A wave spread throughout the universe, passing the many planets sitting across its vast void.

  Every few billion or so planets the wave passed, there would be a planet that would vanish.

  All vanishing planets having some form of life, be it intelligent or otherwise.

  As the wave passed the planets with life, reality around those planets would weaken in the wave’s passing. When reality weakened to a certain extent, it would collapse inwards, resulting in a temporary wormhole.

  Planets sucked into the wormhole were transported into a new reality, a reality where many species and lifeforms gathered. A reality bustling with life and filled with new energies and mysteries.

  A reality filled with as much danger as there was opportunity to develop and grow.

  And now the wave was quickly getting closer to a small blue planet in the Milky Way galaxy, a planet brimming with life and covered in tiny lights. The planet which the natives called, Earth.

  —

  Jake Miller was whistling to himself as he walked through the forest. A few weeks back he had won an all-expenses paid hiking trip throughout the wilderness.

  Initially, he had been hesitant about leaving the comforts of society, the idea of needing to walk for days on end wasn't something that got him all that excited either.

  But eventually, after a little bit of convincing from the people around him, he had relented to the idea of experiencing new things and taking this as an chance to take a break from his work.

  He hadn’t taken the time for rest or a vacation in years ever since he started becoming successful in his job. This time the people around him had basically jumped on the chance to finally get him to take a break.

  Jake was a young man in his early twenties with brown hair and a green hoodie, he wore black pants, with a backpack hanging from his back filled with all kinds of tools for camping and hiking through the wild.

  He had already been walking for a little over two weeks now, and if he were to be honest he was enjoying it both more and less than he had been expecting.

  More because the experience was quite relaxing, something he hadn’t really had the time for in years. And less because he missed working his job as a freelance engineer.

  Nevertheless, he was happy about just spending some time away from the city where he lived and getting to appreciate nature for a change instead of getting to appreciate lines of code and metal.

  He had already left any semblance of civilization behind about a week ago and since then had been leisurely walking and camping throughout the wild.

  Slowly as time ticked away and his steps kept piling up, he eventually walked unto a big clearing, the trees surrounding him tall with brown bark, the light shining through their canopies, spreading a web of light all over the ground.

  Jake took in a deep breath as he looked over the clearing, he couldn’t help but smile a little as the warm sun shone on his back.

  In the distance a very tall rock could be seen, about thirty meters wide and fifty meters tall if he had to make a guess. The walls of the rock going up straight almost all the way to the top.

  For today his goal was to reach that rock and set up camp for the night. As he looked back over the clearing though, he decided a little moment of rest couldn’t hurt.

  He had already been walking for a few hours and a little break had never hurt anybody, right?

  He nodded at that line of reasoning. It wasn’t at all because his feet had started to hurt and he wanted to rest them a little.

  He walked a bit further until he reached a nice spot in the middle of the clearing. As he sat down he listened to the chirping of the birds for a little bit while staring up at the bright blue sky.

  He was just enjoying the moment and the warmth, at least until the sun hid behind some gray clouds.

  The clearing grew dark with the sun hidden behind the grey blanket, the warmth he had been enjoying so, quickly leaving.

  Then from behind he heard some ruffling and he saw a flock of birds taking off for the skies.

  Now that the sun wasn’t shining anymore and the clearing had grown quiet there wasn’t much to enjoy while resting anymore, so he stood up and was about to set back off again until he heard a small rustling noise coming from behind.

  He looked back, the situation somehow unnerving him a little, he thought of all the movies where something bad happening in this scenario was a classic introduction to a story.

  Maybe it was just his imagination going wild, but hey he was only human. He couldn’t help connecting his experiences to similar situations.

  So he kept staring at the spot in the bushes where he had heard the sound coming from.

  Then another noise came his way, the noise of a small branch cracking and a leaf being stepped on.

  A tiny bit of anxiety entered his heart, even though he knew this was probably nothing, he couldn’t help but feel anxious at the noises that came from the forest

  If something bad were to happen to him right now he’d be too far from civilization to get help.

  He chuckled a little at the thought; “I'm scaring myself more than anything else is right now”

  Then out from the bush a small white bunny leaped out into the clearing.

  Jake stared at the tiny white bunny for a bit and then let out a laugh, “I can't believe I got myself so worked up over a tiny bunny” he chuckled to himself.

  Jake was about to turn around when out the shadows of a nearby tree a big cat-like creature lept onto the rabbit.

  He stiffened up at the sight of the creature and a feeling of anxiety and fear dwelled up again.

  In front of Jake a large feline creature could be seen, chewing on the tiny rabbit that was now dripping blood onto the grass.

  The feline creature looked like a big cat or a panther, except there were a few big differences, the creature had green fur with black dots covering its body, it had two tails and bright green pupils.

  But the biggest difference between the cat-like creature and normal panthers besides the obvious two tails, was that it had three eyes, two smaller eyes and one slightly bigger eye in the middle of its forehead.

  It really just looked like a two tailed, three eyed green panther?

  He might have been amused at the unique sight if he hadn’t been so scared.

  Jake stared in shock at the creature as it snacked on the tiny rabbit. He didn’t know what to do, run? Try to intimidate or scare it away?

  No both options sounded bad, running would only make the creature mark him as prey, and trying to scare it risked him getting its attention only for him to be attacked as well.

  Trying to back up slowly while staring at the creature? That might work..

  He felt his hands trembling and his feet felt heavy as he stared at the green panther.

  Slowly he started walking backwards, his backpack close at hand.

  The panther didn’t even glance at Jake, it just kept eating, enjoying its meal.

  The sounds of bones snapping made him feel a bit of nausea.

  This went on for a few more seconds until he had enough. He gave himself a mental slap to the face. Focus!

  If you don't focus you risk more than just needing to pay for therapy! If you die or get seriously hurt you risk not getting to finish your work projects! You cant risk that! You were extremely close to finishing the prototype for the self-cleaning bathroom stall floor!

  And god knows humanity needs that invention as soon as possible.

  So right now, you’ve got to focus.

  Alright, what do I do now? besides walking backwards I should lose any unnecessary weight. Slowly he started taking off his backpack and putting it on the ground, making sure to move slowly as not to attract the attention of the green panther.

  The next thing he had to do was get something to defend himself with. Slowly he started opening his backpack to grab the cooking knife he had brought with him.

  All the while he kept an eye on the panther that was seemingly finishing up its meal.

  As soon as he found the cooking knife he grabbed it as tightly as he could in his still trembling hand.

  The panther had apparently finished eating as it looked up and stared at him with two of its eyes, the third going all over the place looking in every direction where even the tiniest noise could be heard.

  That third eye was really giving him the creeps.

  Jake felt the knife in his trembling hands as he held it close to his chest in case he needed to make any sudden movements.

  Out of nowhere green lightning started to arc all over the panther's body, its fur standing straight up as static filled the air.

  And then it took off, running at him. Way faster than he had been expecting as well.

  In the blink of an eye the panther was in front of him, jumping at him. The only thing he managed to do in his surprise was throw up his arms to protect his head and torso.

  As the panther slammed into him he was sent flying backwards with a good one or two meters of airtime, and then a whole bunch of meters spent rolling over the ground as the momentum slowly died out.

  When he finally came to a stop he felt very disoriented, his chest hurt like hell and he had trouble breathing, every breath accompanied by some pain.

  His left arm wasn’t feeling great either, it had taken the brunt of the hit and Jake was pretty sure it had a few broken bones.

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  After trying to move it around a little bit he was relieved to find out it wasn’t going limp on him yet, it did take him more effort accompanied by even more pain to move it around though.

  All the sensations and nausea making him feel extremely unpleasant to say the least.

  And to make matters worse in his flying and tumbling around he had let go of the knife.

  He looked over the clearing, finding the knife next to some rocks about twenty to thirty meters away from him.

  Adrenaline started coursing through his body as the pain slowly faded a little, a sense of calm washed over his mind. Guess his body was finally going into survival mode.

  He felt like he had zero trouble focusing, his mind had never felt so clear yet so empty at the same time.

  He had to get his knife back first, without a weapon this would be a lost battle, better to put up a fight and take a shot at surviving, right?

  He couldn’t even run away anyway since the green panther was faster than him, not to mention running away was the worst thing you could do when being attacked by a predator, since it let a hunter know you were prey.

  He switched his eyes back to his right where the panther was.

  The panther in question, not having moved from its spot after having sent him rolling over the ground.

  Either the thing was playing with him, or it was being wary of him. Both situations were good for him since it gave him time. Personally though, even if it hurt his pride a little he was hoping that the panther was playing with him.

  He would have a better chance of survival if the foe was underestimating him after-all.

  De doubted this was actually the case though, the third eye was looking at everything making even the slightest of noises. Giving him the impression this creature was very wary of any possible dangers.

  As his eyes met the panther’s though, it slowly started moving towards him again.

  “I’ll have to get that knife back before the panther reaches me, otherwise I might as well roll over and die right now” Jake mumbled to himself

  He knew he had to get to that knife before the panther got to him.

  The situation wasn’t looking too great though, he had never been in a real fight before, not to mention he was dealing with some type of green panther that had three eyes and lightning for some reason.

  He took a deep breath and focused back on the tiger which had slowly continued moving towards him.

  Now was not the time to panic he reminded himself. He could wonder about why he got attacked by some crazy lightning panther and whine about it later, right now he had to survive.

  But if he waited much longer maybe his shot of reaching the knife would pass by, since the panther was still slowly but surely getting closer.

  “Shit, now or never I guess..”

  He stood up, wobbled a little due to his balance being thrown off by his broken arm, and then he ran, a little slow at first but quickly enough he went into a full-on sprint.

  The panther changed pace from its leisurely walk to a bit of a sprint too as it started chasing after him.

  As he looked back over his shoulder, he saw the panther quickly closing in on him from behind. He could see right away that at the speed the panther was going, it would reach him before he got to the knife.

  He knew he had to do something to slow it down or stop it, but what could he do?

  And then it hit him, he remembered the idea of intimidating it to scare it off. Back then he hadn’t really thought the creature to be extremely wary of danger, but now he knew the creature was probably easily scared.

  And even though he was running away from the panther, something that would have been a big mistake if he still had his weapon, right now he was already marked as prey thus it didn’t even matter if he ran anymore. Especially since he needed to get to his weapon

  Anyways the idea came from a documentary he had watched when he was younger, the documentary had talked about what you would need to do in the case you were ever attacked by a bear

  You would need to scare off the animal by intimidating it. Meaning you needed to make yourself as big as possible and start yelling at the creature.

  Make it seem like you weren’t worth the trouble and weren’t easy prey

  Even if the panther wasn’t a bear surely it wouldn’t matter much for the method right? He was really hoping it would work and not just get him deeper into trouble.

  Jake decided that even if it wouldn’t work, it was his best option right now and worth a shot, so he spread his arms wide and started yelling out at the top of his lungs as loud as he could.

  If this were any other situation he would have felt embarrassed, running with wide open arms while screaming as hard as he could.

  Luckily for his embarrassment, it did have an effect, the panther slowed down a little. It was still gaining distance on him but at least he had gained a little more time. So in his books, this plan was a success.

  He was now about 10 meters away from the knife with the panther being only 4 meters away from him.

  He could slowly hear its steps getting closer, he listened closely to the panther’s footsteps, because if he heard it try to make a jump he would immediately launch himself sideways to try and dodge the attack.

  “Just a few more steps, c'mon just a few more steps!” he whispered to himself.

  He was now just 4 meters away from the knife, while the panther was just about 1 meter away from him.

  Anxiety filled his heart yet he forced himself to keep going and keep moving. Just waiting for any changes in the sounds he heard coming from the panther's steps.

  And then he heard it, instead of the next few rhythmic footsteps there was just silence and the sounds of wind rushing past him, the almost instinctive feeling of knowing it jumped made him launch himself to the side in what was basically a reflex.

  Sadly he hadn’t been fast enough as the panther's claw scraped against his already hurt left arm, this time tearing a deep gash into his flesh as his left hand went limp and blood started leaking out.

  He didn’t have any time to take care of it though, he had to survive right now, this mentality so deeply ingrained into him thanks to his distant ancestors forced him to stand back up and keep running.

  He focused all he had on reaching the knife while he kept telling himself that,d it would all turn out to be okay, as long as he reached the knife.

  He just had to reach the knife, that was all he had to do, if he reached the knife he could fight back and come out of this situation alive.

  And then he could save humanity from dirty bathroom stalls, a noble purpose and reason to live.

  The panther quickly gave chase again, but this time it was too slow, he reached the stones and basically launched himself at the knife.

  Grabbing it in his mostly intact right hand, he stood up and took a defensive stand against the panther.

  Even though he wasn’t in the best state, with his left arm bleeding now and many parts of his body yelling out in pain. He still took as steady a stance as he could.

  The panther immediately stopped running at him and instead even took some distance from him, this unnerved Jake immensely. He knew animals weren’t as stupid as most people thought.

  But he had never seen an animal actually stay on its toes against an armed foe.

  Whatever the case with this panther, it was clearly way more dangerous than your average animal, even setting aside the lightning and weird body aspects like the third eye and the second tail.

  Jake grinned as he yelled at the panther “Yeah that's right! Now I've got a weapon! You’re dead meat now you stupid cat!”

  If it really was intelligent it wouldn’t hurt to show some fake confidence and yell a little more for an intimidating effect.

  He quickly regretted yelling though, as he was sure he had quite a few injuries in his chest, and his yelling had clearly upset those injuries as a wave of pain hit him.

  He groaned as he kept an eye on the panther that was still just staring at his hand-held knife.

  Now that he had gotten the knife, the next question was how he would actually defend himself and kill the panther, or maybe hurt it enough to scare it off.

  His mind was racing as he was desperately trying to think of ideas, sadly the panther clearly didn’t intend to let him think as lightning started to arc over its body again.

  Last time lightning had arced it had gained some incredible strength and speed compared to when it wasn’t covered in lightning.

  “Alright Jake, calm down, panicking won't help you, deep breaths” In such a manner he whispered calming words to himself.

  And then it hit him. “It seems like i can't avoid injury anyway, if so, why not make use of getting injured?” He got an idea, a stupid one, but he felt like it had a good shot of working. Talking to himself out loud had always been a good stimulator for his brain, clearly this life-or-death situation was no different.

  So he threw his left arm wide open, giving a massive opening for the panther to attack.

  And surely enough at some incredible speed that he could barely follow with his eyes the panther launched at his left side, biting down on his arm while clawing at his side.

  He felt the panther's teeth dig into his flesh, he screamed out in pain. Then he grimaced a pain-filled smile, his plan had worked.

  He grabbed the knife steadily in his hand, raised up his arm, and then slammed it down into the neck of the panther currently biting his arm.

  The knife went deep into the panther’s neck and lightning arced up through the knife giving Jake an incredibly painful shock.

  Both him and the panther jolted back, him from the pain and the panther from the knife now stuck in its throat.

  The arcing lightning immediately dying out, blood gushing out from the wound in the panther’s neck.

  Jake and the panther eyed each other up, both weren’t in great condition. But even though jake was exhausted and was hurt all over, he hadn’t sustained any lethal injuries, much unlike the panther. So he felt they were pretty even in terms of their current physical condition.

  As Jake and the panther eyed each other up, he noticed a tiny tremble in the panther’s legs. Clearly it was having more issues than before to hold itself up, it looked kind of out of breath as well.

  Maybe that lightning takes something out of it as well? And now with the blood it’s losing it doesn’t have all the strength it needs to recover from whatever the after effects are?

  Right as he was about to write off the possibility of the panther using the lightning again, lightning arced up from the panther.

  initially a little surprised he soon regained his calm, the adreline coursing through his body still working wonders. He kept watch as the panther’s legs wobbled more and more, yet lightning kept gathering and arcing around the panther.

  A final attack maybe? As the panther was losing more strength by the second it was probably pressed to end this fight as soon as possible, this meant he only needed to survive for just a little bit longer.

  He knew he wouldn’t be able to dodge the panther, so instead he opted to mitigate as much damage as he could.

  Taking a head on hit would probably be suicide, so he would need to do everything he could to migitate as much damage as he could.

  He grabbed a few nearby rocks.

  If the panther was in a rush to finish him, there was a big chance it would charge straight at him.

  So he would first try to make it slow down by hitting it with rock’s maybe even make it lose sight for a moment, then try to dodge while using his left arm as a cushion for any impending flow. If i get hit let myself move along with the momentum im hit to migitate as much damage as i can.

  He covered his left arm in his hoodie as-well. Maybe it wouldn’t help much but anything he could do to lesson the impact would help.

  Then the panther took off, he was taken a little off guard since he hadn’t quite prepared everything he could yet, but i guess your enemy wouldn’t just let you prepare. So he quickly tried to a few stones in on the panther while he took on a deflective position.

  The first two stones totally missed, but by some miracle the third hit right in the panther’s third eye. The panther twisted direction and momentum slightly. And then it hit him, not a full on blow to his body but a good push against his left arm.

  He got sent tumbling over the ground again, this time no air time though and the momentum died out way quicker as-well. His left arm hung totally limp to his side though and his everything was hurting.

  Somehow though, he wasn’t dead and he was able to move.

  Move being used very loosely, as he really didn’t feel like moving and just laid there.

  He did look to his side though, and about 7 meters away from him laid a panther on the ground, unmoving and still bleeding.

  He would cheer except he was pretty sure he would die if he did.

  So instead he just laid there for who knew how long, the pain everytime he tried to move stopping him from standing up or doing anything else besides laying there.

  And he was just happy to be alive.

  The sun re appeared from behind grey clouds and shone upon him its embracing warmth.

  Never had the sun felt that great. Surely this was a reward for surviving from the universe right? Either that or he was just delirious from blood loss.

  And then he heard something strange, a weird dinging sound played out in his mind.

  And then a weird text appeared in front of his eyes.

  System initializing…

  Transporting….

  Then the sky above him started warping, the beautifull blue sky taking on many colours and looking like thousands of blurry brush strokes moved over it.

  Then the same started happening to the trees.

  And then to him.

  “I think i might actually be going insane right now” He mumbled to himself before everything went black.