CYOA Wednesday 2025 #23 [Beyond the Woods 23]

This fantasy CYOA story ends today. Synopsis below:

When Derek, Jade, and Clara go camping, they stumble upon a portal to another dimension filled with strange creatures and sexy seductresses.

In this last installment, Clara wants to return to help everyone who helped them escape. How will this tale conclude?

Read for yourself below:

23 – Beyond the Universe

“I think we should go back,” Clara said, and bit down on her lower lip so hard she tasted copper.

Derek loosened up a bit but did nothing to hide the shock in his voice.

“Go back? Clara, we barely made it out of there alive. You…” His gaze flicked to her wrists, then away. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am.” Clara exhaled through her teeth, her cool breath dancing in the air.

“But… why?” Jade’s voice was frayed. “I’m with Derek. That world almost killed us fifty times over, and now you want to run back into the danger zone? I’m sorry, but that’s absolute madness.”

Clara’s lips pressed tight. For a full three seconds, her face trembled with some private calculation before she spoke, low and raw: “Because it’s going to keep happening. The portals will keep activating and more and more creatures are going to be kidnapped. I want to save Aethera and the Wanderbeast. After everything they’ve done for us, it’s the least we can do.”

“We’re not even sure if they’re still alive,” Derek said. “The portal that brought us here seemed like it was going to swallow The Undercroft whole.”

“They are,” Clara continued. “I’m positive they made it out, but I don’t think they’ll be safe for long. The Guardians will come out after them as well as those who run that zoo. I can’t let that happen, guys! I can’t!”

“You don’t have a clue what you’re doing! You’re not even…” Derek flailed for language, gesturing at her hand as if it might attack him on command. “Not even yourself anymore! That power is unnatural.”

Clara swung her hand in a slow, deliberate circle, channeling the energy of the forest around them. The world bent ever so slightly, tree trunks bowing and righting themselves, as if acknowledging her transformation.

“I am myself. Maybe for the first time. I can feel everything. It’s the right thing to do. We left them there, Derek. All of them. I’m not going to run.”

Jade’s face hardened, but the mascara scoring under her eyes made her look like a weeping ghost. “Even if we did that, there’s just three of us, Clara. Three against god knows how many threats waiting for us. They must be reinforcing their defenses as we speak. If we set foot in there again, chances are we’ll be vaporized on the spot.”

“Not if we go prepared. We get guns, full tactical gear, and all that jazz. We find our friends and then start wrecking that place apart.”

Derek shook his head. “Listen to yourself! What you’re suggesting is impossible, but even if it weren’t, there are countless other worlds like that. Do you want to storm them all?”

“I didn’t say that, but I want those prisoners to be given a fair chance. I didn’t ask for these powers, but now that I have them, it’s a waste not to use them. I’m doing this, guys, whether you’re with me or not.”

“Clara…” Jade muttered. “Please, e only want what’s best for you. Can we least calm down, and get some rest before you do something you’ll regret it?”

“We can rest, yes, but my mind is set. It will be harder to do things on my own, but I won’t stop until I succeed.”

“Let’s go back to camp and try to get some sleep,” Derek concluded. “Tomorrow is a new day, okay?”

“Okay.”

By the time they reached their campsite and got a halfhearted fire going, Clara was already drawing diagrams in the dirt, tracing arcs and notations neither Derek nor Jade could decipher. She mumbled through options, turning over rescue scenarios like playing cards, sometimes in English, sometimes in the riddling glossolalia of the generator’s code.

Derek tried to sleep, but the flicker of blue-green reflections off Clara’s skin kept dragging him to the edge of full alertness. Twice, he caught her standing motionless at the tree line, murmuring to herself and making the air around her shudder, like the woods were a muscle she could flex if she only found the right impulse.

Jade sat on a log with her knees hugged, her profile lit only by the sullen campfire. “Do you think she’s crazy?” she asked.

“No, I don’t, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m scared shitless. Everything that happened…”

“I hear you, but she’s not going to stop until she gets what she wants. We went there to rescue her once. We’ll probably need to keep her safe again.”

“Do you want to go back, Jade?”

“Hell no, but the alternative is worse! Clara, on her own, drunk with power, going against the world? I don’t think I can accept that.”

“Yeah…”

The night jerked forward in slow, unsteady increments. Branches snapped in the underbrush. Insects sang. At some point, Clara rejoined them by the fire and sat staring into the flames, her mind far away. Derek watched the way she clutched her modified hand, almost with reverence, as if she expected it to start talking to her. It was unnerving.

“I know where all the generators are hidden now,” she said aloud, looking at them. “Each one is a command center for a different sector. If we can break the central link, it might destabilize the entire operation and destroy that place for good.”

“And all the creatures living there?” Derek asked.

“I’ll create portals for them, escape routes before the collapse. It will be worth it, guys! Please trust me.”

Derek knew how this would go. It had the inevitability of weather. Clara building an argument so convincing she’d wear them down, little by little. He folded his arms and said,

“If we help you, will you keep a connection to home open at all times in case things get too dicey? I don’t want to die halfway across the galaxy.”

“Nobody is going to die. I promise to do everything I can to keep you safe if you do the same.”

It was so simple to her that Derek laughed. He wondered if, by morning, they would all be infected with whatever was coursing through her – bravado, alien code, or just abject recklessness.

As the fire dwindled, Jade rested her head on a log. Clara curled up at the fire’s edge, laser blue veins illuminating her sleeping face. Derek took first watch, listening to their breaths and the damp hush of the west woods, where tomorrow he knew they’d be dragged once more through a hole in reality.

They were going beyond the woods and beyond the universe to save those who had risked everything to save them. Failure was not an option, no matter the risks.

THE END (?)