Jareth ran out of the door, entering another space. From the dim red glow spilling from the crack of the door behind him, he could see a cylindrical tunnel, with jagged wall surface, that stretched into the darkness. The dusty scent assaulted his nose.
He quickly sprinted forward, not wanting to spend a moment in the place. It took ten minutes of nonstop sprinting before he ran out the entrance. Steadying his breath, he quickly looked around to see himself surrounded by trees, and behind, was a tall mountain that housed the tunnel.
Listening intently, he could pick up the distant roars that made his spine tingle.
'Damn! In the middle of a wild forest? Secret cult and eerie places! Why can't they have their meetings in a civilized place?'
Seeing that he couldn't tell the direction to the city, he picked a direction in front, hoping to escape the forest.
After walking for about ten minutes, he turned around but saw only trees. The huge mountain had mysteriously vanished.
'Did the mountain hide behind the trees… Hell! What am I thinking? Th-This must be a nightmare! From all those novels, the mountain might suddenly spawn behind and I would realize I've been traveling in a circle,' he thought with wide eyes, before he turned and dashed forward, not wanting to be anywhere close to the mountain.
While running, his idle thoughts tried to figure out what he saw. 'Are those cloaked people the hidden witches we see in movies? Did they really perform magic?'
After running for close to twenty minutes, he heard a distant roaring of an animal, and loud explosions.
He screeched to a grinding halt and gazed in the direction.
'People came to hunt? Thank goodness, or else I'll get lost in this forest.'
Without wasting time, he dashed in the direction not to miss them.
In a few minutes, he reached the range of the scene, and what he saw made him slow down as his eyes widened with a slackened jaw.
'Th-The wolf is spitting fire... and them... they...'
A short distance from him was a huge, black wolf, bigger than any wolf he had ever seen, spitting fire as it battled two girls and two boys, dressed in various armor.
One of the girls was hurling fire spears, and the other throwing daggers. One of the boys was volleying arrows from a tree, while the other held a shield and an axe as he engaged the wolf in close quarters combat.
"Where am I?" he muttered.
He pinched his cheeks, and the pain jolted him.
"Not a dream? First, that wizardry cloaked people. Now, this? What is going on on Earth? Alien invasion? I previously assumed those cloaked people were a bunch of hidden witches and wizards, who were hidden from the world... but these… Wait! Why am I understanding another language when that wizard spoke to me?"
He quickly shook himself back to reality as the wolf fell and two of the girls approached him.
Taking a deep breath, he also walked towards them and quickly thought of what to say.
When he met them, he greeted them with a warm smile, "Good day. I'm Jareth. Please, can you point me the way to the closest city?"
The teenage girls studied him. He could see the skepticism in their eyes.
"You got lost?" the girl with fiery red hair asked.
"Yes. I was chased by a wolf. Fortunately, I escaped it," Jareth said smoothly.
"Why do I feel you're lying?" Her friend, with short jet-black hair, squinted her eyes.
Jareth's heart skipped a beat as he felt her penetrating gaze could see through his lies.
"I'm not lying. When I was chased, I fell into a deep pit and passed out. I can't remember anything upon waking up except my name." Jareth massaged his head, his face scrunching, as he feigned a headache.
"Really?" The girl with short jet-black hair questioned.
Jareth nodded while massaging his head to feign relieving his headache.
"Then where is your comm band?" she questioned.
"Ugh… what's that?" Jareth questioned with a lost expression, perfectly playing his role of a patient with lost memory.
"Congratulations. We're about to leave now. You can come with us," said the girl with fiery red hair.
Jareth nodded and followed beside them, as they made their way towards the wolf carcass, which had strangely disappeared a few moments after he was focused on the girls.
His pupils shrank. 'Damn! It vanished? These teenagers could mince me in a few cuts. This is even faster than a professional butcher!'
"I'm Liana Nelson." The girl with fiery red hair pointed at herself, before pointing at her friend with the short jet-black hair. "She's Nadia Smith."
"Liana, you can't just give my name to suspicious strangers," Nadia criticized with a scrunched up face, while throwing Jareth a distrustful and judgy stare.
"Hey, he doesn't look suspicious. Besides, it's just showing the way to the city," Liana argued.
Jareth could only pretend he didn't hear them. He could have left them, if only he knew the way back.
They met with the boys, with Nadia quickly gesturing for Jareth to wait while pulling Liana to meet the boys at a distance. They began whispering to each other.
"My innocent image will be distorted by her," Jareth mumbled with a dark face.
He could guess how Nadia was painting him like a villainous, lying demon in sheep's clothing.
They soon returned, and told him to follow them.
Throughout the quiet journey, the boy with messy soft black hair, who was the archer, was vigilant of his surroundings, which made Jareth's heart palpitate, as he felt he was in a horror movie.
The other boy, with golden blonde hair, and Nadia, kept their distance while watching him suspiciously.
Only Liana kept whispering to him enthusiastically, but her discussion was bombarding him with questions that made him uncomfortable. She tried to pry from his mouth what it feels like to lose memories. She kept speaking about many things, from basic to complex, ending it with words like: 'Do you know that?', 'You can't remember?', 'Terrible for a kid.'
She sometimes asked weird questions like: 'I wonder if you remember how you use the toilet.', 'Do you know humans shave?', 'Have you heard of the word, "energy". You must be a pure stone-aged human since you can't remember.', ' I wonder how you remembered how to walk.', 'What was your first thought when you woke up?'
Jareth kept answering every question with a 'no' and a 'hum' as he focused ahead, most times wearing a lost expression. He couldn't wait to reach the city and leave her.
But there were some questions she asked that made Jareth realize he might not be on the Earth he knew, like, 'What was his rank?'
He brushed it off with his memory issue and ignored her pitiful expression.
After a long walk, with the dim evening sun illuminating the forest, Jareth's jaw gaped as he spotted a very tall fence bridged by a gigantic silver gate.
"Hohoho! I bet you've forgotten the sight of this!" Liana chuckled and introduced exaggeratedly with her arms spread wide, "Welcome, to… Terminis Dominion, the city that bars the monsters from the Dreadwood. A city filled–"
"Keep it down. We're still in the forest," the spooky, black-haired boy at the front quickly interrupted her.
"Nathan, you're too paranoid," Liana said but still kept quiet.
With that, they continued in silence, until they made it out of the forest in a few minutes.
They met a few people along the way, all dressed in strange kit, which just seemed to verify that he wasn't in the world he knew every time his doubt sprouted.
They strolled through the plain, empty expanse before they got to the gate.
By the left side of the huge gate was a narrow opening which people walk in and out. Meanwhile, the center of the gate bore a big opening that had few off-road vehicles going in and out after a short search.
The tall dull ash fence was rugged, and marred with many hairline cracks.
'How long has this existed? Now I'm sure this is not Earth. Maybe… Earth changed after I blacked out.'
"Good to be back." Nadia stretched.
"Yeah. The dreadwood isn't as scary as they made it. Tomorrow, we will continue. I need to fill my core," Nadia added.
With that, they joined the people and walked through the small gate.
Jareth looked around upon entering, seeing few structures with many weirdly dressed people, which he assumed were the military, patrolling the area.
Not too far, were parked cars with people entering, and the car driving off into the city.
Jareth trailed behind them as they walked up to the car park.
"I will take this fire wolf as we've planned. See you guys tomorrow," said the blonde haired boy beside Nadia as he waved at them before walking towards a car.
The spooky boy gave a nod at the girls before walking up to another car.
"It's just us now," Liana said before turning to face Jareth with a smile. "Now that I've shown you the way, I would have left you to yourself, but since you've lost your memory, maybe taking you for a check up will be nice. Good samaritans have good endings."
Jareth shook his head with an easygoing smile. "I think I've troubled you enough. You just need to take me inside the city and I will find out for myself."
"See, he's lying," Nadia butted in. "He wants to avoid a check. Maybe his aim was to use you to sneak into the city."
Jareth was dumbfounded and annoyed at Nadia at the same time.
"I just wan—"
Nadia interrupted him. "Why don't you follow us somewhere to prove your innocence."
Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Jareth replied calmly, "I think I've had enough of you."
She smirked at his response. "If you don't follow me, I'll call the attention of those officers. After all, you're behaving suspiciously. If something is wrong with you, Liana will be the one to be held responsible. You don't want something bad to happen to your benefactor, right? So, are you coming?"
Nadia squinted.
Liana watched the drama from the side with knitted brows.
Jareth's heart pounded as he quickly thought things through.
After a few seconds, he answered, "Yes."
Nadia nodded and led Liana and him towards a taxi.
His heart was thumping as he wasn't confident of his identity, but he had no choice. Who wants to fall into the hands of adults instead of teenagers? Worst of all, the adults are in the military. Even though he was clueless about their methods, there was no way the 'officers' methods were friendly. Besides, he had seen some hints about this world, especially in that cavernous chamber.