"I mean help you find something that was never seen before."

"Your words told me you wanted to show me bacteria."

"How would you do that when you are so small and slow and blind?"

"Bacteria was an example. There are many varied things that were never seen before. If beetles are the best way to get you what you want, then I will find a beetle never seen before, but there are probably other ways to do it. And I would do it by being smart enough to overcome my smallness and slowness and blindness. It's what humans do."

"I have found human help in things like this useless in the past. Convince me you are different or I will leave."

"How have other humans been useless? What have they done that was not up to par, and in what ways do you believe you would improve on that?"

"They talked and did not act."

The genie leaves with an irritated-sounding gust.

"Do you expect me to do magic? Aren't you even as smart as a human?" she calls. "It's no wonder you can't find the beetle if you don't have any patience to look."

These words do not cause the genie to reappear.

...she still has her luck, though.

It was genie-granted, sure, so presumably this genie would be able to have the same thing but she really has no respect for genie problem-solving skill. She has spent the past few months studying beetles like crazy, particularly from this area, and she's learnt a lot about their behaviours and biology.

And she has brought enough supplies for several days.

The chance that she'll find a new beetle species is minuscule.

She tries anyway.

How closely is she paying attention to her surroundings? Does she notice that the light fog that rolls in during the afternoon is highly unseasonal?

Does she notice the faintly glowing pair of eyes in the distance?

Yes. She starts slowing backing away from them.

The eyes fade into the mist.

About five minutes later her radio makes a sharp click sound.

...no good. She checks it, still looking at the place where the eyes were. Is the radio working at all—?

Something important-looking on a circuit board fell off. It can receive - it can't transmit.

(The normal sounds of the forest have been slowly quieting. The mist grows thicker.)

Is it coming from a direction? And how the fuck did it fall off, can she fix it?

Not unless she has a soldering iron in her pocket. (Monsters cause these kinds of random failures...)

The mist isn't coming from any particular direction. She can see perhaps fifty feet in any direction, now. It also seems to have completely shut down the wind.

Fuck. Okay, how about she run in that direction which is as she knows the closest direction to "fuck outta here."

She can hear... Something... From somewhere off to her left.

Was this fork in the trail here before?

Maybe who cares she's picking whatever feels right or automatic or like muscle memory—

That would be to the left.

This stream definitely wasn't on her path. But the vague silhouette of a too-tall man who moves unnaturally following her probably discourages backtracking.

Its teeth gleam.

Yeah okay whatever she'll just keep going in that direction then—

—she studied maps of this place, does she recognize anything from them—?

She's probably heading deeper in? The mist makes it really hard to tell.

The - thing - stops abruptly at the edge of the water.

...okay? Does it just not cross or...?

It doesn't cross. It screeches. Then it starts slithering up a tree.

Yeah okay she'll try to keep her most likely location in mind and run to the closest edge.