I am Mia Moonshire, a 152 years old elf, and I am running away from monsters, of both the human and creature varieties.

Gnarled branches claw at my body as I sprint through the dense undergrowth of the Erwin Forest. Each frantic step drives my bare feet into sticks and stones, while thorny brush tears at my legs like a gauntlet of thorns. I have no time to choose my path, and the forest is too dark to see the branches before they slash across my skin.

Pain surges through my body but is dulled by the adrenaline flooding my system. Despite my injuries, despite days without food or water, I push forward, desperate to extend my life by even a few more seconds. I'm breathing hard, every part of me screaming in agony, but the fear—complete and all-consuming—is the only thing keeping the spark of life burning in this battered shell of a body.

My foot catches on something hard mid-stride.

I don't even have time to react.

The world turns upside down as I tumble head over heels, crashing through a sharp thicket. Needles tear into my skin as I roll, before slamming face-first into the hard, unforgiving ground.

Pushing myself up from where I landed, a flood of red spills from my nose, splattering the dirt below. The sharp taste of metal fills my mouth, mingling with the stench of blood and sweat. I scramble to my feet, blood running freely down my arms and legs. More still trickles from a cut on my scalp, seeping into my left eye and tinting my vision crimson.

I force myself onto shaking legs, every movement a struggle. Behind me, trees splinter and crash to the ground, shattered by the thundering advance of my pursuer's many giant, chitin-armored legs. The sound is deafening, growing closer.

I stumble forward again—slower now. That last fall took more than I could afford to lose. My strength is fading. My limbs feel heavy, my breath ragged. But still, I keep moving.

Because stopping means dying. And I am not ready to die.

A mere century and a half of life—short by the standards of my kind—has been filled with regret, injustice, and suffering. But a fire still burns in my soul, casting warmth into my broken body and igniting a renewed spark of determination.

I refuse to die without having known happiness. I refuse to accept that my life was meant to be nothing but a chain of unfair and tragic events with no purpose.

I turn to face the monstrous centipede barreling toward me—five meters tall, fifteen meters long, its grotesque legs a blur of motion as it charges. Its massive, razor-sharp pincers snap with anticipation, eager to tear me apart. Even at my best, with armor and a weapon in hand, this beast would be nearly impossible to defeat. But now, injured, starved, and unarmed, I stand no chance of victory.

I can't run. I can't win. But as death itself bears down on me, I make my choice.

If I must face death, then I will do so on my feet. I would rather die fighting, looking my executioner in the eye, than fall while fleeing.

The best tool I have is the spell combination I've mastered more than any other. Because I'm small, and weaker than most, I chose to specialize in a technique that relies on agility and precision rather than brute strength—melding my natural aptitudes for spatial and wind magic into something uniquely my own.

But I only have enough mana to use it once. Whether it succeeds or not, I'll bottom out my reserves and be left completely defenseless.

First, I cast Stasis, a spell that shields me—temporarily—from the effects of acceleration and deceleration. With the centipede just twenty meters away, I wrap my body in a warm blanket of mana. The moment the spell takes hold, all sensation vanishes. The wind on my skin disappears. Every sound—especially the deafening thunder of the charging monster—ceases all at once. I feel as though I exist in a silent, weightless void.

Then I prepare Flash Step, a spell that launches me at supersonic speed for a brief instant. At that velocity, I'll be moving faster than my brain can register. Because of that, I must decide my action in advance—one I've drilled into muscle memory.

I wait until the centipede is just four meters away, then trigger the spell, stepping hard to the side.

From my perspective, it feels like a simple step—but I reappear four meters to the monster's right, having completed the maneuver in the blink of an eye.

The centipede, which had been moments from striking, barrels past the empty space where I once stood. A deafening sonic boom explodes from the point of my departure, slamming into the creature with concussive force. The shockwave sends it crashing to the forest floor in a tangled mess of writhing limbs.

As Stasis fades, sound returns in a crushing wave—the screeching of the monster, the thunderous crash of its armored body, the snapping of branches all around me. The centipede recovers quickly, rolling back onto its many legs and locking its eyes on me once again. It unleashes a terrifying, screeching roar as the several-ton, armor-plated, razor-toothed beast prepares to lunge.

But I am not done.

Flash Step does more than create a sonic boom. I never expected the shockwave to do more than disorient the creature briefly. The true advantage lies in what comes next. Moving at supersonic speed compresses the air around me, ionizing it and generating a powerful buildup of static electricity.

Electricity that I've captured using my third spell—Lightning Rod—which allows me to absorb and store electrical energy for a short time. With full mana, I can chain together four Flash Steps, compounding the charge with each use. But this time, I only had enough mana for one. One charge. One chance.

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I raise my right hand toward the towering monster barreling down on me and cast my final spell: Discharge.

A blinding, white-hot bolt of lightning arcs from my palm and slams into the centipede's face just as it lunges. The light is so intense my eyes shut instinctively. I don't see how close death truly came as I dive aside, barely evading the massive pincers that snap shut where I had just been standing.

My arms and shoulders slam into the hard ground. With no strength left in my body, I tumble like a rag doll, landing sprawled and motionless. My limbs feel far too heavy to move, and even opening my eyes takes effort. Half-lidded, I search for confirmation of my fate.

Through the dust and debris kicked up by the monster's crash, I spot its massive body lying only three meters away—twitching.

Did my spell work? Did I kill it?

My desperate hope is answered with a cruel truth. The centipede's twitching legs shift beneath it, bracing as it begins to rise. It's stunned, but very much alive.

Which means I'm dead.

I can't move. I can't fight. I can't even run. My body is so broken, so drained, that I can barely even feel the pain anymore. And even if the monster spares me, I might still bleed out before help ever comes.

It turns toward me.

I brace myself to be torn apart. I try to prepare my mind for the agony, for the moment everything fades to black. I'm ready… but I'm not at peace.

So this is it. My life—nothing but pain—ending in a meaningless death, after an equally purposeless existence.

Curse you, beast. I hope I give you indigestion. And if the gods will it, may I return to haunt you.

Crash!

The ground shakes—not from the final blow I had been bracing for, but from the top quarter of the centipede crashing to the forest floor. A torrent of purple blood floods over me and the dirt around me. I'm instantly drenched in the monster's foul gore.

I gasp in shock, only to suck some of the creature's blood into my mouth. It splashes into my eyes and nostrils, choking me. I cough violently, gagging, struggling to breathe as my weak, battered body fights against suffocation by the monster's fluids.

Blinded, I can't see what's happening—but I hear it. Heavy footfalls thud around me. Loud cracks and wet snaps ring through the trees—like the crunching of the centipede's armored shell. The ground trembles with the weight of something massive moving with speed and purpose. There's a clicking too, the unmistakable sound of insectoid mandibles chittering.

What just happened?

I saw the centipede fall—torn apart. It's dead. But how?

What killed it?

And surely… whatever was strong enough to kill that monster could kill me just as easily. Maybe I'm the dessert, a treat after the main course.

A weak smile tugs at my lips. If I had the strength, I think I'd laugh.

I'm glad I got to see the monster that killed me die to something even worse. Goes to show—there's always a bigger fish.

Though death still feels inevitable, an absurd thought slips into my mind. If I survive this—by some miracle—I swear to the gods, I'll use that life to find peace and happiness. No more endless struggle just to survive. I am a little vague on the how. But I know without a shadow of doubt, that is what my soul yearns for.

Two large, hairy things lift me gently from the ground. Something soft, yet firm, begins wrapping around my body. It pulls my arms and legs together, cocooning me. Whatever it is, it's snug, but not painfully tight. I'm too far gone to resist—but even if I weren't, escape is now impossible.

I'm trapped.

"Silly little elf," comes a strange, high-pitched, vaguely feminine voice. "You don't belong here," it adds disapprovingly.

I feel myself being hoisted higher, then gently laid on my back against something hard. Whatever I've been placed on isn't stationary—it rocks side to side, rising and dipping as it moves. But even as it travels, my cocoon stays firmly in place. I hear the thumping of heavy steps crushing through the underbrush, trampling the forest floor without effort.

"H-help… please…" I don't recognize the voice that speaks, but it's in common. That means there's a chance—however slim—that whoever they are might be able to save me. I call out weakly, clinging to that desperate hope.

"What do you think I'm doing, tiny elf?" the voice retorts with dry sarcasm.

The platform shudders to a halt. One of those large, hairy limbs gently brushes across my face. It's massive, covered in coarse bristles, yet the motion is surprisingly delicate. It wipes away most of the gore, just enough for me to blink the rest clear on my own.

With my vision returned, I see the forest canopy above—shafts of light piercing through gaps in the thick foliage. Then the platform lurches back into motion, and now that I can see clearly, I realize: I'm speeding through the forest at a terrifying pace. The trees blur past, a rushing wall of green on either side.

The realization hits me like a stone to the chest: the limbs that brushed across my face, the ones that picked me up—those belonged to a monster. A massive creature that has wrapped me up and is now carrying me through the forest. And that voice… there's no one else around. It has to belong to the thing that's holding me.

The question burns on my tongue. "Who are you?"

"Charlott," the voice replies flatly. "And what are you called, little elf?"

"Mia," I answer, my throat dry, a cold chill running down my spine. "And… what are you, Charlott?"

"I'm a spider, of course."

The words register, but they don't make sense. "How is a spider able to speak?"

Charlott clicks her mandibles, sounding almost offended. "You can speak, and you're tiny. Why wouldn't I, who am so much bigger than you, be able to speak?"

It's an absurd argument—but judging by her tone and the fact that I'm completely at her mercy, I decide not to push it.

"But how are you speaking Common, specifically?" I ask instead.

"It's what my parents spoke, so it's what I speak. And it will be what my children speak," Charlott replies simply.

That doesn't really answer the question, but I let it go. There's a more urgent matter pressing on me now: what she intends to do with me.

"Charlott… are you going to eat me?" My voice is barely a whisper. I'm struggling to stay conscious, to stay awake long enough to get closure. I'm not even afraid anymore. I just want to know.

"I don't eat elves," she says immediately, her tone dripping with disdain. "The idea is revolting."

Relief doesn't come. Confusion does.

"Then… where are you taking me? What are you going to do with me?"

"You are an elf. You don't belong here," Charlott replies matter-of-factly. "I'm taking you where elves belong."

"Where is that?"

"With other elves, of course," Charlott explains. "There's a village hidden deep in the forest. You'll be safe there."

"...Why are you helping me?"

"I hate humans," she says flatly. "And the elves hate humans. So I'm helping my enemy's enemy. That's all."

I stare up at the shifting canopy above, my mind struggling to catch up. This feels too strange to be real. Too good to be real.

Am I truly being saved by a monster… to be taken to live among my own kind?

It can't be true. There has to be a catch. Good things don't just happen—not in a life like mine. But in the end, disbelief means nothing. It doesn't stop the world from slipping away as I lose consciousness. Whether I believe or not has no bearing on the fate awaiting me—and I have no power to change it.

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