Chapter 2

  New world, okay, I can do this

  I must have fallen asleep. It felt like I had just closed my eyes for the briefest moment, but the sky had changed from night to day, and the suns, plural, were high in the sky. There were two of them. Both were yellow, but the second sun was about half the size of the other.

  I blinked the sun spots away and sat up. I looked around and saw that I had appeared in a large meadow, about two hundred feet in diameter, surrounded by trees. It was a warm day with a soft breeze that didn’t wholly combat the heat. The air smelled sweet, like wildflowers, and as I looked around, I saw patches of wildflowers all throughout the meadow.

  Honestly, I felt pretty lucky to have ended up in a world amenable to my continued efforts to exist. Not only that, but also so beautiful. The sky was mostly clear of clouds, and the familiarity of the Earth-like environment also set me at ease. After looking around momentarily, I got to my feet and dusted my pants off. What was I supposed to do now? I was in a world resembling Earth, but that might have had something to do with similarities between all carbon-based life. I wasn’t a biologist, so I didn’t know. All the info I had in my tiny brain was partly what I could remember from school, but most came from hours of watching YouTube about random topics that I found interesting.

  You could call me a YouTube student. I loved watching random stuff. For example, some of my favorite channels were about rockets, handyman tricks, cars, engines, science crap, random maker videos, and anything else that caught my fancy. I was a master of none, but I had a shallow understanding of a large variety of topics. Some of my favorite videos were people showing how to survive in the wilderness. Those were always fun to watch.

  As a survival enthusiast, I knew I first needed to find a source of clean drinking water. Then, it was shelter and food, in that order. At that point, I kind of picked a direction and started walking. I was hoping this world would be a little cleaner than Earth, or I might only find contaminated water. If I got sick out in the middle of nowhere, that could be my end.

  As I reached the edge of the meadow, I hesitated. The woods were dark, and I could feel the temperature drop just from standing near the tree line. I felt a sense of dread as I stood on the verge of entering the forest. I figured I was only feeling trepidatious about entering the woods because I was a city boy, and the deep, dark woods were foreign to me, even on Earth.

  A shiver went down my spine, and my body shook from the creepy feeling before lightly slapping my face. I had always talked to myself throughout my life to help motivate myself, and this situation was no different. Come on, Tom, you got this. You're in a new world where the physics of reality could be fundamentally different from Earth. It didn’t seem like that was the case, but I didn’t know shit about this world. Let's take it slow. I need to find water, shelter, and food.

  The suns were high in the sky but not quite at their zenith, so I figured it was a little before noon. Maybe another seven hours of daylight or so. Depending on the season and my longitude, that could have been completely off, and the fact that I was on another planet in a potentially alternate universe probably also could present a problem. So, guessing things about this world was a waste of time. The only thing I could do was hope and pray that the laws of physics in this new world were close enough to Earth’s that most of my guesses about my new home would be at least close.

  I shook my head to clear my thoughts and decided I would have to enter the forest at some point. Now, was probably as good as any. I stepped under the canopy, and the first thing that hit me was the drop in temperature. The woods were at least fifteen degrees cooler than the meadow. It was still probably 68 degrees under amidst the trees, but it was noticeable because the sun had felt so lovely and warm.

  I immediately turned around and walked back into the meadow. I turned my eyes towards the suns, closed them, and basked in its warmth for a good two minutes. I sighed when I finally decided I had wasted enough time. I turned my face away from the suns, opened my eyes, and walked into the woods.

  It was dark in the forest, but little light rays broke through the tree canopy in various places. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to light my way and make walking easy. I took my time as I walked. I wasn’t in a hurry. I didn’t have anywhere to be. My only goal right now was to find water. Once I did that, I could focus on the next thing.

  I had always been good at breaking a task down Into manageable pieces. Making whatever I was attempting to do, even if I had never done it before, much more possible and doable. I was always hyper-focused on what I was doing. This wasn’t always a good thing. It was great for getting a project done but not for giving my girlfriend the attention she needed or taking care of myself. There were times I spent twenty hours plus a day working on a project for weeks at a time. I would forget to eat and forget to drink. The only thing I always had to have was an energy drink. I was a Peach Red Bull guy myself.

  This is precisely what happened when I found water. I had been lost in thought, wondering how the physics of this world could differ from the Earth's and yet still leave the world looking pretty much the same when I did the wilderness equivalent of looking at a smartphone and falling down a manhole.

  I hadn’t been paying attention like I should have been lost in thought as I was, and I walked right off the edge of the river bank. This would have been a nonissue if it had been a small river with a small river bank, but no, this was a drop. I slid down a twenty-foot, sloped, And sandy as fuck, river bank.

  I yelped in shock as I stepped into thin air and fell. It was chaos for a few moments after that. First, I got sand all over my eyes. I jammed my leg on the way down because I was flailing, trying to find something to grab onto as I slid, and then I hit the water. When I hit the water, I was first dragged under the surface of the river before I surfaced, spluttering and gasping for breath.

  I was in a river now, fuck okay, and I was moving pretty fast as well. This could be a problem. I tried swimming to the river bank, but the water was moving so fucking quick. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't reach the bank, and besides, the river bank walls were like, twenty feet high still. I was just wearing myself out.

  The water wasn’t too turbid, so I figured I could ride the river until it slowed enough to make it out. I also had to find a spot where the walls of the river bank were not as high as well. It was difficult just trying to keep my head above water as I traveled down the river, but before I knew it, I found myself in a small inlet of the river right before the river made a turn. I stood up because I was now sitting in only three feet of water and dragged my ass up the river bank. The bank looked worn. It was almost as if this was a common place to put a small boat in the river or canoe. There were even some drag marks in the dirt, suggesting as much. I honestly, really didn’t care why this little inlet was here. I was just thankful that it was.

  Once out of the water, I just sat on the bank to catch my breath. I had been in the water for, well, I didn’t have time to put on my watch before a dimensional traveling tentacle kidnaped me, so, you know, I had no idea how long I had been in the fucking river, but it felt like at least ten or fifteen minutes.

  I turned away from the river and looked around to see where I was. I was on a riverbank, which was a shocker. There was grass under my feet, and about ten feet from me was, oh my god, a fucking road, then beyond that, a bit more grass, and the forest started up again. Back to the road. There was a fucking road. I knew what a road was, and even if this wasn’t Earth, I knew a road when I saw one, and this, my friends, was a road.

  I was dripping wet, completely soaked. On a positive note, my pants no longer smelled like piss. It was kind of a big plus. Piss, once it drys, smelled so bad, and it was a relief not to have the sent following me around anymore. I took off my shirt and rang it out. Then I took off my PJs. No one was around, and how now, maybe the people around here don't even wear clothes. I might be considered weird for wearing them.

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  After my pants were as dry as I would get them, I shook them out and put them back on. Wet clothes were a little awful, but I didn’t really want to test my nudest theory. I stepped onto the road and looked left, then I looked right, then I looked left again, just like a good little boy. I was not actually checking for oncoming vehicles. I was trying to decide which direction to go in.

  From where the suns were at the moment, and if they traveled east to west, like Earth, my two options were northeast or southwest. I don’t know if it was just familiarity with the name or if I was just susceptible to product placement, but after a few moments more of head-turning, I started heading southwest.

  As I said, it was a beautiful day, and my clothing dried quickly as I walked down the sunlit path. At one point, I started humming "It's a Beautiful Day" by U2 and didn’t realize it, but once I did, I leaned into it hard and was singing before long. I had lived. I was alive. It was sunny. I was warm, and I was alive. Did I mention I was alive?

  I was driven from my happy traveling when I heard a scream rip through the air. I immediately stopped singing and ducked behind a tree that had grown near the road's edge. What the fuck was that? I mean, it was a scream, duh, but where did it come from, who screamed, and why did they scream? Screams were usually bad. They meant someone was in pain or really scared. Well, or there was a roller coaster out here, but I felt like that was a long shot.

  There it was again, oh fuck, and again. This was bad. It was definitely coming from somewhere on the road ahead of me. After I heard the scream a few more times, let's just say it didn’t sound like there was a roller coaster up ahead. Okay, what should I do? Should I go and help? But what was I going to do? I played a bit of soccer, so if I could help by running away, that would be right up my alley. I highly doubted that would be the case, however.

  I sat there contemplating what I should do till the screaming stopped. Then it was quiet. I was about to step out from behind the tree where I was still hiding, but I heard someone scream before I made it more than two steps. This sounded different from the first screemer, however. The first difference was that there was only one long-held-out scream. Second, this voice was pissed off. I mean, this was a scream of rage.

  I slid back behind the tree and held my dick, so I wouldn’t piss myself again. Once I had given it a good what felt like five minutes, I relieved myself, not in my pants this time. Then, I got back on the road and started heading northeast. Yeah, fuck that. I was going to go toward the screaming people, yeah, okay. On Earth, at least where I’m from, you hear someone screaming. It’s usually a crazy person, and you put your head down and hope they don’t start yelling at you. I just pulled off a miracle and made it to this world. I wasn’t going to go looking for trouble right after I just got out of some.

  I felt entirely confident about my decision, and after a few minutes of jogging for good measure, a little more space between me and the screamers couldn’t hurt. I was humming and enjoying the day once more. It wasn’t more than an hour later that I noticed the sides of the road started looking better maintained. I figured I might be approaching a settlement. Why else would the roadside look better than when I started walking it? Sure enough, another fifteen or twenty minutes later, I turned a bend in the road and could just see what looked like a wall of a town or village with its gates open.

  I stopped for a second then. Did I want to go to this town? I mean, those are stone walls, it looks like, and this road is just packed dirt. Whatever world I was in, it didn't seem like their civilization was that advanced, which might be a problem. What if I said some shit that freaked them out, and they were like, he's a witch, burn him. That would totally fucking suck. Honestly, anything could happen, but there were people there, hopefully, and I could find water, shelter, and food all in one place. That really decided it, and I started heading towards the town.

  As I approached the gates, I decided it would be helpful to have some kind of story about why I was wandering the woods in my pajamas. If I wanted to avoid any more attention, then I was sure I would already be getting as a foreigner in a small town because that’s exactly what I had found.

  When I was about forty feet from the wall, the trees disappeared. I assumed they had been cut down so the town guards could see oncoming enemy attacks. It also allowed me to gauge the size of the well, a town, because it was a town. The walls only stretched about a mile to either side of the open gates. The wall was also only about ten feet tall. It just felt like if I had found a city, the walls would stretch out further, and the walls would also be much taller.

  There was no line to enter the town, just two guards holding spears on either side of the open gate. I assumed, checking people as they entered the city. As I walked towards the open gate, one of the guards moved to intercept my path. I reviewed the back story I decided to go with over in my head again. I had gotten lost. Fell into the river and was carried far downstream. I had found their town and would just need to find a place to spend a night or two before heading home.

  I thought it was at least believable, even if it felt like I was pushing it. If I stay in one place for too long, someone is bound to find out that I’m not from this world. I just need to get some supplies and get out of there. Once I learn more about this world, spending more time in a town would be possible. For now, it was better just to keep my head down.

  When the guard was directly between me and the open gates, She held up her hand to stop me. It kind of surprised me that the guard was female. I wasn’t sexist. I didn’t mean surprised like women can’t fight blah, blah, blah. No, I was surprised because, with the look of this civilization's level of technology, I figured, wrongly, I guess, that they would have treated women similarly to how they were treated back on Earth during the same relative time period in Europe, like fucking trash.

  So when I saw that the guard was a woman, I was a little taken aback but oddly pleased. She was also very human-looking. That was a weight off my shoulders. The guards were wearing chainmail shirts, leather pants, a metal helmet with a piece that covered their nose, and each had a long spear held in one hand. They definitely were a bit intimidating. As I stopped, I swear my butt cheeks clenched.

  “What is your buisness in Wimington?”

  “Oh, right, Wimington, you said? Nice town name. Isn’t it a beautiful day, right? Oh, but im rambeling. You see, I was out for a stroll in the woods near my home and, you see, well, I’m sorry this is embarrassing. I sort of fell into the river, and well, I got swept away. I couldn’t manage to get out of said river for quite a while and only made it free down the road from your fine town here. Would it be possible for you to point me in the direction of a room I could rent for the night and get a bit to eat? I won't be staying long. I would just like to rest for a day or two, and then I'll be headed home.”

  I finished my little spiel, and for a moment, I thought the woman didn’t believe me. I went through a whole scenario where I would have to go out and restart my survival planning. Water, well, I found that, ahem, then shelter and food, but I really didn’t want to do that. I was here. I just wanted to eat something and sleep in a warm bed.

  The guard blinked at me a few times as she took in my story. She was quiet for a good ten seconds, and the other guard looked like he seemed to notice something was going on. It looked like he was deciding whether or not to come get involved. Then, the female guard laughed. She laughed hard, too, like knee slapping, belly hurting, rolling laughter. I almost started laughing at the sight of Maggie laughing but then realized my situation and decided that would probably be a bad idea. I settled for an awkward smile instead.

  I think the guard finally saw my face and took sympathy for me.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t be laughing, but…” and then the guard couldn’t hold back her laughter anymore. This must have intrigued the other guard because, in the next second, he was standing next to his fellow guard, glancing curiously between the two of us.

  “Ah, Matilda, what’s going on here?”

  “Oh, Aaron, fuck. No, it's nothing, really. Just this guy,” and then Matilda was laughing again. Aaron still looked so confused, and Matilda must have noticed because she just gestured at me. I assumed she meant for me to repeat my story to the other guard. So I figured why not and told my story to Aaron.

  Once I reached the end of my little tail, Aaron had a look of shock on his face. Then, after only a moment, Aaron was losing his shit. He even fucking slapped his knee at one point as fits of laughter rolled over the man. I had actually never seen someone do that in real life. I mean, of course, as a joke, but I didn't know people actually did that for real.

  Seeing the two guards losing their previously calm and cool deminer brought me to a point where I couldn’t hold back my own laughter any longer. Before long, we were all just standing before the open gate, laughing. It felt good to laugh like this. I had been so terrified for so long recently that this honest expression of joy felt so freeing.

  “Aaron, Matilda, what's going on here?”

  “Oh shit,” I heard Matilda mutter under her breath. At the same time, Aaron said in the same low mumble.

  “Dam, of course, he would walk by right now.” Both guards had instantly stopped laughing and composed themselves before turning around and addressing a squat, bolding older man, maybe forty-five, give or take a few years, who must have been their superior. He was wearing a leather shirt, leather pants, and leather boots. The guy also had a dark blue cape on that really pulled the whole ensemble together.  “Sir, we were just asking this young man what his business was in Wimington, and he told us this oddly hilarious story about some misfortune he was experiencing today.” That's when Aaron took over the story from Matilda.

  “He is looking for a place to stay and a hot meal. Then, he plans to return to his village in a day or two.” The older man heard out his guards, but by the end of their telling of the events that led up to this moment, he still looked confused.