This is how it was: you wake up in another world. No assistance. No idea. One skill and a system. And war all around. That's how mine started.
It was a typical evening, nothing out of the ordinary, for a young man walking home after a hard day at the office.
He threw his coat over the wardrobe, his briefcase over the edge, and fell onto the bed without removing his clothes.
"I'm so tired… So many customers today—it was madness, although with the good commissions. I shouldn't be lying around like that anyway."
Drowsing for a minute, he woke up and went to shower. Cold water perked him up, as always. And brushing teeth—no throwing money at that toothbrush for nothing.
Having completed his morning ritual, he rolled back into the bed, much more relaxed, browsing his phone.
There was background music. His eyelids started to shut, his mind dozing off.
The room really was a teenager's room: clothes strewn everywhere, computer in hibernation mode, garbage spilling over the windowsill.
Just a normal room… except at the corner, where a blue light flashed, coming from the wall. It flashed brighter and brighter.
The room was filled with light, as if it had replaced the boy's own soul—the boy who had desired nothing more than a good night's sleep.
He slept well: "I do less work and I get paid more…"
Something prodded him. His eyes snapped open against his will—only to find himself on the bed.
"A dream? Too real… It feels so strange—light, peaceful, like I've been set free."
But the joy was fleeting. Something drew him, the fall inevitable. He closed his eyes, ready for the crash—but it did not happen. When he opened them again, he was suspended in mid-air.
Distantly there were flames—a city ablaze. He had just become aware of this when he was falling with terrible velocity. His head reeled trying to absorb it all, and yet his own fingers were plain in front of him.
"What's going on? Never had such a real dream. Is this a dream?"
He pinched himself and almost jumped at the stinging pain. Always being a jerk a little bit.
Focusing on figuring out if this was real or not, he wasn't focusing on his environment—until he felt something warm and soft under his feet.
He jerked back instinctively and shut his eyes. The darkness concealed the details, and another lightning bolt ripped through the skies, lighting up his life.
"I have never seen anything like this…" His body shook. Corpses stood before his eyes. Blood. The possibility was unthinkable, he believed.
"My mind rejects what I behold." He stood frozen for a moment, then backed away slowly, struggling to comprehend.
He tumbled, another wave of heat coursing through his palms. He lifted them—trembling, smeared with blood. He sprang up and rushed toward the light, instincts predominating.
Horror, uncertainty, fear—all mixed together. But all of those preceding, one cry of thought: This is ridiculous. A dream.
"I'm walking blind. My chest cramps up. I don't even dare look down—is it the same down there too? I need the light. My entire body's shaking, anyone could see it."
His body hardly responded. The source of light was near now. And in spite of himself, in spite of not wanting to look around, he saw everything: dripping clothes, crimson rivulets streaming along the ground like snakes.
He arrived at the giant tree and leaned on it, panting, afraid of losing his mind. He slapped his own leg in an attempt to wake up.
His pale face was glued with empty eyes, dark circles beneath them. His bleeding hands banged on his sanity.
He took a deeper breath, trying to calm down. When hope was near departure, he did manage to hear it— sounds in his area.
Shrieks. Wails. Inhuman, and detestably human. Ice-cold fear ripped him as he peered from behind the tree at the holocaust unfolding before his eyes.
A city was aflame. Humanity shrieked. From some of the windows, blackened hands protruded—small, like. kids'. He was immobile. His eyes bulged. His body remained motionless.
The stench hit him, snapping him out of the daze. He slapped a hand across his face, and his stomach heaved—retching spasmodically, as if his own body were attempting to escape.
As he gagged, a silly thought wriggled through the terror—a silly little joke he couldn't help telling: What an opening smell. He gagged once more, then, with the rim of his hand wiped across his mouth, squeezed out a wheezy, half-squatting grin. Rule number one: don't look back. Walk on. The grin felt fake in the midst of the screams, but it kept him upright somehow.
Reality slammed in: this was not a dream. This was life. War. Bloodshed. The screams. The stench. He hugged his head, covering ears and eyes.
He strode around like a madman, wanting to turn into thin air. I… I… I want out of this, I want to go home, what the hell is happening, damn it!—the voice dissolved into a scream.
Two hundred paces from the tree Chris sat at, three men in black passed, belts low on the waist.
Sunlight reflected one-handed swords at their waists, blood-stained.
White headbands waved in the wind. They stood at the outskirts of the town, burning, and listened to the dying screams. Their faces revealed nothing—but that was the intent. They were doing as they were told.
"Captain Tai Fey, I realize it is the commander's decree, but among them were children. We are not beasts…" — replied one of the warriors in the back, firm though his voice shook for a moment.
"I know it's difficult. They might have given us cruel masters here, but they gave us. We have got to give orders for the sake of—" he was interrupted by a scream unlike any they'd ever heard — a pain howl or desolation.
They wheeled: the sound had been a murmur near a tree close by. Tai Fey recalled for an instant the commander's orders: If you take a man who is talking a foreign language, take him alive. The odds are slim, but watch out.
A hand sprang out, and Tai Fey's high, soft voice cried out: — "Quick. This could be what the commander wants. You may defend yourselves, but don't kill—if it is human!"
"Got one," they breathed together, produced their guns and moved like ghosts—so quiet that the leaves stirred. A dark shadow followed after them, as though they themselves were shadows.
Chris screamed until his throat ached; hysteria faded and his heart started slowing. I have to run to live, his mind continued.
He ran on uncertain legs, shaking off by degrees, and thinking he would race for the woods—perhaps a chance to conceal himself.
The moment his legs complied, Chris ran. In front of him, the moon lighted only; behind him, cries were lost in wind and crackling leaves.
Breathless, he had run from tree to tree, and finally, he had reached a stream and stopped to catch his breath. I should have smoked less, he berated himself in dry sarcasm—because a small, stupid joke kept the ragged fringes of panic from overwhelming him entirely.
He hadn't realized how ominously motionless it had been. He crept closer to water and looked at his face in the reflection—and there it was: a shadow. His heart thumping so hard that it made him dizzy.
— What? There is nobody here… Suppose I've gone completely mad after—don't want to think about it.
No sooner had he completed the thought that he was okay than a black form stood before him. Chris responded by reflexively lifting his hand—that was misattended as threatening. The hand fell onto the earth and there was a scream in the woods.
— Ache… aches so much… My hand… What've I done to you? Kill me… — the voice shook. Chris screamed; the rhythm of the wound thudded in every corner of his body: he begged for mercy and, simultaneously, an insane desire to bite throats—alien, contrary sentiments.
Listening on the verge of things, Tai Fey was certain: this fellow was from that very "land" commander Tai Fey had heard tell of. Language—a matter other here; everyone spoke one language, so Tai Fey had been informed.
"It was like my lungs would not breathe; they would burst. I was in a lying position and thought: most likely, I shall now perish."
"But to lie there and wait to die, it did not come. Three dark shapes faced us. They approached me and said some nonsense—I could not tell a word. Stranger still: I heard the word 'Erath'—and then the darkness closed."