Chapter 2
Billy tried to move his body. The ground beneath him squished. Squish?
Everything was still dark but he could hear the strident sounds of insects. Grasshoppers? That was unusual. Normally there were only the bloody pigeons in a train station, he thought. He had never heard grasshoppers in a train station before. He was used to hearing them outside of his apartment in China, or were those crickets?
For a moment he wondered why the world around him was still so dark but then realized that he still had his eyes closed. He opened his eyes and saw a blue sky with a few wispy clouds. The sun was higher in the sky than he expected.
He moved his hands to push himself up from the ground. His body felt sore and tired but that was not unusual, especially after going up and down the stairs in the train station. He regarded himself as being quite fit, for his age, but the suitcase was heavy.
The ground beneath him felt spongy and moist. That was unusual. He winced, assuming he was touching some foul excrement on the platform or maybe some kid had dropped their drink. Yes, it was definitely someone’s drink.
He felt embarrassed. Fainting in a train station would really top off his day. Maybe no one had seen him fall. And that strange dream he had had. Where the hell had that come from?
Hopefully, the other passengers were too busy looking at the train to notice him.
Oh no, the train! He needed to get on it.
As he clambered to his feet, he finally realized that this was not Doncaster station anymore. As he looked around, all he could see was twisted trees, clumps of long grass and what looked like fetid pools of water. He was a little relieved that he had not been lying in excrement. This was definitely not Doncaster.
The ground beneath him squelched. He could see the man and woman to the left of him and to his right the two young students. All of them seemed to be doing what he was doing and getting their bearings. But there was no wheelchair. And no suitcase. Where was his suitcase? He checked his pockets. His phone and wallet were gone too.
Both of the students were still sitting down and the one with ribbons started crying. The other tried in vain to comfort her. The young man and woman also looked to be in shock.
He turned wildly but other than his fellow wannabe passengers he could see no one – just grass and trees.
Seconds ticked by. Billy found himself holding his breath. He saw looks of confusion on the others’ faces.
Which way is south-east, Billy thought. And what is an Induction Centre.
“What is going on?” The young man exclaimed. “Is anyone else getting weird messages in their head?”
Billy said, “I don’t know what is going on. This is messed up!”
“Where are we?” the young woman demanded in an angry voice.
They all just looked at each other wordlessly. The sobs of the still-crying girl cut through the silence.
“Permanent death? What the hell is going on? What is this some sort of game?” The young man said finally. “What the hell is happening?”
“I don’t know,” Billy said. “But we should probably try to find this induction centre thing.”
“Transmigration,” the young Asian student with glasses who was comforting her friend said. “We have been transmigrated.”
“No Yuki,” the other girl said with a sob. “This is Isekai though. Our bodies are here so we were physically transported somehow.”
“Not truck-kun, train-kun,” the girl with glasses said.
“This is not a damn book or anime,” the young blue-haired woman said angrily. “It doesn’t matter what the process was, we are here now! We have no phones and no one to come help us.”
“Wherever here is,” a man muttered, from behind Billy. “At least the weather’s nice.”
Bily turned round sharply to see the platform attendant standing behind him. The man was rubbing his spectacles before placing them back on his face.
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Billy sighed. Whatever happened standing around debating would not help them. “I assume you all saw the message. We need to get to that Induction Centre. Look, my name is Billy. If we work together, we should get there without any problem.”
“I am Yuki,” the student with pink ribbons said. “And this is Su Li. Su Li cannot walk.”
“They see that,” Su Li said in strong accented English. “They saw me in the wheelchair.”
“I will carry Su Li,” the young man said. “The name’s Trevor.”
“I am Martin,” the platform attendant said.
The girl standing by his side walked over to Su Li and easily picked her up. “I will carry her - your arms are like noodles, Trevor. Now point us in the right direction.” She turned to glare at Billy. “The name is Lorna by the way. And don’t think that because you’re the oldest you are our mighty leader.”
“Ask permission first,“ Su Li said angrily. “I am not a sack of rice.”
Lorna looked flustered for a moment. “Sorry!”
Trevor looked at Lorna for a moment and then sighed. “It is this way,” he said, pointing to his right.
“How do you know,” Billy said.
Trevor chuckled. “My inner voice told me so.” He took a few steps and then paused after no one followed him. “Just kidding. I thought to myself I would love to have a map right now and one appeared in my mind.”
Billy thought Trevor might be fooling with him. But when he was sure no one was looking at him he tried to visualize a map appearing and the map appeared. The map seemed to fill his mind. Most of it was greyed out except what he assumed was his current location which was marked with a blue cross. There were no cardinal directions marked but he assumed that vertically up on the map was north and that he was currently facing north-east. At least he hoped so.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” he said. “If you see any long enough branches or something that can be used as a weapon, pick it up. We have no idea how dangerous this area is and the quest description was kind of ominous.”
***
Billy had thought that walking two kilometers would not have been difficult even with his old legs. At fifty-five he still kept himself reasonably fit running in the park or walking to work. But walking through marshland was very different. Trevor had tried to steer them along the more solid ground using his stick to prod the ground, but even the more solid ground was swampy. The mud sucked at his feet – each step draining his strength. The air also was humid. He sucked in another moist breath and kept going.
Billy, Trevor and Yuki each carried a gnarled branch that they had pulled from some of the surrounding trees. Billy had been hoping for something that could have been fashioned into a spear but the trees here were too twisted. Martin had picked up a large rock. Billy had no faith in the man being able to do any damage with it. He still looked in shock. They all did.
From his internal map he could see that they had barely covered half of the distance and he was already drenched in sweat. He could see that the others were no better. Lorna in particular seemed to be struggling. She looked super fit but the extra weight of carrying Su Li must really be dragging her down.
“Let’s rest for a few minutes,” Billy said.
Trevor who had been quietly leading the way returned and nodded. Lorna eased Su Li to the ground and then sat heavily herself, the ground squishing beneath her.
“We need to keep going,” Yuki said. “I don’t feel safe.”
“You are welcome to carry her,” Lorna replied. Her face twisted into a scowl.
“Sorry, Yuki,” Billy said hoping to ease the tension. “But this old man needs to rest. You can keep a lookout.”
“Do you know where we are going?” someone said in his ear, making Billy jump.
He turned to see Martin standing close to him. He had forgotten that Martin was even with them.
“You can see the minimap right?”
“What is a minimap?”
Billy sighed. Clearly, Martin was not a gamer. “Yes, Martin, we know where we are going. We should be about halfway there.”
So far they had not seen many signs of life, but the grass was long and it would be easy for animals to hide without them knowing. Once or twice Billy thought he had heard rustling noises in the thick grass to his right.
Billy did not sit worrying that his muscles would tighten up. Instead, he leaned against a nearby tree.
“I don’t like this place,” Yuki said.
“Ai!” Su Li said. “This place sucks. What to do?”
“Get out of here as soon as we can,” Yuki said.
Of the two girls her English was clearly the better. But Su Li seemed to be the one with the calmer temperament.
“There has been no danger so far,” Trevor said. “Maybe we are worrying about nothing.”
As if Trevor’s words had called it from thin air a red frog the size of a cat jumped out of the bushes and landed in front of Billy.
“What the fuck!” Billy said. He stepped backwards; the branch forgotten in his hand.
The frog’s large eyes blinked. Then it jumped forwards and butted Billy in the chest with its nose. Billy was thrust back and fell heavily to the ground.
<-2 hit points>
He stumbled hastily to his feet. The frog opened its mouth and thrust out a thick purple tongue. He could see a black haze rising from the tongue. Now he noticed two short horns jutting from its head.
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” He raised the branch in his left hand to try and ward off the beast.
He wanted to run but he knew it was pointless in this swamp. Suddenly the frog’s tongue sped out of its mouth and speared Billy’s left hand.
Agony surged through his arm and he dropped his stick.
<-3 hit points. You have been poisoned for ten seconds losing 2 hit points per second.>
Billy cursed. He did not even know how many hit points he had. His hand was burning. Another hit like that and he was probably dead. He tried to ignore the pain and bent to pick up the stick.
He felt overcome by a strange fury. The last few days had been difficult enough with his mother’s death. Now he had been dragged into this shit-hole world. Anger long locked inside surged out and with a cry of fury he rushed at the frog swinging the stick as hard as he could. To his surprise he landed a solid blow on top of the frog’s head. Of course, the stick broke – the wet wood splintering.
A strange laugh came from Billy’s mouth. He had hit the thing as hard as he could and even with a critical strike the damage was less than what the frog had achieved with its tongue alone. In a blind rage, he jumped on top of the frog and ripped into it with his fingers. At first, its leathery slimy skin resisted him but then, just behind the head, he found a soft patch. He dug in. His fingers sank deeply into the flesh. Deeper and deeper. A number of messages surged into his mind but he ignored them and just tried to dig deeper. He could feel the frog try to squirm away but it appeared to be helpless – its tongue and poison being the only real weapons it had.
Finally, a new message appeared.
Billy fell away from the frog – all of his energy depleted. This was not the way this happened in computer games.
“Gross man!” Trevor said.
Billy opened his eyes and looked down. He was covered in purple goo. To his side was the frog’s corpse oozing purple blood.
“Epic!” Su Li said. “You the man, Billy!”
Billy could only gasp for breath still feeling the poison sapping his hit points. He prayed that he had started with more than 25 hit points.