Lady of Curses

Aella was nervous, but at the same time ready. She raised her weapon a little bit higher, ready to swing it down at a moment's notice, as the sound grew closer. And suddenly the creature showed itself as it jumped out of a bush. Her first instinct was to swing down but she stopped herself when she saw the figure that was making all that ruckus. 

It was a rabbit or at last something that looked similar to it. This rabbit-looking creature had brown fur, and long ears like a normal rabbit, but it had three long fluffy tails. But Aella didn't have much time to look at it before it jumped away, out of her vision, after seeing her. So now Aella was standing in the middle of a forest with a branch, she had picked up, over her head fully naked, while contemplating what she just saw.

''Haahhhh... what is happening?'' Asking this she dropped her hands down, with her makeshift weapon still in her grasp. Aella was now making new possibilities in her mind after seeing the rabbit thing. One of the being that she was transported to another world, similar to how it happened in some fantasy stories, but it wasn't easy to accept it, so she again decided to push it in the back of her mind.

Aella took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. After somewhat successfully doing that she remembered her original goal, try to find civilization but if she couldn't find any then survive. So with that in mind she decided to follow downstream of the river because she knew that she had a higher chance to encounter civilization following a river than just walking blindly in one direction, at least she hoped it was true.

Decided on her plan Aella took a few more sips of water and started her journey to find civilization. With her trusty weapon by her side and a river of water to keep her company, she took one step at a time through the forest's terrain. At one point in her travel, she started to relax a little bit, maybe not the best distinction, but for her, it was exhausting to be so on edge. 

Aella still didn't drop her guard completely and checked her surroundings, but now her journey was accompanied by soft humming. One melody after another was heard from the traveling woman, as her legs continued to work. 

Looking around Aella could see that the nature was beautiful in this place, if not somewhat weird because the more she looked around the more unusual it got, especially the animals. She could see that birds and some bugs and even the fish that were swimming in the river were not something you could encounter on Earth, and even the few more land animals she encountered didn't look right.

So while on this path to find civilization Aella's mind was again fully working on figuring out what was going on, and the more she looked the more she was sure that she was probably not on Earth anymore, whatever that meant. Either she was dreaming or somehow got transported to another world.

Now if it was the first option then, she would probably wake up soon, if it was the latter then there was a lot to consider. Two considerations popped into her mind instantly. One, why was she transported, and two how advanced is this world's civilization? If it's one of those medieval time civilizations with magic, then she will probably be okay, mostly because she could explore magic to entertain herself, but that's one of the best scenarios. 

Maybe this world is much darker, and people like her who just wandered from the forest would be put in slavery and made to work just so they could survive. So yes, there was a lot to consider in that kind of situation. At some point, Aella considered just staying in the forest, just because she didn't know what could happen to her if someone from this world saw her, but as fast as that idea came it went away, after all, Aella had no idea how to survive in the wilderness. She even tried to check if this world has anything like a system, or character menu, she tried saying different keywords like ''system'', ''menu'' or just ''open'' but nothing worked, at one point she just decided to test if she could feel the magic like some of the stories described, but nothing so she gave up, and decided to continue with her original plan.

Looking up Aella could see the sun peaking through the tree leaves, still shining brightly but it had changed its position quite a bit, making Aella aware that she had already spent a good amount of time walking, but for some reason, she didn't feel hungry, thirsty or tiered. Aella was sure that this wasn't normal but she didn't complain, less things to worry about.

Aella hoped that she would find a settlement soon because she wasn't excited to spend the night in this forest, and she still had not seen any predators, here so she concluded that they most likely are nocturnal, and she wasn't stoked about encountering one when she could bearly see. So Aella started walking faster in hopes of finding a nice place to spend the night. 

There weren't a lot of things Aella could do at the moment so she just walked, and thought over different scenarios, but sometimes she just played with her stick. At one point Aella was just swinging her wooden weapon and shouting just random words, pretending she was a wizard. ''Appierieus!'' Aella said while pointing her stick right ahead and by some lucky coincidence something appeared in her vision.

At first, she couldn't fully see what it was but, getting a little closer she saw that it was a wooden wall, a man-made wooden wall. Seeing the wall Aella got a little excited and started to almost run, but halfway there she again slowed down, because her mind was starting to fill with dark thoughts, mostly what-if scenarios. For example what if this was a bandits camp, or slavers secret base, or some crazy cannibals home.

Aella started to reconsider and think that maybe it would be better not to go. But in the end, she didn't stop and went with the mentality of what happens, happens, if she gets brutally murdered here so be it, and the faster she gets over with this the better. So she resumed her previous fast pace, ready for anything.