John Hunt cursed as he kicked some mud from his shoes. He was out in the middle of the woods, and he wasn't really dressed for the occasion, being in just a t-shirt and jeans and a button up shirt that he wore open to help shield against some of the chill that still persisted in the early spring air. John was in his final year of high school and had just been sort of drifting through his school life, so he had decided to try some geocaching to get himself out of the house and doing something other then playing videogames or surfing the internet. Geocaching was pretty fun; it involved using a GPS to hunt down buried treasure. John had been doing it during the weekends for a few weeks and some of his first finds were pretty easy, but his current mission was beginning to be a bit of a pain. John wasn't in exactly the best shape, even though being fairly tall with a pretty high metabolism he was slimmer then a couch potato like him had a right to be, so the 5 minutes he had spent hiking in the woods to find his latest cache of buried treasure was already causing him to breathe heavily.
John scrapped his shoes on a log to get some of the stubborn mud off and took the time to stop and catch his breath as he looked around at his surroundings. 'Calling these surroundings "woods" is probably an insult to actual wooded areas.' he thought to himself. Really, the area he was currently in was just one of those collections of trees you sometimes get next to the highway, the kind that separate farmer's fields. They can get surprisingly big at times, but when you're in one of them they hardly feel like any kind of real wilderness at all. Still, the collection of tree's he was currently in didn't have a set path in it, so it was hard to navigate. This had lead him to nearly losing a shoe to mud while he had been walking and checking his GPS at the same time to make sure he was on the right track to finding where the buried treasure would be. John still dug playing around with his GPS, it always felt like using a tricorder from Star Trek even though it was an older model, and some happy fiddling with it revealed that he was pretty much on top of the area he was supposed to be in. 'Well, just have to find my treasure then leave something behind for someone else to find,' John thought to himself with a smile. 'then I just head back to the car and head back home.'
Finding this thing would be hard, though. There weren’t really any helpful clues as to where whatever he was looking for would be. John gave a small shrug as he slipped his GPS in his pocket and got to work looking for some kind of container. He had only just started looking around to see if there was anything like a hollow tree stump that someone could have hidden something in when he caught sight of something interesting from the corner of his eye. It was a ring of mushrooms arranged in a circular pattern. John sort of remembered such things being called fairy circles, or something like that. He walked over to investigate the weird phenomena more closely, when suddenly as he entered the ring there was a popping sound and a bright flash of light, the sensation of static electricity, the smell of purple and then oblivion.
---
John woke to a mystery. First, he wasn't were he was when he was knocked out. Second, and more easily explainable, it was definitely apparent that as he woke up it was late morning when before he had been knocked out it had been late afternoon. Now, a possible explanation for his current predicament that tied those two things together is that he was knocked out for nearly a day, and someone had somehow transported him to someplace else in that time, someplace distinctly wilder then the place he had lost consciousness in. This served as a decent enough explanation for now, so John diverted some of his concentration away from figuring out where he was and more to willing his headache away and making sure he did not throw up.
When John was reasonably sure he would not be sick, he carefully sat up and examined his surroundings more carefully. What he saw didn't put his mind at ease, in fact it simply lead to more questions. His time sense was pretty good, and though his initial explanation for the fact that it was morning seemed reasonable at first he couldn't shake the feeling that his surroundings felt much more summer like then spring. And the forest he was currently in... there wasn't anything like this near where he lived. This was a full fledged forest, it felt like true wilderness. More then that, the place had an almost ominous aura. John wouldn't have been surprised if there were giant spiders here like the one Bilbo had to fight in 'The Hobbit'.
Though it should have been warm the shade of the trees and his own worry about his situation caused John to shiver. He pulled his GPS out of his back pocket, trying to see if it could help give him some idea of where he had gotten to. That didn't work out too well, because his GPS wasn't working at all. It didn't seem to be damaged by a fall, or anything like that, it just mysteriously seemed to not be working. John put his GPS back in his pocket and started walking in a direction he hoped would take him back where he came from, or at least in a direction that would take him back to civilization of some sort.
The walk didn't seem to be taking him any where other then deeper into the forest he was in, but it did seem to be helping to clear his head and settle his stomach. John didn't feel hungry, or even very thirsty, so he thought that was some more factors in favor of the "I wasn't knocked out for a day and dragged into a National Park" theory. If anything he figured that he was only knocked out for a matter of minutes, if the state of his body was any indication. John was just beginning to entertain fanciful notions of being kidnapped by aliens to explain his missing time and shift in physical location when he heard a horrible screeching noise.
Perhaps an unwise move, John's first instinct was to run towards the noise. Perhaps it was because the screech seemed to be human, though distorted by the distress the person must have been in to make such an animalistic sound. John came upon a surprising sight, however, when he finally made it to the source of the sound after running a short way away. A small clearing had some kind of flying humanoid creature locked in battle with... a something. The flying thing was moving too fast to make out anything other then it being sort of avian, but the ground based creature was crouched down in a defensive posture and could be easily seen to be, well, very obviously female. And very obviously not human. It had fur covering its otherwise naked body and noticeably feline features. Luckily neither combatant was aware of his presence, or at least they were distracted enough that he was deemed unimportant enough to ignore for the moment, so John took the opportunity to hide.
John's curiosity couldn't allow him to not take a peek to see what the two non-human fighters were doing once he had hidden himself in some nearby bushes to feel somewhat safe. He managed to watch right as the cat monster girl managed to pull off an amazing jump, kicking off a tree branch to change direction in mid flight to slash at the bird thing's vulnerable belly. Giving a cry of pain and dismay the bird thing crashed to the ground, which finally gave John a good enough look at it to determine that it, too, was a female humanoid. There was some blood where the bird monster girl was hit by her opponent, but it didn't seem to be life threatening. It really seemed to be more of a stunning attack to knock her out of the sky. John looked on with fear and some disgust as he saw the cat monster girl stalk towards the downed bird monster girl with a hungry expression on her face. Whatever these things were they looked so human that it would seem like cannibalism if they actually fed on each other, and John was just about to look away as to avoid seeing something horrible when he notice that the cat monster girl didn't seem to be trying to eat the bird monster girl. To his shock she actually seemed to be trying to have sex with her downed opponent. A few minutes latter and it wasn't so much "trying to have sex with" as it was "having sex with". John was shocked enough that he just stuck in his hiding spot watching the proceedings for a few minutes before snapping out of it. Despite the oddly arousing nature of the display before him, the cat monster girl specifically had a ridiculously curvaceous body that was being shown off to nice affect, John carefully made his way out of his hiding spot while trying to avoid the attention of the distracted monsters.
After John was reasonably sure that he had made it far enough away to reflect on what happened without worry he gave a shaky sigh and sat down and leaned back on a tree to collect his thoughts and calm down. He was sure that other men might have been tempted to watch the sexy display he had escaped from but he'd wanted to avoid getting eaten. Or, for that matter, watching someone get eaten. It was no sure thing that the cat monster girl wasn't simply "playing" with her food before she ate, after all, and who would want to see that? The whole business was starting to make John feel emotionally numb; which he supposed was better then panicking.
'Where the hell am I?' he thought to himself, 'And what were those things?'
---
John had spent the last few hours sitting in the same spot; afraid to move for fear that he might meet up with another animalistic inhabitant of whatever crazy place it was he had ended up. His body was curled up in as close to an approximation to a ball as he could make it, because he wanted most of all to be small enough that nothing would notice him. It was in this uncomfortable position that he had spent the last few hours as he tried to come up with theories for what had happened to him. He ruled out insanity on his own part right off the bat, not because he thought it unlikely but just because if he was hallucinating sexy monster girls sexing each other up after nearly killing each other he suspected his mental state was beyond saving. He thought it was better to think that he was in an insane situation rather then that he was insane. The next theory that he examined was that he was in some kind of 'The Island of Doctor Moreau' situation where he had managed to unknowingly sneak into the nature preserve of some kind of perverted mad geneticist. This seemed unlikely, because he was pretty sure that sexy monster girls would be the kind of thing you couldn't keep secret, so he'd have heard about all this by now. Another possibility that he considered was that he'd stumbled onto the set of a high budget B-movie that inexplicably featured hot female monster on monster lesbian erotic action. That theory was a bit comforting, because it meant he wasn't likely in any danger, but it didn't seem likely because the monster girls he had seen, if they were actresses in some kind of makeup, were Hollywood summer blockbuster caliber in their believability. John was fairly certain that Hollywood didn't have a market for a big budget mainstream movie having monster sex in it. Theory after theory was examined and discarded, until finally the theory that John had been edging around considering but immediately rejecting every time he gave it coherent thought slowly became something he couldn't ignore. He began to suspect that he might not be in the world he once new. He didn't just want to jump to the "dimensional travel/unstuck in time and flung to the future" theory, but he had run out of other options. Of course if this was the case it didn't really help him all that much, but John considered the knowledge that he wasn't "in Kansas anymore", so to speak, to be valuable in that it allowed him to abandon any preconceived notions he might have about his current location and adapt more quickly to any weirdness he might find in this strange new world.
With his limbs long ago getting those pins and needles sensation in them John finally felt the need to get out of the fetal position and stretch his legs. The forest he was in seemed pretty quiet, so John figured that if there were any more dangerous humanoid creatures in this place he was in they would be spread out fairly far from each other. The predators would want to avoid each others territory and the prey species, if there were such, would probably not be dangerous to him if he didn't antagonize them. He hoped. Feeling somewhat safer after working out that there might not be killer sexy monster girls behind every tree ready to kill him John finally started to feel the call of nature. He dug a small hole, which he relieved himself in, then promptly refilled it. He wasn't sure if this would help to bury the scent of his urine, but any little bit helped when you were trying to avoid things that might have enhanced senses of smell. John then promptly started walking in the direction that was opposite of the two lovebirds he had left behind, because he at least knew danger was in that direction and that walking away from it was distancing himself from that danger.
John wasn't what you would call a hiker, but he did enjoy nature in small doses. Trees had a sort of calming effect on him; he enjoyed all the green they had to offer. However walking for a few hours pretty much killed any appreciation he might have had for his surroundings and he desperately started to wish to be back in a structure built by human hands that had running water and a supply of food. Sweat had long since made his clothes soggy and uncomfortable and he was very thirsty. He hesitated to use hyperbole and say that he was "dying of thirst", even in his own mind, because there was the nagging worry at the back of his head that if he didn't find a source of fresh water soon that bit of hyperbole would be literally true. In addition to his physical discomfort he worried that he might have traveled too far with no gains to be seen and a big negative to be had. He must have long ago left whatever territory was claimed by the big busted monster cat girl he had encountered, and there was no telling what might be around here. As for where "here" was, the ground was getting rockier and the trees a bit more scarce and there were rocky outcroppings in the distance. John wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not, but he figured that there might be shelter to be found in such a rocky area. It didn't seem like he was going to be able to find civilization anytime soon and he wanted to find some solid shelter, like a cave or something, to protect himself from any monsters that might be in his general vicinity.
John heard the sound of moving water and thanked god when he found a small stream. It was very small, but sizable enough for him to drink deeply from and wash his face, doing much to make himself feel less grimy. The stream didn't appear to be deep enough for anything to hide in it, but John still felt a bit edgy being beside it and only started feeling slightly more relaxed when he got some distance beyond it. He then sat down and rested, looking backwards and making a mental note as to the streams location. It seemed to him that he might have to settle down around here, because the stream was the only source of fresh water he had encounter thus far. While he considered settling down he noticed that he must have been walking up a small incline all this time because he found himself looking out over a vast forest back the way he came. The stream he had encountered evidently had been going downhill at a diagonal to the path he had been taking upwards, which was why he hadn't encountered it before. There were still trees where he was now, but there were also boulders and lesser rocky outcroppings like the larger ones he was heading towards. In the forest downhill he saw that the small stream he had encountered fed into to a larger river. That seemed promising; John thought that the chances of an outpost of civilization being next to a river made sense and that following it might be a path to finding help. However, John was also aware that though the river might lead him to salvation it could also lead to his doom. John occasionally watched Animal Planet and it seemed like sources of water were places that predators congregated. That was one of the reasons he had been wary of the small stream, in fact. Now it seemed to him that the stream itself might be relatively safe because the larger weird predators, like the monster girls he had encountered before, might haunt the riverside. Feeling that there wasn't much chance of being over cautious in the situation he was in, John decided not to blindly follow the river in the hopes of finding civilization and instead decided to further explore his current surroundings and try to get some more information of the nature of the place he was in.
John got up with a tired groan. His little rest had revitalized him a bit, but he was still not prepared for the exertion he was currently undergoing. He managed not to talk to himself, but he couldn't help having an inner monologue that pretty much consisted of nothing but profanity when he wasn't occupied with thinking about what was going on. Even the pretty view of the forest his slightly elevated position gave him didn't really help his mood considering that the vast forest he saw indicated he was in the middle of nowhere. With his thirst banished by his drink from the stream but his hunger still bugging him John was comforted that there was only a short walk before he came upon a rather extensive group of rocks and boulders that he thought might conceal some good shelter opportunities. When he reached his destination he found that there was a small not quite a cliff area where the rocky ground was uneven that resulted in a section of rock that was a sort of wall that was nearly perpendicular to the ground. This seemed a bit weird to John, and it seemed to him there was much about the area that he was currently in that seemed strange. The formation of the rock in the area he was currently in didn't seem to be natural in many ways. In addition to the small cliff, that seemed to be formed by one section of the rocky ground shifting lower as the other section shifted higher which John supposed could have been formed from some kind of earth quake or underground cave in, there were lots of other depressions and rocky formations that didn't seem to have any rhyme or reason for their existence. It was all a bit unsettling and gave the landscape an alien feeling. Some of the boulders he saw seemed a bit top heavy, with rather unstable bottoms that made John worry that he might be hurt by a falling rock or some cave in. It was with these analytical thoughts about the cons of this possible sanctuary that John once again heard the sound of someone in pain and distress.
---
John would have liked to have considered himself a quick learner, but he found himself already rushing to help before he considered the fact that whatever he might be rushing to help might be a monster, like the monster girls he had already encountered. By the time that he thought what he was trying to get to might not be something he would want to help he was already upon the scene of the individual in distress.
It was a naked girl, who had the misfortune of a heavy piece of rock falling and wedging her abdomen into a rocky depression in the ground. That is the first thing John noticed as he skidded to a stop as he realized that he might be coming upon danger too late to make anything but a dynamic entrance. John stood dumbfounded at his discovery, and only after a few seconds did he realize that his initial impression was only partially correct. The girl in trouble was in fact a monster girl, like the others he'd seen but of a different apparent sub-type. What he had first assumed to be dark skin was actually an exceptionally fine layer of dark brown fur, and she had some decidedly non-human aspects to her face, differences hard to pin down in his quick observation except to note that they were definitely there. She was well aware that she was being observed and by whom, and her brown eyes were wide with fear as she looked at John. She was breathing heavily, but otherwise she was silent, and John assumed that she was being quiet for fear that he might be a predator or some other threat. The sound she made before might have just have been an involuntary sound of pain and dismay at her current predicament. Perhaps unwisely, John felt sympathy for the trapped girl and inched forward, trying to be as unthreatening as possible as he looked for a way he might possibly help her, in addition to looking to see if helping her would even be a good idea to begin with. John's slow movements and the soothing nonsense sounds he was making (which made him feel stupid, because they were the sounds you would make to sooth a kitten rather then a possibly sentient life form) seemed to calm the girl and her breathing slowed, though she continued to gaze at him warily.
John was close now, and he took the chance to examine the girl more thoroughly. He felt comfortably enough to drop the "monster" tag when thinking of the girl, because though she wasn't human she didn't seem to be that dangerous. A few seconds further examination seemed to confirm his instinctual response to the girl, because while like the monster cat girl from before in that she seemed to also bare similarities to an animal John was familiar with, the trapped girl differed in that the animal she seemed to be inspired by wasn't that dangerous in John's eyes: she was definitely showing signs of being some kind of mouse like creature. She wasn't a full on anthropomorphic mouse like you might get in some cartoon, but she had definite mouse-like ears that were similarly placed on her head as the ears of certain cat girls he had seen in some anime series he watched. The ears poked out of a messy mop of dark brown, near black, short hair that seemed surprisingly clean and that framed her face cutely. Her face was very human looking (and quite pretty, he couldn't help but notice with some discomfort), but with subtle almost indescribable signs of... well, of mousey-ness. The human sized mouse tail was also a giveaway. Her body ('be scientific!' John thought furiously to himself) was on the petite side, and much of it was hidden by the rock that currently trapped her. John guessed her to be much shorter then himself, though her frame was actually more robust then he initially thought. In fact she seemed quite athletic in her build, and John was sure she'd have no problem freeing herself if she could just have the leverage necessary to push the rock off her body. All in all she gave off a vibe of being pretty scrappy, but not a killing machine. John felt it safe enough to try to help her, not a small part of his decision influenced by brown eyes full of emotion examining him as he examined her.
Feeling stupid for not having tried it before John in a quiet voice tried to communicate with her. "Hello, can... can you understand me?"
The mouse girl's face showed no signs of recognition at John's words. In fact she was showing signs of shifting her attentions away from him. He had not proven to be a threat, and her growing comfort in his presence led her to refocus on her current trapped predicament. She began to struggle quietly, with occasional glances in the direction of the stranger in her presence to make sure he continued to be non-threatening. John tried not to let his disappointment show in his expression, not knowing how a negative expression might be received by the trapped mouse girl, but he felt sad that she didn't seem to be able to speak, or at least she couldn't speak English. He didn't want to make assumptions, but he would have thought that even if the girl didn't speak English she would still understand the effort of communication if she had any concept of communication to begin with. John suddenly felt lonely, even though a girl who looked so human was very near.
A small exclamation of pain, or at least severe discomfort, broke John from his self pity and he once again set his attention on the trapped mouse girl. Her efforts to free herself were hurting her and frustrating her. Worse she seemed on the verge of full on panic. John decided enough was enough and gripped the rock that was on top of her and started pushing with all his might. The mouse girl seemed immediately aware of his actions and she quieted down trying to figure out what he was up to. The rock was heavy for John, but not impossible to lift, and when she realized what was happening the mouse girl added her efforts to John's own. The rock then easily moved away, the only tricky part being making sure that no part of the mouse girl's anatomy was pinched by the rock sliding off to the side. The mouse girl then, in a very surprising burst of speed, darted off a distance away only to stop and in a crouch stare at her benefactor with an expression filled in equal parts by curiosity and wariness.
John was glad she had not fled into the wilderness entirely, never to be seen again, and instead had opted to satisfy her curiosity about him before leaving. He was curious about the girl, himself, and wanted to get a better look at her when she wasn't trapped under a rock in an uncomfortable position. He still hadn't quite the view necessary to gauge her height with her being in a crouch, but he was right about her being much shorter then himself. As he watched her he realized with a bit of embarrassment that her incredibly fine fur did absolutely nothing to hide her figure, and so she was effectively naked. She had wide hips and a rather nice butt, and if her breasts weren't very large they were definitely there, in plain view, and finely shaped. 'So much for being purely scientific about my observations.' John thought to himself, bemused by his attraction to this humanoid though definitely non-human female. A small laugh at the weirdness of his situation actually escaped him, startling the mouse girl a small amount at the unfamiliar noise before she gave a small, not used often, grin after considering the noise and finding it not all that unpleasant.
John felt a thrill at the smile, even if there was still some wariness in it. He wasn't entirely certain if he was excited at the slight hint of understanding between himself and the mouse girl such a smile might indicate, or if he just liked being smiled at by a pretty girl regardless of her species. Whichever reason for the thrill was true John decided to just enjoy the moment. For a few minutes more the mouse girl examined him as he examined her and John enjoyed what he felt might be the closest thing to companionship he might be likely to feel in the near future. Too soon it was over and the mouse girl ran off, leaving John alone.
---
John had spent around an hour exploring the rocky area in which he found the mouse girl. His explorations were by necessity slow, because the trapped mouse girl indicated the area's possible danger, and John knew that if he managed to trap himself in such a fashion no one would come to save him. He did not look forward to a slow, starving death under a rock. Or a quick death under a rock, for that matter. Rocks and death were in general something that John was endeavoring to avoid. There was actually a lot of ground to cover; the place was kind of a maze. He had already found some possible shelter spots, now he was just looking for even better possibilities. Small hollows he could lay down in like the ones he had found already would be ok, but he wanted something a bit grander. John had initially been worried about the wide variety of hiding spots to be found in this sanctuary, but the presence of the mouse girl managed to convince him after some thought that there wasn't likely any predatory monster creatures in the vicinity. A prey species like what the mouse girl probably belonged to would not want to be in an area that held creatures likely to kill her. Finally John came upon a part of the small cliff that was in the area that was slightly obscured by a large boulder. The boulder itself obscured a small opening which he cautiously entered that lead into a fairly spacious room that was hollowed out in the rocky ground. The cave didn't seem to be natural, but John didn't see who could have created it.
John started exploring the small artificial cave; even though he worried that there might be something dangerous in it which had created it in the first place. It was just too serviceable for his needs for him to not explore it and see if it would really serve as a good primary shelter. Luckily it seemed to be abandoned, there was a lot of debris spread around that indicated no one was cleaning up the place. John started to clean up the mess, which was a long and hard process. In cleaning he discovered more about the structure of the cave, there was a main room of sorts that had the most junk spread about and a few side rooms that were a bit cleaner except for some unidentified organic remains that John believed to be some kinds of food stores that decayed after a long time of neglect, rather then being general trash. One side cave in particular had a rather sad discovery in it, and informed John of this caves previous occupant and that individual's fate. He found a small humanoid skeleton, long since decayed to just bones, sheltering itself with several smaller skeletons. John presumed it might have been a mother and her children, who died after the mother suffered some calamity that left her unable to secure food for herself or her offspring. Perhaps it was an injury or a sickness. John felt odd about just leaving the remains where he found them, so he spent the time to gather up the bones of the poor unfortunate and her brood to give them a proper burial. The soil outside was sparse and the ground of the area mostly consisted of rock, so John had to gather up stones to place on top of the bones he had found. The effect seemed suitable enough, and the rocks were heavy enough to keep the remains from being disturbed. John went looking for some rock to provide a suitable grave marker and found a large dark stone that was different then most of the rocks of the area and used it as the young mother's tombstone. The whole exercise was tiring, but John felt like it was something he needed to do. His body ached, but giving the poor creature a burial made him feel more at ease with occupying her home.
John went back into what he now felt comfortable thinking of as his new home away from home, which had been newly cleaned up. Further exploration resulted in him finding a backdoor of sorts that was a small tunnel to the surface in the back. This was a fine discovery, because it meant that if one exit was caved in there would be another which meant that the small cave was an even better shelter, being less likely to become a death trap with one badly timed rockfall. John was well pleased with his new home, despite the fact that with all the crap swept out of it the place was revealed to be very Spartan in its decor. That's the kind of thing you have to put up with when you live in a cave, after all.
With all the events that had happened to John on his "adventure" thus far, night had finally fallen. John was exhausted and went into one of the side rooms to sleep, despite the dull ache of hunger that lingered in his stomach. John was tired enough that he thought he could sleep through the hunger and worry about food in the morning, having dealt with his shelter worry already. The stone floor of the cave wasn't comfortable, but thankfully the stone wasn't cold either. Some kind quirk of chance resulted in the structure of the cave being such that it seemed to have absorbed heat throughout the day providing some heat during the colder night. John settle back and waited for sleep to come to him, as he let his mind wander as he normally did when he went to bed. It occurred to his sleepy mind that he hadn't seen any monster dudes since he'd come to this freaky place. He absent mindedly tried to ponder this before sleep came and John lost consciousness. He dreamed of a girl with brown eyes.