Riley planted her feet, knees bent to anchor her balance. She thrust her hands forward, fingers splayed, bracing herself against whatever came. "You want some of this? Come on!" she shouted, voice cracking.

  The dog was only two strides away. Its lips peeled back from its teeth in a snarl. It launched itself into the air, a heavy dark shape hurtling straight at her.

  Riley let out a squeak that might have been a scream, slammed her eyes shut, and flung her hands up to cover her face. She knew that wasn’t going to do anything against this animal, it was like raising an umbrella in a typhoon. It wasn’t a defense against teeth and claws, but against terror itself, like watching a horror film through open fingers, hoping the gaps would make it less real.

  Her balance tipped and she toppled backwards.

  She braced for an impact that did not come.

  A shadow passed over her instead in a rush of wind and heat. The thump of heavy paws hit the dirt on the other side of her. The dog had cleared her completely, and vanished past her in a blur.

  Silence, except for the pounding of her heart.

  Riley lay there frozen, arms still shielding her head, still waiting for teeth that never arrived. After a long second, she cracked one eye open and peered through the cage of her fingers.

  The path ahead was empty.

  "It worked," she whispered in a tiny, incredulous voice.

  So many questions swirled in her head. Had it really been her defiance that turned the dog aside? Was standing her ground enough to change the rules of survival here? Was this survival, or just a reprieve?

  As her pulse slowed, her brain caught up and gave a more plausible explanation.

  Logical Riley spoke. "No, it did not work," she muttered to herself. "You’re not some terrifying warrior goddess. The dog was chasing something else and you were a speed bump at best."

  Right on queue, Sarcastic Riley chimed in, as usual, never far behind. "What was the plan, exactly? Become one of those full-body attack dog bite suits? Let him chomp on your arm until he gets bored? Maybe next time you can tape treats to your limbs and use them as padding. Genius."

  Quizzical Riley still couldn’t believe it. The coincidence was too much. Two encounters with this same dog coming straight for her and both times it chose something else to hunt at the last minute? No rabbit could possibly taste that good.

  And how does a dog go from predator to pet? One minute it’s charging at her and the next it’s practically rolling over and letting her scratch its belly? Are all animals in this world completely unpredictable and schizophrenic?

  Riley stared, unable to reconcile what had happened. Was this how things worked here, feral one moment, yielding the next?

  With no explanation, she left it at that. She sat up slowly, legs shaking, and looked back down the path. The dog was definitely gone, swallowed up by the trees as completely as Garron had been, but with far more adrenaline. She dragged in one long, steadying inhale, then another. She remembered the bucket.

  "Shit," she sighed.

  Retrieving her scattered berries took longer than she wanted. They had gone everywhere. She picked up as many as she could salvage, brushing dirt off the least ruined ones and trying not to think about hygiene. The bucket had rolled into a little dip at the side of the path. She climbed down, grabbed it, and climbed back up, muttering under her breath the whole time.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  By the time she finally had everything gathered and was walking again, her pulse had mostly returned to its normal, slightly anxious baseline.

  The forest stretched on. The sun slid slowly down the sky, shadows lengthening. The HUD map, now back to its usual calm colors, showed the tower icon creeping gradually closer with every step.

  The trees thinned. The path spilled her into the familiar clearing, grass brushing her calves, river-scented air cool against her cheeks.

  In the nearing distance, her tower stood exactly where she’d left it, squat and grey and stubbornly upright. She wondered if it had been waiting for her, if it missed her presence, if it was as eager for her to leave her mark with a brand new door as she was.

  She had approached this tower countless times on her resource runs, but this time felt different. Relief washed through her. Twenty?four hours gone, and the world hadn’t erased her progress. The save file still held.

  Yet as she drew closer, relief curdled into something heavier. She had always had a love-hate relationship with the place but for the most part, her tower had always brought her comfort. It was a bare-bones home away from home. Now it loomed with a different gravity. The ground seemed disturbed, the air thickened.

  She quickened her pace, but not from eagerness. It was like watching a loved one step off a plane after years abroad, only instead of anticipation, she felt a creeping sense of doom. She rounded the corner.

  The heavy door slab no longer sat in its frame. It lay across the threshold just like the first day she found this place. If it wasn’t for the noticeable change in energy, she would have thought she was having déjà vu.

  She hesitated to get any closer. What if whatever had line-backed her door was still inside?

  Her stomach dropped to her boots.

  The HUD. The HUD could tell her if there was danger present.

  She had been so disoriented by the ominous feelings that she hadn’t even noticed the alert log glowing crimson.

  ? ? Structure: Tower (Level 1) ? ?

  ? ? Status: Breached? ?

  ? ? Damage: Primary Door (Destroyed), Interior (Minor) ? ?

  ? ? Defences: None active? ?

  Ok, no explicit warning about an intruder being present. Fine. But she was just hearing about this breach now? The HUD couldn’t have set off an alarm earlier? She could have prepared herself. What if there had still been an angry intruder inside and she had made it all the way to the front door only to be greeted by a wild animal, a bandit or whatever passed for a serial killer in these medieval times. She would have walked right into its jaws. The thought made her stomach twist. She was lucky. Lucky there was no immediate danger, because she was literally at the doorstep, and if there had been, the element of surprise would have belonged entirely to them.

  “Shit, shit, shit!”

  She practically dropped her bucket of berries again as she took off inside.

  Her stash.

  She skidded through the doorway, boots crunching on fresh splinters and tracked-in dirt. The benches she had dragged in front of the entrance yesterday were shoved aside like toys. The rolled carpet lay half unrolled, one corner chewed or torn, she couldn’t tell which.

  Handcart, buckets, sickle, hatchet, shovel, every last resource pile, still there where she had left them, a bit tousled around, but there.

  Even the cube on the mantel was there. Still dull and grey and safe.

  Another inconceivably lucky outcome.

  Whatever had broken in did not care about those items.

  Quizzical Riley brimmed with questions again, but Logical Riley had answers this time.

  It had to be something strong enough to break down her door. But it couldn’t have been a person. Or a beast like those things that had chased her or one of Zelgra’s kind. A humanoid would have taken something. And if not that, then it must have been a wild animal. That would also explain the condition of her rug.

  Maybe the creature from the first night had returned to finish what it started.

  Riley exhaled shakily, one hand pressed to her chest like she could physically hold her heart in place.

  She forced herself to look at the rest of the room. A single shallow claw gouge scarred the wall beside the obelisk recess. More proof. Her theory held. Dirt and leaves were tracked in a rough line from door to hearth and back out again. No blood. No bodies. No missing gear.

  Just a very large, very strong visitor who had shouldered the door aside, taken a look around, and left.

  The obelisk timer still ticked in the corner of her HUD.

  ? 04:12:27 ? until the cooldown from the coin exchange finished.

  Four hours until she could exchange for more coin.

  Priorities realigned themselves with brutal clarity.

  Step one: barricade the doorway again, better this time.

  Step two: make it through the night.

  Step three: gather the other resources she needed to start the door repair as soon as possible.

  She made her way back towards the entrance to get started on step one.

  As she looked down, Logical Riley’s neat little theory crumbled.