1. Bizarre world inside of the novel

Blood was draining away from her severed left arm and the deep wound near her chest as Maria pointed the gun towards the massive unsightly creature in front of her.

"Grrragh!" It growled with its long crooked teeth held out as it prepared to jump at Maria any moment.

"GO! I can't hold out much longer. Leave without me!" She screamed at Johan who was shivering at a distance, being unable to do anything. His tears, sweat and blood were mixed together on his cheeks. His chapped lips trembled, "No! I wo-"

"JOHAN!!!" She pulled the trigger while moving further away from him, and her lips curved into a genuine smile, "Don't make our deaths futile! Live for us, go!"

The second after Maria finished her words, Johan observed her getting slashed and devoured by the horrid green-skinned ogre.

His legs wanted to give up as he turned around and began sprinting towards the white light. He could sense the creature chasing after him when he gritted his teeth and rushed with all the strength left in his body to reach out for the light....

"The End?" I said as I flipped the book to check if it was really the end.

"Did he make it out or not? What kind of cliffhanger is this?" Sitting straight, I glanced at the novel's cover that was supposed to get a game version next year.

I'm Ella Quinn, 25 years old & a professor in biology who got divorced two years ago. A few days back, someone suggested me that novel for research purposes. It was a survival novel, where some group of people lost their way in a strange forest, different from the real world, and faced death one by one except Johan, the male lead.

"But did he make it?" I kept pondering as I felt my eyes getting hazy.

"Strange...why am I sleepy? I just....slept...." My vision slowly turned black when I let my eyes rest for some sleep.

_______

A wretched smell woke me up. My eyelids felt heavy as if there was sand in my lashes, as well as my body.

"Ack!" I groaned as I tried to move my body. There was something like dry grass under me. I felt my calloused hands as I rubbed my eyes to see the horrifying cage surrounding me.

"W-what is this..? Argh!!" Feeling intense pain in my legs, I glanced down to see them tied up with thick rope. My ankles were bleeding from the density of the rope.

My body felt smaller than before, and also the black torn rag wrapped around it. I moved near the cage bars to take a glimpse of that damp sickening place and saw some broken skeletons laying on the ground, covered in straw-like grasses. It almost looked like a ranch where we kept animals for butchering.

Thinking the worst, I kept looking for something sharp to cut off the bind and escape from the cage. I kept digging around aggressively, and luckily a broken bone scraped my hand.

After ripping off the rope, I tried to look for a way to break the bars.

"How do I get rid of this?" I said as I shook the bars, and it felt frail. Whoever or whatever did this underestimated me. I placed my palm on one of the bars and pushed it forcefully as I felt it getting apart from the other bars. The small space between the bars was enough for me to shrink out. The walls of that square room were probably made with hardened mud. But their potency was no different from Iron. There were no windows, and the ceiling was high. I brushed my ears against the wall to find a lighter part based on the sound. However, strange noises and loud footsteps were coming outside the walls, which meant that room was in the centre of something. Thanks to my luck, I managed to find a huge rat hole under the heap of fodder.

I crawled on my knees to peek through the hole and gasped, holding my breath.

I covered my mouth as my stomach flipped, witnessing those dreadful monsters before me. They were dark green skinned, large and tall, with faces like death masks hanging from their bones. Their eyes were like holes, oozing blood mixed with yellow liquids. I tried to keep calm as much as possible since my priority should be escaping.

There were 4 of them. And judging from the cage, they were not that intelligent even though they had arms and legs.

"Good for me," I mumbled as I glanced around to look for a way out. The main entrance seemed open. And even if I ran through it, I didn't have the faintest idea of what lies beyond it.

"But what other choices do I have?" I thought as I made up my mind to run. Since I was a fast runner and my body was small, there was a chance that they won't notice.

I wrapped some stones around my waist and picked up the bone. "This will work. It has to!"

Taking a deep breath, I ran as fast as possible without any sound since my life depended on it. The light touched my joyous face as I reached the door but once I got outside, my body halted, and the joy was eternally erased from my face.

Fear crawled over my body, prickling my skin as I noticed the familiar 'bizarre' forest in sight of me, "N-no way! The giant Aurepaver trees, strange purple sky and those creatures inside....Impossible!"

Wobbling with shock, I dropped to my knees as I covered my mouth, "There's no mistaking it. This is near the eastern border of Baraddurn."

The eastern border was where hundreds of humans were kept as livestock. Every one of them was eaten alive before both of the main leads arrived.

"This is the world...inside of the novel."

I could hear the slow, dragging beat of my heart as I felt getting Paralyzed by fear since I was aware of what I was about to visualize from then on.