Karsten Myhr was standing high up on what looked like the skeleton of an old farmhouse, trying to keep himself balanced on narrow, layered planks that he had studiously found out is called the ‘top plate’ of the house frame. In his right hand there was a hammer, and in his left, there was a nail. Clenching the hammer tightly so as to not drop it, he raised it high above his head and carefully made sure the nail was where (he believed) it was supposed to be - at the same time making sure his grip on the pole didn’t falter. A fall from this height would not serve him well, he reckoned. Then, putting all his strength into it, he swung the hammer - and the hammer struck true. It hit the mark right in the middle of the cuticle of the nail on his left thumb, severing the nail from the finger entirely in an astounding display of unintended precision and force.
Curses flew from Karstens mouth as he yanked his left hand back from the pole… and promptly lost his balance. While falling to the ground, he had but a split-second to think about his own stupidity before his head was thoroughly impaled by a thin metal pole protruding from the foundation - in one temple and out the other.
His last words were thus: “Shit-shit-SHIT-SHIT-SHIT—.”
If Karsten had had time to reflect upon this exclamation, he would have thought back to the times he’d sometimes pondered what his last words would be. Although he recognized that, realistically, there’d likely not be much time to mull over what to say when the end was actually upon you, he at least didn’t want these words to be something too… unceremonious.
…Oh, well.
~-~
Landing head-first on the ground with an audible grunt and a cacophony of coughs, Karsten didn’t immediately try to get up. He laid there motionlessly for a time, but quickly regained some of his senses and noticed that he was lying in a deep puddle of cold, coarse mud, he put his hands under his torso and pushed himself to his feet with a jolt. There, he was met with a sweeping wave of vertigo and staggered, barely caught himself, and then proceeded to gracelessly fall backwards into a bush, disappearing from sight.
Sprawled out on the wet ground, Karsten then noticed something strange about himself that sent his mind whirling in a hurricane of confusion.
“I’m… alive…?”
His voice was barely a whisper, and his mind was churning out thoughts at a snail's pace. Still, the analytical half of his brain wouldn’t let the matter go. Karsten remembered the sinking feeling of dread he’d felt as he fell from the roof only moments before.
Face-planting from the second story of a building was not something people were known to be able to survive - Except for Karstens great grandfather of course, who could be run over by a tank and go back to working on the mill the day after. The guy was a tank. When he eventually died, his family was shocked because something actually managed to kill him - though, apparently, they weren't even sure what it was exactly.
Still, Karsten had no idea how he himself was still alive. His great-grandfather had his built up physique to thank for his survival, Karsten wasn’t someone who’d built tenacious muscle from a life of hard physical labor.
He was strong for his age, yes, but he wasn’t that strong. He also remembered where he’d fallen. Very hesitatingly, Karstens fingers reached up to touch his temples. He then stopped as his left thumb came into view and cringed at the sight of a finger missing a nail. There was a dull ache, but it didn’t hurt all that much, much to Karstens glee.
He turned his attention back to his temples. They were, as far as he could tell, not impaled, but there was something different about them. The skin was uneven in the same place on both sides of his head. They felt like uneven circles, and both were almost one centimeter in diameter. Karsten imagined they would look somewhat like one of the moon’s craters if seen from another person's perspective.
But Karsten only focused on one fact as he looked at his hands: There was not even a drop of blood. His very lethal injury had healed in the blink of an eye, leaving no trace other than the scars. But how was that possible? The image of the steel pole closing in on him as he fell was engraved in his bones. There was no way that that was just imagined. He remembered pulling his eyes away and closing them last second, turning his head - as if that would protect him. After that, there was the briefest flash of light, and he landed here, wherever this was.
His heart started pounding in his chest the more he thought about the absurdity of the situation, and his vision turned hazy. His breath quickened and his hands turned clammy like they were drained of blood. Karsten looked around himself, but found he couldn't focus on what he was seeing. Not that there was currently anything other than tall grass around him where he was laying, anyway, but even that suddenly only looked like a blur.
“...Bloody hell.”
Karsten chuckled. He rubbes his hands together and lifted himself off the ground a second time, blinking the haze away and taking some deep breaths.
“Honestly, what is up with my vestibulars today? Does falling from the second story of a building- Ah... Yeah, that'll do it.” A weak smile flashed across his face as he looked down at his still trembling hands. Then, when the shaking had mostly died down, he raised his head again, this time finally taking in his surroundings.
"...Wow."
It was the most lush forest Karsten the Southern-Norwegian had ever seen. Trees towered so high he couldn't clearly make out the canopy - though if that was because of his residual stress or not, he couldn't tell. The bark of the skyscraper-trees was black, and looked almost sandpapery. It, as well as everything else, was also wet, so it had evidently just rained. The grass was a shade of green that felt like it was healing some part of him just by looking at it, but the most shocking part of the scenery was by far the canopy.
Many plants were similar to plants he’d encountered at home, but these had an unmistakable alien-ness to them. Some looked like bushes of miniature bamboo trees with black leaves, but instead of having straight leaves, they curved in a spiral manner that made them look like goth confetti.
Some vine-like plants were coiling dozens of meters up the skyscraper-trees and looked somewhat like a mix of philodendron and monstera plants, but with pale yellow dots spotting them. There were clusters of extravagant flowers that would have looked pleasantly stunning if not for the fact that the orange and yellow pollen-finger-things in the center of the flowers were squirming, allbeit happily. It looked like they were... waving at him? Karsten subdued a tremor that rose within him and vehemently decided to avoid that batch of alien-flowers for now…
Swiftly stepping past them, he started trodding through the woods in a random direction. He was conflicted on wether he wanted to move at all or not, but in the end concluded that staying in the same place would be a bad idea based on... well, nothing, really, but his anxiety was pushing him to do something, so he strolled forwards at a leisurely pace.
Looking this way and that as he ventured through the forest, the scenery both astounded and unnerved him. The forest/swamp- “Marshland? No, that’s not quite right. It’s too hilly here.” - was truly beautiful. Streaks of sunlight shone through the carpet of leaves far above, illuminating the colorful biome that was the forest. All sorts of mushrooms littered the ground and, together with the colorful alien-flowers, made a breathtaking scene that looked like the century-in-the-making masterpiece of some god-turned-gardener.
There were supersized roots everywhere, snaking through the vegetation deceptively, and they were Karstens first enemy in this world.
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Some places they even protruded from the ground to form arches even taller than Karsten was. It made for the perfect setting for a high-fantasy adventure, but made for very, very poor footing. He half-jumped, half-tripped over a particularly thick bush of the goth confetties, and one of the evidently razor sharp sharp leaves brushed over the exposed flesh of his left thumb. “AGH! Ew, nononono." Karsten yanked his hand to his chest and cringed. “Disgusting.”
He put pressure on the tip of his thumb to drive the sensation away, which did nothing. "Can nails grow back from nothing?…Oh gods..."
Ducking under a root-arch, curses flew yet again as his foot slipped on a mossy rock, simultaneously being hit in the face by a big leaf.
“Christ-”
His words caught in his throat as he looked at the leaf that had just hit him. It was spinning. In fact, all of the leaves he could see were spinning evenly in either a clockwise or anticlockwise direction so as to not knock into the other spinning leaves. The plant looked hypnotizing, and Karsten wondered what purpose evolving such a trait would serve. Ducking under the leaf again as it finished another rotation, he shuffled away, stealing a second glance at the plant as he went.
Karsten started humming under his breath to distract himself. He tried not to think about how he’d gotten here , or why he was suddenly trudging through this alien forest. Dwelling too deeply on it would spur the panic he’d felt earlier, and that wouldn’t do him any good in this place. If the foreboding feeling that what was happening was actually happening, was correct, he needed to get his priorities straight. He reflected on this as he walked.
In the end, his top priority was thus: Find other people.
He didn’t know anything about the local flora here, and didn’t fancy getting poisoned by a plant that he presumed was edible. So, although finding food was obviously a pressing matter, he had no choice but to shelve the thought until he found a person that could, if not provide him with food, at least point out what was and what wasn’t edible.
Finding shelter was shelved as well, as one: He didn’t want to be in this forest a second longer than absolutely necessary, and two: Though Karsten hadn’t seen any sign of the local fauna here, (if there even were any, though Karsten was willing to bet that there was) he didn’t want to bet on them being friendly. If a member of them suddenly stumbled upon him in the middle of the night, Karsten was helpless to face them. Therefore, he neededprioritize finding other people that would, hopefully, help him. Obviously, if he didn't end up finding anything, then he would have to gamble on some kind of shelter, but he would cross that bridge if he came to it.
'Past that, a shower. And a toothbrush, today was a terrible choice for a deluxe garlic bread sandwich...'
His humming turned to singing as he felt his nerved relaxing somewhat now that he had a clear list of things to do. He chose a random song from his guilty pleasures playlist - from memory, of course, as his phone sadly did not come over with him - and quickened his pace.
~-~
Time passed. First ten minutes, then twenty, then forty. An hour passed. Amazingly, he continued singing surprizingly well throughout the entire journey. It helped calm him down and kept his mind focused as he navigated a path through the winding forest. He’d sung through a good chunk of his guilty pleasure songs by now, and could only commend himself at his suddenly blooming talent. He also wondered what he had to thank for his exponentially increased stamina, but settled for just feeling grateful he hadn't collapsed yet.
~-~
It was only after three whole hours, or at least what felt like it, as there wasn’t exactly a watch hanging around, that he slowed to a halt and heaved a sulken breath.
Having just tracked across treacherous terrain for hours without running into anyone, Karsten felt the now-familiar fretfullness start to become unbearable.
He’d been walking, climbing and ducking his way though the forest at a snail’s pace. He probably hadn’t even progressed more than a few miles by now, and the ever-darkening woods did little to brighten his mood. There were some noticeable changes in the terrain, however; The ground was drier, and, mercifully, flatter.
After glancing at the sky above him for a few breaths, he struggled on.
~-~
“Achoo!” A surprisingly high-pitched sneeze came out of Karstens mouth as he hugged himself to keep warm. The light from the sun had gotten dimmer and dimmer, so much so was becoming difficult to see the details of the terrain, and it was only getting darker by the minute.
The only solace in this god-forsaken hike was that the sea-like mud he'd been trudging through had dried up, and he could now walk somewhat normally.
The changes to the forest gradually became more and more noticeable. The ground became flatter and flatter, and the towering trees became more and more scattered. Karsten moved sluggishly, barely keeping his head from bobbing and his feet from tripping over themselves. He was spent.
Climbing over the roots had proved a massive, stupendously annoying hassle, especially so with his left thumb being in its present state. His arms, at this point, were pure jelly. All the muscles in his body were quivering from over-exhaustion, and his lungs and feet were raw. Innumerable dull aches spotted his skin where he’d either brushed against the rough bark of the trees or tripped on a rock. His knees looked like someone had taken a cheese grater to them, and blood oozed out in a steady stream as the cuts and scratches kept reopening. The same went for his elbows. Karsten had been walking like a zombie for the last couple of hours, and felt like one too. The lack of energy made it difficult to catch himself whenever he fell - and he fell a lot, even on the increasingly steady footing, so he was looking worse-for-wear every minute. He continued to slow down until he was barely moving one foot in front of the other.
At last, he stopped moving. Well, except for the shivering, of course.
Karstens held his trembling arms still as he struggled to keep his eyes open. Although he grew up comparitively sheltered, that did not mean that he had never struggled before. His dad owned a farm, and Karsten couldn't count the days he'd been so exhausted from helping out with everything from transporting lumber by hand to tending to the cows that he almost passed out. But he had never experienced this kind of exhaustion before. The pull on his mind was ever present. All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep. He didn't care about the cold, he didn't care about the blood, he just wanted to close his eyes and lie down.
He looked around at the now barely lit forest, as if doing a final sweep with his eyes.
To the left, he saw only darkness. To the right was only the same inky abyss.
And before him, he saw…
~-~
Placing her lamp down on the small wooden table next to her, Medoly started gathering the dried laundry from the clothesline in the backyard of her family’s house. She’d gotten back late from hanging out with her friends, and it was already dark outside. Still, she had her delegated chores she needed to do as a member of the 'esteemed Kerdan household', and this was the last on the list.
Throwing the last of the clothes into her basket, she was about to head back inside when a sound came from behind her. Her eyes snapped towards it, then she froze.
She saw a figure standing just outside the borderline where the grasslands stopped and trees started. The person walked slowly down the small decline and onto the grass. Her eyes couldn’t make out the person's face, but the light from her lamp was just enough so that she could see the outline of their body. The outline looked just like…
“Henry!?”
~-~
Karsten stumbled out of the woods. He almost hadn’t believed his eyes when a small, yellow light flickered into being in the distance. His hazy mind whirled, and he re-doubled his efforts, and he stumbled towards the light.
The light grew larger and larger until he noticed an outline in the distance. It was shaped like… A person. More importantly, the grass the person was standing on was normal, and he didn't see a single gothfetti flower anywhere in sight. His heart rose.
Approaching the line where the trees stopped, Karsten hesitated for a moment. If this person truly was… confrontational… there was no chance that he would be able to protect himself in any meaningful capacity in his present state. Still, he shook his head and forced his legs to move, as there wasn’t any feasible alternative. He sure as shit wasn’t going to go back into the woods. Forest-bathing had been utterly ruined for him for the foreseeable future, he felt.
Karsten took one step out into the clearing, and then another. The corners of his lips curved into a wide, wide grin. He was out.
Evidently, the woman had noticed his movement because she turned around with a start, and after squinting at Karsten for a time, dropped the basket she was holding and started half running toward him, yelling “Henry!?”
He could hear the surprise and concern in her voice.
“What in Ballux’s bloody ax are you doing in the forest so late? Are you hurt? Where have you been?”
Karsten had no idea who this ‘Henry’ fellow was, but he was so happy to finally be talking to another human being again that he simply played along. Badly, of course, because his brain was goo.
“Hey! Sorry about that! I completely lost track of time after the whole ‘basically dying and waking up in another world’ thing! And of my health, I know naught.” He theatrically looked over one of his arms as if he was a doctor inspecting the arm of a patient. “I don’t think I’ve broken anything? Then again, my mind hasn’t been particularly clear for a while now. My head took quite a big hit upon my arrival here, and all the subsequent falling did not make that better. If you have something like a hospital here, and if, by any chance, you’d be so kind as to lead me there, that would be golden.”
His right arm came up and caressed his chin and he squinted his eyes slightly. “Love the idiom, by the way. Who's Ballux?”
The woman’s approach slowed more and more as Karsten words flew out of his mouth. When she had closed half the distance, she stopped and took a handful of steps back. She continued to fidget backwards until she was almost where she’d started.
“Who… Who are you?” Her voice broke off at first, but she eventually got the sentence out, voice shaking.
Looking down at his disheveled state, Karsten sighed and nodded.
He imagined he looked exactly like one of those gloomy forest trolls from old Norwegian folk-tales, or this place’s equivalent. Not only was he covered from head to toe in some-dry-some-not mud, moss, and a nice display of the different plantlife to be found in the area, speckled on many areas of his body were streaks of some-dry-some-not blood.
Karsten raised his eyes and met hers.
“I’m Karsten. Who are you?”