"I... am... Peter..." Said the man who hopelessly assumed the name of Peter.

"No, no," said the man who had assumed his name to be Billy, "That name won't do. Not here, no. On the Random Road, names are too important to be left to chance. Simply calling yourself the first thing that enters your mind won't do."

Peter felt himself losing more and more of his common and ordinary sense of what was right, wrong, proper - and in total what the ordinary point of a conversation was.

"It's not a name I thought of," Peter insisted, trying to make sense of this conversation, "My parents gave me this name. It's what I've been called my entire life. Surely you can understand that?"

Billy just tilted his head from one side to the other, his large eyes sometimes widening with realization, sometimes narrowing with suspicion. The odd little man shifted his position again, giving Peter a growing headache.

"You're saying someone else gave you your name?" Billy said, incredulity thick in his tone, "Surely you are making fun of me... Why would anyone give you a name, much less an obviously made-up-one as 'Peter'?"

His tone became slightly mocking, and he stuck out his tongue to show how buffoonish the whole idea was.

"I.. I just want to know where I am," sighed Peter finally, hoping to change the subject and actually make some sense of his less-than-ordinary situation.

"So do I," sighed Billy, looking from side to side across the endless sea of grass.

"You don't know?"

Billy looked back at Peter, narrowing his eyes once more in suspicion. Peter was beginning to suspect Billy thought him an idiot.

"Of course I 'don't know', you no-name sophist. Didn't I tell you exactly where you are? You are on the Random Road, meaning you could be literally anywhere."

"Sure, but that doesn't mean anything to me! What country am I in?"

"Country?"

"You know: Italy? South Africa? Taiwan?"

"Now you're just saying gibberish," said Billy, dismissing Peter with a wave of his hand. "You really shouldn't be wasting so much time, no-name, the road doesn't wait for you, you know."

Peter looked down upon the dirt-road beneath him. He was pretty sure it would be waiting for as long as he needed, and, with in a last-ditch effort, he tried making sense of his situation.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Just tell me - Billy, right? Just tell me, Billy, what am I doing here, and how can I get home?"

"You're currently doing nothing here, and you can't"

Closing his eyes, Peter felt the whole experience overwhelm him, and he fell backwards upon the ground - staining his sleeveless shirt even more.

"Well... I supposed that is doing something," Billy mumbled, then walked over to stand over Peter's face. "Hallo there! Are... You... Still.. Alive..?" He yelled as loud as he could.

Peter pinched his eyes close, ensuring himself this was all a dream, and that the sound he was hearing was simply auditory hallucinations brought on by a sudden heart attack. The whole exercise fell to ruin as Billy began poking Peter in the chest.

"Look," Billy began, as Peter opened one eye to check if everything was back to normal, "You're not making this any easier on me, no-name. You're on the Random Road, so obviously you need to walk it. If you don't go anywhere, then I can't go anywhere."

"You mean, I am stuck with you?" Peter asked, sighing deeply.

"No... I am the one who's stuck with you," Billy emphasised, "We don't get to choose our companions on the road. Someone else chooses for us, and we make do with what we have. Now, are you ready to walk the road, or are you content with dying here?"

"I'm gonna die?" Peter exclaimed, sitting back up so sudden that he headbutted Billy. Stumbling backwards, the little man swore in some very unsavory terms. After an onslaught of picturesque ensambles of what Billy might want to do to anyone so uncouth as to headbutt innocent bystanders, he finally opened one huge eye and said, "Of course you're going to die here. I think you've got about a week before you die of thirst. You got maybe three weeks if you drink your own urine, but I'd wager you haven't got the stomach for that."

"Oh... I supposed that's true. But there's nothing dangerous here, right? No beasts lying in wait for a kill, right?"

The strange little man turned his head slowly from one side to another, before peering back up at Peter with a frightened expression. "I don't know," he whispered, assuming his slow turn of the head once more.

Peter stood back up and looked out into the grassy sea once again. A soft wind was the only thing that appeared to shift the grasses, forming undulating waves of fibers.

"So... you're saying we have to walk the road then? Which way?"

"You're going to walk? Oh, right, of course you are... Sure, walk whichever way you like."

"But which way is the right one?" Peter asked, his patience strained to paper-thin dimensions.

The little man scrutinized Peter once more, from the feet up, then from the head down. Finally he crossed his arms and hummed, as if thinking very hard on a very difficult problem.

"Well?" Peter said, not quite as politely as he normally would.

"Well what?" Billy asked, looking surprised at the very ordinary man in front of him.

"Well, what way do we take?" Peter said, now truly frustrated, gesturing in both directions of the road. There was nothing to tell them apart; no landmarks in the distance, no difference in their make, not even a slight bent to tell them apart.

Tilting his head, nearly toppling the elongated tophat off his head, Billy looked as lost as Peter felt. Finally, he said, "You travel the road. That's all there is. The direction doesn't matter. The length doesn't matter. The location doesn't matter. No matter where you go, the result will never be what you think it is going to be because the road is random on the Random Road."

More confused than satisfied by the answer, Peter looked from one side to the other. Finally, sighing, he took his first step upon the chosen direction.