Report AFX-00071824

Status: Working

Available Mana: 12%, restocking required immediately to prevent critical failure.

Repairs: N/A

Technician's Comments: Considering the only thing I can rightfully call this thing is "working", I guess we'll stick with that for the moment. Seriously though, I don't know which one of those upper management idiots needs to hear this, but keeping the system in a critically low resource value range at all times is a guaranteed method for driving functionality into the ground. The longer they push this thing without topping it off, the worse the results will be. I heard from R&D last week that they were having some subjects arrive not quite "fully intact", which in my mind means they can't really function as subjects. Guess that's why I'm not on the council in the first place. Let those schmucks deal with the consequences of their actions, and all that. But if I get wind of any kind of punishment being sent my way for their dumbassery, I will move to a different department. Hell, I might even try to quit. But, we both know how that usually goes. - T.

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Bird call, in a fluting song not native to the boy’s ears, echoed out. He could hear this beautiful song weave its way through the surrounding environment with great speed and power, almost as if the bird making the sound was bigger than normal. This boy sat with his back against a tree, not one he is familiar with, his butt on the ground. He was stranded, and unaware of where he truly was right now, as his last memory of being anywhere in particular was a doctor’s office, having been left alone as his father had momentarily stepped outside with the pediatrician. Light filtered down in small fragments from a canopy far above, as he sat in a darkly shaded section of the forest.

He was adorned in simple clothing, with the brand of his favorite fictional TV show displayed on his shirt. His shorts did not provide any comfort for sitting on the ground, and the needles from the trees above do not truly provide any kind of cushioning for him, but he is comfortable enough. He wears worn sneakers, not truly meant for trekking through the woods. So instead, he sits. He idly checks his phone, wondering if it had magically gained some kind of connection to enable his contacting of someone, anyone, but he remained unable to use it in any meaningful way.

Now that he had awoken in these woods, any sense of foreboding or trepidation about the situation was squashed underneath the burgeoning sense of wonder he felt at the potential for his current situation to be abnormal or special. He looked around at the greenery surrounding him, and couldn't help but feel that many of the plants and examples of smaller wildlife that would be commonplace in this kind of setting were missing.

Something was off about the trees, almost as if he could not recognize the species they hail from. The plants surrounding him appeared to be far too large to be normal shrubbery and the like, and were more akin to what he would describe as being gigantic in proportion. Leafy fronds that would be at home in a jungle, twisting vines crisscrossing the ground in patterns that he had never personally seen, all while under a canopy stretching up as far as the eye can see.

Everyone of these pieces of plant life was massive, far larger than anything he had laid eyes on. The only comparable thing that came to mind was a sequoia or redwood, at least in scale. But, instead of these trees possessing foliage that stretched up along their vertical length until crowning the tree at the very top, these behemoths stretched their wooden fingers across the jungle-like ceiling in a combined weave of stretching wood, to connect thousands of trees in all directions. Not that this is at first clear, as the boy could barely see past the trees in front of him, their diameter being large enough to dwarf some high-rise apartment buildings.

All this to say, that as night fell and the boy grew cold, with foreign bugs that he couldn’t name the lookalike species of if he tried, he did not grow distressed or wary. If anything, time passing confirmed the only thing he hadn’t been certain of. This was not a dream. It was not a flight of fancy, as so many times it had been before. He thought of pinching himself to confirm this thought, and concluded that it was unnecessary in the face of the indisputable knowledge laid out before him–this was, likely, another world. Or, a portion of the world he had never traveled to before at the very least.

He spent hours in this way as night fell, pondering his predicament. The light changing was not something he was aware of, not for a while yet. The thought of another world! How could anyone his age not be excited? He could feel the weight of responsibility and worthiness wrap itself around his shoulders without hesitation, as if he were made for this. He could feel it in his bones–he was the chosen one. He did not know for what purpose he had likely been summoned here, or as to what world-ending threat he was brought here to extinguish, but he knew that he would do it with strength befitting a young man such as himself. One filled with bravado, in spite of the inherent fear he should have felt.

He smiled then, a wide grin splitting his face as his excitement grew. This was turning out to be a very good day so far, despite the growing sensation of cold traveling across his exposed skin. He jumped up in the air as he pumped his fists, pleased to be experiencing an adolescent dream that many boys yearned for. A yell of triumph fell out of his lips at the glory that would soon come his way. Immediately thereafter, he realized that the most prudent thing to do when predators could easily be only hundreds of feet away would be to be as quiet as possible. The boy is not aware that the scent of his otherworldly attire and numerous sources of erroneous smells would have given him away to many different animals of any kind already.

As the boy settled against the trunk once more, a stray piece of bark bites into his skin, roughening it up in a way far more painful than he expected. The pain, more than anything, originated from the brief heat made by the contact, and the subsequent sensation of the cold flooding back into that area. The chill hurt more than the bark itself, and that’s when it cemented itself in his mind that it was getting cold.

Almost as if his body were waiting for an acknowledgement of that fact, he could feel a shiver spread itself over his body. Of course, any self-respecting boy his age knew exactly what to do in this situation. He needed fire. But during the time he spent idly wondering about what a wonderful scenario it would be, to have been transported to another world, the world had grown cold. But with the cold had come darkness. It was even now sweeping across his surroundings, turning what had already been a dimly lit scene into absolute darkness.

He could feel that unwariness, that sense of foreboding he had brushed aside move its way closer to his heart now. If it was already this cold, frigid enough to make his limbs rattle like dead branches in a winter wind, how much worse would it get? Then, a primal part of his brain that either hadn’t woken up until now, or had been dormant as he felt such joyous emotions earlier in the day, made itself known. Fear.

That’s when he felt that something was watching him. He knew it as surely as any man had ever known, as any human could attest. There was a bristling on his neck, a sensation of being observed that people innately possess. He didn’t know what, but something other than the trees and bugs surrounded him now. His eyes darted from trunk to trunk within his cone of vision, but the amount of space he was able to discern dwindled by the moment.

He could feel that fear creeping its way down his spine now, becoming a weight that was settling in his gut. His fear was quickly evolving into terror now, even as his eyes continued to seek out the source of danger that he surely felt. That’s when an original thought came to mind. If the thing that was watching him meant him harm, shouldn’t he try to escape? He knew that his powers as a new-world arrival would come to him soon, whether via divine intervention or through some inherent part of himself he was never made aware of.

In this moment however, he possessed no powers to speak. No tools at his disposal to fight back with, if he could even fight the presence that was watching him. Which took his mind to another thought, down the line of many stacked up waiting for his conscious attention. If he hadn’t been able to see something down on the ground with him, and he knew from speculation that there could be giant birds in this forest…

His eyes slowly wandered up. The tree trunks now glowed in the pale moonlight that was able to fight its way past the foliage, shafts of celestial illumination sparkling in this dark environment. Their beauty in this moment was lost on the boy, however, as a single spark of light managed to find its way up to a place on a trunk several dozen feet off the ground. A dark shape sulked away from that light, and the glint of its massive eyes making contact with him ignited some ancient part of the boy’s instincts. In that instant, he felt every pretense and desire in the situation fall away, as the pit of his stomach fell to the bottom of the earth. Dread.

It was the only way he could describe this feeling. Terrible, terrible dread at what he saw. A head, the size of a small minivan, was peering down at him from one branch of the many surrounding him. It seemed avian in origin, but this bird was twisted beyond his wildest nightmares. Its eyes glowed with an internal light, a crimson deep enough to make his head swirl. Its beak extended far past what he would expect for an animal its size, likely coming out to be a dozen feet long at least. Its head was oblong, almost as if its skull had become deformed to accommodate the amount of beak it possessed, likely having the roots of the bone set far back into its skull. Its main body was plump and fat , like that of a chicken bred for slaughter. This was no farm animal, as he could tell in the brief moments that the moonlight continued to illuminate it. Onyx black feathers, only revealed by a relatively bright source of light, glinted as its body shifted forwards, preparing to launch itself. It was a predator, as the many teeth covering the inside of its beak could attest to.

In that moment, the boy could feel that all his body wanted to do was piss itself and collapse. His dad had always talked about flight or fight being an ingrained response in the human psyche, but he had never been taught that there was always a third and more terrible option–freeze. He could sense that the bird of prey, more akin to a bird of terror, was sizing him up as both a threat and as a meal. The gleam of intelligence in its molten eyes confirmed him to be nothing like the former, and too much like the latter.

In that moment of frozen fear, he swore that he could see triumph in its gaze as its body began to shift forward. He was hundreds of feet distant, having only been able to discern all of this about the bird due to its unnatural size. Another idle thought crossed his mind about how a bird this large was even physically possible, until his conscious mind frantically beat that idea aside for only one thing to take its place. Run.

Suddenly, as adrenaline flooded his system from head to toe, he felt a giddy rush of fear and excitement weave themselves into a confusing mess in his already tumultuous gut. He pushed off the ground with as much force his meager body could supply, and he ran. Immediately, a couple of problems made themselves clear to him as he blindly rushed forward. Chief amongst them–he currently couldn’t see for shit.

His eyes frantically danced back and forth, up and down as he desperately searched for a hiding place. His feet thudded heavily against the ground, nearly tripping several times over the vines he had so casually observed and made no note of as he frantically ran. There was no shot in hell that he was going to outrun a monster that clearly had ascertained him to be an easy meal, so his only chance at escaping his predicament would be a hiding place. One that could fool a monster that was chasing him this doggedly? He wasn’t sure there even was one, as none of the trunks he had seen in his current blind dash had shown any signs of holes to hide within.

He turned to make sure he was still being pursued, saw in the brief moments as he turned that the bird was not flying after him, but instead flashing from branch to branch with a immense amount of alacrity, and then almost tripped as the large vines covering the ground wrapped over themselves in a very convoluted mess.

His mind flashing through thoughts as quickly as they came, he alighted upon the fact that the bird’s beak was likely capable of reaching him no matter where he went, unless he managed to find a hole a couple dozen feet deep. He shoved aside that thought as he heard a massive caw echo out from behind him, this sound making every single idea in his brain evacuate with the utmost haste. Mindlessly, he forged ahead, ripping past bushes taller than any man and crunching past beetles and pill bugs the size of small dogs. He winced at the thought of accidentally killing such innocent lives, but the thud of the bird falling from above made him kick into high gear.

He was panting now, having gone past his already meager limits minutes ago. Minutes? He surely hadn’t been running that long. Not to mention, the bird could have and should have eaten him within moments of moving. As his feet continued to send wooden impacts up his dead legs, he turned once more to look at the thing pushing him on. As he craned his head backwards for a brief glimpse of the monster, he was shocked to find that it was almost directly behind him.

The glint of its cruel eyes, a fiery red surrounded by midnight black sclera, shone at him in the rushing darkness. It was within pouncing distance close enough to have eaten him a dozen times over. It watched with glee and satisfaction as his already worn body produced yet another burst of adrenaline and speed to go with it.

The worst part of seeing it that close? The thing that made him sweat even more heavily than he already was? It hadn’t been the clear intelligence reflected back at him in its gaze, nor the contempt it showed in not ending this farce of a chase as early as possible. Instead, it had been the way its talons of glinting silver had silently flown across the ground with nary a sound. It had only made noise, only shown itself to him in the light, for the sake of its own amusement. It was capable of speeds far above what he had shown already, and trying to escape at this point felt futile. And yet…

More trees passed, more bugs accidentally killed, more of his body worn away by this frenetic run. He felt possessed, filled with a deeper will to survive than any other emotion he had felt before. Despite the weariness soaked into his frame, despite the sweat running down every surface of his skin imaginable, in spite of the blistering he could feel forming on the contact points of his feet, he felt alive.

It was something he hadn’t truly experienced before. Nothing had ever made him feel this way, from the imagination he spent so much time cultivating to the real life experiences he had taken part in. It was akin to the greatest rush he had ever felt while scoring a home run to win an inning for his team, but multiplied by a thousand times. There was something so surreal and exhilarating, and those sensations pounded in his heart at the same pace as his fear.

Nothing else mattered in that moment, not the frostbite he felt creep across his body despite the overwhelming amount of internal heat, nor the inescapable wave of fatigue that would come crashing down on his head. This is what it meant to be in another world. This is what defined the experience more than anything else. Putting your life on the line for the sake of the thrill. The power. At any moment, he would be filled with the magic necessary to blast this foe away.

Until then, he would keep running. A triumphant yell of joy, more powerful than any paltry one he had let out earlier escaped him then, and he felt something unique to the situation for the first time during this chase. Hesitation.Turning, he looked back to see that the murder bird had frozen at the sound of his voice, booming out with more bravado than any teen his age rightfully had privilege to.

The bird quirked its head, quizzically poking at the thought that this tiny human was also amused by their chase. Did that mean…? No, there was no chance that this pathetic foal had a herd to run back to. It did not have support waiting in the rear to take it down. So why had it felt something in the distance? It had occurred at the same time as the laugh from the mewling child, almost as if it had summoned it… Fine. It would be for the better if it ended it now. Pushing forward, it summoned strength to its limbs that the boy had not seen to this point.

For the first time during this forever chase that he could recall, the bird made an involuntary noise. Its body lurched forward, and he could suddenly hear its footsteps. The cadence of his footfalls and the birds had changed, as the ground changed from vines to sloping grass and dirt, and the thudding of the bird as it grew closer only filled him with determination. If magic wasn’t going to make itself readily available for his use, then he would have to resort to outrunning the avian.

That dream was quickly evaporating in the heat of the bird’s gaze as it drew closer however, and the progress he had built up with his surprise yell earlier was slowly falling away. He considered the speed he was currently running at, and thought upon the fact that it was likely the fastest he had ever and would ever run. He ran like the wind, faster than any young man had a right to be, yet with all the joy and fervor of youth that his body allowed.

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That made the difference, at least in his mind. He noticed then that, for the first time since this chase had started hours ago, but realistically only a few bare minutes ago, that his surroundings had finally changed. They had broken away from the massive treeline extending from east to west, and finally broken out onto a plain of waving grass and rolling hills as far as the eye could see. It was so scenic, he almost considered stopping, until he heard a caw of glee reverberate around him. The lack of trees meant that the colossal bird's body could devote more energy to speeding up, which it promptly did.

A horn call blasted its way over the crest of the hill, hitting the boy with more force than he had felt concert speakers produce in his limited life experience. As his feet leadenly crossed over the apex of the hill, his eyes made contact with the most beautiful sight he could have dreamt of coming across: fire. Hundreds upon hundreds of campfires, stretching across an unbroken stretch of valley for what seemed like miles.

Every fire held around themselves humanoid shapes, wavering in the darkness. And at the forefront of it all, a small group of cavalry sat, waiting for the impending impact with a hostile creature. The boy recognized, at this moment, that he was running head on into a full company of battle-ready horse-mounted soldiers, and immediately veered off to the side. As he slid past the formation of these warriors, coming to a stop on the ground in a semi-comfortable patch of grass.

He watched as the bird crested the hill to follow its prey, only to find dozens of bristling metal fangs awaiting its arrival. Almost immediately it backpedaled, finding several light jabs to award its efforts, and as it dashed away at a far slower pace than it had managed before, back to the forest home that had been the setting to start it all, the boy began to cheer.

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Sitting on a log likely fashioned from one the tinier tree branches in the forest nearby, wrapped in a blanket against the cold, the boy could feel the chill breeze trying to fight its way past the wondrous fire warming him. Blocked by all manner of charms against the evil of frost, the cold could only scoff as it turned aside to find easier and more exposed skin to freeze.

The boy shivered in his blanket, having just finished eating some hot soup to warm him up from the inside. He had been guided and then sat down next to a fire they had started for him. He imagined that if he had stayed in the forest much longer, he probably would have died of hypothermia before being eaten.

He shivered for another reason at the thought. That fear, the terror, had stayed with him, even in the hours after the bird’s disappearance and his being rescued from it. But now, thinking back upon the undeniable happiness, the cruelty in its gaze, the boy could only feel anger. Those eyes had glinted with intelligence far beyond reason, and it indicated that the bird had hunted him more for sport than for sustenance, if the fat on its body had been anything to go by.

He continued to shiver, only slightly now, as his body slowly but surely continued to acclimate to the warmth of his surroundings. As he warmed up and continued to become more comfortable, he got up so that he could explore. After all, who wouldn’t be excited when meeting a fantasy army?

And so, he began to wander. At first, the smaller form bundled up in a blanket drew many eyes as it wandered from fire to fire, inquiring at each as to what was going on. When the blanket-clad human only got grunts and what sounded like a host of different languages, he turned to just observing what he thought to be soldiers in a fantasy world.

The layout of the camp he was currently in had a clear order to it, as he could clearly see that each fire was lined up evenly with all the other fires surrounding them for as long as his eyes could make out. There appeared to be a pattern of concentric circles, where each fire would be a part of a larger ring of fires surrounding more fires to the interior of the camp. Was that strategic? Did it signify that the soldiers on the outskirts were more well-trained than the others? They would be the first people to enter combat if the camp were attacked after all.

He wandered then, moving closer to the interior of the fires, letting curiosity guide his steps. His body was worn out from all the running and fear, but he managed to find his way forward. He knew he would regret it when the blisters formed in the morning, but he was just too restless to stay at the fire he had been given. He moved past tents, getting closer to what he thought was the center of the tents, when he suddenly came across a tent no taller than the others, but one that was larger in just about every other dimension.

Compared to the rough–hewn green cloth of the other tents, those stained by what appeared to be years in the field, this tent was one of opulence. It was still green, and again was no taller than the other tents, but all the other signs of what would make it a normal soldier’s abode were gone. It was clean, exceptionally so, and covered in strange symbols that he couldn’t discern.

He recognized at that moment that all the other tents had similar patterns, seemingly woven into the cloth in some way. How he hadn't noticed it before stumped him, until he realized that the dirt and grime served as an active camouflage to hide their presence. The coloration of these strange markings was a verdant green, darker than the material it was placed upon by only a little. He leaned forward to investigate it further when he heard a voice behind him.

“Poking your nose around where you don’t belong, huh?” The man speaking, when the boy made eye contact with him, was a good foot and a half taller than him. His broad chest was covered in yet more green, matching the uniforms of all of the soldiers around him. The difference here was some similar markings to ones found on the tent he was standing right in front of. “Oh.” It came out as a squeak, more than anything, and was met with a boisterous laugh at the look of downtrodden hope on the boy’s face.

“Well, there’s nothing to worry about. You’re fine, just thought I would give you a scare, for my sake, before I go all mushy on a kid like you.” Indignation filled the boy’s heart, as he responded with righteous fury to such a slight. “I’m not a kid.” “Oh really? I mean, I can take your word for it if ya like, but I promise you ain't gonna like the consequences of not being one round these parts.”

“I’m 14, and my dad says that means I have to be responsible for myself and my actions. If I have to take responsibility for that kind of stuff, then I sure don’t get to be called a kid. Even if I don’t care about what he has to say…” Then, the boy made a connection in his mind that he hadn’t given thought to at first. This man was speaking in English. In something of a southern drawl no less. And how exactly was he understanding him, and how had the man understood him? Was there magic at work? Something else at play? There had to be.

Then he considered what the man had just said. “Wouldn’t like not being one? What do you mean by that, uh, sir?” The large man let out a sigh from his barrel-chested frame, and a slump entered his shoulders. “Welp, now’s as good a time as any I suppose.” He stalked through the flap of the tent, walking into what appeared to be a mishmash combination of sleeping quarters, dining room, and office crammed into one space.

The extra room afforded this giant was either to accommodate his large frame, or because he was important. His instincts told him that it was most likely the latter, but could have been a combination of both. A creak from the cot on the far right side of the room squeaked out, seeming to originate from the dying breaths of a far-too strained wooden contraption never meant for the burden it was forced to bear. The man gestured with his paw of a hand, seemingly larger than the boy’s head, at a chair situated somewhat in the middle of the tent floor, next to a sprawling mess of papers and what seemed to be maps. “Sit.”

Stepping through, the boy noticed that the space, for a body his size, was more than spacious enough. It was like the biggest tent of his imagination, but made for more utilitarian purposes than the fanciful ones he had thought of in his daydreams. He had thought of going camping in a structure this big, and the space was just as fun to be as he imagined it would have been if he had been camping. It would have comfortably fit him and his dad, including all their gear for staying out in the woods for long stretches.

Stalking over to the chair the man had indicated, more a stool made out of the same material that the log seats outside were composed of, the boy sat down and bundled up tighter in his blanket. The interior of the tent was far colder than he had anticipated, and even felt to a certain degree like it was air conditioned…

“Alright, let’s get down to brass tacks. You were being chased by a corverian, and somehow managed to outrun the thing. Probably how damn fat the thing was if I had to wager. My squad of cavalry knights fended off the beast, and you were given a place to stay in my portion of the camp because I was the one to have you ‘rescued’. You then wandered off to explore and ended up walking right up to my tent. Is all of that information correct?” The boy nodded in affirmation, then quickly raised his hand to ask a question.

“Yes?” “So the name of that thing chasing me was really a corverian? That seems really close to corvid. So, is it like a big crow?” “Yes, and yes. Essentially, you can call the corverian an abnormal crow if you want, but it’s varied genetically enough that we have to classify it differently. Primarily because it’s a gigantic monster, but also because of some biological differences.” The boy quirked his head in puzzlement. “Wait, how do you know the word genetic, or even biological? Is that, like, a result of the translation magic? Sorry, I’m just a little confused as to what’s even really going on right now.”

“Ah, no, don’t worry about that. I’ll explain in a second. So, now that you have confirmed your side of the story, I can finish my report…” The man hopped off of his cot and walked over to the table adjacent to the boy. With a flash of light and fire, suddenly a candle on the table was lit up in an orange flame. The boy couldn’t help the small gasp that escaped him at that moment–that had to have been magic!

The man quickly grabbed a quill banked in an ink pot and signed off on multiple spots on the paper, hardly paying any heed to the boy’s reaction. “You don’t mind if I sign for you right? It’s not really necessary, and I can already tell you don’t know how to hold a quill. Unless you’re curious?” The boy leaned over to read what the man was signing, and felt his eyes go cross-eyed at the jumble of nonsensical letters on the page. “I think I’ll pass.” “No worries.” A grin at getting a job done in a timely manner for once, and then the man settles his face as he sits back down on his wilted cot.

“So, I have some unfortunate news for you, worse than getting chased by the corverian.” An eyebrow rises in surprise. “What? You don’t believe me? Well, take it from the expert here, you’re not gonna like this if you have any sense in ya.” He leaned back even farther on his cot, until he looked like he was a moment’s notice from falling off of it. Gradually, he pulled himself back up into an upright position. “Well… to put it in a kind manner of speaking, you can’t really leave here.” The boy shows no signs of surprise, but inside he is filled with trepidation. I don’t think they would force me to stay… Maybe he means that there’s no transportation to somewhere civilized?

“Ya see, it’s not that we don’t have a means of getting you back to whatever bumpkin town you live in. Chances are that we have a caravan shipping out to Granstalt in the next couple of days, and you could be on your merry way. The problem, however, lies in the policies that this army has adopted.” His eyes harden as he reaches the point he’s trying to make. “For the last 6 months or so, this united force, some calling it a coalition of races for the number of varied species on display in our units, has been recruiting from every single town from Reikfier to Lindstadt. Every man, aged from 13 to 20, has been drafted to fight in this upcoming battle against the goblins."

"They’re nasty critters, and we need every single man on the field that we can muster. I am, unfortunately, duty-bound to recruit or forcefully conscript every able-bodied person I can find. And because a certain someone just had to go and dispute that he was a child, I am under oath to honor my obligations.” His eyes were like steel in the low light provided by the fires surrounding them, his shadow dancing on the tent walls from the wavering candle illuminating his frame.

“What’s your name, son?” The boy could feel a trembling now, like he had become one of the tree branches back in the forest, swaying in the wind. He could feel a tempest inside of him, a swirling of emotion as he tried to calm down. He could feel sweat building up on his brow, as realized the ramifications of what the man was saying. “Tell me yours, first.” A guffaw, and a belly laugh at the boy’s antics answered him, followed by one word. “Andrew.”

The boy grimaced as he thought about trying to run out the tent flap and go for the hills. Who the hell wanted to be drafted? It was no dream of his to participate in something like this. It sounded terrible. He had even been learning about the history of stuff like the World Wars, and the thought of participating in that himself seemed incredulous. What if this is what I was brought here to do? What if I was ordained for this purpose? Becoming a great hero in a goblin war, destroying the enemy by myself… That must be it! Suddenly, his demeanor changed, and gone was the apprehension. Andrew leaned back in surprise at the sudden shift in the boy’s body language, until he finally got what he was looking for.

“It’s Sam, or Samuel if you need my full name for something. I prefer Sam though. Only my dad gets to call me Samuel. And I can join the army if you really need me to. I’m not worried.” This surprised Andrew, as he had been fully expecting a flat out refusal or sense of escapism coming off from him. Most of them acted that way after all. “But, you’re gonna have to put me in a special unit or something. I need to be on the front lines and doing as much as I can. It’s what I was meant for.”

Andrew immediately shot him down. “No, I refuse to send out a green soldier to die just because he has battle lust. I don’t care how eager you are for combat kid, you’re gonna spend at least a year getting ready for the horde. So is everyone else, so you’re just joining the club.” At this, Sam bristled with indignation, even more of it than he had felt when Andrew had deigned to continue to call him kid.

“No, you have to let me be at the front! It’s what I’m meant for.” It came out as more of a whine than as a command, and Andrew was again surprised at the pushback on this. It was starting to get on his nerves. “Give me a singular good reason why I should, and I would consider it. If you want to dig your own grave, I won’t be stopping you.”

Sam weighed the options in his mind. If he couldn’t get Andrew to agree now, then the chances that his commanding officer changed and would approve his desire to be on the frontlines were slimmer than he liked. He considered the pros and cons of what he was about to say, and then decided that he didn’t want to fall into the traps of the cliché even if he thought it would have been cooler to be secretive.

“Sir, uh, if I’m supposed to call you that. Can I ask you to keep a secret?” “I’m all ears fella.” Well, here goes nothing. “I need to go to the frontlines because I was chosen to come here.” A questioning gaze was his only response. “Enlighten me on what exactly that is supposed to mean.” Sam gulped. “You see, I am from… another world. I was ordained by one of your gods, to come here and save your world. I think. It falls in line with so many things that I’ve seen before that there’s no other explanation, and I think that I can be the one to stop the Goblin King or whoever is the biggest threat on the planet.”

Andrew stared at him incredulously, watching as he confirmed the look of seriousness crossing Sam’s face until he was sure what he meant without a doubt. A moment of time was frozen, as Andrew’s face contorted. But to Sam’s shock, it was not one of surprise, or of gratitude. Not one of relief, or one of worship to one so worthy as him. It was not even one of shock, to mirror his own. Instead, Andrew’s face widened to what Sam believed to be the extent of human facial muscles, until he let out a roar of laughter that filled the entire camp surrounding them.

He laughed and laughed, and for so long that he started to cough and double over until his lungs couldn’t take it anymore. The entire time he did so, Sam demanded an explanation for why he thought it to be so funny, and to cry for respect as his purpose was so callously thrown aside as being the funniest thing the man had ever heard of. As the sound of laughter continued, Sam could feel that worm of doubt crawling in his heart, feeding on a fear that grew second by second.

Finally, long minutes after he had begun, Andrew wiped his tears away as people stalked off from the tent, having come to find out what he was dying over. When none of them could get a response from either of the tent’s occupants, they left after telling Andrew, in a very colorful way, where he could keep his laughter next time he wanted to wake up the whole camp. Finally, Andrew inhaled, and let out a tiny chuckle. “Oh man, that was good for my soul. Damn kid, you really know how to sell yourself. A god’s chosen, eh? Tch, and here I thought kids weren't funny.”

Sam angrily glared, waiting for there to be something other than ridicule thrown his way. His first impression of Andrew had already been soiled by earlier treatment, and his distaste grew. He wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to feel this way, as he had only ever felt this kind of disdain towards some teachers in school. Still, there’s something off going on here…

“You see, the reason why that was actually comedic gold is the presumption. Unfortunately for you, and a lot of other people that have come through here before, you’re not special.” Alarm rang out in Sam’s mind. No. It couldn’t be. “Funnily enough, I'm from another world.”

Sweat poured down Sam’s face in waves, drenching the blanket that was suddenly burning hot against his skin. This could not be. Should not be. “Where you from, kid? Looks like Earth to me, if I had to reckon. If you are, you might find it funny to hear that I'm from Louisiana, born and raised, thank you kindly.”

Sam could feel his fight or flight rising again, and this time he intended to commit to flight immediately. Him too? No, why is this happening? I thought I was… “You still there? Ah, good. You might find it even more surprising to learn that a good number of the army is similarly stranded ‘from afar’, much like yours and my situation. I bet that feels good to know that there are others like yourself, doesn't it? Oh, wait, you were one of those ‘chosen one’ types, weren’t ya?” Another hearty chuckle escaped his lips as he callously watched Sam’s world begin to collapse around him.

Sam was currently spiraling out of control, as everything his mind had put forth as a hypothetical was now currently going up in flames. He had to course correct, now. But he couldn’t. No matter how hard he tried, he continued to fall in on himself, curling up on the rickety stool provided to him.

He looked up in more fear than he had felt throughout the entire previous day, with more terror than the corverian had instilled in him as Andrew loomed, his hand reaching out. As if to provide a lifeline. “Welcome to the army, son.” Not knowing what else to do, Sam clenched the only way out he had, even as the fear and now grief at his situation overwhelmed him. He slowly gave Andrew's hand a very warm and uncomfortably wet shake. Smiling toothily, Andrew left him with one more wise opinion. “I think you’re gonna learn to love it here.”