracles if she was going to get out of this alive and well. Especially with the temperature dropping to frigid levels.

  The woman fished around for nearby rocks, striking them against her knife in an attempt to create sparks. None of them worked.

  With a final sigh, Lucia crossed her legs and tried wrapping her apron around her torso. She tried to think of warm thoughts. A blazing fire, a hot cup of perfectly brewed Colombian coffee, the jackass guard’s mustache burning as he screamed like a baby. All things she wanted but couldn’t have.

  The pain of her have-nots and injuries roiled deep within her stomach, pulling away the last of her energy and making way for the call of sleep. Her fears faded away as exhaustion overtook her and brought her to a world of dreams.

  A single dew drop fell from the gooseberry tree onto Lucia’s nose.

  “Daniel!” she shouted, quickly rising to her feet in a panic. She expected pain to shoot out of her ribs, but they felt perfectly fine. “What the hell?”

  Lucia looked around the brightly lit forest. The sun brought forth a new vibrancy overflowing with life, yet only the trees were there to soak it in.

  “Looks like the miracles keep coming,” she mumbled to herself. “Didn’t freeze to death or get eaten last night. But why…”

  Lucia lifted up her shirt and looked at the site of her injury, expecting to find a nasty shade of black and blue. Her chest was perfectly clear.

  “There’s no way an injury like that just heals without leaving any bruises. Wait, that asshole from yesterday said something about making healing elixirs with gooseberries and cinnabar… oh shit, was there mercury in that stream?! Too late now I guess, I just hope I don’t go crazy before I get my son back, even though I’m probably already going crazy as it is.”

  She lifted herself to her feet, and after getting another drink of water and eating a sour breakfast, continued down South towards civilization. Another dewdrop fell onto where she slept, and immediately turned to steam as it made contact with the smoldering ground.

  Lucia had been walking for several hours, yet she felt like she hadn’t made any progress. She’d oriented herself using the early morning sun, and kept walking through the loosely wooded region. At first, she was worried of getting attacked by a bear or lion, but the entire forest was deserted. Not even a single chirp or crow could be heard. Something was wrong.

  “I swear I’ve passed by this tree five times already,” the woman whispered to herself.

  Looking down to find a pile of head-sized rocks, Lucia quickly arranged them from their old formation into an arrow, pointing in the direction she was headed in. Another few minutes had passed when she reached the same tree again, the rocks having been moved back into their previous orientations.

  “Screw this, I’d like to see whoever’s fucking with me clean up a mark on a tree,” she said, taking out her kitchen knife. With a weighted stab, Lucia marked a thick X into the wood.

  “AARGH!” came a scream that reverberated through the forest as soon as the blade dug into the tree.

  “The hell was that?” asked Lucia as she scored another mark.

  “That was me, you sow!” came the same voice.

  Lucia looked up towards its source, and saw a particularly ugly knot in the wood morph into a particularly uglier face. It held bulging eyes ready to pop from their sockets, rows of buck teeth dripping with green saliva, a shiny nose that would put Pinnochio to shame, and worst of all, a unibrow bushy enough that someone could knit several sweaters out of it.

  The rest of the tree began to morph too, as if the green screen its old, harmless form was projected onto was suddenly ripped away. The bottom of its trunk split in two to form a pair of blister-covered legs held up by a pair of hairy feet, and the wood above them transformed into a stout torso that supported its ugly head. The entire creature measured twenty feet tall, and every inch of it was covered in reddish-pink skin, save for a tightly wrapped tiger-skin loincloth.

  “Magical kung fu bullshit, I can accept. But a goddamn monster?!”

  The creature roared again and stared down at the woman. “The rest of the animals ran off due to my presence, so I thought I could finally get an easy meal with you! Just tire you out with my illusion until you would not be able to put up a fight!”

  “You know, I’m not sure if I should be flattered for figuring it out, or insulted by you thinking I could be that stupid,” replied Lucia, adrenaline starting to pour through her veins. “But that’s probably on me for not realizing something was up with how empty this place was.”

  “You sure love to talk. I wonder what you will be crying when I violate you!”

  “I thought you said you were going to eat me?” Lucia blurted out. “So which one is it?”

  “Both! You cannot save yourself from this fate!”

  “Ok, and in what order?” she asked, taking a step back.

  “Uh… violate first, then eat you. I happen to be starved for both forms of flesh!”

  “Hold on,” said Lucia, making a T sign with her hands. “If you do it like that, won’t I be full of your spunk when you eat me? Not to kink shame, but that’s kind of gross.”

  “Your trickery will not work on me, sow! Your flesh shall be mine in all its forms!”

  “Seriously dude, if you’re that desperate to get yourself off and find a meal, why don’t you just suck your own dick?”

  The monster stared at her blankly for several seconds.

  “Ok, maybe I am talking too much.”

  “AAAAH!” it screamed as it charged her.

  “Fuck thiiisss!” Lucia screamed back as she began running away.