Chapter 1

... to open that door behind which lies a frightening strength.

All he knows is what all people know. He knows the strength that flows into the body when pushed into a rage. Fearlessness comes and allows him to lash out at all around him. He knows the regret following devastation and hates the harm caused by such an unthinking fury. There is the guilt that comes afterward.

Rage is not the only key that enables the power to escape. Fear for others allows one to perform heroic feats of strength. The parent, out of fear for their child, is strong enough to lift a car. There is the survival instinct that allows one to run for miles when chased by an enemy. There is the competitive drive that can let loose this power and allow an exhausted athlete complete the race. There is the sacrifice that can save many at the expense of self: the soldier throws himself on the grenade to save his comrades from injury or death.

He knows that the power is neutral. It can be used for good and for evil with equal ease. It’s a two edged sword. Unlike a real sword, he can not be trained in the use and mastery of this tool. Without training, the power can not be aimed to achieve good ends. Hence, it’s a power that must be contained by an iron will.

Only specific circumstances can destroy the will that binds this power, and it’s in those circumstances that it is the most destructive. Destruction aimed at others will turn and become self-destructive. This he knows in the same way that others know: from experience.

The trail from last night’s campsite to today’s destination was familiar to him. He had walked it five years before and little had changed. New generations of squirrels had come and gone, yet to his eyes they could have been the same squirrels he encountered then. It’s a fact of life that a particular individual does not matter in the grand scheme of things. Nature can not operate in any other fashion. For nature to be robust it can not depend upon a single individual. To do so, would make it fragile. Only individuals value one over another.

His walking stick made a soft thud as it struck the dirt. Occasionally, the walking stick would make a sharp click when the brass tip would hit stone. His pace was easy, but he approached his destination steadily. He would be there on time. An observer would consider him fearless, but he feared what he would find on his arrival. Would the Goddess be angered that he had allowed harm to come to his medallion? Perhaps it was time that he, like a squirrel, was replaced by a new generation.

With such thoughts, he walked through the woods towards his destination. Then, with one step, he transitioned to that other place. The colors brightened, the sounds intensified, and the air was cooler. He took a deep breath through his nose, catching scents normally hidden to the human nose. The air hinted at mystery.

He took a few hesitant steps, not recalling the way to the stream. A naked man stepped free of the cover provided by the trees. John recognized that it was the same man that had broken the chain to his medallion. The man was huge and built like a bear. Thick black hair covered most of his body. Broad shoulders and strong arms completed the resemblance. His flaccid cock, impossibly large, hung over balls the size of oranges.

He gestured for John to follow. They walked along a faint path through the woods. John kept his distance. He feared the man, knowing that he could break John like a twig if he so desired. Soon, they arrived at a stream flowing through a clearing next to the woods. This was the same place John had been raped by the woman. He looked for her, but she was not in sight. The man turned and looked at John. The flaccid cock had swelled with blood to a full erection. No human male could boast of such a huge erection.

Before John had a chance to react, the man grabbed him by the hair and pushed him down roughly to his knees. His cry of outrage was stopped by the introduction of a rigid cock into his mouth. He struggled to get away, but the cock was relentless in its thrusting. He grabbed the balls that hung below the cock and squeezed. His efforts had no effect. He bit down, but it was like trying to bite through a steel rod. The cock forced itself deeper into his mouth.

The cock inched its way down his throat. He started to gag, but the reflex was suddenly killed. Now the man used his hold on John’s hair to rock his head on the cock. John’s energies were spent trying to breathe rather than trying to escape. It seemed like hours that his mouth was ravaged before the man groaned and released cum into John’s mouth, and his throat worked of its own volition to swallow the man’s cum.

When the cock was finally pulled from his mouth, John attempted to speak. His attempt was cut off as he was spun in the air. His pants and underwear were torn from his body in one swift move. He struggled, but to no effect. He screamed as the cock penetrated his ass. It was pushed to the hilt in one rapid thrust. The pain was intense. It felt like a baseball bat had been shoved up his ass. He was spun around to find himself looking up at man. He watched as the man grunted as he thrust hard into his ass. He struggled to free himself from the man’s grasp, but the grip on him was made of iron.

The ass fucking continued for hours. His own cock began to erect. His mind rebelled, but his body acted on its own. The man grabbed John’s cock and started to pull on it. His grip was hard and it felt like he was trying to rip the cock from John’s body. The pulls on his cock were timed to coincide with the thrusts in his ass.

Finally, John’s body performed its final betrayal. He shot cum high into the air. At the same time, the man unloaded his cum in John’s ass. Each time the man pulled John’s cock, John ejaculated again. Repeatedly, for what seemed at least an hour, John ejaculated into the air. Finally, the man stopped his actions and withdrew. With the cessation of activities, the man dropped John to the ground. John lay there, his balls in pain from the excessive milking they had received. His shirt soaked with his own cum.

When John looked up, the man was holding his medallion in one hand. John reached for it. The man threw it in the air. John’s eyes followed the flight of the medallion to the top of a huge cliff. John turned and looked at the man. The man pointed to the top of the cliff. He wanted John to retrieve the medallion. Afraid that he would be raped again if he hesitated, John decided to go after it without further prompting.

John stood up on shaky legs. His ass hurt, his cock was sore, and his mouth tasted of cum. He was wearing a shirt and his shoes. His pants and underwear were gone. His backpack was still on his back. He walked to the base of the cliff and looked up. It seemed impossibly high. He glanced once at the man and then started to climb.

The climb was easy at first. He took his time and conserved his energy for later. As he climbed, the footholds and handholds became smaller making the climb more difficult. Little cracks in the wall were home to scorpions and spiders. They crawled out and attempted to sting his hands. He used his knife to clear the handholds of the insects.

As sweat started to run down his face and into his eyes, he had to work more carefully. It was with an initial sense of relief that the handholds became larger. Then, as he reached for one of them, he heard the telltale rattle of a rattlesnake. He held the knife to his body to warm it. With considerable caution, he lifted the knife up. The snake struck at the knife. In striking at the knife, the snake extended beyond its ability to recover and fell over the edge to the ground below. More snakes were coiled on handholds above him. He repeated his actions, one handhold and one snake at a time.

He finally came to a large ledge on which he could stand. Climbing onto it, he found a dead cat, its head crushed by a rock. It was a stripped tabby and his shoulders sagged with sadness at the sight. Next to the cat were three kittens. There was a tawny, a tiger striped, and a black kitten. The kittens would not be able to survive on their own. John removed his backpack and carefully placed the kittens in it. They fought and scratched at first, but he calmed them down by making gentle sounds to them. They were too young to be wild or to have gone feral. Their eyes had probably been open for only a day or two. He closed his backpack making sure that the kittens could breath and yet couldn’t get out.

As he moved around on the ledge, a rock came hurtling down. It missed him by mere inches. He sighed a breath of relief at his narrow escape. He moved again and another rock flew past him. He had assumed the first rock was the result of something moving above him. The second suggested something a little more sinister. He looked up in time to see a man leaning out of a cave throw a rock at him. He ducked out of the way just in time.

He looked around trying to decide what to do. Small outcroppings of rock dotted the wall of the cliff. He climbed sideways until the outcropping was between him and the man. Rocks continued to rain down upon him. The outcropping protected him from the rocks, but the handholds were tiny and far apart. He struggled up, the strain on his fingers almost beyond his ability to withstand. When he reached one outcropping he had to climb sideways to get beneath another. Those were nervous times as rocks fell around him.

His progress up the cliff had slowed to a near stand still. Despite his seeming lack of progress, he persevered. Slowly he approached the cave from which the man was throwing rocks. He climbed towards the cave. He reached a crease in the rock face that ran next to the cave. He entered it and was then able to climb without fear of thrown rocks. The crease stopped a little above the mouth of the cave. He realized that if he left the crease, the man could reach out and hit him with a stone. That would end his climb.

He reached out and grabbed the side of the cave. With an effort that nearly drained his remaining energy, he swung himself into the cave. The wild man inside attacked him immediately. John fought to subdue the man. The man fought to kill John. His eyes shone with a madness that denied any suggestion of rationality. As the man scratched, kicked, bit, and hit, John resisted. He grabbed John and tried to strangle him. John threw the man off. The wild man stumbled backwards out the mouth of the cave and fell to the ground below.

John slumped to the ground breathing hard. His efforts had nearly drained him. He was tired, sore, and hungry. His eyes took in the cave looking for anything that could help him in his situation. There was nothing but loose stones. His attention was suddenly grabbed by a sound from deep within the cave. It was the sound of a person running. John stood up and waited, hoping that this person was more reasonable than the last. His hopes were dashed when the man immediately threw himself at John. The struggle was shorter as John was less willing to try to subdue the man. Again, the other man was only stopped when he was thrown out the mouth of the cave.

This repeated itself as one man, or sometimes two men, ran from the back of the cave intent on killing John. He fought only to keep from getting killed. The wild men fought on until they were thrown to the ground below. He drew upon reserves that he didn’t know he possessed. He never intentionally killed the men; he only tried to subdue them. There came a time when he stood poised for the next man and no one came. It was over. He didn’t trust the peace enough to rest there.

John went to the mouth of the cave and looked up at the top of the cliff. It was only ten feet above him. He started climbing. In seconds his arms began trembling with fatigue. His legs shook. He pulled himself up a foot. His fingers cramped as pulling up his weight stressed them. Pain shot through his arms. Sweat ran down his forehead and into his eyes. His vision blurred. He moved a foot up seeking some small outcropping or crack that would support his weight. Looking down only allowed more sweat to run into his eyes. He found a small crack and lifted himself up. He felt the rock above him with numb fingers as he searched for another handhold.

He struggled to climb. Each foot of progress upward sapped his strength. For a well-rested man, this portion of the climb would have been easy. For a tired man, it was murder. He finally reached the top and pulled himself over. He lay there with his feet hanging over the edge. He didn’t care; he was past caring.

He lay there for thirty minutes before dragging himself upright. He looked down at himself. His scared legs were scratched and bruised. His cock looked like a bloody mess. His fingers were bloody stubs. A fingertip looked like it had been bitten off. The tip of a bone was visible through the meaty flesh of his finger.

He looked around at his surroundings. He was on top of a mesa that rose impossibly high out of a forest. The plateau on which he stood was less than a hundred feet across. It was flat and featureless covered by scrub brush. There was only a single tree.

He opened his backpack to check on the kittens. They were curled up and asleep in his pack. He looked over them and wondered what he would do with them. He had no milk. At least they had survived to this point in time.

He put on his backpack and went in search of the medallion. It wasn’t long before he found it lying on the ground near the center of the mesa top. He knelt down and picked it up. He looked at it and saw the chain had been repaired, but the medallion had changed. The man who had sent him on this task appeared next to him. He took the medallion from John and placed it around his neck. He said, “John Carter, you have learned compassion and used it to help people. Now it’s time for you to discover your strength and use it to protect people.”

John was bent over; his hands on knees as he listened. He couldn’t catch his breath. The sweat ran in a river, dripping off his nose. At that moment, he didn’t feel like he had any strength. The man smiled at him and then said, “You have done well, it’s time for you to rest, John Carter.”

John woke stretched out under a tree next to the clearing. He was rested and felt good. He was fully dressed with the clothes that he had been wearing, but they were clean and brand new. His hands were healed.

He slowly became aware of a low rumbling noise and a pressure on his thigh. He slowly sat up and looked down at his thigh expecting to find his backpack. Instead, he found a full-grown cougar. It was a beautiful example of its species. The tawny brown coat was thick and glowed with a healthy luster. He estimated that it was somewhere between 175 and 190 pounds. It was asleep with its head lying on his thigh. The low rumbling sound was a purr.

His heart raced as he tried to figure out what to do. The very last thing he wanted to do was to surprise the cat. A cat that big could do significant damage to an unarmed man. He searched for his backpack hoping that he could get to his knife. It was too far out of his reach. His walking stick was on the ground next to him. He grabbed it and tried to use it to move his pack closer.

The movement must have woken the cat. The pressure suddenly disappeared from his thigh and the purring sound stopped. John slowly turned his head to find the cat sitting and watching him. John stayed frozen in place, but the cat never moved.