Waking up naked wasn’t that surprising. Sometimes it’s very hot at night and you just start ripping stuff away and throwing them off the bed was something I did every now and then. Waking up on the ground also wasn’t that concerning, before having a big pillow act as border helped stopped that, but it happened every now and then. But waking up naked on what felt like forest ground is VERY concerning.

Alfie tried listen and feel if anyone was near him, praying to any god who was willing to listen, that he wasn’t about to end as the star on a late-night show about people who got kidnapped by some weird cult, as sacrifice to ‘appease’ his hunger.

The only thing Alfie heard is the sound of forest, meaning some leaves are rustling, and in the distance, what sounds like some birds having a mean lovers quarrel and some small critters going Mach 5 through the underbrush, probably to not get eaten by some bigger predator. But no manner of speaking, the stepping of boots or anything similar.

When he finally opens his eyes and tried to look around... he saw forest. It at least looked more like a forest in the north instead of something like the amazons, because he would have been screwed there from day one, he was in no way prepared to survive green hell.

When Alfie tried to stand up, he immediately fell on his face, his center of gravity being completely out of order, which made absolutely no sense. When he looked down, he saw himself, same birthmark in the middle of his chest, same black/brown hair and same off-color mark around his hip... just about 13 years younger.

When one took into consideration that he was 20 when he went to bed, well that brought up more than its fair share of questions. Like how, why, when and how and why and how and...  ok Alfie, deep breaths, panic when you have pants, let’s try standing again, you need to move. Staying in one location, where you have been magicked away sounds like the type of scenario, where one ends in the hands of fey.

It took an embarrassing amount of time till he could even stand with enough balance, that he didn’t break his nose immediately and look around. Still the same forest as before, that is… not great, but at least it didn’t suddenly change like his bod- no, stop. His priorities should be, food, some damned pants and then he has time for panic.

In front of me is forest, to the left is forest, to the right even more forest and when he looked behind him, he saw more tantalizing forest. Wonderful, different approach. He was 100% not ready to climb a tree, he nearly broke a nose just standing up. If he tried to scale one of the tree’s which looked taller the longer, he looked at them, he might end up as ground beef.

No just great, this is great, no clue on which direction to go, no resources other than his somehow younger birthday-suit and not the slightest clue on where to go. Just bloody wonderful.

“By the hells, what should I do?”

The moment he thought this to himself he felt a GONG, like someone rang a bell the size of Jupiter somewhere in his body. For a second the joke of 20 pounds of fun in a 10-pound bag flashed through his mind, shortly followed by how stupid that last thought was and then his entire body was PAIN.

It started with his heart. It was already beating faster than normal because of the scare of that sudden feeling. Now it started to beat faster and faster, then felt a burning and then with a squelch he it SPLIT in two. He screamed and screamed, but there was no help.

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His lungs tried to get enough air into his body, they kept moving, but then they kept expanding, without shrinking, going over their limit. He felt them tear themselves apart, still expanding. They got so big they broke his ribs with a sickening with the sound of popping knuckles. The pain he felt eclipsed anything he felt in his 20 years of living, but it just kept going. Even though his lungs already had tears in them, they just kept expanding, till they met his spine. The lungs pushed his spine back, till even the spine broke, the crack sounding like a gunshot in his ears. Only then did his lungs finally rupture and fall into themselves.

His stomach started burning and bubbling, then his burning turned blazing as the stomach acid burned and melted its way out of the stomach onto his other body parts. It somehow produced more and more acid, even though the stomach itself was long gone. The acid burned and burned, never stopping.

His intestine started moving, he felt it, slowly at first, acting like an angry anaconda. It kept pushing and writhing and expanding and shrink, till it RIPPED itself apart. The two parts did the same, they writhed like the before, somehow even more aggressive, ripping themselves apart as well. And these halves too and on and on it went.

At this point Alfie wished to black out, going comatose or hell dying, something, anything than feeling his body pulling itself apart, but he was not granted this mercy. His muscles and tendons tore themselves apart, as they pushed and pulled his bones apart and his brain felt like it was leaking out of his nose.

He was prepared to die.

Then it all stopped at once. Every movement in his body stopped. What was left was naught but a warm corpse, as the sun shone down on Alfie, he thought that it was the end.

GONG

And his body pulled slowly itself back together. His bones realigned and fused; his muscles connected again. He felt his sluggish mind quicken again as his brain healed itself, he could breathe again as his lungs pulled themselves together without a sound and the sound of his heart beating sounded like salvation. Glorious comfort engulfed him, as all his pain fled his body, leaving only trauma and memories.

The comfort engulfed his entire body like a warm blanket, but it didn’t just stop 7there. The comfort kept increasing, he felt like all his worries and problems where being smothered by the warm feeling. It increased to the point where he couldn’t feel anything but that comfort, his thoughts where at first sluggish, then non-existent. The only thing that existed was comfort.

This feeling went held for a long time, till it left. Alfie lied there and thought that he was saved, that he survived whatever in the nine hells that was. But with a

GONG,

It all started again. His heart, his lungs, the stomach, intestines, everything again. GONG and he was knit back together. It happened over and over. Agony so intense he hoped to die, bliss so all comforting he feared to drown in it.

Twelve times the bell struck, six times he wished it all to end, six times he hoped it to end. Five times his hopes were let down, torturing and torturing him over and over again. Only on the sixth time did the bliss end to leave a warm and glowing something beneath his heart.

Alfie just lied there letting his thoughts scatter. If he thought to long about what just happen, (together with everything else) he was going to cry and he really didn’t have the energy to do that.

It took him a few minutes not to feel like in the middle of a panic attack and to breath his lungs through his nose and even then, he was still feeling a bit numb.

Ok, let’s recap, right now, right here, what do I know.

He, a 20-year-old, agnostic, city boy, is:

Naked,

13 years younger,

In the middle of some wood, God knows where and he was just taken apart and put together again, over and over again. Only to leave something warm and glowy, somehow.

Alfie just laid there. He couldn’t and didn’t want to think about what just happened. So just lying there he stared at the sky.

He saw deep blue sky and white fluffy clouds. That one looks like a lion, that one like a car. Alfie cried.