Aleem Beckenbauer, formerly a 23-year-old human from Earth, took another calming breath. He had very evidently lost his mind, but that was fine. Everything was just fine. He could deal with this.

Aleem looked down at his skin. He was shirtless, and the unhealthy pinkish hue of his gaunt teenage torso lay unhidden from observation. It was an inhuman colour. His shoulders, the sides of his arms. Pink.

This was not his body.

No, it was his body now. For the last thirty minutes, he’d occupied himself with tedious mental repetitions of je pense donc je suis. Back in his old life, he’d always considered The Cogito nothing more than an academic exercise. Even when not syllogized, the maxim revealed nothing about the nature of reality. Yet now Aleem clutched it in a death grip as he contended with an existential crisis. He was here. Somehow. Whether in doubt or uncertainty. And armed with this awareness, he could begin dealing with his predicament, the absurdity of which weighed heavily on him.

The effects of whatever narcotic they’d given him had all but worn off; his emotions were no longer as muted as they’d been when he’d first woken up, yet he felt numb.

Aleem sat now in a small tent, the dirt floor, moist and compact beneath him. His arms were bound at his back, a thick rope held his feet together at the ankles, and a rag had been wedged firmly in his mouth. There was a metre-high block of stone behind him, and the rope binding his arms was attached to it somehow.

To his left, a useless candle burned low and languidly in a metal pan.

Sunlight filtered in through a thin slit in the tent’s flap, marking a corner of the back wall with an angular stripe of jarring brightness. The sunlight tinged the tent’s brown material a brutish orange. It was hot within the tent, stuffy too. And it smelled atrocious. But these were the least of his worries.

Aleem’s foster parents had designed an Open-world Role-Playing Game long before they’d adopted him, long before he’d even been born. ‘Tales of Woe: Orig Eternal’, set in the titular planet of Orig. He’d been privy to their notes, pages upon pages of unadapted content, much of which were merely early iterations of the final result. Aleem had grown up playing the game earnestly, scouring the wiki pages, getting into heated arguments online and had even spent a large chunk of his teen years writing trashy fan fiction on the dismal and grim world of Orig.

A world that he had now somehow been transported into. And that was fine, he reminded himself. Copacetic, even. Transmigration. Metempsychosis. Whatever he chose to call it, this was now his reality.

Fuck.

Deep breaths. Deep, sickening, rag-tainted breaths. All the breathing in the world couldn’t have saved him now, Aleem knew, but it gave him something else to focus on. He was keenly aware of the wriggling mass of dread and panic that he’d locked away within himself. It continued to writhe beneath the ersatz calm he and the drug had imposed on his mind. But Aleem was fine with that. He needed to strip the dread of its ammunition. And that was why he’d come to terms with … whatever the hell this vivid nightmare was.

Not a nightmare, he reminded himself gently. It was all real. The unnatural skin tone. The thick cluster of musty dreadlocks flowing from his head, unto his shoulders and upper-back. His emaciated form; ribs scrabbling against his sides with each breath. A stomach distended by apparent malnutrition. The extra appendages; in a bid to work through an exhaustive list of every reality check he knew, Aleem had learned that this body—his body—was polydactyl. Six-fingered.

Everything was just fine. It was all fine. There was no sense in jumping to conclusions.

The last Aleem remembered before waking up in Orig, he’d been driving late at night, in a hurry to get home. And then, pain. Mind-searing pain. No self-driven trucks blindsiding him. No horrors appearing in the utterly empty highway. Just pure agony. Followed seamlessly by him waking up to slightly less pain under the glare of Orig’s blue, much larger sun. Aleem had been so, so heavily sedated at the time, and he’d believed himself dreaming. But as the fugue cleared, the reality of his situation began to settle on him. The tall, pink-skinned Vriorians; the inhumanly mesomorphic soldiers in glistening silver armour; the unfamiliar language they spoke in. He’d squirmed and thrashed on the floor, screaming muffled incoherencies into his gag until someone had violently dissuaded him of his behaviour. He flexed the chastened area just shy of his cheekbone. It throbbed with pain, though dully. That was going to hurt like hell soon enough.

Something nigh lethal had happened to the former owner of this body, and after a healer had stabilised Aleem, he’d been tossed into this tent. That had been about an hour ago. Thence ensued that long string of unsuccessful reality checks. Or maybe they were successful after all. He’d cried and wailed and raged into his gag. And only after he’d hollowed himself out, did he begin the gruelling work of grounding himself.

Aleem leaned his head against the stone behind him and took another calming breath. Perfectly. Perfectly fine. Everything was — it was fine. Aleem could lie to himself. He’d had to learn. And right now, it was one of the only things keeping him sane.

He was here, and this was happening. He shakily let out a disturbing sound through the gag. It sounded like some chimeric fusion of mewl and mirth.

How was any of this possible? How—

No.

No use going down that rabbit hole again. It’d taken him a significant amount of effort to retrieve himself from it the first time. He could ask the much harder questions later. Metaphysics could wait. He’d just focus on what he could see and handle, which unfortunately wasn’t much, at the moment, being tied up and all.

Orig was a brutal world. A merciless domain of mythic monsters, mortal gods and magic. And he had transmigrated into the body of a Vriorian boy. Vriorians were a race of Demi-humans with manistic practices and fuck tons of historical baggage. Taking into account the treatment he’d gotten so far, this body very likely belonged to a member of their lowest caste. That would restrict him in many ways, but he would need to gather further information first.

Aleem had some measure of confidence in his familiarity with Orig. His knowledge of the world was shallow but vast, with the rare instance of depth in matters concerning events, characters and their actions. He probably knew as much about the secrets of this world as some of the most powerful entities in it did. Or at least, he thought so. It still felt like a consolation prize. How much of what he knew was even valid?

He shook his head. That was the wrong track. The most important thing would be verifying how much of what he knew was consistent with reality. After which, he could focus on putting himself in a position to leverage said knowledge. This, naturally, required him to ascertain the timeline. Just how far into the game had he been flung? It certainly wasn’t close to the end of the timeline of ’Tales of Woe’. Two-thirds of the way into the game, the gods had taken to vicious warfare, and most lower-order entities were not spared. Whatever the case, they were not yet at that point. Like yards upon yards of fabric, his work was duly cut out for him.

He glanced at his feet. He had on an outgrown pair of brown pants and a set of thick boots. The ropes at his lower shin hid it from immediate notice, but Aleem could easily pick out the brass band on his left leg. He got the feeling that it was meant to be an anklet, but his legs were much too thin for that. The band was a mana suppressant, a device used to seal the mana of living things, be they monsters or humanoids. When used on player characters in ‘Tales of Woe’, such devices had the effect of preventing access to the inventory and other aspects of the game interface.

He’d loudly mumbled out several variations of ‘status’, all in hopes of calling up his stat window, but nothing had happened beyond the device on his leg vibrating. It was evidence of something, at least. In ‘Tales of Woe’, there’d been a global element of power-progression. All Denizens of Orig were presented as each having a soul schema; a means of closely following their own magical development. For the player characters, that had manifested itself as an intuitive stat screen, amongst other things. Aleem decided to continue holding out hope of such a thing until the suppression device was taken off. An interface would prove too invaluable.

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He heard movement outside the tent. The flap was wrenched open, and Aleem flinched away from the accompanying flash blindness. Muted footfalls and whispered conversation caused him to return his attention to the entrance.

A young woman in a dark-coloured gambeson stood by the tent’s flap, peering out through it. From the distinctly pink tinge of her skin, he knew she was Vriorian. She was playing lookout. The other visitor was a plump-faced man in a glistening aketon or maybe it was some strange form of armour. He gingerly approached Aleem, hands held out in a placating gesture. He seemed entirely human. No pink skin, no … extra fingers.

“Gwa.yao.rai, it’s us,” the man said in a gentle voice. “We came to check up on you.”

Curious. Aleem was very certain he hadn’t understood anything he’d heard much earlier. Maybe the narcotic had had something to do with that? Or perhaps they’d been speaking a different language? The words weren’t in English, and yet he understood them as perfectly as a native speaker might. Also, was that his name? Gwa.yao.rai?

Aleem couldn’t say anything through his ’muzzle’, so he watched the newcomers warily, eyes darting between the woman at the entrance and the approaching man. Their presence here reeked of furtiveness. Aleem didn’t know what to expect. And though it said nothing about their intentions, they simply didn’t look as though they were here to harm him.

The man came within arm’s reach, and extended his hand, which caused Aleem to jerk away. “Stay calm now,” his voice wobbled a little. “I’ll take your gag off. Just your gag. Okay?”

Aleem nodded slowly. The man made for the rag in his mouth; he pulled it out and tossed it aside. Aleem gasped, tried to speak, then broke out into a fit of dry coughs. His jaw hurt.

“Take it easy, lad. Here.” The man uncorked a waterskin. He placed a warm palm underneath Aleem’s chin, tilting his head backwards and pouring water into his mouth.

Aleem guzzled like his life depended on it. He hadn’t realised how thirsty he was.

“Hey, hey! Easy, I said.” The man retracted the waterskin and gave Aleem a mildly chiding look. “Maybe that’s enough for now.”

Aleem gulped for air, nodding. “Than—” He coughed. His mouth still felt dry, and he could certainly use some more water. “Thank you,” he croaked. His voice cracked and wavered like a teenager’s might. That had surprised him, even though he’d been expecting severe variation from his actual voice. Old voice, Aleem corrected.

“It’s all fair and fine. You look like you’ve seen the far sides of a scourge.”

“Do you… do you know why I’m tied up?” Aleem asked meekly. It wasn’t so hard to play the role of victim when he actually felt like one.

The man chuckled quietly, corking the waterskin. “The runts clock you that badly, huh?”

Aleem had given this some thought. And he’d settled on playing the amnesiac card. Trite was often times a synonym for reliable. “I don’t remember,” he told the man. “I don’t remember anything. I don’t … I don’t even know who I am.”

The man stared at him with a bemused smile that slowly morphed into worry. He tilted his head over his shoulder, still maintaining eye contact with Aleem, “Uh… Bojra? Bojra!”

“What?” the woman hissed from her place by the flap.

“I think there’s something wrong with the kid. Says he can’t remember anything.”

“Switch out with me,” Bojra said. “Quickly!” she hissed when the man didn’t move briskly enough.

The two exchanged positions, and Bojra was squatting before Aleem in bare seconds. Her voice was stern and assertive. “What’s the earliest thing you can remember?”

“Waking up outside.” Aleem licked his dry lips and eyed the identical waterskin latched to Bojra’s belt. “Nothing else before that.”

Steadying him by the shoulder, Bojra dug her right hand into his hair and he tried jerking away. “Hold still!” she scolded. Her fingers pattered about his head like eager crane flies, till they lightly pressed against a terribly sensitive patch of skin above his ear.

Even before the yelp left his lips, Bojra’s palm was pressed firmly against his mouth, muffling the sound. Aleem’s eyes watered from the pain. He hadn’t noticed that wound before now. Worse still, the tip of her fingers were grazing the bruise beneath his cheekbone.

He pulled away from her, and she released him without protest. He blinked away the tears, puffing softly.

Bojra clacked her tongue, frowning. “Concussed. You have a concussion.” She leaned closer and peered at his cheekbone. “When did you get that? Do you remember?”

“After I woke up. Someone hit me.”

She nodded as though that were perfectly understandable.

“So what now?” the man called in a hoarse whisper.

“I’m not sure,” she said, giving Aleem an annoyed but thoughtful look.

“Who are you people?” Aleem asked her in as modest a tone as he could manage.

She hesitated a beat before tapping a finger on her chest plate, “Zraa. I’m Bojra. That bumbling oaf behind me is Thebas.”

Okay, but what did they want with him? He really didn’t give two fucks about their names.

“Sembi was worried.” Then as an afterthought, Bojra said, “That’s my little sister.” She crossed her arms on her knees. “Thebas was worried too.” Thebas chuckled softly behind her, and Bojra turned to shoot the man a sullen look.

Ah. These people appeared to be friends of his body’s former owner. He would try to be more tactful than he’d intended. He was also quite hopeful. “Are you here to rescue me?”

Bojra stared at him, then let out what had to have been the most mirthless laugh he’d ever heard in his entire life. Even Thebas was chuckling, though with actual mirth.

What a rude way to say ‘no’.

Bojra gave him a pitying look that betrayed, unexpectedly, some fondness. She sighed and the stern demeanour seemed to drop. “Would you like some more water?”

“Yes, please.”

Bojra shook her head as she reached for her waterskin. “They really went and knocked Aok’nkor’s couthiness into you, didn’t they?” She helped him to some more water, and he paced himself this time.

Sated, he asked, “Can you tell me what happened? I’m still trying to piece it all together, and nothing makes sense. Who am I? Where are we? Why am I tied up here? And what—”

“Slow down,” she said. “Zraa. That’s a lot of questions.”

“Bojra, we can’t stay long,” Thebas said quietly.

“Mmm, I know,” she muttered.

“Keep it short.”

“How do you even tell someone about themselves? Zraa. Well, your name is Gwa.yao.rai. You’re fourteen years old. Irksome as a blister—”

“Won’t take advice from your elders,” Thebas added, genially.

“And incredibly troublesome, obviously.” She gave him a small smile. “Mmm—right. Where are we, you asked. This is a Wotbourne Encampment, border Outpost of the Ontnmor army.”

Aleem felt his blood run cold. Ontnmor was a Province in the nation of Ontacreese. Prior even to the timeline of ‘Tales of Woe’, the entire nation had already been conquered and ravaged by war. He remembered this because two of the player characters from the game had been present at the preliminary battle, which had taken place here. In Ontmor. It was said to have been a historic battle that triggered a cascade of catastrophes, ultimately culminating in the Nilondlic Cataclysm. The nation of Ontacreese had been destroyed ten years prior to the very beginning of ‘Tales of Woe’.

Ten years before the events of the game.

At the very least.

He couldn’t think of any word that sufficiently described just how fucked he was.