His head was under an immense pressure and the right side of his skull seemed to be boiling off.
He woke up sore, his body layed out in the hot sand in an unknown place.
All around him the earth was split, cliffs about 3 stories tall were all around him, probably formed by the constant pelting sand brought by the harsh winds.
These cliffs were still small and somewhat sparce but these tiny hills were all around him blocking his wider view, he had no clue what may lay around him.
His head ached and his body begged for him to lay back down and wait a bit, but the fear racing his mind pulled him up.
Congratulations
Quest acquired: survive the time
Time limit:7:36 hours
Another flash, like a pulse, a heartbeat, his mind was flung once more as another set of words blinked past him.
It felt no different from a flash of light or the sudden loss of vision when one got up too quickly.
But it struck fear into him, first a homo habilis looking thing talked to him, and now at least 2 messages had planted themselves on his mind like a weed, he couldn't move his mind from them, like someone had stuck a fuzzy thing in the corner of his eyes, to survive, that was a horrible thought, was he being hunted down? Was someone after him?
He feared knowing the answer, but he prayed it wouldn't be so.
Mike shook the sand out from his track suit, a loose baggy shirt and equally baggy pants that flapped a little as the wind blew.
He moved to the shade and checked himself.
The boiling pain on the right side of his head had been the harsh sun heating up his brown hair, the rest of the pain seemed to not have a real reason as far as he could tell, maybe the sore body was from laying in the sand, and maybe the headache was from being dehydrated, those were his 2 best guesses.
As for items he hadn't been carrying anything aside from a wrist watch with him prior to coming here so he wasn't sure if he had been robbed, hell he wasn't sure if he had been kidnapped.
As far as he knew there was no place like this in his home country of Portugal, so unless someone had kept him asleep for at least a day or more, he hadn't arrived here through normal means as his watch pointed that just a few minutes had passed since he was first interrupted from his game.
A dream perhaps? But it felt too real, and so far despite how weird things had been, they hadn't been weird enough to trigger that little instinct he always had to figure if something was a dream or not.
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He held himself up by leaning on the cliff wall a bit and tried to have another look around himself, the bright harsh light of the sun gleamed even on this dark brown sand making it hard to keep ones eyes from squinting, after not seeing anything of interest aside from a few weeds growing through the cracks and corners, he decided to move up the cliff, the sands were swept away to his left making a flat ramp leading to the top of the cliff.
Once he reached the top, things were a bit cleared, he could see much farther around him, if he assumed he was still in the northern hemisphere or at least the equivalent of this place, then he could give himself some directions for reference.
He stood atop what appeared a bunch of mounds, it wasn't all sand and rocks like he initially assumed, some light greenery did exist scattered across these hill tops, not any trees but plenty of grass grew here like hair on a slight balding man's head.
to his north and west there seemed to be more grassy cliffs, with what appeared to be a wider canyon a few minutes away. To the south he could barely see,but in the distance, it seemed the terrain got a lot lower toward the south and a forest did seem to grow there. To the east he could see much further than the other direction or at least more clearly, there was a massive flat area of sand to the east, it also seemed to be downhill but not nearly as much as the forest to the south.
4 directions and 3 different views, it might have been easier to head south and enter the forest, after all one could find food and water there, but a forest also meant animals were more abundant and he was afraid of what the last message he recieved could mean, the forest certainly would carry more dangers and if the only thing he needed was to sit still for 7 something hours he wouldn't need food or water.
That left west,east and north. East was also out of the question since the flat desert would give him no place to hide and a much harder time, he could survive with no food or water, but he could also still suffer from a heat stroke.
West or north, when in doubt, why not both? He gave himself a general feel of where to go to and started walking.
The flip flops he had on didn't help much with his walk but they also didn't hinder him which was good.
His walk to the canyon was a short one but the constant ou and down from going over the hills tired him a lot more than what one would expect. Why was he even here?
Some harambe looking fuck walked into his room unannounced and now he was stuck here, what bullshit was that, who was it, what was it, how, the questions piled up and the answers didn't.
Mike- I hate this shit.
He reached the edge of the last cliff before the canyon, despite the slight uphill nature of this place he still managed to spot this area due to just how wide it was, nearly 30 meters wide and 10 deep, this was a massive place, at the bottom Mike could see the sand turn darker, and a long coiling streak shone from the middle of this darkened sand.
Water, a river nearly 7 meters wide ran down the middle of this canyon, a gift and a comfort to Michael, although not absolutely needed, water was appreciated none the less, although he could survive it would make him a lot weaker if he spent the whole day slowly drying up like a piece of jerky in the middle of this desert.
Mike took wide steps and jumped around as he slid down a less steep area of the cliff wall.
He approached the water slowly and looked around, the margins of the river were flourishing with long vines and even some bushes that fed off the slow moveming stream, the river itself was shallow only going up to his navel.
Mike cupped his hands and filled them with the clear water taking initial smalls sips from the edge of the river, it tasted clean and was fresh filling Mike with joy and a bit of happiness, making him forget for a bit that he might very well be in the middle of being hunt down.
Of course such a thing didn't last long though and in less that 5 minutes of Mike finding the river a groups of people appear from the other side of the cliff.