I brought you here
A world of decay
To kill you gloriously
Or watch you prevail
You chose to come
***
Calyx was dead.
The truck driver hadn't seen them.
Now he and his brother were both dead, without even getting a goodbye.
He never thought he would die in such a pathetic way. He didn't even know what was happening until a second before it hit them.
"Is this the afterlife?" he thought.
He saw only black, and felt a harrowing chill in his bones. The void echoed, as if trying to tell him something that he couldn't make out.
He waited in the inky abyss for a long time, before he heard a voice calling for him.
Tharon's voice.
Was his brother calling down from heaven? Was this purgatory?
"…ake up." The voice said, the void around him seeming to tremble. "Something weird's going on."
He squeezed his eyes shut. Was he alive? In a coma?
"Get up, idiot."
He felt a sharp slap on his cheek, and tried to open his eyes.
He blinked against the light as he felt cold air brush across his skin, but not the sterile chill of a hospital AC, rather something earthy, real. His heartbeat hammered in his ears.
"Tharon?" he asked, sitting up. "What's going on?"
He brushed his hand to the back of his head, and found it caked in mud.
"I don't know myself." Tharon said, snapping into view.
Wait, no, that's not…
"Who are you?" Calyx said, jumping back as he took in the tall, brown-haired man standing in front of him.
That wasn't Tharon's face. The man was far more handsome than his brother ever was, and looked older than his nineteen year old brother.
"I'm Tharon," the man replied. The voice matched, but his body sure didn't.
"Clearly not." Calyx made some distance from the imposter. He didn't know what this guy was up to, but he knew better than to stick around to find out.
"If I'm not Tharon, then who are you?"
The man pointed to a puddle not far from him, and when he went over to check he could see his reflection.
Red hair. A face too perfect, too unfamiliar. This wasn't his body. He was never that handsome.
He looked at his surroundings. Instead of being in a hospital, or in the wreck of his car, he was on a muddy dirt road in the middle of a forest. Puddles covered the road, with patches of grass creeping in from the sides.
He felt his body, and sure enough, it was different. He also noticed a dagger weighing down in a sheath on his side, attached to his dusty, medieval looking garb.
"Wait, is this a new world?" Calyx exclaimed, looking around to confirm. Tharon was dressed similarly, with a scabbard on his hip. What other explanation was there?
"After looking around a bit, that's a conclusion I've come to as well." Tharon said, looking ashamed to even say such a thing. "While it should be impossible, so is having your body replaced after getting killed in a car accident."
"Are we sure this isn't a dream?" Calyx began pacing in circles. As cool as being in another world sounded, he couldn't be sure.
"Check your hands," Tharon said. "They should be all the proof you need that this place is real."
The Tharon he knew was too pragmatic to ever admit that they might be in a new world. He looked at his hands, feeling his skin and flexing his fingers. Sure enough, it seemed real, but he still had his doubts.
He bent over to feel the soil beneath him, finding it rough and grimy.
"I woke up an hour ago, so I had more time to come to terms with… this." Tharon admitted, his tone as calm as usual despite the circumstances. "We were both in a ditch, with a trail of blood going up to the road. Must've fallen over or something."
The pain in his head made more sense now.
"Just in case you're actually an imposter." Calyx folded his arms as he addressed the man who was supposedly Tharon. "Tell me something only you would know."
"Last month you were reading western romance novels and I found them underneath your bed." Tharon said, making Calyx turn a bit red.
"You didn't need to remind me."
"But do you now believe that I'm me?"
Calyx nodded his head. That incident was kept a complete secret between him and his brother.
"So if this place really is a fantasy world…"
Calyx's confusion began to grow into excitement as he took this new information in.
"That must mean we've been reincarnated! This is awesome!"
"No, it really isn't." Tharon said, his voice taking a scolding tone. "It means we're in a world that doesn't have running water."
"We can poop in a ditch, it's fine."
"Try it, if you're so eager."
"Maybe I will."
After a moment of mental debate, Calyx decided not to defecate in the ditch.
"We need to find civilization." Tharon said as they stood there, "The only thing we have on us besides our clothes and weapons is blood loss."
"Wait." Calyx's excitement grew as he looked down his shirt.
"Tharon! I'm ripped!"
He rubbed his hands up and down his torso, feeling the rough six pack underneath.
"I am as well."
If Calyx's new body was ripped, then Tharon's body was absolutely shredded. He had an eight pack, effectively netting two more packs than Calyx had.
"It seems even in this life you are deemed the weaker sibling." Tharon said with a calm smile.
"Screw you, this is still a win for me." Calyx said, still feeling up and down his new muscles.
"Just keep up."
Tharon began walking down the road at a quick pace, and Calyx followed after him.
"So do you think there's magic?" Calyx asked, hurrying to keep up. "I mean, it's a staple of fantasy worlds."
"This world could very well just be in early ages, rather than a fantasy world." Tharon told him. "Don't jump to any conclusions."
As they walked down the road, Calyx picked up every heavy object he found. He really just wanted to test his new body's muscles, and it felt amazing to be able to lift things so easily. He knew that this body wasn't that strong, especially compared to his brother's, but before this he could only bench around 65 pounds before giving up.
Once he was finished with his adrenaline rush, he took in the scenery and realized that most of the trees in this forest looked odd.
"Is it just me, or do the trees around here look dead?" Calyx plucked a leaf off a nearby tree, and sure enough, it was dry. The trees around here barely had any leaves, and the ones that remained looked twisted and deformed.
"It is odd." Tharon said. "Maybe this place has been going through a drought."
"But the ground is all wet." Calyx said. He crouched and ran his fingers through the grass. It crumbled under his touch like paper. Dead, even though it looked lush and green. "And there aren't any birds chirping or anything."
"We can probably ask someone about it once we find other people." Tharon pointed toward the horizon. "It looks like there's smoke coming from over there, so we could be close."
"It could be a forest fire," Calyx said, playing with the crumpled up grass in his hand. "This place would probably light like a match if something were to ignite."
"Then you best hope there's no fire magic." Tharon smirked. "But in all reality, the fire looks contained. It's probably a small…"
"A village!" Calyx said at his brother's hesitation.
"How do you not feel stupid talking like this is a fantasy world?"
"Hold on, aren't you the one who decided that was the case?"
"I did. There's too much evidence to deny it."
"So why does it feel stupid?"
"Wearing these clothes and walking around the forest with a weapon," Tharon explained, "makes this feel more like a cringy roleplay than a real adventure."
"You'll get over it eventually." Calyx said, picking up his pace and moving ahead of Tharon.
He didn't expect Tharon to throw him into the bushes a split second later.
"Don't move."
Tharon ducked into the bush next to him, and they saw an animal pass by.
The beast moved with almost no sound, and it looked like some kind of dog. Not like anything on Earth, though it was roughly the size of a wolf. It had no fur. Grey skin. No eyes. No ears.
Its jaw looked strong enough to crush metal, and its fangs were long and jagged. Calyx didn't like the idea of fighting this thing.
It wasn't thrown off by their hiding spot. It probably didn't matter regardless, since it looked blind and deaf.
"Crap."
Calyx drew the dagger from his side with absolutely no idea of how to use it. He saw Tharon draw his sword as well.
The beast suddenly lunged at them, jaw snapping. Calyx tried to sidestep it and stab it in the neck, but he quickly fumbled and lost balance.
Tharon, on the other hand, landed a direct blow onto the creature after Calyx's failed attempt. It let out a violent growl as his sword cut deep into its flesh.
Calyx jumped from behind, set on digging his dagger deeper into the demon dog's wound. He missed by a long mile, and jabbed into its side.
It turned and jumped to bite him, but before its jaws could close Tharon delivered a well aimed strike that sliced it cleanly in half.
The beast fell into two pieces in the dirt.
"Woah," Calyx said. "Have you used a sword before?"
"I must just be a natural," Tharon said, though his eyes lingered uneasily on the halved corpse.
Of course he was.
They suddenly heard shifting in the surrounding bushes, and Calyx assumed a defensive stance.
The smell of putrid meat filled the air as more hounds emerged from the shadows. They circled like wolves, making a vile gurgling sound.
A larger version of the beasts lumbered out of the woods, its body half rotted. It knocked over the trees around it as it moved, and was almost as tall as them.
Tharon cursed an adequate number of times.
"Aim for the throat and eyes." Calyx repeated the only advice he could think of as he saw the creature. It wasn't looking good for them.
They were super dead.
However, before Calyx could find out what becoming monster food felt like, the ground started shaking and cracking around the brothers.
The beasts began to tremble in fear, although maybe that was just the ground.
"What's-" Tharon's sentence was cut short by a mountain of tumbling stones crashing into the road, violently pounding the beasts into a thick purple sludge.
Despite the rocks burying the surrounding monsters and pummeling the ground around them, both Calyx and Tharon were unharmed by the collapse.
Before Calyx could process what happened, the boulders sunk into the earth, leaving the trail exactly as it had been before the fight.
Tharon seemed dumbstruck by the display. It certainly wasn't like anything Calyx had seen before.
They heard footsteps as a man appeared on the road ahead of them.
He had sandy long hair and a bowler hat, and his expression was completely apathetic. It was clear he was the source of that attack.
"Woah," Calyx said as he approached their savior.
"Don't sweat it." The man didn't slow down as Calyx approached him. "I'm busy."
Calyx froze in place after getting dismissed so thoroughly.
Before Calyx could say anything else, dust spiraled around the man's boots in a whirlwind and carried him away at an incredible speed.
"What was that?" Calyx asked once it was just him and Tharon again.
"I'm not going to argue with it." Tharon brushed sand off of his clothes.
They both turned and looked at the corpse of the first beast, which was the only one that hadn't been absorbed into the ground. It was cleaved in two by Tharon, the insides a deep purple.
"So…" Calyx bent down. "Giant magical powers aside, what should we do with this?"
"...It could be valuable." Tharon still seemed shocked as he picked up one half of the creature. "The village is nearby, so it wouldn't be that hard to carry it."
"And what if this animal is protected by some divine right in the religion here, and they burn us at the stake?" Calyx thought out loud.
"Unlikely." Tharon said, dismissing him without giving it much thought.
They each took a piece of the body and dragged it along with them, until they finally arrived at the village.
~=~=~=~=~=~
The village was quiet. Despite looking large enough for over a hundred people, very few villagers roamed the streets. The ones who did didn't question the two men dragging two halves of a wolf-like creature.
Maybe they were used to it.
They spotted a small stand selling food near the center of the village, and Tharon began moving towards it, with Calyx following closely behind.
The shopkeeper was bald and clean shaven, though he looked rather friendly. The sign read Karion Grocery, which Calyx assumed must be the owner's last name.
"Hello." Tharon said as he approached the shopkeeper. "We've found ourselves in a bit of an odd situation, so we were wondering if we could ask some questions."
"Got anything to do with that veilbeast you got there?" The shopkeeper asked in a deep, gruff voice.
"In part."
So it was called a veilbeast. Tharon seemed to play along as if he knew what he was doing.
"We both come from a land very far away and have somehow found ourselves on a path in the woods nearby."
Calyx wondered how much Tharon was willing to bend the story, but decided to sit back and let his brother do his thing.
"That's quite a story." the shopkeeper said, scratching the back of his neck. "Do you happen to have any scars?"
Calyx frowned and looked up and down his body. He had a few scars on his arms, but when he felt his back he realized the full extent of how scarred up he was.
"Calyx?" Tharon turned and pulled up his shirt slightly, revealing some of the deepest scars that Calyx had ever seen.
"That's a lot…" Calyx turned to show Tharon his own scars.
They were the same.
For a moment, they forgot that they weren't the only ones there.
"Perhaps you really are from another world after all." The shopkeeper closed his eyes, reflecting for a moment.
"What do you mean?" Calyx asked, remembering himself. "How do you…"
"It sounds like a crazy thing to say." the man said, scratching his beard.
"But if it's true, you wouldn't be the first."