Lost Continent

Yang Fan had just come out of the supermarket. She was carrying a shopping bag with sanitary pads, gum, and some snacks, like chips and chocolate. She turned a corner, head down the whole time, looking at the supermarket flyer in her hand. There were very few cars on this road, and the area was all residential. Then she tripped. When she stopped, she found herself in a forest. She was stunned. She could smell the dampness of plants and the earthy scent of soil. The trees around her towered into the sky, blocking out the sunlight. As far as she could see, the forest seemed to have no edge. It was like she was in the middle of a dense forest. She stepped back, maybe tripped on a root sticking out of the ground, and ended up plopping down on her butt. Everything in the shopping bag spilled out by her feet. Yang Fan thought she had very healthy habits. She didn’t have any bad vices, whether drugs or heavy drinking, and she didn’t like staying up late. She was generally positive and didn’t have any mental issues. So none of this was actually a hallucination? She touched the wet ground. The black soil was nice and sticky, and some little shelled insects were scurrying around among the rotting leaves and dirt. She pulled her phone out of her jeans pocket. It still had battery, but there was no signal. She tried to write a text and send it, but it didn’t work. She tried calling a few numbers, and of course that didn’t work either. She tried to calm down and first picked up the things that had fallen out of the shopping bag. Looking at the chips and chocolate, she was glad she at least had a little food, and then regretted not grabbing a bottle of water too. There was a time display on her phone, but she didn’t know if it was still useful. If she could go from the city to a forest in an instant, then maybe she wasn’t even in China’s time zone anymore? She needed to find a place to spend the night before it got dark. Then she could think about everything else. Yang Fan picked up a branch that looked thick enough, chose a direction where there seemed to be fewer trees ahead, and walked that way. She walked forward for an hour, but the scenery hadn’t changed at all. It was still a forest that seemed like it would never end. Her ankles ached. Walking for an hour on flat ground and walking for an hour in a forest were completely different experiences. She couldn’t walk anymore. She kind of regretted using up her energy before she had a better plan. She felt thirsty. The green forest and the plants on the ground looked fresh and full of moisture, but she couldn’t drink them like water. Just when she was considering picking a few blades of grass that looked safe and chewing them to see if she could squeeze out some grass juice to quench her thirst, a tall monster suddenly jumped out! She let out a short scream and turned to run blindly, but the next moment she was grabbed by her hands and feet and lifted up, as if she were just a little kitten. In front of this monster, she had no ability to resist at all. The monster’s claws had five fingers like a human’s, but they were obviously bigger and stronger. Its hands were covered with small bluish scales, and its nails were sharp as hooks. It lifted her upside down and put her on the ground, and then she saw what it looked like. Yang Fan was quiet and obedient. She didn’t want to anger the monster. She obediently lay on her side on the ground and let the monster look her over. At the same time, she was looking at it too. The monster was probably two meters or taller. Its whole body was covered in scales. The scales on its feet were glossy black, and the higher up they went, the lighter they got. The scales on its neck were almost pale white, and there were no scales on its face. It was male—that was Yang Fan’s guess—because its chest muscles were well developed but it didn’t have female breasts. It looked a lot like a normal human. Its limbs, torso, and facial features weren’t very different. That made Yang Fan a little less afraid. The difference was in his eyes. He had vertical pupils like a lizard. When he crouched down and lifted Yang Fan’s legs, she saw that he also had a thick, strong tail behind him. His tail was almost longer than he was tall, and it looked like a weapon. His tail was also covered in black scales, and they looked bigger and harder. It was slightly raised and slowly swaying left and right. If he were a cat, she would think that tail meant he was very interested in something. After what felt like a century, he finally seemed satisfied. He stood up, lifted Yang Fan, put her on his back, and then ran out of the forest at incredible speed. Yang Fan saw the scenery around her rushing backward. She didn’t know how fast he was, but seeing it was like looking out of a car going at top speed, she was so scared that she held on to him tightly, afraid she would be thrown off by his speed. He seemed to feel it, so he held her even tighter. She didn’t know how long he ran. After they left the forest, the view suddenly opened up into a slope covered with huge rocks. He didn’t slow down. After a while, he carried her to a huge rock facing away from the sun. There was a small hole there, and he stuffed her into it. She had never known her body had this kind of potential. She could only say human potential was endless. He squeezed in after her. Yang Fan didn’t move the whole time. She made herself look like a very obedient prey. After he crawled in, he picked her up from where she was sitting on the ground and carried her inward. When her eyes gradually adjusted to the light, she realized the huge rock had been hollowed out. This might be his lair. Deep inside the stone cave was a higher stone platform, taking up about a third of the cave. A thick layer of dry grass was spread on top. He put her down on the grass. The dry grass was very soft. Yang Fan tried to feel this strange world with her hands as much as she could. She thought the grass wasn’t like any grass she knew. It was fine, soft, and long, and very tough. She tested it and found that with her strength, she couldn’t pull even one blade apart. While she was feeling around on the grass mat, he stood in front of her watching the whole time. Only after she decided her study of the grass mat was over did he make any other move. Yang Fan didn’t really know how it happened. From beginning to end, she had a detached feeling, as if she were outside of herself. The monster used his sharp claws to lightly cut open her clothes, and then, like she was a real piece of prey, he had his way with her. Resistance, crying out—things like that—were firmly suppressed deep down inside Yang Fan the whole time. Life was more precious than anything. The monster doing this to her had absolute power. She even felt that if he wanted to, he could slice open her belly, pull out her organs, and eat them. She recalled the key points about how women should better protect themselves when facing violent harm. She tried hard to cooperate with everything he did. When he finally stopped, she praised herself in her heart for doing well, because she wasn’t injured. Although she wasn’t injured, she didn’t feel like she had any strength left either. She couldn’t move even a finger now. She breathed rapidly and tried hard to stay conscious. When she forced her eyes open, she found he had been staring at her the whole time. Those yellow-green eyes kept looking at her. Her lips trembled. She wanted to beg for mercy, but she couldn’t even make a sound. This kind of thing had never happened to her before, so she didn’t know if her current exhaustion was normal. Maybe it was because of him? She didn’t know how long he had done it. Maybe she was injured? Her trembling hand couldn’t help but touch her own belly. She almost thought that if she touched it, her belly would split open and blood would come gushing out.