“AHHHHHHH!!!” Glenn screamed as he fell blindly into the darkness with a good certainty that he would end up as a meat crepe by the end of it. Suddenly, he made contact with the ground and bounced back up.
“...Ah?”
Glenn bounced up and down a few times, before finally coming to a stop. A large cloud of dust had been created by his land, forcing him to cough his lungs out.
“Cough, what—cough, cough…” Glenn gave up on talking and only tried to chase away the dust by waving his hand. He was lying down on some tightly stretched piece of fabric, which had absorbed all of the momentum from his fall.
Glenn could only thank his luck; if it wasn’t for that piece of fabric, he’d probably be dead by now. Or paraplegic. Which was more or less the same in his situation.
After the dust finally settled, he quickly glanced at his surroundings, coughing lightly a few more times. He could see the edge of the piece of fabric a little further away. Glenn hesitantly pushed himself up, only to slip and fall back on the dusty fabric. Another thick cloud of dust was raised, a few more lungs were coughed out, and more sneezes were given. After struggling for a few more minutes, Glenn finally managed to roll to the edge of the fabric, falling out of the deadly trap. He disgracefully fell on the floor, moving a few times and bruising his knees. Nonetheless, this small pain was a worthy sacrifice to escape from the deadly, dusty trap.
“Cough, this dust might be deadlier than those monsters, I swear!” Glenn spat out angrily, taking a moment to catch his breath and calm his fit of cough and sneezes.
A mechanical sound above him made him look up, letting him see the opening which he fell through starting to close down, and with it, the moonlight dimming. Glenn’s eyes widened and he hurriedly looked around for a solution, a light source, anything. He quickly found a torch nearby and hurriedly grabbed it. He frowned as he realized the tip of the torch was oily, letting him think that this place had been maintained until a short time ago.
Glenn shook his head and gazed upward once more. The ceiling will soon be entirely closed down, and with it, the darkness will swallow him. He wasn’t particularly scared of the dark, but he sure felt more comfortable knowing he’d be able to explore a new place with something to light his way. Moving around in complete darkness wasn’t exactly easy, after all.
“The flint!” Glenn suddenly remembered the excellent idea he had of keeping the flint around, just in case he needed to light shit up. He threw the torch on the ground and glanced tensely at the ceiling. It’d be a matter of seconds until the entry was completely closed off. Glenn unsheathed his sword and hurriedly approached the blade from the torch, striking it with his flint to produce some sparks.
The ceiling was sealed shut, leaving no source of light to illuminate the room, but Glenn didn’t despair. He continued to strike blindly, aiming at the torch with as much precision as he could have in the dark.
Finally, a spark landed on the oily torch and the fire easily started, startling Glenn. He jumped back like a caveman who first saw the flames, before chuckling.
“Just in fucking time…” Glenn cursed, before slipping the flint back in his pocket.
“Good call taking this flint, but a lighter would’ve been nice, way less stress,” he muttered through his teeth, before picking up the torch and looking around the room. It was some sort of large chamber with…with a tent right in the center of it.
Right, a tent. Not at all out of place in this ancient, immemorial structure. So that was the dusty piece of fabric that saved him from the fall, then.
If there was a tent, that probably meant there was someone around, right? Glenn raised his torch, failing to find any other source of light.
“...Hello?” Only his echoing voice replied to him. Glenn gulped and forced a few more words out.
“Is anyone here?”
Still nothing. Glenn moistened his lips, before shaking his head and sighing.
“Well, I might as well treat this as good news. A free tent for me, ain’t that right?” He chuckled all alone, trying to find the positive in the situation. He quickly looked around the chamber, finding only a single exit to it, a dark, very deep hallway that he had no desire to explore for now.
There were engravings on the walls, and pillars maintaining the whole structure. Torch-holders had been built on each pillar, copies of the ones found his torch in. Glenn rubbed the back of his head, before lighting up half the torches. This way, he’ll have a lot of light, and if he needed more torches, he could just use the unused ones.
Glenn turned to the tent and carefully approached it. He lifted a flap, peering inside for any hidden individuals or…corpses.
Better be safe than sorry.
After making sure there were no threats, Glenn entered the tent, determined to fight off the dust and cobwebs. The inside of the tent welcomed the warm hue of the torch, revealing a few different objects of interest.
The first thing was a camp bed. That sight managed to put a wide smile on Glenn’s face.
“Excellent. No sleeping on the floor,” He sighed with relief. He turned his attention back to the rest of the tent. In the center, there was a small metal trash can filled with ashes. Glenn looked at his torch, and then at the trash can, and realized it was a place to store the torch without risking burning the whole tent up. Glenn didn’t hesitate and placed the torch in the metal bin, before turning to the thing that truly interested him in this tent. There was a desk and a chair, alongside a notebook, but most importantly, there was a chest!
And a chest meant loot!
Without a hint of hesitation, Glenn rushed and kneeled in front of it, grinning with excitement. What was he going to find? Rare, magical weapons? A large pile of glittering gold? Or some other wonder?
Glenn opened the chest and frowned. No glittering gold, nor magical weapons.
Clothing.
This was a clothing chest.
‘I’ll be honest, I’m a little disappointed, but…’ Glenn looked at the rags he used as clothes and grimaced. He could certainly use some new clothes. He pulled the clothes out one by one, putting them next to the torch so he could see them better.
“They look pretty nice…” He whistled, finding several copies of the same pair of black cotton pants, alongside white airy shirts. The outfit was completed with a black trench coat that reached his knees.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
But then again, anything was better than Glenn’s rags. He examined the clothes with a closer and chuckled in satisfaction when he found them to be the same sizes as him.
Glenn did note the absence of underwear but decided it was a minor concern. He quickly took off his rags, wincing when he saw the numerous scratches and bruises on his body. There was no scar where the spear had pierced him, nor where his belly was carved open.
Glenn’s eyes suddenly widened as touched the scratches pensively.
“...Why didn’t those heal too? Was that some temporary boon given to him, to welcome me in this world? Hah…” He shook his head dejectedly and threw his rags in the metal trash can, letting them burn like the trash that they were.
“Bye, bye, the rags…” Glenn cackled, watching the filth burn alongside the torch. He’ll get another one outside if he needs one. This wasn’t efficient, but he felt like getting rid of these rags was a good way to work out his frustration, fear, and everything he felt ever since he arrived in this world.
The only thing he had kept was his belt and sword, alongside the scabbard, for obvious reasons. Oh, and the lifesaving flint too, of course.
He didn’t waste another second and quickly changed, groaning in satisfaction as he felt the soft fabric.
“...I love it already,” Glenn muttered as he checked himself out. He had dry blood in his brown hair, his similarly brown eyes were bloodshot and tired, and dirt was simply everywhere on his body. Sadly for him, there didn’t seem to be a shower or bath anywhere in the tent, which wasn’t surprising. Glenn patted himself a few times before sighing. This style of clothing didn’t seem common, almost a little luxurious as he could guess from the softness of the fabric. Was this tent’s owner a noble or something? A rich explorer? He shook his head and stretched.
“Much better…” he concluded. He then turned his attention back to the desk, which promised to be slightly more interesting than the chest. Effectively, an open book was lying on the stern wood, as well as a pen and a bottle of ink. A small candle was half consumed, its wax sticking on the desk.
Glenn lit the candle, then pulled the chair in and sat on it, grabbing the notebook and putting his feet on the desk. He opened the notebook and coughed slightly as dust came from it. After waving the notebook around for a few seconds to get rid of the dust, Glenn could finally read it.
He strained his eyes, using the candle to shower the dusty pages in light. There, waiting for him was an entirely new alphabet, made of convoluted characters and illogical curves. After trying to understand something from it, Glenn did manage to decrypt it, little by little.
“How…ard, Jeff…erson?” Glenn read out loud, struggling. That must have been the notebook’s author, then. He then tried to read the title, taking the most space on the page.
“The adventrues…tures of the Seecer…Seeker!” Glenn rubbed his eyes, trying to figure out this complicated translation ability. He kept on concentrating, for the title was very long.
“...Seeker of new and old…Howard Jefferson. Huh, it’s starting to get easier,” Glenn remarked. He moistened his lips and turned the next page, wincing at the sight of the encrypted document. His head was already aching painfully, and he only wanted one thing, it was to sleep. Glenn yawned and closed the notebook, putting it back on the desk. That’ll have to wait for tomorrow morning. He snuffed out the candle’s flames and plopped down on the camp bed, grunting in comfort.
“Hah…” Glenn sighed, already thinking about what he was going to do once he woke up. He’ll have to decrypt the notebook, for there might be some important information in there, and alongside that, figure out the limits of his translation ability. Perhaps it was limited to a single language, the one written in the notebook and the one spoken by Father Albenas, or perhaps it translated most of them.
For now, he couldn’t know until he tested more, and that’ll have to wait for him to rest. Glenn closed his eyes and fell peacefully asleep, getting a well-deserved rest.
—
“Hey, hey, come on, come on, we’re going to miss it!” A small, pale hand pulled Glenn away as he followed reluctantly. As they approached a particularly thick crowd, Glenn took the lead. He forced a passage, pulling his little sister close to him so the creeps wouldn’t get a chance to try something weird.
The music was beating loudly, surrounding them from all sides as many people were dancing with the rhythm. Even his little sister was bobbing her head up and down with each beat.
“Enjoying yourself?” He shouted over the music, forced to raise his voice so that his sister could hear him. Lina nodded with a soft smile, the most Glenn had managed to get from her since…
It felt good to see her happy, and not with those dull, lifeless eyes she usually bore. Glenn couldn’t blame her, though, for he also felt a little guilty each time he began enjoying himself.
But still, it was good news that the little one managed to get those events out of her head. As long as she was happy, he was happy. A drunken man suddenly bumped into him, spilling two full cups of beer all over his clothes. Glenn jumped back in surprise, looking at his clothes sadly.
“Shit, for real? That was my best shirt, asshole!” Glenn cursed, grabbing the drunken man’s collar. The man looked at him with blurred, almost rolled-back eyes. He winced and let him go, the drunken man crashing on the ground like a squid. His complaints wouldn’t go anywhere; the man was already asleep, completely inebriated. Glenn shook his head and wiped his hands on a random someone’s shirt, before looking at them in wonder.
Hands?
Where was Lina? Glenn felt his heart suddenly stop. He gasped, his vision blurring out as fear took over him. He pushed away the people around him, looking for that cute, tiny head with pink hair.
“Lina! LINA!” Glenn yelled, desperate, but his sister was still nowhere in sight. He made his way through the crowd, jumping on a table while disregarding the cups placed on it. He’ll apologize later; his sister was more important than anything. Ignoring the protest of the people using the table he was currently standing on, he surveyed the crowd nervously, searching for his sister.
“Damn it, it shouldn’t be that hard…she’s the only idiot going around with pink hair,” Glenn hissed through his teeth, his worry growing with each passing second.
He finally managed to catch a glance at the recognizable pink hair and his adorable sister. But he also noticed something, no, someone else, someone who chilled him to the bone. A hooded man was planting a syringe in the back of her neck, hidden in the crowd. As hidden as he was, Glenn could still see him.
“Shit!” He cursed, before taking a deep breath; “HE HAS A NEEDLE! STINGER!”, yelling with all the strength he could muster. Sadly, bastards like this one were a common issue in this part of the world, and so, people almost expected them.
The crowd reacted instantly, dispersing itself to leave no one hiding. There were more than a few victims of “stingers”, who drugged their victims using sharp needles filled with narcotics. The main victims were women, but some kids had also been attacked by them. As such, simply screaming their nicknames, “stingers”, was enough for everyone to be filled with paranoia and start searching for the needle-using bastard.
Soon enough, they noticed the guy drugging his sister, and two dozen hot-blooded men and women jumped him, beating the hell out of the stinger before security would come and stop them. Glenn jumped up from the table and ran towards her sister, noticing that she was hobbling. He quickly turned and hugged her, before peering into her eyes.
“Hey, Lina, Lina! Can you hear me? Lina!” Glenn panicked as he saw his sister close her droopy eyes, the light in them replaced by emptiness. The smile on her face from participating in the festival had barely faded. She stumbled into his big brother’s arms, who caught her while crying.
“Why, why, why did I let go of your hand?” He tried to shake his sister gently, but she was unresponsive, her body going entirely limp.
He took his phone from his pocket with trembling hands and tried to dial the number for the police. His trembling fingers made this supposedly easy task impossible, but thankfully, someone else completed that task for him. A huge crowd was already surrounding his sister, some with glasses of water, some here to help but not knowing what to do, and some just here to see the victim.
“I’m a doctor, let me pass!” A man yelled, cutting through the crowd. He ran and kneeled next to Lina, pressing both of his fingers on her throat. The man began explaining something to Glenn, but he couldn’t hear him. His heart was thumping in his ears, muffling every sound, and he was struggling to breathe. He shook his head and looked at his sister through his tears.
“Damn it…”