Behind the walls of her tower, ensconced at last behind the new locking door, Riley turned her gaze to the day’s hard?earned resources.

  Riley had never thought she would get excited about sorting piles of dirt and rocks, but here she was.

  She knelt near the center of the tower and quickly organized everything she had dragged in from the river into four distinct piles. Food, which was mostly wheat and berries with a few scraggly extras. Wood, stacked in neat lengths. Stone, irregular and stubborn. And finally ore, which she left on the floor a little distance from the others, set aside almost reverently.

  One by one she lifted the sorted piles and carried them to the large resource bin against the wall. The lid rose smoothly when she touched it to greet her. She placed the food in first, then wood, then stone, then ore. Each load was swallowed with a quiet chime in the HUD.

  ? Food 30%

  ? Wood 30%

  ? Stone 20%

  ? Ore 10%

  She dismissed the resource count from the center of her view and brought up the quick start upgrades. The tower responded with its usual sparse menu, like a game that had not unlocked all its features yet.

  ? Walls

  ? Upper-level access

  That was it. Two choices. Both good. Both necessary.

  She chewed lightly on the inside of her cheek, staring at the floating icons.

  Stronger walls would mean more durability if something tried to break its way in. The attack that had happened while she was away was proof enough that this place was a target. Anything passing through the area saw a tower, not a harmless ruin. And if it was determined enough, those three raw claw marks on her door might just be the start of something more invasive.

  Upper-level access was tempting in a different way. A true bird's eye view. Not just the HUD map with its stylized lines and fog, but actual distance, depth, the real contours of the land. She imagined being up there with the wind in her face, able to see threats long before they got close. It would give her real line-of-sight advantages.

  Both options would help with defense. One passive. One potentially active.

  She let the thoughts turn over in her head like pebbles in a river. If she was going to be around, then upper access might be the better early pick. But she was leaving in a few days and would be back on Garron's cart, bouncing along toward Rivermark again with her teeth clacking against each other.

  That meant the tower would be sitting empty for days at a time, unattended. No one to drag benches in front of the door or make use of that upper-level rock-drop strategy. The only thing the tower would have is itself and whatever the system had baked into its structure.

  She opened the wall upgrade and checked the requirements. The numbers lined up in tidy columns. Food, wood, stone, ore. Her current totals flickered beside the costs, and she did a quick mental calculation that barely needed math at all.

  Three more full trips to the river should do it. That would be enough to meet the minimum requirements. If she pushed, she could start the timer before dark.

  A little spark of energy fluttered in her chest.

  She loved starting timers before bed. Always had. There was something deeply satisfying about knowing that while she slept, invisible systems were grinding away for her. Training troops. Upgrading walls. Research ticking over one percentage point at a time. The holy trinity of progress: troops, buildings, research. The nights where she managed to start all three at once had been almost too much. She would lie in bed buzzing with quiet joy, barely able to close her eyes.

  She smiled at the memory and shook her head.

  Focus.

  She gathered her gear with renewed determination. Pickaxe. Shovel. Rope. Bucket. The little cart creaked as she hitched it up, but it felt solid enough. Her body was tired, but it was still willing to cooperate. Load after load, trip after trip, she could turn her fear and anxiety into something tangible, like thicker walls.

  She stopped with her hand on the door handle.

  There it was again. That feeling.

  Not the memory of it. The actual thing. A prickle at the back of her neck. A weight just behind her left shoulder, like someone was standing there just outside her peripheral vision. Watching. Waiting. Not moving in. Not striking. Just observing.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  She took a long, slow breath. Her fingers curled against the handle.

  She hesitated. If she left now she might be putting herself in danger but if she stayed, she would be jeopardizing her progress. Hiding from the world wasn’t an option, not if she needed to explore it to find a way home.

  “This day is mine,” she thought. “You cannot have it. You cannot take it away.”

  She opened the door.

  The sun was still shining and it chased some of the tension out of her shoulders on contact. The sky was a clear, endless blue. The kind that made it feel like nothing truly terrible could happen in such nice weather.

  She stepped outside with her head up and started toward the river.

  Her body knew the motions now. Swing the axe. Gather the branches. Twist wheat from its stalks. Pry loose pieces of stone from the bank. Load cart. Walk. Repeat. She moved efficiently, each trip shaving off wasted seconds here and there.

  Gone were the days when she could sit in a chair with her phone propped on a pillow and harvest resources while scrolling through chat and sipping her third tea of the day. There was no idle collecting here. Every grain of wheat came with sweat. Every rock came with strain. She kind of hated it, but also, reluctantly admired herself a little for not collapsing.

  On one of her breaks, she knelt by the river and splashed water over her face. The cold shocked her skin. When she leaned closer to rinse her hands she caught sight of her reflection.

  She barely recognized herself.

  She had always been on the thinner side, but now there was an edge to it, a narrowness that looked less like aesthetics and more like the kind of weight loss your doctor frowned at. Her collarbones were more pronounced. Her cheeks had lost some softness. Her arms looked wiry. The overall effect screamed “not enough intake for the output”.

  She stared at herself for a long moment.

  "This is definitely not shredded," she muttered.

  She needed more food. Calorie-dense. Variety.

  The tower's needs were important, but she was the only engine that powered this entire machine. No food meant no energy and no upgrades. No defense. No future.

  The next time she went to Rivermark, food would need to be higher on the priority list. Higher than shiny things. Higher than interesting tools. Otherwise, this whole project would stall because the player had exhausted herself to death.

  She sighed and straightened, shaking the water from her fingers.

  A sound snapped across the quiet.

  She froze, half crouched, one hand dripping.

  It was distant, but not so distant that her body could pretend it was nothing. Somewhere behind her and off to the side. A crack of a branch. Something heavier displacing weight.

  Her HUD pinged in the corner of her view and an alert popped up in her vision.

  ? Carnivorous Caribou Level 1

  Her mouth opened on automatic.

  "Is that like a ballsy Rudolph," she started to say, but the joke died halfway out of her throat when she heard the growl.

  It came from directly behind her.

  Very close.

  She turned slowly, limbs moving like molasses, and stepped until the backs of her boots felt the unforgiving edge of the riverbank.

  The creature stood three strides away.

  It wasn’t that big. Definitely smaller than some of the beasts she had seen in her nightmare visions. Maybe one hundred and fifty pounds. If it were a human, it would have been manageable. In predator terms, with the muscular build and the strange intensity in its posture, it was terrifying.

  Its antlers were not as impressive as the storybook reindeer she had grown up seeing in winter displays, but its teeth made up for it. Long, curved fangs hung outside its mouth, flashing every time its lips pulled back in a soundless snarl. Drool gathered at the corners, catching the light. Its eyes were fixed on her with unwavering focus.

  Her blood ran cold. A chill zipped up her spine as if someone had slid ice under her skin.

  Oh, how badly she wanted to be behind her new locked tower door. Because out here, eye to eye with this animal, she was completely exposed and completely out of ideas.

  "Slowly," she thought. "Just move slowly. Do not startle it."

  She lifted her hands, palms out, like she was trying to calm a stranger's dog in a park. Her fingers trembled. She shifted her right foot half a step to the side.

  The caribou snapped and growled in a short, vicious burst, teeth clacking audibly. It did not lunge, but the air between them tightened.

  She tried another tiny step, this time with her left foot. Again, the animal snapped, a warning crack like the breaking of a heavy stick. Its shoulders bunched. Its hooves scored the dirt.

  Riley darted a look to her right, just enough to orient herself. Her equipment lay scattered on the bank where she had dropped it earlier. The shiny new pickaxe glinted in the sunlight like a ridiculous beacon. It was one lunge away.

  The caribou tracked the movement of her eyes somehow, or maybe just registered her weight shift. When she tried a third slow step, angling slightly toward her tools, it snapped again and took a half step forward.

  Each snap brought more saliva. Thick ropes of it hung between its teeth before breaking and spattering the ground. Her gaze kept snagging on its jaws, on those long, pointed fangs that did not belong on something she had once thought of as a gentle, snow prancing herbivore.

  She stalled. Her body locked in place. Predator eyes held her like hooks.

  The pause stretched.

  Her heart pounded and adrenaline surged through her entire body.

  This was it. She was going to die. The thought was bone deep. Solid. Not hypothetical anymore, not a “what if” whispered at night. It sat there like a cold stone in her gut and every instinct inside her shrieked.

  Run. Fight. Do something.

  Suddenly, something in her snapped free.

  She moved.

  On pure instinct, without thinking it through or planning angles or calculating risks, she faked left. Her shoulders dipped that way, her weight followed, the beginning of a desperate dash.

  The predator took the bait. Its head jerked to the left, body tensing to cut her off on that side.

  Riley threw herself hard to the right instead.

  Her boots slid in the dirt. For one sick second she thought she had misjudged the distance and would end up face first in the river. But her outstretched hand hit the shaft of the pickaxe. Her fingers closed around it and she rolled, scraping her knee, scrambling to her feet in a clumsy burst of motion.

  She came up with the pickaxe in both hands.

  She raised it above her head, arms shaking with effort and fear.

  The caribou had already recovered. It stood directly in front of her now. Closer. Angrier. Its head lowered. Its muscles bunched like coiled rope. The growl that poured out of its chest this time was a lower, thicker sound of escalation.

  The predator stared at her, unblinking, ready to take this fight to the next level.