Phillip was having what was officially the absolute worst night of his entire months living on this planet.
Suddenly a loud terrifying crash echoed through the darkness right behind him.
CRACK!
BUSH!
BAM!
Thick bushes snapped in half. Young tree saplings were knocked flat to the ground. Something very heavy and very large stomped out from the shadowy trees and landed right in the middle of the dirt path behind Phillip.
Phillip stopped in his tracks and turned around slowly. His eyes went wide as saucers.
Stepping out from the shadows was a giant gray wolf. This was not a normal wolf that you would see in a cute storybook. This thing was huge. It was literally the size of a large horse or a small pickup truck. Its dark gray fur was messy and covered in twigs. Long sharp white fangs stuck out from its bottom lip like two pointy daggers.
But the scariest part about the wolf was its eyes. They were glowing with a bright terrifying yellow light in the pitch black forest like two yellow flashlights mounted on a dog face.
"Oh man," Phillip whimpered softly. "That is a very big doggy."
The giant gray wolf did not come alone either. Emerging from the bushes right beside the wolf came a whole squad of ugly green goblins.
The goblins were short and stubby with big pointy ears and giant crooked noses. They were wearing smelly brown leather rags and holding small rusty wooden clubs and dull metal knives. They looked like angry green potatoes that had grown arms and legs.
Beside the green goblins stood a group of skeleton soldiers.
These were actual living walking human skeletons with no skin or meat or eyeballs left on them. They were just bare white bones held together by strange dark magic. Inside their dark empty eye sockets were tiny glowing specks of bright red fire. They wore old rusty iron helmets and carried tall wooden spears. Every time they took a step their dry bone ankles made a clanking and rattling noise that sounded like someone shaking a bag of marble beads.
The giant wolf raised its big furry head toward the sky and let out a deep snarl that shook the ground under Phillip’s boots.
Then the wolf started barking and shouting at Phillip.
"GRRRR BARK BARK WOOF RAWR!" the wolf yelled aggressively.
The green goblins joined in right away. They pointed their tiny green sticks at Phillip and began screaming at the top of their lungs in a frantic squeaky language.
"AKAKAK AJINOMOWTO UZUMAKI TERIYAKI YAAAH!" the goblins shrieked in unison.
The red eyed skeleton soldiers stood in a line and started clacking their bone jaws up and down fast.
CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK!
Phillip had absolutely zero idea what any of these creatures were saying. He did not speak monster language at all. To Phillip’s human ears it was just a chaotic mess of loud animal growls, squeaky gibberish, and creepy bone clicking.
"Are you Japanese?! I cannot understand a single word you guys are saying!" Phillip screamed back at them, throwing his hands in the air. "Are you asking me for directions? Are you yelling about food? Why are you screaming at me?"
The big gray wolf growled even louder and took three heavy steps forward. Its glowing yellow eyes were locked right onto Phillip’s face.
"Look here giant fucking dog!" Phillip yelled while backing up slowly. "I am just a kid! I was literally just walking around looking for shiny rocks! I am not doing anything illegal! Please go back to your dog house!"
The goblins shouted even louder. They were waving their little wooden clubs back and forth like wildly untrained police officers trying to pull over a speeding car. They were treating Phillip like he was some kind of top tier dangerous fugitive who had just robbed a bank.
"Stop waving those sticks at me!" Phillip yelled. "That is extremely rude behavior!"
The giant gray wolf let out another loud bark and lunged forward.
Phillip did not wait around to see what the wolf wanted to do next. He screamed at the top of his lungs, turned right around, and sprinted deeper into the dark forest.
"HELP! POLICE! ANYBODY!" Phillip yelled as he ran.
He pushed through a thick patch of bushes. Sharp thorns scraped against his arms and legs, ripping little holes in his pants. Leaves and twigs got tangled in his messy hair. Phillip kept turning his head back to look behind him to see if the giant yellow eyed wolf was catching up.
Looking backwards while running through a dark forest full of obstacles turned out to be a massive mistake.
Because Phillip was looking over his shoulder he failed to notice the massive brown tree root sticking six inches out of the muddy ground directly in front of him.
Phillip’s left boot slammed hard right into the thick tree root.
All of his momentum sent him flying through the air like a sack of potatoes. Phillip let out a high pitched squeal as his body flew five feet through the air before slamming face first into the dirty ground.
CRASH!
He skidded through the wet dirt and rotten leaves for three whole feet before finally coming to a stop against a mossy boulder. His knees smashed into the dirt. His elbows got scraped up. A huge clump of wet muddy dirt landed straight inside his open mouth.
"Ugh! Blech! Gross!" Phillip coughed out loud, rolling over onto his back and spitting dirt everywhere. "Mud tastes like wet dirt and worm spit! This is terrible!"
Before he could even sit up and dust off his pants things got so much worse.
When Phillip had flipped through the air his old cloth backpack had slipped off his shoulders. The backpack flew across the air and slammed hard against a sharp jagged stone. The cheap fabric of the backpack ripped completely open down the middle with a loud tearing sound.
All of Phillip’s personal treasures came tumbling out onto the muddy forest floor.
"No no fuck no!" Phillip gasped, scrambling onto his hands and knees in a panic. "My stuff!"
The first thing that rolled out of the ripped bag was his small leather pouch. Inside that pouch was Phillip’s collection of powdered mana cores.
He had spent weeks searching the junkshop, digging under pile of trashed mana cores, and saving every valuable tiny mana core he could find. He had laboriously crushed them down into a fine red powder that sparkled in the dark like liquid glitter.
The leather pouch hit a sharp twig and popped wide open.
The shiny red mana powder spilled out all over the green grass and wet leaves.
Right at that exact tragic second a sudden gust of strong night wind blew through the trees.
The wind swept over the ground and caught the shiny mana dust. It blew all of the powdered mana cores straight up into the air. The sparkly golden blue dust swirled around in a funny little circle and then carried off into the deep dark woods, scattering across thousands of trees.
In less than four seconds all of Phillip’s hard earned magical dust was completely gone into the sky.
Phillip froze on his knees. He stared at the empty grass with his mouth hanging wide open. His eyes were huge.
"MY DUST!" Phillip shrieked dramatic tears starting to form in his eyes. "My glitter dust! It took me a whole entire month to crush those up! Wind, why did you do that? What did I ever do to you? You are a terrible breeze!"
He swiped his hands frantically through the empty air trying to catch the floating glitter but the wind had already carried it far out of reach.
"Okay fine!" Phillip groaned trying to stay brave while wiping his nose with his sleeve. "The shiny dust is gone. That stinks. But at least I still have my knife!"
He looked down at the muddy dirt to find his precious knife.
It was not a giant sword or a dangerous weapon. It was just a small trusty pocket knife with a smooth brown wooden handle and a shiny metal blade. It was Phillip’s absolute favorite possession in the entire world. He used it to carve wooden sticks into funny shapes, peel apples, and poke random bugs in his yard.
Phillip saw the wooden handle of his knife lying on the dirt just two feet away from his outstretched hand.
"Yes! My knife is okay!" Phillip smiled reaching out his hand to grab it.
Just as his fingers were about two inches away from touching the wooden handle, the knife started to tilt.
The ground where they fell was sloped downward. The little pocket knife began rolling down the muddy hill. It rolled past a patch of grass. It rolled past a flat rock. It rolled past three funny looking little mushrooms.
Then the knife tumbled right over the edge of a deep dark hole in the dirt.
PLOP!
The knife vanished completely into the black hole. A second later a faint little splash sound echoed from deep under the earth.