The presence of the monster did not stir the beautiful woman and instead laughed at how the scared little skeleton was at the monster. She assured the skeleton that the monster was safe and offered the skeleton to help him clean up.

The skeleton offended scoffed and was not willing to take help from the kind lady. The lady insisted anyway and persuaded him to clean himself up. But a small reminder crushed him with a pain so great, that he was barely audible.

The kind woman knew and proposed to help in any way that she can.

A small breeze blew on me, making my cloak fly in the wind. Small petals blanketed me as I stared into the distance. The small curves and mountains glittered in the evening light.

"Geno," I heard Life call.

I didn't turn my sight from the mountains. The sound of grass glazed over my ears as I turned to see her sitting down beside me. A moment of silence transpired between us. We both stared at the sunset together.

"Hey, Geno..." Life started. "Do you think that you've done everything you wanted?"

I stared at her in surprise, but I shouldn't have. It would only be normal to ask questions to a person who was about to ascend to heaven. I thought about it for a moment. Have I?

"No, not really," I replied simply, after a beat of silence.

"No? Why is that so?"

I thought for another moment.

"I wanted to be an author, of some kind. Or a doctor. I wanted to help people in the best way I could... but with the war, I could never do anything. Never..." I looked down to my journal which was resting on my lap, open on the last page I was writing before... this happened. "I could never fight for real. Self-defence? Sure. But taking a life? Never. I couldn't bring myself to do that. I'm thankful that I'm not the legal age to fight yet."

My eyes felt watery. It was a weird feeling on the right side of my face, it was half-melted so I wouldn't know what the tears would look like. Another moment of silence fell between us. I wiped away my tears and held my quill again.

"Geno..." Life said, again. "If you could take a chance to continue living from this moment, would you?"

I was stuck for a moment. What did she mean by that?

It took me time to think about it, would I live to see another day or just die miserably?

"No, I just want to start over again. Everything in my life is already as screwed up as it can be." I just said, writing a single word in my diary.

"Geno,"

"yes?" I said back, my one eye still staring at the page.

"What if I could have you start over? A new body, new everything?"

I laughed at her statement. "Well, I would definitely take the chance. A new slate, a redo."

She also laughed as well, I raise an eyebrow at her but continued to smile.

Life stood up and walked in front of me, staring directly into my eye. I stared at her curiously, uncertain of what she would do.

"Geno, I am the goddess of life. For centuries I've waited for someone to come through the enchanted forest and now you came I can finally rest my heart at ease."

I stared at her in shock, the quill I was holding was on my book loosely as I dropped it from the pure madness I heard.

I quavered after hearing her last words. "Geno, become my apprentice. So you can rewrite your life again."

"Me?" I told her "why me?"

"I can see it, Geno, I can see it very clearly."

I only looked at her in curiosity. "What do you see in me?" She walked closer to me and bent down to my eyesight.

"It's the determination in you."

A dark flash past me, I flinched and crashed into the ground. I looked up to see a familiar black wolf... hey, it was that monster again!

I looked away to see Life on the ground gasping and having her hand on her cheek. Did it damage her? Why!?

The monster looked at me, the blue glow staring down at me. It started walking towards me, growling. Vines crept from the undergrowth. Wrapping it in vines.

"Geno run!" Life shouted.

I saw the vines started to decay, I twisted my entire body and started sprinting towards Toby knows what. I felt the dark aura of death behind me, I glanced back to see the gleaming white skull of the monster, it was chasing me, like cats and mice. I kept running, running and running. To the point that I was running with no breath.

Damn it! Why is it chasing me?! Why, why, why, why, why!? It doesn't make sense! It attacked Life! Just moments ago they were acting like they were family! What changed?!

Was it me?

I tripped over and tumbled rolled down a small hill into a creek, where I was soaked with wet mud. I aimlessly tried to wiggle away with success. Only to turn around to see death breathing down my neck.

I looked up into its pupils, I glared at it. There was a momentary stop of the deadly aura that surrounded it, I opened my mouth to raise just a simple question. "Why?"

It stared at me for a moment, seemingly taken aback.

It was enough time to stall it before Life's vines erupted from the ground and pin him.

"Pup, thou shalt not decease this mortal!" I heard life say, behind "Pup".

"No." It said aggressively.

I could feel his hot breath stagger for a bit until it jumped back, letting his deadly touch drain the life out of the vines. It pulled it's focus away from me and towards Life, I could see her green gown now. The monster growled at her, what a beast.

"I see you want to settle this the old-fashioned way. I will humour you, but if I win; you have to obey my orders Pup." She said is a graceful manner.

"Fine." I almost heard it like a whisper before the ground rumbled.

"Geno, find somewhere high to hide. This will get messy." I heard Life say.

I simply nodded and quickly ran to the nearest tree. In haste I climbed up to the very top, trying not to fall like earlier. I heard crashing and growling with an unhearable sound that I had never heard before. I could only describe it as a massive heartbeat from the world, shaking my bones to the point of rendering me useless.

I gazed down as I saw the Pup and Life, vines smashing the ground as the overgrowth decayed. It felt warm but also cold at the same time.

Her vines kept attacking the Monster as it kept dodging and changing its form. First, it was a wolf, then a squirrel, then a type of bird flying around. It was like he was morphing one to another in split seconds to keep up with Life.

"You can't dodge forever." Life stated as she kept shooting vines at it.

The monster flew above and started to rain down silver chains onto Life. it sounded like stars in the wind. It ended in vain as Life swiftly snap them with her vines right in front of its eyes and proceeded to continuously shoot out vines towards the monster. For a brief moment, I thought that the monster was about to get hit, but surprised me as the bird turned into smoke.

My sight confused me as I darted my attention to Life who had a suspicious face. My single eye widened as I saw black smoke forming behind life into a wolf formation.

I was about to yell Life to watch out but a familiar taste shoved itself between my teeth. It was the tree that was covering my mouth!

I watched in horror as Life turned around with the monster about to bite her face. In a quick turn Life pulled up a vine barrier, I couldn't see her face but Pup's felt even grimmer.

"You can't outsmart me Pup, I am centuries older than you. What makes you think you can win?" She said, on the other side of her barrier.

The monster only growled more and dashed to the side where I couldn't see, but for all I know, I saw Pup shoot through the air with a vine squeezing its neck. Then it crashed him down brutally to cause another earth-shattering heartbeat that still made me tremble my bones.

I saw plants grow from the ground and twisted themselves to Pup, effectively trapping it in some way. The vine barrier slowly slides back into the ground. I could finally see Life behind the Barrier, but she seems... off.

I wasn't sure if it was just me but, I felt remorse for the Monster that was trapped under her magic. For something that could've killed me before Life intervened and stopped it from it even happening.

I see Life crouch down to its level, I couldn't hear but assumingly quiet whispers of her victory maybe. Life stared towards me with a heartwarming smile.

It sent me a shiver down my spine.

She did a swift hand motion to come down, to my surprise, the tree's breach I was sitting on outgrew towards Life while I was sitting on it. I tried to not look down as I was still traumatized when I fell off of that tree.

Sliding down the branch, the tree realised my mouth finally as I tried to adjust my jaw.

"I am sorry Geno for having to see that, I had to settle Pup for a moment," she said in a sad tone. " "Are you willing to accept to be my apprentice?"

I slightly hesitated, looking over her shoulder of Pup struggling to get free as the plants moved slowly around it. I noticed a gold shimmer at them.

I closed my eye for a moment before looking back at Life. If I get to restart everything then... that's it.

I opened my mouth. " I..."