MEET THE CAST/ EXPERIMENTATION.
When everyone was done moving around, the clearing might’ve looked like some strange award ceremony; with Gareth and the Lanky guy standing in front of two rows of 25. I found myself in the front row, next to the counting girl... come to think of it, I really need to learn these people’s names.
I turned my head to the focus people in front of me, I could finally see Gareth in full: he was a very tall man with a wide build. His eyes were a very boring black, and his hair was messy and long, it was a light brown color that only gave us the promise that it could’ve been blonde once. His face looked more natural in a permanent scowl then it did when he forced it into a smile.
The man standing next to him, the Lanky guy, looked completely different from Gareth. His hair was a bright blonde and reached down to the very bottom of his neck. His eyes were a vibrant blue. True to his ‘title’ his limbs were long, and he was slightly taller than the average as well. He looked the most like a generic elf when compared to everyone else here.
“AHEM—” Gareth started to speak. “My name is…Mark…” what? Even though he just lied about his name, his voice was deep and emotionless. ‘mark’ turned to look at the lanky guy: “I believe we should focus on finding food for now.”
The lanky guy nodded. “I agree… wait we can take it a step further, lets split into three groups, one group will search for some sort of food…” he paused for a second to think. “The second group should gather firewood, or anything else we may need. And the third group—” Gareth cut him off. As if he was waiting to say it himself. (and yes, I’m going to keep calling him Gareth until we know which name is actually his.)
“The third group should stay here, hold down the fort.” That wasn’t a terrible idea, although I didn’t trust it, seeing as the owner of the idea gave me the creeps. One of the Male elves shared my skepticism:
“All that does is split everyone up, what if people get lost?” It didn’t look like anyone was going to stop him so he continued. “And what’s the point of the third group, what would they be ‘holding the fort down from?”
Gareth Sighed, but his voice and face remained incredibly neutral as he began to answer the man’s question. “I don’t know, and that’s the whole point.” He extended his right hand and pointed to his side. “If there is something dangerous in that Forest then it would be better to only send a portion of us… Or would you rather we all get lost and/or eaten by a pack of wild beasts?”
The crowd was silent still so he finished his statement as if he just won an argument by a landslide: “Alright then.”
The lanky guy took Gareth’s silence as his chance to take control of the conversation again. “Mark here made a good point though, it would probably be better for only 10 or so people to search the area around the clearing; Any volunteers?”
At the mention of Volunteering my body almost instinctively took a step back, not only did I not want to Volunteer, but I also didn’t want to go back into the forest; I felt small compared to It. Actually, I was small compared to everyone else too, I was technically a little girl after all. ’perhaps I could use this to my advantage at some point.’
“I’ll go!” I was pushed away from my thoughts by who sounded to be the Alien guy. I looked to his direction and found him walking up to Gareth and the lanky guy. “I used to go camping with Some friends back in the day, I know my way around a forest.” The alien guy reached the two men in the front and took a spot next to The lanky guy.
He quickly scanned the crowd, looked at Gareth and the Lanky guy and then back at the crowd. “By the way, we might be with each other for a while so I think I’ll tell you all my name, It’s Roger.”
I drowned out the conversation to get a good look at Roger. He was taller than the Lanky guy by about 3 or four 4 Inches, and he was definitely more muscular than him. His most striking feature as I’ve said before, was his hair because unlike almost everyone else in the clearing he wasn’t some variation of blonde. He probably could’ve passed as a lumberjack of some sort if it wasn’t for the generic white robes and elf ears connected to him.
When I returned my focus to the rest of the group, I saw that 8 other people had volunteered to be fodder by standing next to Roger. David was among their ranks, which surprised me, he didn’t seem like the type to risk his life, maybe I was just mad at him… Before I could ponder his reasons, someone on the other side of the line cleared their throat; it was Gareth.
“Ok, I’ll be the tenth.” As soon as he ended that statement he went on to explain how they’d look for materials: Basically they’d leave the clearing one at a time, each person moving 3 or 4 trees further away from the previous person, Gareth would be the furthest out. They’d walk around the perimeter of the clearing a couple of times while looking for anything useful, like firewood, fruit or fruit trees and, some source of clean water.
It wasn’t a bad plan. No one would be out of view, or super far away from anyone else. Although it’s pretty counterproductive to search for water when we could just make it ourselves.
As soon as Gareth finished explaining the process, he beckoned the 9 people to follow him and walked over to some random tree. With everyone else gone, the Lanky guy was left as the only one standing once again. He was staring off into space and seemed deep in thought when he suddenly shook his head and looked back at the remaining people.
“Alright with those 10 gone, I think we should look around the clearing to see if there’s anything useful here.” Nobody moved and everyone remained silent. “Um… any other ideas?”
A girl to the left of me began to speak. “Well my feet are pretty tired so I think that I’ll just sit down for a bit—” as she got in motion to sit down, the lanky guy tried to reason with her.
“I understand why you want to rest but, we should all be focusing on getting secure, and—” Some man behind me rudely cut him off:
“—And what!? We’re in the middle of a forest, it’s not like we can set off a signal flare to alert anyone nearby.”
Before the Lanky guy even got the chance to even say anything, somebody else in the group decided it was their turn to speak. “Right! And judging by our appearances, I doubt we’re even still on earth for that matter!”
The lanky guy raised his voice a little, to try and get the people to be quiet. “T-that’s even more of a reason for us to work as a team!”
Somebody else responded to him this time. “Yeah, well we’ve all been standing here for like the last 35 minutes because of you and that little girl over there, so I say that we deserve a little break!”
“I agree—” at this point whatever calm feeling that had enveloped us before was gone and replaced by the chaos from earlier. And in front of it was the lanky guy, who looked utterly lost on how to handle the situation.
I couldn’t help but laugh a little bit, the whole situation reminded me of the days when we’d have a substitute teacher and the class did whatever they wanted. “We’re such a bad audience.”
The counting girl that I had stood next to looked down to me. “Did you say something just now?”
“No, nothing important.”
--
The lanky guy was unable to take back control of the crowd and everyone was left to their own devices. The people were either talking with one another, or standing alone and minding their own business. There were a few outliers, namely the Counting girl, the Lanky guy and, me.
Both of the former were searching around in the grass for some sort of sign, as if there was anything of importance in the dirt. While I said I was helping them, it probably looked like I was just idling around like everyone else. In truth that was exactly what I was doing, my thoughts were over taken by my instinctual urge to figure out the limits of my newfound magical ability, It got so bad that I even started talking out loud to myself.
“—When I use to much magic my head will start hurting, we can use this as a ‘hard limit’ of sorts.” I Took a couple deep breaths but then continued my tangent. “The problems start here though because I have no way of figuring out what that ‘hard limit’ is… like, how quickly would my headache if I were to continuously heal something? Does the amount of energy I force out matter? Or is it the input that determines how quickly I start to feel terrible…—” I continued on like that for some time.
I had a lot of theories but no meaningful way to test them, so I changed gears: “Hmmm, I’ll need something to properly test this.”
I looked at the area around me, I was close to the edge of the clearing, I must have moved towards it without realizing. I moved a little closer, the forest wasn’t that dense (at least the area around the clearing wasn’t,) and I could see one of the people circling the clearing. The person looked bored, exited, and tense all at the same time, it was kind of funny.
I walked over to the tree line, stood by one of the trees, and examined the ground for any type of sharp object. Most of the twigs were too thin and small to be of use, and the pebbles I saw were dull. I sighed as I looked up to the sky, it was clear which was something I was used to, however something about the sun itself was strange...
“Well whatever…” I moved my head back to the ground, I had bigger things to worry about then the sky. “man this sucks though, maybe I should try a different way to test this.” And so I stood there, pondering ways I could test my healing abilities. The current idea, and the reason I was looking for something sharp to begin with, was to hurt myself a bunch, and then heal the wound, rinse and repeat until I understood how my powers worked in their entirety.
“Oh I know!” I stopped mid-sentence to lower my voice, I’d rather not people get the wrong idea. “—when they get back, maybe one of the things they bring with them will ‘somehow end up in my possession’ …” it wasn’t really the best plan, I mean, if I were to get caught then I’d probably get in some Major trouble.
I chuckled to myself and my inability to make decisions. If Todd were here, then he’d probably rush off into the forest on his own to get what we needed. ‘I wonder if Todd is one of the people here, it would be pretty funny if I was standing next to him this whole time.’ My thoughts started to drift from Tod to the rest of my family and friends, Did the same thing happen to all of them, or was it only the few of us here that were effected?
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Hey!”
I turned around to face the owner of the voice who dared interrupt my thoughts. It was the lanky guy. I got over the surprise of the sudden conversation starter being yelled at me and quickly responded to him. “What is it?”
He looked at the ground around me, and then directly to me as he answered my question. “Well, you’ve been staring at the ground over here for like two minutes so—” I cut him off there.
“Isn’t that what you and that other girl have been doing this whole time?”
He released a hard to notice grin as he spoke. “The difference is that she and I are actually being productive.” I wanted to point out that they probably weren’t going to accomplish anything by searching the dirt but… A thought crossed my mind.
“oh…I have an Idea!” the Lanky guy looked at me with a confused expression.
“What do you mean?” I Mentally gave myself a slap to the face, making myself sound suspicious wasn’t part of that idea.
“Slip of the tongue sorry, um—” I crouched down to look at the grass and raised my voice as I continued speaking. “— I’m being productive too, And unlike you… I actually know what I’m looking for.” I looked up towards him to try and gauge his reaction, he looked like he didn’t want to humor me be but he did anyway.
“Alright, I’ll bite, what are you looking for?”
I quickly stood up before I responded to him. “Something sharp, like a stick or something.” I pointed to the closet tree and really tried to make myself sound in need of help. “I’m too short to reach any of the good branches, So I’ve just been looking around over here in the hopes that something fell off.”
I looked back at his face again, the questioning air it gave off was still there. “Yeah ok, but what do you need a sharp stick for?”
I couldn’t exactly say I was planning on stabbing myself over and over so I made up something on the spot. “Protection?”
His face remained neutral for a second before he suddenly beamed. “Oh that’s a good idea actually!” I nodded my head in agreement as he spoke to try and keep his enthusiasm in motion. “Maybe I should get everybody a stick… wait no, that would take too long. “
I stopped nodding my head as I came to a sudden realization. “What exactly were you even looking around the dirt for?”
The lanky guy quickly answered my question. “Nothing— err... well anything that could’ve been useful.”
“Like…?” I let the sentence hang as I waited for him to respond, which took a good 5 seconds.
He shrugged as he replied to me. “Psht, I don’t know.” The fact that he Made the counting girl, (and attempted to make me), Search for nothing in particular in the dirt, (and the fact that he could’ve done much worse by making everyone do it), made me give The lanky guy a disappointed stare.
“Can you just get a stick for me?”
“Yeah.”
--
It didn’t really matter which branch the Lanky guy broke off of a tree as long it was big and strong enough to pierce my skin but, he was attentive and asked for my opinion on each and every Stick he could reach.
If I’m being honest, then I could’ve just stopped him at the first branch and been satisfied however I felt like giving him silent retribution for wasting mine, and the counting girls time. And so, for 3 minutes or so, I became a twig reviewer and judged every single stick on the market with a low score of 1/10.
Eventually, The lanky guy found a branch, and it was the one, well there wasn’t anything special about it but, I was starting to feel like an asshole and the longer we went on, the higher the chance he would notice too.
As he ripped the latter part of the branch away from the former, and that satisfying sound of cracking bark could be heard, I prepared my voice to sound thankful. He handed the stick to me and I made a dramatic show of holding it above me as if to better see it in the sunlight… even though the Lanky guy cast a shadow over me.
“It’s…” I slowly lowered my hand to look at it again, and then dramatically turned to face the small pile of ‘Worthless’ sticks that had formed. “…It’s… perfect!!”
A sigh of relief came from the Lanky guy but then he looked down at the small pile of sticks I created “What are we going do with these?
I attempted to stifle in a laugh as I responded to him. “Hehe, well, you can distribute them between the people or something.”
The lanky guy's face became a mixture of confusion and irritation as he looked back and forth between the Pile and me. “But didn’t you say those wouldn’t do?”
I put on my straightest Face as I began to speak. “I did, but only because you got on my nerves, anyone of these sticks would’ve done.”
“Wha—” He began to speak but I cut him off as I put the stick he had given me in the pile.
“Look on the bright side. At least you can say you didn’t waste your time doing nothing but look around in the dirt.” If he was angry he hid it pretty well, as he looked away.
“Well whatever…” we stood in silence for a long moment before he continued on. “ Ah, it looks like they’re Done Gathering stuff.” I followed his eyes to the other side of the clearing, the 10 people who had volunteered themselves were walking out of the woods. Some of those people were carrying (or in David’s case, attempting to carry) a pile of their spoils of war out with them. I couldn’t see what everyone was Holding exactly but if the crowd growing around them was any indication: it was something good.
I was pushed away from my thoughts by the Lanky guy, who had returned his gaze to me. “Well I think, I’ll go head back to the rest of the group.”
As he turned to walk away I remembered something Important so I called out to him: “W-wait a second!” I took a couple of steps forward and grabbed his hand as if we were in some dramatic movie cut scène. The lanky guy reacted faster than I could say anything though.
“DON’T TOUCH ME.” The sudden rise in his voice startled me, which caused me to remove my hand from his presence. I guess my Plan was still working though because he Immediately Apologized. “Sorry… sorry, I just… you surprised me.” He looked away for a second before focusing back onto me with the calmness previous returned to him. “Anyway, what were you about to say?”
I hesitated for a moment, I was just pretending to act this way but His outburst was actually concerning. Either way, I hid my emotions and answered his question. “W-what’s your name?”
He shot me a confused expression as if he was expecting me to drop a bombshell or something. “Name?”
I exhaled, the question wasn’t that hard to understand. “Yes, your name. Or would you rather I keep calling you ‘the Lanky guy?’”
His face remained Confused for a moment, but then realization crashed into it. “Wha—” That Realization quickly turned into Irritation. “—That’s, ‘Lanky guy’ isn’t even a name!”
I gave him a Deadpan response. “Because it’s not, why do you think I want to know what your name is
“Right…” he looked up towards the sky, his body language told me he was deep in thought. after he stared for a couple moments he finally came back down to earth. “…well I’m not really in ‘my’ Body anymore, and I an Elf so…” He stood in silence for a couple of Seconds and shrug. “I might as well embrace it!”
I waited patiently for him to tell me his name even though I had long since grew tired of the conversation the moment he first walked over here a few minutes ago. Anyway after 10 seconds of waiting for Him to hype himself up enough to say it, he finally did. He looked at me with a Satisfied smirk, as if he just figured out the hardest puzzle he’d ever seen:
“Kraig…Call me Kraig.” It took all of my energy not to laugh, I didn’t think that name fit him at all! However I was eager to get to Experimenting, so I gave him a simple nod, smile, and thumbs up.
I allowed to ‘Kraig’ walk away, and left myself with my own thoughts, I had much to think about…
--
Before I truly got to work, I stole a quick glance towards the center of the clearing, where almost everyone had convened. Gareth Had everybody’s attention while the Lank— errr ‘Kraig’ simply stood next to him while waiting for his turn to speak. Everyone else I would’ve thought to look for blended into the crowd.
After staring at the people for a little while longer, I turned to the right and looked at the small pile of twigs that we created and grabbed one from off the top. “I don’t think I could do this in the public eye without some repercussions...” I searched around myself for some kind of hidden area, but of course, there wasn't one. “well I could go a little ways into the forest and start there but….” I moved my head a little to get a view past the tree in front of me. It was incredibly hard to see past the first couple of trees. “Yeah no, that’s not a good idea.”
I thought about it for a few seconds but just ended up at a compromise: I’d simply sit behind a single tree and pray to God (or whatever decided to bring us all here), that no one Interferes. With my mind made up, I found a particularly large tree, walked behind it, and sat myself down.
“Ok, first things first, how exactly did I want to do this?” I thought about the method I was going to use, and the reason I had gotten so far off track with the Lan— Kraig, Earlier. Basically, I’d hurt myself until I bled and then Heal the wound with my newfound powers Over and over again until I understood how it worked… or until I started feeling sick or something of that sort.
I looked down at my right-hand which held my ‘wooden testing apparatus’, and then my left hand. I wasn’t really fond of pain but this was for the greater good, so I had to suck it up and move on. “Ok… let’s just get this over with…” With those last words of encouragement out of the way, I grasped the Stick even harder and lined it up with the back of my left hand's wrist. I closed my eyes as my right hand rose and I took a couple of deep and unsteady breaths. After a second of calming myself, I Held the Stick even tighter and swung down with as much speed and power I could muster. It hurt, I mean it hurt a lot, enough that I immediately opened my eyes from the sudden shock. I looked at my left hand to see the Results. The skin didn’t break. “Damn. I’ll just have to try again…”
And so I repeated the same steps from earlier, except this time I placed my now hurting left-hand Flat on the ground to make sure it would feel the full force of the stick. As my right hand rose beyond my head, I closed my eyes and braced for impact. When I slammed it into my hand, I could feel it this time, well I could feel it last time but this time it hurt way more. I could feel as the stick broke through the skin, and Opened up my insides to the outside world.
When I opened my eyes to once again see the results, I freed a sigh I didn’t know I was holding onto. Not only Was there a visible pierce wound, but this also meant that I wouldn’t have to hurt myself… at least for a while… I couldn’t celebrate for long though, I still had to worry about actually healing the wound and, working through the pain that came with it.
All that being said I wasted no time in preparing myself, I placed the stick somewhat close to me on the ground, and covered the pierce wound with my right hand. I closed my eyes again to start concentrating, and control the flow of my energy. I already had a little practice earlier so it wasn’t that difficult. After getting used to the feeling again, I began to ‘push’ the energy into my hand and found myself at the hard part.
Magic seemed to be powered by one's thoughts instead of long and drawn out paragraphs of text and magic circles, but how complex did that thought have to be? Previously, when I had created water out of thin air, I assumed it happened because I became too focused on the fact that I was thirsty. But how focused did I have to be?
I brushed those thoughts aside and focused on the wound. As I thought about it, I tried interjecting Ideas and slowly started to put my focus on those. Thoughts like: ‘heal me’ and, ‘rid me of this pain’. I didn’t feel anything strange, like earlier when I created water, so I assumed nothing happened and shifted gears.
‘Let’s see here, maybe if I try and force the energy out of my body and unto the wound something will happen.’ I kept my hands at the same spot and tried to force as much energy as I possibly could into my right hand. My progress stopped there as I had no idea what to do next, but I took a gamble: I imagined the very center of the palm of my right as an airlock of sorts, Then I imagined that airlock slowly opening.
To my surprise, I felt a little energy escape my body! In my excitement, I stopped focusing to look and see if the injury was still there… it was, and so was the Pain. “Ow! shit, that hurts.” I breathed a couple of times to try and calm down, the pain wouldn’t matter in the long run after all.
As soon as I calmed down, and the pain subsided a little, I got back to work and started to retrace my steps, however, instead of only releasing the energy into the open air like before, this time I’d try and speak what I wanted to happen into existence.
As Visualizations of my unwounded hand flashed through my head, I spoke these words. “Please, Heal!” I felt a familiar, yet strange feeling in my chest and I felt a slightly larger amount of energy suddenly leave my body all at once. The pain was still there though, and that made me wait a couple of seconds to open my eyes to look at the finished product.
When I finally did open my eyes I moved my hand closer to my face to examine it. At first, I was disappointed because the blood was still there, but then I looked again, and nearly jumped in excitement. the wound was gone! However, and I quickly found this out: My hand still hurt like hell. Albeit, it hurt less, but it still hurt a lot.
No matter what though, I was excited and Ignored the pain to eagerly clap my hands together in happiness. “Yes! Now I just have to do this 10 more times until I’ve completely figured it out... hopefully, my hand will be too numb to hurt by the end of this…”