I was still a little weirded out by the whole glass dome thing. I had absolutely no explanation for any of it.

  Well... I might have a theory. Or hypothesis, or whatever.

  The glass broke when I mentally shouted my intent, which, by the way, I'm pretty sure I never did before I died. What if I had made that dome? I was rather fearful when I went to sleep, and then I had a protective shell?

  I mean, what speaks against that? I'm in a world where dragons exist, so why not some kind of magic?

  The thing was that I had no idea how to replicate what I might have done. I had tried the whole "looking inside yourself" thing, but that didn't do anything. I didn't feel any energy flowing through me or anything like that.

  Dang it! A method to protect myself was way too important to ignore, but I was simply lacking any kind of starting point.

  I might have to wait and see...

  ~Ugh.~

  Frustrated, I opened the entrance to my shelter and came face to face with a giant beak.

  As I froze up, the head the beak was attached to jerked to the side and I finally saw my reflection. Too bad that it was in the eye of a giant predatory bird.

  My mind revved up as my perception accelerated, and I was able to have two trains of thought simultaneously. I took note of the bird's two strong legs that went up and out of my limited view. It also obviously had a long neck and, of course, the aforementioned giant beak.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  That's a terror bird. How peculiar to meat a primeval predator that had long since been extinct on earth.

  My other train of thought addressed my mode of escape. It quickly found a solution.

  Through the wall. As soon as I thought that I acted upon it and sprang sideways through the flimsy wall of shed bark and ran as fast as I could.

  I tried to weave around trees and through shrubberies in an attempt at evasive maneuvers. The bird had not screeched when I ran and even now was making horrifyingly little noise as it chased me through the forest.

  It has a lot longer legs than I do. It had gained on me in seconds and only hadn't actually caught me yet because of my random movement.

  Then we entered a clearing, and there was nothing for me to keep between me and my pursuer. Purely on instinct, a feeling in my spine, I threw myself to the side. It felt like a cannonball had hit me, and I tumbled head over tail. The bird had struck, but because of my last-minute safe had only given me a glancing blow to my flank. One that tossed me quite a ways away.

  I picked myself up, started running again, narrowly evading another blow, and left the clearing.

  I didn't know what to do! Yes, keep running, obviously, but even if I could dodge any more attacks, I had a lot less stamina than the raptor. I couldn't really hide because I either didn't have enough of a lead, or my hunter could just wait me out.

  My side hurts. I was pretty sure something was broken.

  No way to run. No way to hide.

  Well. If flight isn't an opti—

  I had wings! I could actually fly! Well, at least I could try.

  Turns out I was out of time, though.

  I received another hit into the same side as before and bounced off the trunk of a tree. Pain shot through me, and I could only see flashes of white dotted with purple-brownish dots. Everything hurt, and I couldn't move.

  Then it hurt more as I felt something heavy settle on my torso. My sight cleared and I looked up into the terror bird's eye. It observed me for a moment.

  As the edge of my vision started to turn black, I watched as it primed its head for the finishing blow.

  Then everything went dark, and the last thing I heard was a deep screech.

  Oh, now you wanna talk.