Wilson gasped for breath as he ran through the cold winter air. The cold air felt like iced needles piercing into his skin as he ran. His legs were sore and tired. He wanted to just collapse into the snow and rest but he couldn't. He was being chased by the dreaded deerclops. Wilson had seen this monster last winter but had been lucky enough to avoid it and keep from being detected. This winter, however, he wasn't so lucky. He'd just return to his camp after hunting rabbits and was cooking them in his new crockpot he'd created. He'd been so excited to finally eat them in a civilized way. No more cooking over a fire like the barbarian he'd been forced to reduce to. His rabbit meatballs were finally finished when the deerclops came. The one-eyed creature roared and started destroying his camp. Wilson hardly had anytime to escape before it started chasing after him.

The scientist glanced over his shoulder and saw the giant monster was still very much after him. He didn't know how much longer he could keep this up. He was tired, cold and hungry. He would've collapsed minutes ago if it wasn't for the adrenaline rush that kept him going.

The deerclops let out another terrifying roar as it knocked the forest out of its way so it's could catch its prey. One of the trees fell into another which toppled on the ground before Wilson. The young man cried out and collapsed onto the snow, barely getting out of the way in time. He heard the deerclops screech again. He turned around and saw the huge beast take a swipe at him. Wilson quickly rolled out of the way, dodging the beast's attack. However, one of the beast's claws managed to slice his shoulder. Wilson cried out but didn't have any time to focus on the injury. He dodged another attack, made a snowball and aimed it at the beast's eye. It roared furiously and covered its eye. Wilson didn't waste any time. He quickly scurried onto his feet and ran in a different direction.

"I don't know how much longer I can keep this up." Wilson gasped. His body was becoming fatigued. He needed to find somewhere to hide and fast!

He glanced around his surroundings, seeing nothing but trees and scattered branches. He peered over his shoulder, seeing that he had managed to earn more of a distance between himself and the monster. He wasn't paying attention to where he was going and fell into mush, face first. He quickly picked himself up and wiped the mud off his face and beard. He found he had fallen into the marsh of the swamp. He heard the screech of the deerclops getting closer behind. He peeled himself off out of the muck and quickly glanced around.

"I need to hide somewhere fast!" He cried to himself. He looked to his right and saw a rundown house in the distance. A small smile appeared from his lips. "There!"

He ran towards the direction of the house, adrenaline pumping through his blood and guiding his body. He could hear the crackling of falling trees from behind. The deerclops was getting closer. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the monster come into view. It roared when it saw him and started to pick up its pace. Wilson cried out and ran faster. His body was on the brick of collapsing.

He finally made it to the house. He reached for the knob and threw the door open. He quickly shut it behind him and ran towards a fallen table. He tripped over a piece of the wooden floor that poked out with nails sticking out, which sliced the side of his leg. He yelped but hastily crawled over to the table and hit behind it. He hardly had time to catch his breath when he felt the vibrations to the giant approaching. The closer it came, the higher his body bounced into the air.

It stopped right outside the house. Wilson held his breath and slowly peered out of a small hole in the table. He covered his mouth to prevent his gasp from escaping his throat. The deerclops was at the window, peering in. It's huge brown eye looking in all directions inside the abandoned structure. Wilson turned around and closed his eyes. He internally begged and pleaded for the universe to, for once, help him.

The universe decided to answer his plea. Just as the monster was about to smash the house, an unlucky merm caught the attention of the deerclops. The two creatures stared at each other for a moment before the merm let out a cry and ran away from the furious beast. The deerclops let out a loud screech and began chasing the unfortunate creature.

Wilson let out a long drawn out sigh of relief when he saw the deerclops leave. He thanked his lucky star for finally working and glanced around the abandoned house. There wasn't a whole lot to the place. There was a bunch of junk with some dark petals around the place and trinkets that appeared to be back from his home world. He reached over and scooped up some marbles off the ground. He smiled to himself as he thought of how he used to play with these back home. He clutched the marbles and closed his eyes as he thought back to his home. His little cottage in the woods where he was left alone to work on his experiments. He missed that little cottage. He missed his home world. He missed the civilized way of living. He even missed the social interaction he'd get when he went into town. Now things were different. He was kidnapped from his home and forced to survive here. This world was cruel, unkind and lonely. Sure, he had the pigmento talk to but they weren't ones he could have an intellectual conversation with. There was only one person that he could but Wilson wanted nothing to do with him. He was, after all, the reason he was here.

He opened his eyes and glanced at the marbles. He pocketed them, feeling a sting of pain course through his arm as he moved his shoulder. He'd forgotten about his arm in his moment of panic. He glanced at it and saw his whole shoulder and down to his arm was stained with blood. He wished he had his backpack but he forgot to get it when the deerclops attacked. Wilson mentally slapped himself for not grabbing it. It had a healing salve inside and he needed one badly.

Wilson sighed and glanced around the room for anything he could use to bind the wound but to his dismay there was nothing.

"Of course. That's my luck for yeah." The scientist groaned. "I guess I'll just use my gloves."

He took off one of his gloves then glanced at his injury. Blood had stained halfway down his arm, chest and back. He could feel it stick to his clothes and knew how much that was going to hurt to remove. He wanted to take off his clothes and clean up the injury but he had no water or anything for that matter. He bit his lip and hissed as he wrapped the glove around his wound tightly.

"That should stop the blood." He sighed and leaned back against the table. He shivered and felt a wave of exhaustion washed over him. He was so tired. He just wanted to close his eyes and sleep. "No! I can't! I have to warm myself up."

He opened his eyes and scanned the room again. Something on the other end of the room caught his attention. He slowly got off the ground and tried to walk towards the object but he cried out in pain and stopped. He glanced at his mud covered pants and felt the familiar stick of blood oozing down his leg. He tilted his head to the side, lifted up his left pant leg and saw blood oozing down the side. He hadn't realized just how bad the nails had cut him but apparently it was deep. With another groan, Wilson took off his remaining glove and wrapped it around his leg.

"Hopefully that's the last injury. I'm out of gloves." He said to himself. He glanced back at the object in the darker part of the house. "Now back to discovering what that is."

The young man limped over to the object and found, to his delight, that it was an old fireplace. He smiled happily and quickly gathered all the dark petals and threw them in. He grabbed a few loose floorboards and threw them in as well. When the fireplace was stuffed, Wilson then rubbed two pieces of wood together and sparked a fire. He gently placed the small flame inside the fireplace. His smile grew as did the fire. He released a happy moan when he felt the wave of heat on his shivering body. He scooted closer to the warm blaze and watched the fire. The flames crackled and danced together while it radiated off blissful heat. Wilson could feel it reach out and kiss his cold face. He closed his eyes and let the hands of the flame warm him.

He didn't know he fell asleep until he heard strange gurgling sounds awaken him. He rubbed his eyes and opened them. He gasped and nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw merms enter the rundown house. He held perfectly still as he realized that they hadn't noticed him yet. He glanced out the window and saw it was getting close to dusk. He needed to get out of here and find another place for shelter and something to eat. His stomach let out a loud growl at the thought of food. He hadn't eaten anything in over two days. The rabbits he managed to catch had been the only ones he'd seen in days and that damn deerclops ruined everything.

He didn't realize he caught the merms' attention once his stomach growled. They all looked at him and narrowed their eyes. They gurgled and ran after him.

"Not again!" The scientist groaned and barely dodged an oncoming attack. He winced as he awakened the sleeping pain in his shoulder and leg. He quickly got to his feet and ran out.

Another chase broke out as the merms went after him. They were a lot faster than the deerclops and were quickly gaining on the limping man. All he wanted to do was just sleep next to that warm fire! He just couldn't catch a break and he knew why. He glowered at the sky and picked up his pace. He glanced back and saw the merms were persistent in the chase. At this rate, they would easily catch up to him. He reached in his trouser pocket and threw the marbles at the fish men. He managed to hit a few in the face and even trip one. It wasn't much but it was enough for him to distance himself.

Wilson finally managed to lose the merms once he hit a different terrain. He couldn't tell where he was however, judging from the pine trees, he was in the forest area of the world he was trapped in. He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered as a cold wind blew on him. He looked around for some sort of idea where he should go. He glanced up at the sky and saw it was nearing dusk. He needed to find shelter before it became night or whatever hid in the darkness at night would get him.

A black cloud of smoke caught his attention as he gazed at the sky. He glanced over at it and saw that it wasn't too far away from where he was.

"I wonder what's causing it. Is the forest on fire?" He wondered aloud and started walking towards the smoke's location.

The closer he got towards it the sooner he realized it wasn't a forest fire. It was a bonfire. Whose fire could it be? Could it be the pigs? Why would they have a fire now when it was so close to sunset? They usually hid inside their homes around this time.

He decided to investigate. He crept closer towards the area and saw a huge wooden fortress. On the other side of it he could hear the oinking of the pigs. So they were having a bonfire! Maybe he could join them for the night? They were, after all, friendly towards him. He walked towards the stronghold and peered around the sides for an opening. He found one on the far end on his left. He smiled and limped over towards the opening. As he got closer, he could smell the sweet aroma of meat. His mouth practically drooled at the thought of food. He peeked in the opening and gasped in surprise. There was a ton of pigmen! He had never seen so many. The most he had seen with them all together was five at the most. There seemed to be about twenty here. They were also wearing grassy skirts and headbands with blue paint lines underneath their eyes. He had never seen these pigmen before. He decided to spy on the pigs and see if they were as friendly as the ones Wilson had encountered.

He watched as the pigmen talked to each other, occasionally yelling about defending the king or protecting some kind of torch. Wilson didn't really understand what they were talking about and to be honest, he really didn't care. It was nearly dusk and he needed shelter. He was about to make his presence known when his brown eyes caught sight of a huge patch of berry bushes. Wilson immediately started to drool at the sight of them. His stomach growled furiously, wanting so badly to have something in it.

Wilson decided that for now he would remain silent. He didn't know why but something felt off about these pigmen. They gave off a vibe that said to remain hidden. So, that's what Wilson did. He carefully slipped inside the area and tip toed towards the berries. He was halfway towards them when one of the pigmen turned around and saw him.

"Uh, hello." Wilson gave a little wave.

The pigman narrowed his eyes and shouted. "You no stay!"

"I'm sorry I just-"

"You go away!" it said and started to run towards Wilson. This caught the attention of the others. They grabbed weapons and started shouting at Wilson to leave before they chased after him.

"Oh for crying out loud!" Wilson snapped and ran away as fast as he could.

Unfortunately, he wasn't fast enough. He barely made it out of the fortress before he felt something sharp hit his back. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a dart sticking out of his shirt. He tried to reach for it but he was suddenly overwhelmed with exhaustion. He stopped running and fell to his knees. He couldn't fight the fatigue that was claiming his body. His eyes became so heavy he couldn't keep them open. His body collapsed onto the floor and he shut his eyes and everything went black.

Wilson awoke to the sound of fire crackling. He opened his eyes and saw a huge fire before him. His eyes widened and a small smile crept upon his lips from the warmth. He tried to move towards it but he found he couldn't. He glanced down and saw his legs were bound to rope. He tried to move his arms, which caused him to hiss from the pain in the shoulder, but saw that they were tied behind the pole he was bound to.

"What the hell?" He wiggled against his bindings, ignoring the pain as he tried to get out.

"You no go!"

Wilson glanced up to see one of the pigmen standing in front of him, his arms were crossed.

"Oh, now you don't want me to go? You know, you didn't have to use a sleeping dart on me to get me to stay!" Wilson snapped. "I'll stay but you don't have to tie me."

"Me no untie! You stay!"

"Stay for what?" Wilson glanced up at the sky and saw it was night. "I must've been knocked out for a couple hours." He glanced around his surroundings. Some pigs were roasting what looked like a gobbler over the bonfire while others kept the pig looking torches lit. "Well, I guess I'm safe from the darkness."

His stomach began to growl. He glanced back up at the gobbler cooking and realized this had been what he smelled earlier. He began to drool at the thought of biting into the sweet succulent meat. He glanced back at the pig staring at him.

"Look, if you won't untie will you at least give me some food? I'm starving."

The pig shook his head. "You no get food. You be food!"

"What?!" The scientist gasped. "You can't eat me!"

"We eat now!"

The pigs started to circle around Wilson. He glanced his head frantically as they got closer. He wiggled and wormed against his bindings. He tried to get away from the pigmen as they approached him. They used the spears to cut through his bindings. Wilson immediately tried to flee but the pigs snatched him. They jabbed him with the spears and bound him against a roasting stick.

"Let me go!" Wilson panicked as they bound his feet to the stick.

"Time for roast!" They chanted and escorted him towards the fire.

"No! Let me go!"

One of the pigs holding the roasting stick suddenly squealed and fell. Something grabbed its feet and dragged it out of the fortress and into the darkness. The other pigs froze in fear as they heard their other squeal.

Wilson watched in horror as something grabbed another pig and pulled it towards the darkness. What was happening? Was it the creature that lurked in the darkness? No, it couldn't be! It doesn't come in the light. Then what was-

"Say pal, you look like you could use a little help."

Wilson's eyes widened at that voice. That voice he knew oh too well. The one that he loathed but at the moment was relieved to hear. The pigs and Wilson looked back and saw the tall man walk out of the shadows. He retrieved a cigar from the inside of his jacket and lit it with a lighter. He took a long drag of the cigar then exhaled a cloud of smoke. A wide grin appeared on the man's lips as he looked up at Wilson.

"Hello Higgsbury. It's been awhile hasn't it?"

Wilson shuddered. He hated how that deep smooth voice still affected him.

"Maxwell," Wilson narrowed his eyes. "Wha-"

"-You no stay!" A pigman shouted and lunged towards the tall man.

Maxwell watched, unamused, as several pigmen charged after him. He took a long slow drag, not caring in the slightest that he was about to be attacked. When the pigmen were just about to use their weapons, Wilson saw Maxwell's shadow tendrils come out of his back. They slithered and snatched the oncoming pigmen by their tiny feet. The pigs squealed and demanded to be released but Maxwell just looked at them and blew out smoke. He grinned and used his shadowed hands to throw the pigs into the darkness. When they hit the darkness, they squealed and shrieked as they heard the movement from the creature in the shadows.

The demon man smiled in the direction he had thrown the pathetic creatures. "They should be a nice snack for Charlie."

He took another drag then glanced at the paralyzed creatures before him. He smirked at their frightened expressions (Wilson's included) and walked towards the young man. The pigmen didn't move. They watched the demon man walk to their captive. Maxwell towered over the remaining two holding the roasting stick. His black eyes peered into their beady little ones as he stood there. The pigmen gulped, fear oozing out of their eyes. Maxwell chuckled at them. He loved seeing the fear he caused in pathetic creature's eyes. He looked at Wilson and saw the same fear in his brown eyes. His smile widened.

"I'll take it from here." He said to the pigmen. They didn't do anything. They just stood there holding the stick, trembling in fear. Maxwell rolled his eyes and frowned. His shadowed hands appeared from out of his back again and he used them to smack the pigs away. The stick fell onto the ground, causing Wilson to let out an "oof" then whimper. His tendrils grabbed the stick and pulled it out of Wilson's bindings.

Wilson narrowed his eyes and said, "Y'know you could just untie me."

"I prefer you bound and helpless." Maxwell grinned.

Wilson frowned at the uneasiness that smile brought him.

Maxwell laughed and knelt down to scoop up the bound man. Wilson protested but the demon man ignored him. He walked towards the direction he hurled the pigmen. The pigmen didn't move. They just watched as their meal was taken away from the tall demonic man.

When Maxwell reached the edge of the light from their fortress, he looked over his shoulder and grinned at the frightened creatures. He snapped his fingers and all source of light went out. The pigs squealed and screamed in fright. Wilson could hear them running around in panic and then the movement in the shadows from the creature that hid in it. He heard the pigs screaming and the sounds of torn flesh.

He looked up at Maxwell, whom was smiling sadistically as he walked into the darkness. It was then Wilson realized the path of lights appearing as the ruler of this world walked.

"I've never seen these before." Wilson muttered to himself out loud.

"That's because they only appear when I'm walking, doll."

Wilson frowned at the nickname. "I wish you wouldn't call me that."

"Wishes don't come true here, pal." Maxwell chuckled and looked down at his prize. A mocking smile on his lips. "You should know that by now, Higgsbury."

Only too well because of you.

Wilson winced when he heard a high-pitch scream from behind them. He could hear the pain in the pigmen's voice. He sighed then glowered at the demon. "You didn't have to kill them."

"No but I wanted to. They'll make a good supper for Charlie." He laughed.

"Who's Charlie?"

Maxwell ignored him and continued. "Besides pal, they were going to kill you. You should be happy that I even saved your worthless life."

"You try to kill me all the time!" snapped the scientist.

"Yes," Maxwell looked down at Wilson. The glimmer of predator flashed in those soulless eyes. "That's because you are my plaything. I can kill you any way I want."

Wilson opened his mouth to retort but he was suddenly hit with a wave of exhaustion. He didn't know if he had been struck by another dart or by something else. Maybe it was the freezing cold air seeping past his skin that was chilling him to the bone and covering him with a blanket of fatigue. Whatever it was, he couldn't fight it as much as he tried (it was a bad idea to fall asleep in the hands of someone who thought of you as a toy). The last thing he saw was a sadistic smile on those lips before he fell under the spell of sleep.