//------------------------------//
// Awakening  
// Story: Survival 
// by Doctah WAAwee 
//------------------------------//

	You wake up and feel a hard stone floor, and a cold,wet feeling on your forehead. You stand up to see a cave. 

"what..." you look down to confirm your suspicions. You are still in your bed clothes. A faded white T-shirt and a dark blue pair of long pajama pants, and also everything looks... animated.

"Where i'm I... is this a dre-"

You stop yourself right there. You remember the cold water on your forehead, it couldn't be a dream. The feeling you got from the cold dripping water was to realistic. So you now try to explore your surroundings. You walk out of the cave, ears alert and body crouched in a position that will let you run easily if provoked. 

The first thing on your mind is that you have to find a weapon to protect your self. You look around to see trees, lots of them so you find the biggest, and lowest hanging branch you can find. You rip it off with all the force you can muster... only to go flying back when the branch tears away like wet paper. 

"WOAH!" 

You scream and land of the floor. As you take a second to stabilize yourself, you notice something. Every breath... you feel stronger. You think it's just the adrenaline caused by this whole situation, but take a look at your arms. There toner than you remember, much so. You decide to test this theory and start doing some push ups. Everything is normal, but all of a sudden you notice something, your not getting tired. 

You push yourself to do 100 push ups, but then... you just keep on going! You stop and notice the sweat on your body, and realize your pj's are soaked in sweat. Berating yourself for unnecessarily dampening your clothes, the stench of the sweat might give some animal in the forest some bright ideas. So you venture out further into the woods, picking up a big rock in case the stick wasn't enough and making a trail to remember your way back into the cave. After a couple minutes your hear water running.

"Thank you, water at last" you think. You approach slowly, just in case any of the forests inhabitants are helping themselves to the stream. You see something the makes you freeze in shock. Right there, helping itself to some water, is a animal with the body of a lion, bat wings and a scorpion tail. 

"Is that... no... this can't be... a manticore!?" Wait. Animated forest, Manticore chilling next to a stream. It hits you, and it hits you hard. You watched the show back home, and took a liking to it.

"i'm in... my little-" you snap your mouth shut, realizing that in your state of shock you just talked out loud. You look back at where the manticore is. 

Its eyes, filled with...hunger... bore into your tiny fear filled orbs. All of a sudden it blasts towards you, with its mouth open and its tail primed.

You run to your left, and zigzag thought the trees, not knowing where you 're going, you make sure to follow the stream. The wild beast try's to use brute strength to catch up to you, but your constant change in direction makes it sloppy. Finally it gets fed up with you and disappears from sight. Its giant, ground shaking strides stop assaulting your mind. Your about to slow down until you realize something. 

"It... has wings!" 

As soon as you think that something lands in front of you and try's to bite you. Having already braced your mind by remembering it has wings, you leap out of the way and run. Your reaction time is enough to save your sorry hide but not enough to completely avoid injury. The manticore claws at your arm, creating three deep gashes across just below your left shoulder. 

Your brain doesn't recognize the injury because of the adrenaline high you are on. You continue to follow the stream, and the pain becomes more and more noticeable. But you don't slow down, all your mind is responding to is its basic instincts of survival. You see a clearing and you don't hear its paws smashing against the ground behind you anymore. You remember what happened last time, and you change direction. Narrowly avoiding a death tackle from the hulking beast. It comes back, but this time it's gliding. You know you can't outrun the flying predator, so by process of elimination you realize something... If you can't run there is only one thing you can do, something human's excel at in time's of extreme stress. 

You have to... FIGHT. 

Something clicks in your mind. The fear you felt, and the need for survival reverse. You can hear the manticore's wing flaps. The drool coming from it's mouth that is meant for YOUR body. The wind blowing over the manticores wings. 

Everything, to you, is moving in slow motion. Your tighten your fist, and make it look like your running away. Only to sprint towards the manticore, satisfied that the feint worked you jump and swing with all your might the rock that you kept hidden. 

"YOU WANT SOME FOOD, HERE! HAVE A ROCKY ROAD KNUCKLE SUNDAE!"

The manticore, still confused because of the feint, didn't have enough time the respond. The rock Smashed into its face, augmented by the power behind it. A loud "DONK!" reverberated though the forest. The manticore gets sent flying back and falls to the floor and turns tail. 

"Hah, hah... hoped you liked your lunch." You say as your body starts to feel the strain of falcon punching that manticore in the face, you see it limping away.

As you start losing consciousness you see a yellow and pink blur before finally fading away.