{Mountain Ash, Wales}
{Bailey's Arms}
I pushed the door open, the sting of cold winter biting my fingers as I stepped inside. My eyes drifted around the now-familiar pub. The light seemed just a tad bit brighter to my liking, but I pushed that thought aside and walked inside. A brief eye contact with Linda as I sat down, and the familiar weight of the glass slid into my palms. The taste still made me grimace, but with each day, it was getting easier to ignore...
"Will you tell me one of these days what's eating away at you?" She asked with a small smile, hiding her uncertainty at my new habits.
"One day," I replied. The same two words that I have spoken to her or barely anyone since that day. The memories surged back at the thought, her uncertain look before she admitted, 'I don't want to marry you.'
...I went for a sip... then another sip... and another.
The daily ritual continued as the bright world that didn't match my vibe earlier started to dull, people, some bright, some exhausted, went through the revolving door. It wasn't easy to keep my thoughts from drifting away, but the experience helped, and when my vision started to swim not long after, Linda, as always, arrived to cut me off.
"That's enough for today," She said, concern in her eyes, searching for something on my face. I don't know if she found it or not, but she didn't force me to take a cab back home today, so I might not be as wasted. I brought my phone out of my pocket, pausing for a moment at the lock screen, another reminder of a life forgotten. I should change it, I really should, but could I?
Linda looked at me for a few seconds longer before she sighed, took a quick step to her left, and came back with a card reader, the amount already keyed in. I gently tapped my phone against the reader and stood up.
My balance was gone as I struggled, leaning against the counter just a bit to steady my vision. It didn't help, but my coordination somehow kept me upright as my brain worked overtime to regain control of my body. The curse I have to deal with is that, even when sloshed, my thoughts just become slower, but I still remember everything. Sure, my voice gets louder, but the direction I walked was never something I could control.
I wasn't a heavy drinker. I never saw the appeal in it, at least before. My unsteady steps took on a chaotic rhythm as I rose and walked. The streets were empty as the cold chill, unrelenting against the test of time, came fighting back in early January. It broke through some of my buzz, and my footsteps echoed, regaining some of the balance through the familiar streets as I looked around.
My home... the house I currently live in was not far away, it was actually a nice walk all things considered. If I had the patience, I could have enjoyed the rising sun, but I had a deadline to meet this Friday, so I cut through the train station into the park.
As I was about to walk over the bridge toward the residential area, I paused.
I blinked.
Once.
Twice.
The urge to hit the side of my head was pushed back forcefully as I took a few unsteady steps forward, examining the otherworldly scene in front of me. It was hard to describe what it was.... scratch that, it was exactly like a gateway to another world.
The films, Marvel and Dr.Strange, had always had a separation boundary, a glowing, sparkly, white-yellow line signifying and highlighting the portal, but what I was seeing was a seamless transition. The world somehow shifted from the old walls of English architecture that marked the park's boundary and the archway over the bridge to a lush green forest, the kind that can swallow you whole.
'Looks like straight out of the Amazon...' The thought popped up as I took a step back.
I took a deep breath. The thought of saying fuck and walking into this weirdness was overwhelming, but something about this eerie scene made me hesitate. This was not something that my mind had conjured, unless I was secretly suffering from schizophrenia. The boundary and the world beyond felt real, but they blocked my way home. The problem was that the bridge to cross the river was gone.
I opened my phone to check for an alternate route and paused.... The iPhone unlocked faithfully, recognizing my face even when someone else wouldn't, but my eyes were stuck on my lockscreen. The image of my kissing the top of her head as she grinned, a memory that wasn't even a month old yet, somehow felt like forever ago.
My eyes scanned her face one more time, searching for answers untold and whispering the words that were never said aloud. 'Was that happiness even real?' I thought as I stared, the world forgotten for a moment.
I don't know how long I was there, staring at the picture, but it was the smell that hit me first, breaking me out of my daze. It was unlike anything I had ever smelled. It was sharp, brutal, somehow worse than rotten eggs, don't ask how I know about that. My nose and throat itched, and I took an extensive step back as I looked up.
...
"Fuck me..." I whispered slowly as I took in the impossible scene. 'I'm pretty sure I'm dreaming...right?' I thought, though the belief in that wasn't tangible. What I was seeing was something I would have trouble describing, for real this time. The creature? looked humanoid, moved like one, but that was where the similarities ended. The green skin was a dead giveaway. Either this was a pretty well-done cosplay or the universe just wasn't done fucking with me.
The creature wasn't wearing much, his lower body was covered in something that I can only describe as a leather lioncloth. The rest of his outfit was straight out of a fantasy fair, or a fantasy convention. A minimal chestpiece with spiky shoulders and spiky armguards, the only thing normal about his outfit was a pair of normal-looking leather boots, though they too looked a bit too old and worn down.
Noticing my attention, his lips curled into a cruel smirk as he opened his mouth and spoke, "Jest on szczyt ter? wyglond mieson i slab." The voice was deep and gritty, a language that went straight over my head, but I could still feel it vibrate through me. The words held a certain quality, it was hard to describe what it was, but I stared at him transfixed, trying to decipher what he was trying to say. Failing, of course.
I put my phone in my pocket when he moved. One second. No, that was not it, a blink of an eye, though I am pretty sure I didn't blink, and his right calloused hand was wrapping around my wrist. I took a reflexive step back and pulled, intent on pulling my hand back, but the iron grip didn't budge. Now, I wasn't the most well-built guy, hell, I was packing a bit of a gut right now due to my month-long depression binge drinking, but I was a gym regular, okay, maybe not regular.
My struggle seemed to amuse the green skinned anomoly as he spoke once again, "On hest Slab, ale to kamien-rzecz ciekaw. Ty mysl eunyl?" The garble once again didn't make any sense, and as I was about to reply in some carefully worded messages, another voice, the same garbled mess, but with a different tone, lighter yet somehow sharper.
"Oni nie ma dostenp do malka-miensiem-muzg. Ale on powin jest szczyt. Jez oni ma masz-wiedz, ja baw z to pot. My mus szyb." I twisted slightly, my eyes catching sight of two more figures, both of them a lot leaner than the hulking figure of the first one from earlier. One of them even had a longer hai-
I heard an ugly snap as I felt a sharp pain in the back of my head as my body tilted, a sharper pain echoed from my shoulder as I twisted it when I fell, the world turned and twisted as I quickly lost consciousness, the sudden shouts of words spoken in garbled language were my final sensory input as I cursed my luck for one final time.
"Diota, ty zabij on? my mus ryzyk wiecej widz-ryzyk jez my idz dal od kotwic...."
'Fuck....'
---
I blinked as I woke up, my eyes screwed shut from the sudden glare. I felt something cold and hard against my face. I blinked as I forcefully opened my eyes. The glare from the morning sun, filtering through the glass windows, forced me to close my eyes and look away. I blinked as I took the scene in front of me. I was sitting in what could only be described as a classroom, the room was filled with young adults.
My eyes shifted to the girl sitting next to me, to simply call her beautiful was not doing her justice, but what caught my attention was the floating box above her head. My eyes didn't escape her attention as she leaned back and looked up. Confusion colored her face as she looked up and then back at me. Clearly, she could not see what I was seeing, or something like that was a pretty common theme, or I was having a pretty weird dream.
Shaking my head, I looked in front and froze, for even if I could not recognize the person standing in front of the class, I could deduce who he was. The scar on his face was horizontally sliced along his nose. Navy-blue high-neck long-sleeve, a green flak jacket, blue pants hidden behind the desk, and, most importantly, the headband with the symbol for a village that should exist in 2D media.
'Iruka Umino, Chunin for the Village Hidden in the Leaf.' I concluded. While it is an insane assumption to make, I was pretty sure of where I was, but what I didn't like was the fact that I found my consciousness in an unknown body, stuck in one of the deadliest worlds out there. But one questioned predominently stood out.
'Why did everyone look so much older, and why the fuck did those green freaks send me here...'
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AN: The start to the story is something I was writing for an original novel, but I decided to try a fanfiction first before I deepdive into writing something of my own. Hope you guys like the story!