He did not choose a direction. His body ran on its own, fueled by raw adrenaline, with no help from his mind. His legs kept moving. His hands shoved branches aside. His lungs tore at the air. His awareness seemed to lag somewhere behind him, watching everything happen from a distance.

  The forest was breaking behind his back. Cracking wood, snapping branches, the heavy breathing of the predator. All of it merged into one single sound of death coming closer. Dan had never imagined that running for his life could be so loud. His own heartbeat thundered in his ears, but the crashing behind him forced its way through every other sound.

  His foot caught on a root and he nearly fell. Somehow he kept his balance. Instincts he did not even know he had forced his body to curl and roll through the stumble before he launched forward again.

  His mind was empty. No thoughts. No prayers. No regrets.

  Only animal fear.

  And one command that no longer came from his brain but from every cell in his body.

  Run. Run. Run.

  The noise behind him was getting closer. Dan could feel it on his skin. The beast was catching up. A few more seconds and the claws would reach him. The fangs would sink into his back. It would end here in this strange forest before he even understood what had happened.

  Then he burst out of the bushes.

  The space in front of him exploded.

  Feathers flew everywhere. Wings slammed against the air. Screeches filled the clearing. A flock of birds erupted from the ground in every direction. There had to be twenty of them at least. Dan had not even noticed them while crashing through the brush. Now he had run straight into the middle of them.

  Feathers stuck to his face. Wings struck his shoulders. One bird slammed into his chest and bounced away. Another clipped his head. The noise was deafening.

  For a second the world turned into a blur of white and brown chaos.

  Then Dan saw the beast.

  It burst from the bushes and stopped at once. The animal blinked, confused and half blinded. Birds collided with its muzzle. Wings tangled around its legs. One bird even clawed at its nose.

  The predator shook its head and roared in surprise.

  For a moment it froze, not understanding what had just happened.

  In that moment Dan met its eyes.

  The yellow gaze showed confusion.

  And calculation.

  The predator was deciding whether to attack the frantic birds or continue the chase after the larger prey.

  For a fraction of a second it hesitated.

  The birds were still beating their wings all around it, distracting and irritating it.

  Then the choice was made.

  The cat leapt.

  But that single pause gave Dan the few extra meters that separated life from death.

  He ran again without even knowing where he was going. Branches whipped across his face. His breath broke apart. Darkness crept into the edges of his vision.

  A bright opening flashed ahead.

  Too bright.

  Too open.

  The ground disappeared.

  A cliff.

  Dan had no time to think. No time to panic. His body simply did what it had to do.

  It jumped.

  His arms shot forward. His fingers somehow caught a branch. It was thick as a wrist. Dry but still strong. It bent under his weight and cracked loudly but held.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Behind him came a heavy impact followed by a short cry that sounded almost childish.

  The beast had jumped after him with all its weight and momentum. The branch swung hard beneath Dan. The predator missed its landing and fell.

  Dan heard the body strike the slope. Once. Twice. A third time.

  Then a dull heavy sound far below near the water.

  He hung there gasping for air. His fingers trembled. His shoulders burned. Thoughts returned slowly, as if they did not quite believe they still had a place to return to.

  "I hope you were not the local favorite," he rasped.

  The laugh that followed sounded strained and close to madness. Dan shut his eyes and forced himself to stop.

  This was not the time to lose his mind.

  He looked up.

  The edge of the cliff was just over a meter away. His hands barely felt the branch anymore. Only pain remained.

  One pull.

  Then another.

  His fingers dug into dirt and roots. His knees slid on the wet slope but he rolled forward and finally dragged himself onto solid ground.

  For several seconds he simply lay there on the damp grass and stared at the sky.

  It was clear.

  Blue.

  Almost ridiculously peaceful.

  "Alive," he muttered. "Still alive."

  His thoughts moved slowly, like stones grinding together. The fear faded little by little, leaving behind a sick tremor and weakness in his legs.

  I could have died.

  I almost died.

  If not for those birds.

  If the beast had not hesitated.

  If the branch had snapped.

  He sat up and caught his breath. His body ached everywhere. His clothes were covered with dirt and blood. Out of habit he reached toward his hip where his med kit should have been.

  Nothing.

  "Perfect. Just perfect."

  He looked around. The air was fresh but carried a faint metallic taste. Blood. Maybe his. Maybe the animal's.

  Dan stepped toward the edge of the cliff and looked down.

  On the slope below, caught against a rocky ledge, lay the body of the beast. Huge and motionless. Farther down water rushed somewhere out of sight.

  He noticed a gentler path along the side where the earth turned into loose stones. Carefully he climbed down, gripping roots and rock edges.

  At the bottom he found a shallow stream. The water was clear and ice cold. He scooped some into his hands and washed his face.

  Then he crouched and inspected the scrapes on his arms. The cuts were shallow but dirty. He tore a strip from his sleeve, soaked the cloth, and carefully cleaned the skin.

  He worked quickly and without emotion. Habit took over. The same routine he had followed countless times during duty.

  When the bleeding stopped he rinsed his hands and washed out his mouth several times. The cold made his teeth ache but his head cleared.

  He stood and walked along the stream.

  The body of the beast lay not far away on the rocks.

  If I want to live longer than a few hours, this might be my first chance.

  He approached slowly. Dust slid under his boots.

  Up close the animal looked even stranger. Not just large. Ancient.

  The muscles were thick as stone. The fur was coarse with dull shades running through it. The head was massive with powerful jaws.

  And the fangs.

  Long.

  Curved.

  Extending far past the lower jaw.

  Dan stopped.

  "Saber tooth..." he whispered.

  He touched one of the fangs. Cold. Smooth. Far too long.

  Nothing like any modern predator.

  He stepped back. Then another step.

  His mind resisted the conclusion forming inside it.

  That was impossible.

  Saber toothed cats had gone extinct thousands of years ago. Tens of thousands. Anyone who had watched a documentary about evolution knew that.

  Yet here it was.

  Dead.

  Real.

  "This is insane," Dan said aloud. His voice sounded rough. "Complete nonsense."

  He looked around again.

  The forest was thick and wild. Completely untouched. No paths. No human tracks. No trash.

  Only trees. Vines. Moss.

  And silence.

  A kind of silence that did not exist in the forests of the twenty first century.

  "It has to be a reserve," he muttered. "Somewhere in Mexico. Or Argentina. They cloned it. From DNA. Like the stuff they found in amber."

  He stopped talking because the explanation sounded ridiculous even to him.

  Cloning saber toothed cats.

  He remembered reading about similar ideas in science magazines. Scientists had talked about bringing extinct species back. Mammoths, for example.

  Maybe this animal had escaped from a lab. Maybe this was some private reserve where experiments were done.

  The idea was stretched thin but it gave him something to hold on to.

  Anything except the other possibility.

  Anything except time travel.

  "No," he said firmly. "Do not think about that. First survive. Then figure things out."

  He forced himself to look at the carcass again.

  Meat. Hide. Bones.

  Tools.

  Clothing.

  Everything here could give him a chance to last until he found people or a road or some sign of civilization.

  "Alright," he said, trying to keep his voice steady. "Since you are already here we will call you my first trophy."

  He crouched beside the animal and considered where to begin.

  No knife. No axe. Not even a sharp stone nearby.

  But he had hands. He had a brain. And he had a massive body of meat that would start rotting within hours if he did nothing.

  "Well," he sighed. "Time to remember everything I ever watched or read about primitive survival."

  He did not know how literal that phrase would turn out to be.

  He did not know that he was separated from home not by hundreds of miles but by hundreds of thousands of years.

  The world he remembered had not even begun to exist.

  He would not simply survive.

  He would become the beginning.

  For now he just stood over the body of an ancient predator, looked at his scratched hands, and searched for a rational explanation for something that clearly had none.

  Deep in his mind something stirred.

  A strange feeling that he had somehow been here before. Not seen this forest, but felt something like it. As if somewhere, long ago or somewhere else entirely, someone had spoken to him about a mission. About a beginning. About a road with no way back.

  Dan frowned and pushed the thought away.

  Déjà vu. Just stress. His brain had done stranger things after long shifts.

  "The trick will not work," he told himself quietly. "I am fine. I will handle this. First meat. Then shelter. Then people."

  He repeated the words several times like a mantra and got to work.

  And the strange feeling stayed somewhere at the edge of his mind, quiet, patient, waiting.

  The forest isn’t just hostile. It doesn’t belong to his world.