I abruptly came to, laying on my back on the shoreline of a river, this time instead of sharply inhaling air, I violently vomited water as my body purged my lungs and stomach of water. I was freezing and my body warmed in the afternoon sun. How long was I out for? The stream must have run out of the cave at some point. Now I found myself on the shoreline of a wider river in some wooded hills.

“At least there is cover here and I’m not in a forest fire. I hope that Wyvern is nowhere near by.” I managed through chattering teeth.

“It isn’t.”

I whipped my head up to see the leech-bat hovering nearby.

“You! You bit me!”

I looked awkwardly down at my shoulder not seeing any marks. I felt around with my hand and couldn’t find any traces of a bite.

“I did. I needed to escape with you or we would both die.”

“Why don’t I have any traces of that bite then? What is going on?”

“I bit you so that I could enter your body. In the process, I healed my entrance point. If I wasn’t attached to you, it would have taken me a long time to find you on my own. If that were to happen, it could have been a long time before I would have been able to resurrect you again.”

“Whoa, whoa, WHOA! This is all too much. Let’s start with you resurrecting me AGAIN. When have you resurrected me?”

“I mean that the Wyvern, as you call it, killed you. I thought I would have more time before you manifested me, but alas, that was not meant to be.”

“Just stop! For every answer you give me, it is creating ten more questions. What do you mean by ‘the Wyvern killed me?’ I distinctly recall escaping it through that underground stream.”

“Yes, we escaped after you died. You were killed shortly after you came through the astral gate. Regrettably, it appeared in close proximity to the Wyvern and it began attacking people as they came out.”

“So I died… but I remember waking up in that field.”

“Yes, you woke up from dying. When you died, it manifested me and I couldn’t wait to resurrect you. We were too exposed and I couldn’t wait with the Wyvern in the immediate area. It was simply too dangerous to leave you there in the open.”

“So when I gasped awake, it was you resurrecting me?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you say you could attach yourself to me by entering my body? Couldn’t you have hidden inside me and waited for a better time to resurrect me?”

“I could have, but there was a lot of chaos going on and I figured that we just needed to get out of there. I wasn’t sure if I could guarantee my safety by hiding in your corpse, so I decided to awaken you immediately.”

“That’s pretty sound reasoning. Now what do you mean that I manifested you? What are you?”

“I’m your Familiar. Your death is what manifested me.”

“My Familiar? Like a magical creature bound to a person?”

“Yes. I’m your Familiar. I’m bound to you.”

“How? I didn’t summon you. I don’t have magical powers. Plus since when are Familiars real? Since when are Wyverns real? Now that I’m no longer in the middle of everything, how is any of this real? Magic and dragons are just stories. What is going on?”

Stolen novel; please report.

“I was bound to you and came into existence when you passed through the astral gate. I didn’t manifest until your first death, but I was with you when you came out. At that point I became physically manifest and could begin interacting with you.”

“Does that mean all of those people the Wyvern killed are going to be resurrected?”

“I don’t know. I would assume that if they also had Familiars, then yes. With how many people there were, it is possible though, but I wouldn’t expect everyone would have had bonded Familiars.”

“Why not? We all came through that gate. You said that was how you came into existence.”

“I don’t know much, I’m not that old and didn’t have time to learn much before everything happened. I was made from you when you came through the gate.”

“How could I have created you? You’re a leech-bat. I’m a Human. If I created you, wouldn’t you be Human?”

“You didn’t create me, you manifested me. I am a reflection of your being and your power. Power that you can access through me.”

“Are you saying that I’m some kind of soul sucking leech? That’s rude! And what is this about power? I don’t have power.”

“You do through me. It is how I resurrected you. When you came through the astral gate, you somehow became tied to the astral and as a result, manifested me.”

“How do you even know all of this? Didn’t you say that you didn’t exist until a few hours ago?”

“I know this, because it is what I am. I am a Familiar, a gateway between the astral and a bonded Human. Also, I don’t know what hours are.”

“An hour is sixty minutes and a minute is sixty seconds. They are measures of time. A minute is this long.” I counted out sixty seconds at a steady pace. “Sixty of those are an hour and there are twenty four hours in a day. Actually a day is a full day/night cycle. It just so happens to be twenty four hours. Do you understand?”

“Ah! I get it now, then by that reference, it has been a few days. You died again in the underground river and there was no point in resurrecting you just so that you would drown again, so I waited until the river let out of the cave and you washed up on shore. By my estimate, it has been at least three days, but I didn’t have much to reference in a dead body in an underground river. It may have been more or less.”

“Shit! I died again? That long ago too? This is all too much.”

“I am sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. You’ve been nothing but helpful and I don’t even know your name.”

“That makes two of us, I don’t know your name either. I had expected to learn more about you before you manifested me, but the Wyvern attacked immediately as you exited the astral gate.”

“Wait, what is my name? Why don’t I know my own name? Actually, I don’t really remember much before waking up in that field in front of that vortex. Why don’t I remember anything but at the same time still know stuff like how time works?”

“I’m not sure. All I know is that as soon as I came into existence, when you came through the astral gate, you were being attacked and died. It would have been nice to observe you before being manifested, but I wasn’t that lucky.”

“You keep saying astral gate, what is that? Why am I here?”

“I don’t know much about the gate other than we came out of it together. It is where I began and don’t know much more about it than a creature knows its source.”

I laughed. “Source? You mean a mother?”

“Maybe. What is a mother?”

“I’m not going to give you the birds and the bees speech right now, but creatures are born from their mothers. A mother is someone who incubates their baby until it can live on their own and then raises it until it becomes self-sufficient.”

“I suppose that is an accurate summation.”

“I guess that makes us brothers in a way. Well, we can’t go on not using names for one another. How about I call you Morrow, since you seem to be my future and way forward?”

“Great! But what should I call you?”

“How about Yore, since I appear to be a ghost of a forgotten past.”

“Yore.” Morrow tried saying. I like that. But what is a ghost?”

“Let’s focus on what to do next. I can catch you up on what I do know and explain concepts and what stuff means as we travel.”

I looked down at myself and realized how torn up my clothes were.

“We should get moving again. I don’t want to die out here again and I need new clothes. At the very least I need food and shelter.”

“I agree. I don’t think we are in danger from the Wyvern anymore. Between all of the other people that there were, and the distance we traveled, we should have escaped it. However, there could be other dangers out there. What are clothes, food, and shelter?”

“And I thought that I had a lot of questions! Let’s follow this river. If we do, we are bound to find civilization, or at least the sea that it empties into. We can talk along the way.”