An hour or so later, with the sun truly beginning to illuminate the sky in what he’d decided to call the east, he had things fairly well sorted.  He was also able to see that there hadn't been quite as much blood loss as he'd feared.  It looked about on par with a couple of his worst nosebleeds as a kid. 

To be fair, he'd had some gnarly ones.  

The sorting had taken longer than he’d wanted, and he’d had to fight the constant urge to lie down and curl around his tortured wrist. Milo had actually let up on the tourniquet so it wasn’t completely cutting off the blood supply. It had bled a bit when he did, but not too badly, and his wrist immediately hurt much less without wires digging quite so hard into his flesh.

Also, his nerves were frayed from constantly looking around at every rustle of leaves in the darkness as he worked…but he was done.

There was an amalgam of things in a largish plastic storage tub with a lid that he’d like to preserve and come back for one day if he could. That included several books, some electronics he hoped to one day get working if he ever got his hands on some lightning magic or a capable artificer or something, and his laptop. There were a few other odds and ends he put in whatever extra space he could find.

The next pile was travel essentials. He had a week’s worth of Soylent set aside, which was the maximum he could reasonably probably carry. He also had a half-empty package of dried apricots, a mostly full water bottle, his backpack, his gym bag, a bright blue, lightweight down jacket, a few pairs of clothes, a sleeping bag, and, of course, his towel (like any good interdimensional traveler worth his salt).

Oh, and a hefty steel framing hammer, with the claw end straight instead of curved downward. That meant he could probably impale some baddies with it. He had been extremely pleased to realize he had a worthy weapon among his belongings.

It was quality construction. He estimated it to be sixteen inches in height, the head and handle all cast of a single piece of metal. It had a solid rubber grip on it that felt good in his hand. He’d spent a minute or so swinging it around experimentally in anticipation of future battle.

The next pile was difficult to categorize, and its utility depended greatly on what type of world he found himself in and what type of people he might encounter. It included both things that might be useful to himself personally as well as items that he hoped to be able to either trade or sell. With two exceptions, he had tried to keep this pile as light as possible.

Starting with his favorite trade item, he had: two mostly full boxes of 36 Bic ballpoint pens, one with black ink and the other blue. They were nice and light, and he had very high hopes for these in terms of trade in a medieval world. Inkwells shminkwells, pens are where it’s at.

Second, he had as much plain white printer paper as he could stuff in a 1” binder. He had wrapped a rubber exercise band around it to keep it secure and rumple-free. This was one of the heavier items. He figured the paper would be good either for trade or his own personal use. Also, the band could come in handy.

Third, a whittling kit. Definitely a trade item, although it might be useful in the meantime. It was a birthday gift from Milo’s mother which he had received just before he’d moved in with his sister’s family, intended to use together with one of his nephews as a bonding activity. Having precisely zero interest in whittling, Milo had stuffed it away in a desk drawer and forgotten about it. They seemed somewhat cheaply made to him, but the kit had over a dozen razor-sharp steel whittling blades of different shapes, along with one short-bladed knife. Actually, that knife should probably go in with the travel essentials. He promptly corrected his oversight.

There was also a small roll of brown gauze (presumably so clumsy whittling noobs could patch themselves up) that came with the kit, which he set aside. He would probably use it on his wrist, but the thought of wrapping it against the raw flesh (and eventually ripping it off) filled him with anxiety. Every time the plastic bag brushed even lightly against the wound, it sent a sharp spike of fresh pain blazing up his arm. Still, he might need to just grit his teeth and do it.

Fourth was a small bottle of lightly scented hand lotion. Maybe he could earn a delicate lady’s favor or something? He shrugged.

Fifth were metal implements, mostly small. He had a set of three tweezers, some nail clippers, a little flathead screwdriver, a handful of screws and nails, and his biggest wrench. He doubted he’d find any bolts that needed tightening, but if nothing else maybe he could persuade a blacksmith to make something useful out of it. Who knew if this world had even discovered steel?

Sixth was his cell phone, powered off to conserve the battery. He had no way of charging it and it wasn’t connected to a network, but it obviously had a lot of functions and might be valuable if he could find a way to juice it or perhaps trade it to a curious tinkerer.

Seventh and finally was his heaviest item, a textbook roughly 1.5 inches thick titled “Memmler’s The Human Body in Health and Disease.” He’d gotten it as a reference to use occasionally during his personal training course, primarily for the detailed muscular descriptions and illustrations. The book contained much, much more than that, however. Given how easily he’d earned the Emergency Medic class, he had very high hopes for achieving something more advanced by studying this book. Even though it didn’t go very deeply into any one area, the information it contained could very well be more knowledge than anyone else in this world possessed about the human body.

He fervently hoped it would be enough to help him get his hand back. Magic is a thing. Or at least, mana is. It’s possible.

Satisfied with his choices, he got to stuffing everything into his bags. It was awkward, of course, trying to stuff one-handed. More than once, he unconsciously tried to use his missing hand. The first time, he had simply tried to grab a strap with fingers that didn’t exist. Relatively painless. The second time, he’d lost his balance a bit while on his knees and tried to put down his left hand to brace himself. That had been a different story. He’d nearly lost consciousness from the sheer mind-numbing torrent of pain signals flooding his brain. At that point, following a long round of swearing and whimpering, he’d grabbed another large rubber exercise band and wrapped it creatively around his arm to make a restrictive sling for himself.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

That said, there was surprisingly little pain in his wrist most of the time now that he’d loosened the tourniquet. It throbbed some, and his arm felt strangely light, but the cut was so clean that, all things considered, it was minimally painful and traumatic. Well, except for the fact that his hand was missing. He did his best to ignore that little fact for now.

By the time he finished packing, he realized he’d probably overdone it. He always did, getting ready for trips and vacations. Still, he was hesitant to leave anything out. Maybe the wrench? He already had a hammer. Frowning, he considered. All the Soylent drinks were already going to be murder on his shoulders.

Sighing, he made his decision. Yeah, the wrench should go. He took it out. Then, after some thought, he removed all but about twenty sheets of the paper. Nothing else called out to him.

Experimentally, Milo donned his backpack. He had rigged his blood-stained sleeping bag to it with yet another of his exercise bands (he had a set of five of varying thickness), so it was a bit awkward. This was definitely the heavier of his two bags, containing the textbook and as many of the bottles as he could stuff in it. He slung his gym bag over his shoulder next. It contained his clothes, the bulk of his trade goods, and more meal replacement drinks. Oof.

Milo had done some backpacking in the past, and he could tell he would have some seriously sore shoulders after just a few hours. Or, like, ten minutes. Setting his bags down, he did some thinking.

Milo was pretty much as lost as it got. He had no idea if he was one or a thousand miles away from the nearest settlement, or, for that matter, if there even were settlements. He assumed there were. The fact that he’d been transported calmly to a planet’s surface rather than, say, moving a hundred miles a second relative to it, or to the void of deep space or inside some star somewhere suggested there was some kind of intelligence at work that wanted him alive, at least for now. He assumed he wasn’t the only person this had happened to, mainly because he just wasn’t that special. This teleportation sphere thing had probably happened before, and probably a lot. Some had likely survived the first few days. Ergo, there were probably settlements even if this place had no natives.

Also, he was probably screwed if he was alone. He had negligible survival skills and only one hand. His chances pretty much started and ended with civilization, so he went ahead and assumed it was out there somewhere.

What if it was nearby? He couldn’t just head off in a random direction and hope for the best. He might miss something five minutes or an hour in the opposite direction. He needed a method. His eyes fell on the small stockpile of Soylent he’d originally planned on leaving behind. Ah. Duh.

I have a week’s worth of food I was going to just leave behind. Why not use it? I’ll simply camp here for a bit while I explore. I’ve already been here a couple hours without seeing anything dangerous. And that’s with being loud and smelling like blood.

Feeling better now that he had a plan, he dropped his gym bag to the ground, but kept on his day pack. He may as well build up some tolerance to the weight, given the amount of time he had. Time to explore.

Oh, wait. Gauze. Wrist.

Not looking forward to the next few minutes, he unburdened himself and dropped to his knees, undoing the bags around his wrist. It took him some time one-handed, but he was already faster at it than when he had loosened his tourniquet. The real trick was applying the gauze. He had to unspool it with his teeth, which he doubted was very sanitary. It adhered to itself though, so once he got a good wrap around his wrist above the wounded portion he was able to unspool more of it without getting his mouth involved. Milo took a moment to inspect the wound.

It looked…about like he’d expected? Lots of moist but congealed blood. Swollen. Milo was pretty sure he could make out the tips of two separate bones, his radius and ulna. He was concerned about how it would heal, assuming he didn’t grow his hand back somehow. He seemed to remember hearing doctors would sew a skin flap over the end of a nub and wasn’t sure if his wrist would naturally heal with any kind of protective covering of its own. Would his insides just…be exposed to the world now? That couldn’t be good.

I can’t do anything about it other than what I am right now. Stop obsessing over it.

With that, he grit his teeth and gently draped the gauze over his stump. He wincingly wrapped it around several times, keeping it fairly loose, then secured it up where he’d started it. Then, after a brief hesitation, he removed the tourniquet entirely, with no obvious ramifications. Milo shrugged, eyeing his handiwork. It was comforting to have it bandaged, regardless of how effective it would be. Good, I guess?

He rewrapped his stump with the grocery bags and did his best to put it out of his mind.

And now, it’s time to explore. Which way first?

He spotted a waist-high rotted stump nearby and clambered awkwardly up on top of it, having to use his elbow in lieu of a left hand to help himself up. Once there, he looked around carefully in every direction and saw…trees. Lots and lots of trees.

One variety dominated by far, and they weren’t anything he recognized from Earth. They reminded him of redwoods, except that the bark was very different. It was much smoother, like a birch, the coloring somewhere between beige and pink. The largest of them were on par with old growth redwoods, growing tall and straight with impressive girth. The lowest branches on these giants were far above Milo’s head. The forest floor was carpeted with their yellow-green, feathery needles.

Milo inhaled deeply, breathing air that carried a fresh scent which didn’t exactly match with any forest he’d known before, but which nonetheless smelled like the great outdoors. He supposed it was a universal thing.

Spreading across the gently rolling land under the trees was a variety of mostly fern-like vegetation. It looked like it would be fairly pleasant to walk through, not appearing to be particularly dense in most places. The land gently rose in one direction, toward the light of the rising sun, and flattened out or possibly declined slightly in the other.

Shrugging his shoulders, Milo hopped down from the stump, landing easily on the springy, slightly damp forest floor.

He’d decided. He would head sunward for now. It would probably be the easiest direction to find his bearings again if he got lost. Milo planned to also mark trees he passed using his hammer, but the sun would be a good insurance policy in case he somehow lost his trail. He looked around himself one last time before setting off, trying to imprint his surroundings in his mind so he would have a better feel for his home base. There were no truly striking landmarks, but he did his best.

Then, with no further ado, he re-donned his pack and set off.