My mind screamed at me as I ran deeper into the foliage of the jungle, the ground shaking beneath me as the giant stone elephant followed in pursuit.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!" I screamed as I ran, trying to keep a steady pace, only to continue to stumble as my now four legs shook, tremors rushing through the ground as the earth quaked beneath me.

Feeling my back grow cold and watching a shadow loom over me, I quickly ran to the side, avoiding the large stone trunk that slammed down where I had been running previously.

The elephant seemed to keep pace easily with my running. Both because I was clearly not used to this weird blue body yet, and also because of its long stone legs.

"Come on! Wake up wake up wake up!" I screamed in my mind, my body scrambling to escape the stone monstrosity, mud and leaves from the ground sticking to my chest as I tried to continue to run deeper into the jungle, whatever foliage made contact with my hands quickly husking away into grey ashes.

No matter how much I tried to make this dream disappear, nothing seemed to change.

Cuts started to form on my forearms as small branches clipped me, my face kept getting slapped by leaves and vines, and my legs started to ache as mud and leaves stuck to them.

I didn't have time to think of what was happening to my body at the moment, I was too busy trying not to get crushed by the giant stone elephant.

"I can't keep running like this!" I thought to myself, my mind racing as I tried to think of a way to escape this situation, "Come on, think Jack think!"

I kept running, my mind running faster than my body as I took in the surroundings, the dense jungle foliage, the vines and trees in front of me, the muddy ground beneath me, the shadow of the elephant approaching behind me, the world shaking all around me as the tremors grew stronger.

"I can't keep running like this!" I repeated, "I need to slow it down, somehow!"

And it was as my hand pushed a vine out of my way, that a plan hatched in my mind.

Moving as fast as I could, my hands started grabbing onto every tree I passed by, husking it away. My smile grew as the quaking ground hastened the process of the log turning to ash, flaking away and allowing the tree to fall behind me, crashing against the stone behemoth.

It wasn't much, but it was worth trying.

More and more trees fell behind me, the tremors from the elephant and the leeching power of my touch turning the lush forest around me into a playground full of obstacles to throw around.

Sadly, no matter how many trees I fell onto the elephant, it wouldn't stop. It barely slowed down, its long tusks flicking the trees away, its trunk slamming on the ground where I stood without slowing its momentum in the slightest.

At this rate, I'd die of exhaustion instead, but I couldn't stop running, I couldn't let myself be crushed by that stone monster.

"This is nothing like cross country!" I yelled, a chuckle escaping my lips as my lungs ached for more air, my new body swaying as the ground shook harder than before, the closer the elephant got the more tremors reverberated around.

It was as the earth shook, that a hole opened on the jungle ground beneath me, crumbling away into an underground cavern, a river coursing directly beneath me as I fell into the sudden sinkhole.

[UNSTABLE TERRAIN DETECTED] The elephant shouted in its robotic voice as it followed me into the growing hole in the ground, the underground river slamming into its body and pushing it towards me as I flailed in the water, trying to keep myself above water, unable to swim properly with this new body.

[TARGETED ESCAPEE LOCATED] The elephant sounded out, its trunk moving once more to try and slam me, the blue circuitry that surrounded its body glowed once more, the large brown gem on its forehead releasing an ominous glow as the trunk attempted to slam into me once more, slowly moving through the surprisingly deep underground river.

Seeing as my current options were to either be dragged deeper into the underground river and risk drowning, or attempt to use the stuck statue as an escape back into the jungle, I decided to keep hold to the wall I was hanging off from, waiting for the trunk to get close enough for me to grab.

As the trunk reached me, I grabbed onto it, my body screaming in effort as I tried to pull myself out of the river and onto the moving statue, trying to use it as a lifeline to save myself from this river.

[CONTACT WITH ESCAPEE ESTABLISHED] The elephant's voice boomed in the underground tunnel [INITIATING TREMOR ENGINE]

As those words escaped the robotic elephant, the blue circuitry and the brown gem shone again.

I blacked out, there was no other way to explain it. One moment I was hanging on to the elephant for dear life, the next I was coughing out water, having nearly drowned as my unconscious body went on an underground joyride down the world's least fun water slide.

In my mind, the robotic voice of the elephant kept echoing.

[ERROR - MAGICAL ENERGY SUPPLY DEPLETION APPROACHING RAPIDLY] it screamed robotically [ERROR - ISLAND PROTECTION PROTOCOL - DESIGNATION TREMOR MACHINA - INITIATING BACKUP ENGINE] my mind ached, my skull pounded as the voice kept going, robotically booming as if it was still chasing after me, crushing me beneath its trunk [ERROR - MAGICAL ENERGY BACKUP SUPPLY DEPLETION APPROACHING RAPIDLY]

[ERROR - ISLAND PROTECTION PROTOCOL - DESIGNATION TREMOR MACHINE - SHUTTING DOWN]

I threw up, my mind growing numb as the world around me seemed to keep shaking, as if the elephant was still right behind me, its large stone trunk ready to slam down upon me at any moment.

Everything shook, my legs, my arms, my mind, I just wanted to wake up from this dream, from this nightmare, I wanted it to stop shaking so much.

So much shaking.
Quaking.
Tremors.

"STOP IT ALREADY!!!"

As those words escaped my throat, my body collapsed onto the soft sand beneath me, the underground river having dumped me at the edge of a tropical beach, with palm trees and white sands.

My breath ached heavily in my lungs as I simply lay there, staring at the waves hitting the beach, watching a small crab walk sideways into the water a distance away.

I was out of breath, I was tired, I was blue, I had four hoofed legs, I had a pair of corkscrew-shaped horns emerging from my head, I was bruised, I was cut, and most importantly of all.

The world stopped shaking, and I was still alive.

As I felt my eyes close, sleep ready to pull me away from this world of hurt, a simple sentence passed through my tired mind, accompanied by images of the glowing brown gem from the elephant's head.

"I have a feeling I'm not in Kansas anymore..."

Author's Note

Two years later is still better than never!

Poor Jack...

The next chapter will hopefully be much sooner - I'm trying to catch up on some of my lesser worked-on stories because I'm kind of getting burned out from Trash of the Royal Castle and I need something to work on in the meantime.