Where am I? Am I dead? Is this what death feels like? So many questions but no one to answer them. It was dark and seemed very grim. There was something about this darkness, it wasn't scary. I thought death would be scary. I guess I was wrong. All of a sudden a chill ran down my spine. I felt as if something very soft was pushing me up but at the same time, I felt I was being pulled down. Then, after a second the same feeling reversed with my face being blown at. What kind of an afterlife is this? I asked myself with a bit of dissatisfaction. I was lost in my thoughts when I heard a voice. It was soft and soothing, like a cute girl's.

"Open your eyes", what is it? Who is it? What do you want? I murmured while showing my disinterest in her suggestion (whoever she was). But she was persistent.

"Open your eyes…….wake up…..wake up…..WAKE UP!!!!!!", it looked like she finally lost her patience and screamed.

"SHUT UP!!!!", She was successful, in pissing me off as I opened my eyes furiously.

But when I did open my eyes, I needed some time to assess the situation. I finally figured out what was happening to me and as it seemed very true and accurate, I didn't want to believe it one bit as I saw the deserted-rocky land in front of my eyes. According to my assessment………I was falling down from at least a TEN THOUSAND FEET!!!! HOLY SHIIIIT, I AM GOING TO DIE……. wait a minute, I thought I was dead already. What the hell is happening to me? In a few minutes, I will have broken every bone in my body. God! just thinking about the pain is making me faint. How much craziness should I go through? Well, I have to say among all the others, this one is the craziest. So this is how it's going to end? ‘I am still a virgin damn it, show a little mercy', I cried, but no one was there to hear it. I looked totally hopeless. Anyway, I am dying, so I will die with honour and hence embraced myself and got ready to brace the impact. My body started rolling in all directions as it neared the ground. It all ends today, I thought to myself when the ground was a few feet's away and closed my eyes forever.

After some time (unsure how much time had actually passed)…..

There was a warm feeling that ran all the way down to my chest and lower half of my body. What is this all about? Am I finally dead? But I felt alive. I am growing tired off this. I tried opening my eyes. It was quite bright. Slowly, as my vision cleared, I saw a strange figure. When my vision finally cleared, I jumped back with a mixed feeling of fear, surprise and confusion. It was a strange creature, which looked like a rhinoceros but with a lot of extra horns all over its body and looked a lot fiercer. It too took a leap back making a strange high-pitched screeching sound. Now that I take a closer look, it looked more sacred than me. But it made an attempt to approach me sniffing its way through. I wasn't sure how to react.

"I think she likes you", a low pitch, high base voice spoke behind me.

I turned around just to be surprised again. Crawling back, I stared at the creature. It was a lizard standing upright wearing human-like but old fashioned clothes. Green coloured scales were covering all of its exposed body parts and I am sure his unexposed parts too.

"I am sorry if I scared you. I know, we Ragnorin's tend to seem a bit intimidating. Com'on, whom am I kidding, Ok, I admit, a lot intimidating and scary (he smiles widely, exposing his scary and razor-sharp teeth). But I assure you, good sir, you have nothing to worry, especially from me. Because I am but nothing more than a simple travelling merchant. Here, let me help you out", he held out his hand as a friendly gesture to help me get up on my feet. I couldn't help but notice a strange marking (or rather I should say a symbol) on his hand. It was a letter eight which had wings protruding from the intersection of the lines or that's what it looked like to me. I couldn't make out exactly what it was? I withheld my curiosity for now as I was still not sure if the person/creature in front of me was hostile or not. But my options at the time were almost next to nothing, other than running away which seemed pretty dumb and so I took his hand.

"Seems like a pretty unusual place for taking a nap. Don't you think?", as he completed his sentence, I started to understand why and if I had to say so, it was not just unusual but VERY VERY VERY VERY UNUSUAL!!!!

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And I am not joking or exaggerating. I was in the middle of a crater whose approximate radius would be at least five hundred meters. I had no reply to his question. I started to try and recollect, joining all the pieces because I was as curious as the creature, so as to how I got there? I started to remember as I started my walk to school and my usual encounters with the people I know and my unusual encounter with my cousin sister who I had not met for a long time. Then I solved a misunderstanding, me, Yuuto and Hinata headed towards my house, I met my cousin sis again near the convenience store, we sat to chat while they went shopping for groceries, Yuki started to cry then I consoled her and then……then……. then……WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED AFTER THAT????? All I could remember is falling from the sky. But that didn't seem right, I had a strange feeling that I was missing something very important. Where the hell was I? what is this place? How did get here and why? My head was flooded with questions again. But I could worry about that later. I didn't want him to think anything weird about me or be alarmed after hearing my totally unbelievable story. Hence I gave him an ambiguous reply.

"I am sorry, but I can't quite remember myself so as to what happened to me that I ended up here.", I replied with a confused smile. I was not sure if he will buy it but I gave it a try at least. I could surely not tell him the actual truth. He would think that I have lost my mind and believe me when I say it; that is not a good first impression to make on someone you just met.

"Ah, a very unusual case indeed. I wonder, what could be the circumstance to end up in a situation like the one you are in. Do you remember where you live? Your name? I can't figure out anything from your clothing either? I am quite intrigued and wish to know more about you if that's alright with you off course. You see I am an aspiring novelist and I intend to write a story that will leave everyone who reads it speechless. You get me?", he was almost lost in his own fantasy.

While he was telling me about his dreams and passion, the weird looking Rhino went on sniffing me and my surroundings. I wasn't sure if it was planning on eating me or mating with me because it acted quite strange. Either way, I was shitting my pants here.

"Oh, there is nothing to worry about. She is my travel buddy Bessie. We together have travelled to many different places together, meeting new people and getting to know different cultures of different races all around the globe. But we still have a lot to learn. We…….", as he went on rambling, Bessie came nearer and I got more uncomfortable.

"As I said, Bessie has grown a liking to you. I think she wants you to feed her. Go on, give here these", he encouraged me, as he pushed some green looking edibles into my hand.

I raised those in front of her mouth and she quickly chewed on those, carefully avoiding my hands. It felt kind of nice. I was fond of animals in my childhood when I was little. We had a cat at my grandfather's ancestral house but that is a story for another time.

"So young sir. Would you like to join us? The nearest town is Celest and we would be happy to give you a lift and we could also use a travel partner to kill the boredom and it's the perfect place to find work, especially for you. Even though I say it's the nearest town, it takes almost two days to reach there with Bessie. My cart is up there. So how about we get out of this crater, hook up Bessie to the cart and leave for Celest together on a journey like never before. Now that will be a story worthy to tell everyone. What do you say?", he said with enthusiasm oozing out from everywhere and Bessie matched his exclamation with a loud screech.

Hey man, it is just a two-day journey. But I didn't say anything because I didn't want to ruin their moment. But I was still concerned because I had nothing to pay them back. And that concern clearly showed on my face.

"Hey, why are you still quiet? Aren't you pumped with excitement after my great speech? ...Mmmmm……... I know what you are worried about. You think you would owe us and you have nothing to give right now, isn't that right? Well, don't worry about that. I did tell you I am an aspiring novelist, tell me your story on the way. Two days are enough to get at least some of your memories back right? That would be a big help in itself and I also did mention the ‘boredom killing part'. See, we would love to have you and Bessie would never forgive me for leaving a lonely, memoryless man to wander in the desert in these harsh climatic conditions all by himself.", he joked while he made his point perfectly clear.

There is no doubt. He is a merchant all right and a quiet skilled one too. I thought this as an opportunity to gain some information about this world too. After all, it seemed nothing like the afterlife and I had a feeling that I wouldn't be leaving from this place anytime soon. So I took the merchants offer. We attached his cart to Bessie and departed for Celest as we took one last look at the crater from its edge.