Herman gasped and he shot to his feet, then proceeded to fall face first into the mud as he overshot his leap. After reacquainting himself with the muddy ground, he spent a few seconds trying to figure out how he had come to this situation.
How did he get here? Why was the rain warm in the middle of December? And why did he feel better than he did twenty years ago?
Granted the mud didn't taste the best, but as he got up, slower this time, he noticed that there was no soreness in his joints, no feeling of frailty in his back, and his thoughts felt clearer than ever.
Once he cleared the grime from his eyes, he did his best to scan his surroundings for danger, instincts that he hadn't used in decades starting to find worth. The rain was coming down in sheets, making it hard to see more than ten feet, but he was able to make out what looked like the shadows of some big trees along one that he was pretty sure was a mountain.
The last thing Herman realized, but perhaps the most important, was that he was in a dress. Or maybe it was a nightgown. Either way, he didn't remember putting it on. the last thing he remembered was finishing up a cabinet drawer that he was doing for Bethany before he would head home for the night. Then the next he knew---
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He was on the ground again. A blinding blue wall of text hovered in front of his face as he tried to get his heartbeat under control. He spent the next 30 seconds waving his hands at the opaque wall before it slowly faded away.
While sitting in the mud contemplating whether he should try get up again, he started to feel a light prickling sensation on his skin that wasn't the rain. Then it started getting stronger and traveling down to his bones. Before he knew what was happening, Herman was writhing in pain as the prickling went from annoying needles to white hot metal spreading throughout his very being.
Within seconds his brain shut off his pain receptors as they got overloaded. Herman's sight started to fade as his mind slowly stopped working. There was another flash of bright blue, but by then he was too far gone to even process the reason before he passed out completely.