Reborn as a Beast Whisperer

Chapter 2: Different World, Same Problems

Jake remembers dying. It was the only thing he could remember as soon as his eyes shot open and the sharp smell of rain and grass hit his noise.

He remembers the loud and blaring honking of the cars in the distance on the road he had fallen from. The crushed, shining overhead light of his car that flickered out was little help in identifying the situation, but he remembers having had fallen from the highway down the cliff at its side and onto the road beneath it.

The thing was- Jake didn't die on grass.

In fact he remembers dying specifically on a hard asphalt floor with the blazing light of his Opel Astra lights mockingly staring at him- so why was it that he was now on a bed of flowers in a forest populated with trees as far back as he could see? Where exactly was he?

A sickening pain shot through him when he tried to move and he looked down to the position of his leg- the rather unfortunate position of his leg.

Twisted in a position it was not naturally intended to go with his the bone of his right leg protruding from the skin, he turned his head and let out the contents of his stomach, unable to now get the wretched smell of blood and the awful, gory image out of his mind. He grunted, “Not Heaven, then…"

But then something strange happened. A sharp c***k resounded into the still air, and a different pain settled on his leg, sharp- then numbing and when he looked to the once disfigured leg there stood now in place of it an unbent and unbroken tibia and fibula.

The skin that had been shredded at the protrusion of the bones slowly began knitting itself together right in front of his eyes and it took everything in him not to turn away and throw up again.

He stared wide eyed and gaping at the scene that unfolded before him. The last thing he remembered was saving a bird from dying, thinking about a warm shower and curling up with his cat- now he's in some freak magical forest that heals broken bones and stitches skin together.

“Okay…" he heard himself speak to no one, “Okay just calm down Jake, you're obviously just having a freak dream." He opened his eyes again and sat up slowly, “A completely… lucid and very real freak dream."

He pushed himself up from the mossy forest floor he came to a standing halt as he surveyed the world… at a much higher position than he was used to.

He looked down to his legs, moving them from one foot to the other as he adjusted his stance and balance, and it wasn't until further inspection that he noticed the change in colour. Where there was once medium tan skin, a deeper more rich golden hue stared back at him.

He lifted his hands to his eyes and there before him were much larger hands than he was used to having, the same shade as his legs and, he would guess, his face.

He twisted and turned in search of any sort of reflective surface, once he spotted a small body of water near to where he had awoken he rushed to it and bent down, stumbling and falling as he raced towards it like a new-born unable to use their limbs correctly.

Jacob swatted away at the moss that had formed at the surface and cursed loud and violently as he stared at the reflection that peered back at him, almost curiously, definitely shockingly.

The face he had on was not his, not by a long shot. Silver eyes sat where there was once dark onyx, and in the place of dark raven hair there in its place were now warm chestnut curls. He even had dark freckles littering from his left cheek across his nose to his right cheek.

He took a deep breath in, then another- then another, and many more followed until he was breathing so fast and heavily his head started to hurt and he fell back against the forest floor again.

The young boy shut his eyes to the sight of the strange and vibrant forest and tried to quell the noises that came from it, but it was no use.

Then he did something impulsive and wholly human. He stood up from the ground and ran.

He had no clue where he was, or in which direction he was even going, all he knew was that he had to get out of that forest; so he ran. The trees passed by him in a blur of greens and browns as his legs carried him a distance faster than he knew he was capable of running.

Jumping over tree roots and beneath branches he continued through the wide forest along the mountainside until his lungs were screaming.

Somewhere along his attempt to escape the vast woodland area that encased him, a fluttering and chirping sounded from around him. He tried to catch sight of the strange white creature that seemed to now follow him but it was too fast.

Then the creature, a bird of a sort he had never seen before, floated in front of his face and stared at him. Bright and long orange lines adorned its body in circles and patterns and a long dark tail trailed behind its body as it twirled and fluttered before him.

Jacob took a step away from the creature in shock, but it followed him, then it flew around his head and wondered off.

Out of instinct, out of an inherent gut feeling that he somehow now possessed, he followed the bird as it flew through the twisted branches and overlapping trees and stopped as it rested on a withered branch of a smaller tree.

Beside it a large cluster of berries had grown from the dead branch and he reached out for it, somehow heeding the unspoken words of the strange bird that beckoned him to move.

He took one from the stem and swallowed it.

A sharp click sounded in his mind, then a visage of neon lights blared before him and it seemed in that moment the eyes of the bird flickered a different colour before it died out.

A screen appeared before him, and the word HUNGER flashed at the very top of it. Below it was a quarter-filled yellow bar, he watched in fascination as the bar turned from yellow to green as it moved to the halfway point and the words WELL FED appeared next to it.

He stared from the bird to the blinking transparent screen before him, then to the surrounding areas of forest and flowers he had somehow ended up in-

“What the f-“ he began shouting, but before he knew what was happening, his eyes rolled to the back of his head and he fell unconscious.