The sky was green. That was the first thing Rusty noticed when the wizard told him to open his eyes. It was a sort of cross between lime cotton candy, and the green of a pale leaf. Gentle, easy, and soft.

The second was the smell of it... verdant and wet and cool.

Did we go to the shire? Rusty wondered, feeling joy start to build in his stomach. He didn't recall the author saying anything about green skies, but this smelled like he'd imagined that land smelling.

Then he lowered his gaze, and no, it wasn't the Shire at all.

“Welcome to Elythia, chosen one,” the wizard said, as Rusty looked down upon a vast swamp, massive trees that rose to the height of the tallest buildings he'd seen, draped with moss that swayed and undulated in the wind. Stone pillars rose out of the green and brown water, oddly free of plant life, standing out like gray fingers of drowned giants.

They were in a circle of these pillars, Rusty realized. It was a grassy hillock, a high point in the swamp, clear of trees. The grass was singed and charred in a way that reminded him of a lightning strike, and it crunched as he shifted his feet, feeling grit against his bare soles.

“Elythia,” he whispered.

I'm in another world...

Then he shivered.

...and I'm in my underwear.

“Um. Sir? What's your name?” He'd never asked it, he realized.

The man's creased face split with a warm smile, just visible under his massive beard. “You may call me Terathon. It is my honor to guide you, chosen one.”

Terathon. It was a good wizard name, Rusty thought.

Then he shivered again. He wasn't wearing nearly enough for his Texan blood. “Um. Do you think... can I... is there some place I can get clothes from? And I'll need a sword, right?”

There didn't seem to be any kindly uncles around to loan him goblin slaying blades or suits of armor. Hopefully Terathon had that covered?

The old man must have caught the worry in his eyes, for he chuckled. “Fear not. It is not far to the Lasthold. The elves there await your coming, and will happily garb and gift you what you need to—”

An arrow hissed out of the trees, and Terathon flickered away, back ten feet, eyes wide open.

More hissing, and Rusty felt someone punch him in the elbow. He staggered forward, looked down, and saw a foot and a half of wood, right through his arm, and a thin trickle of blood tracing down his forearm.

Rusty screamed and ran toward the wizard. There was no pain, not until he tried to tug at the arrow as he went, and then he fell down, screaming and rolling on the ground as much as he could without jostling the arrow because OW.

That probably saved his life.

Later on, when he remembered the night, when the nightmares would wake him up, in the dark and send him into a corner to curl up and cry and rub the scar on his arm from his first real fight, Rusty would remember that a whole lot of arrows had gone over him, after he hit the ground.

But at the time, Rusty was trying to hold his arm tight to his body and get the pain to stop. It didn't, but eventually it faded to the point where he could breathe without whimpering.

And that's when he realized that there was no more hissing overhead.

The arrows had stopped.

Rusty listened, heard his own ragged breathing. Slowly, he let go of his bloody, wounded arm, and clamped his good hand over his mouth.

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Splash.

Splish.

Splash.

It was coming through the swamp, toward the hillock Rusty was on. It was coming from all around. Things were moving through the water. He didn't know how big they were, but his imagination made them sound huge.

Rusty tried to hold his breath, but every time he managed it for a while, his arm would twitch, and the pain would burn up like fire, and he'd gasp into his clenched fist. Once he stopped sobbing, he'd listen again, and the sounds were louder, closer. Three or four times he did this, and it felt like a torturous eternity, but the part of his brain that wasn't gibbering in fear told him that only maybe half a minute had passed.

Where was the wizard? Where was the man who'd promised to guide him?

Something croaked at the edge of the hillock, near, so near. Loud croaking, that rumbled and rattled. Rusty had heard an alligator grumble once, on the battered, staticky television that he and his siblings got to watch sometimes when they were good. This sounded like an alligator that was trying to talk. He didn't understand the words, wasn't sure if he could understand them even if he spoke that language, because he'd NEVER been so scared in all his life.

Where was the wizard?

Thought turned into action, as he gave into fear.

“Terathon!” he screamed, and his arm burned, but he just screamed louder. “TERATHON! HELP!”

And just as quickly as he'd done it, he realized that he'd screwed up.

Badly.

Croaking voices rose to excited bellows, and Rusty felt the hill vibrate underneath him. He tried to get lower than he was, tried to burrow down into the grass, and yelped as his skewered arm twisted and sent him into the fetal position, rocking and crying.

And when he finally managed to look up, there were monsters gathered around him.

They didn't look like alligators at all, but they were in the neighborhood.

Reptiles, definitely. Something like turtles mashed together with crabs. Eyestalks and shells and beaklike maws. They had pointy things strung along harnesses on their torsos, and a few carried short, thick spears, and twisted masses of vines and branches that he was pretty sure were bows. Mainly because the ones nearest him had them drawn taut, and arrows pointing straight at him.

“Please,” Rusty said, his voice cracking, as he felt the blood ooze out of his arm, felt his heart beat with every drop lost. “I don't want to die. Please don't kill me.”

They stared down at him, beaks clacking, and grumbling in that weird gator talk.

And then the lead one lowered his bow, turned his head, and rattled off words to the others.

A few of them rattled back, some of them pretty loud. Rusty got the notion they didn't like what he was saying. He? She? He couldn't tell.

The lead one turned back to him.

He didn't complete the turn.

“Hnosh!” shouted the wizard.

And the first four crab turtles exploded.

Rusty gaped in horror, then coughed and spluttered, as the one in the lead fell to its remaining knee, and spewed blood right into his face. It tasted vile, and no sooner had Rusty registered it than his gut heaved, and he almost passed out as he scrambled away, the pain in his arm flaring and making the blackness surge around the edge of his vision.

“Hnosh!” shouted the wizard again, as scaly things bellowed and arrows hissed and feet thudded across the hill, and flesh rent and splattered.

The wizard flickered past him at one point, chased by arrows, doing that strange warping thing away, pursued by a monster.

Then Rusty was down again. His bad arm wasn't doing what he told it to do anymore. It was a lump of bloated, dead meat on the end of his arm, every nerve screaming. If he could have cut it off to stop it hurting he would have.

But there came a small mercy, at least.

When the pain finally eased again, Terathon was standing over him. “Chosen one. Well done! You lured them in perfectly. They're gone now. You have nothing to fear.”

“I... am I going to die?” Rusty asked, eyes blurry with tears, snot pouring from his nose, barely held at bay as he sniffed and coughed.

“No. The worst is past us.” The wizard looked at his arm and sighed. “This will hurt. Be ready.”

“Ready? Ready for... what?”

Terathon lifted his staff, and gestured, and a strange symbol glowed on his hand.

The end of his staff ignited, a flame springing up like a pilot light. It glowed blue, then red.

Rusty swallowed. “No.”

“This must be done, chil... chosen one. You will bleed to death if we do not.”

Rusty swallowed harder, coughed snot, screamed a little as the arrow in his arm shifted. This was the worst he'd ever been hurt, in his twelve years of life.

But he reached inside, and found something that wasn't quite bravery. It was more of a cold voice that told him that if he wussed out here, he'd just die.

“Okay,” he whispered.

“What? I'm sorry, chosen one, what did you say?”

“Do it. DO IT!” he screamed, feeling his nerve wavering.

The wizard lifted his hand again. “Zan,” he muttered, and this time a symbol on his neck glowed. It was a different symbol, Rusty would remember, much later.

And abruptly, the arrow was gone from his arm.

The pain eased, the pressure gone, and Rusty tried to flex his fingers.

Then he gasped, as the blood poured out like water from a faucet...

...only to sizzle, as the wizard grabbed his elbow and jammed the flaming end of the staff into the open wound.

Thankfully, mercifully, Rusty blacked out around that point.