When I came to, I was in a dimly lit room, entirely empty aside from a bucket in the corner. The walls and floor were made of stone, with one side of the room consisting of thick steel bars, much like any Earth prison cell. Recognizing the room for what it was, my mind began to spiral, rifling through any possible outcomes for the situation I found myself in. I was covered in dried blood, but it appeared that I had been healed, despite how readily and violently I was beaten.
Whatever they had in store for me, I knew it couldn’t be good. At best, I could’ve been looking at a beheading. At worst… I didn’t let my mind go there. The Dark Ages of Earth had earned their name, and I wasn’t looking forward to experiencing an archaic justice system. If my luck stayed on track with what it had been since arriving on Astema, I may be looking at various forms of torture.
In an attempt to escape, I grabbed hold of the bars, hoping to bend them using magic. I didn’t have much of a plan beyond leaving, but I could figure that out as time went on. I closed my eyes and steadied my breathing, beginning to channel energy. As soon as I started trying to cast the spell, I received a jolt akin to touching an electric fence, causing me to jump back. Of course they’d plan for that, you moron, I thought. I tried melting the bars using fire instead, but achieved the same result.
I took a seat on the floor, as reality began to set in. Even though I had been suspected of planning an attack on Kentrall, the guards had been polite and professional. Everyone I’d interacted with had seemed more than happy to help with whatever I needed. Nobody had so much as been rude, let alone aggressive. Yet, without a second thought, I was violently arrested, without even the chance to open my mouth. I had guessed that mind control would have been a common occurrence in a world with magic, but failed to account for the possibility of it being illegal.
If I hadn’t been in such a hurry… I thought. It seemed that was becoming a theme. I tried to make things easier or accelerate what I could, and would end up paying for it tenfold shortly after. As much as the world had been working against me so far, I had just been joining in. If I didn’t want that to continue, I needed to slow down and take the time to think things through, and what better opportunity would there be than time in a cell?
Option number one was the least glamorous, involving as much begging as possible. While scraping together whatever sympathy possible might work out in my favor, the treatment I received on the way over didn’t give me much hope of success in that department. That also wouldn’t spontaneously change any laws, so I tossed the idea on the back burner.
Alternatively, I could fight my way out. That would come with a number of challenges, though. For one, there was clearly some way to suppress magic at play, so I would immediately be at a major power disadvantage. There are no rules in a fight to the death, so it would likely require every ounce of my strength and then some, and without all of my blood, that might prove impossible. Plus, I would completely cut myself off from any support, meaning I’d likely never get another opportunity to return home. Fighting would have to be a last resort, saved for my potential walk to the chopping block.
The truth seemed to be the most viable option. Anyone capable of seeing reason would understand that executing me would be like executing an alien for violating the Geneva Conventions, flying too close to Earth with nuclear weapons. I had grown up in a world without magic, and likely a very different legal system, making me very much an alien. It wasn’t foolproof, and I would still be facing punishment, as ignorance doesn’t forgive a lack of innocence. It wouldn’t be easy, but I could commit to slowing down by securing my freedom, however far in the future it would come.
Coming up with a plan helped me to calm down a bit, and I resigned myself to waiting for someone to come interrogate me. Minutes turned to hours as I sat there, spurring an intense boredom. I tried to keep myself entertained and alert, but my options were limited with how barren the cell was. I ended up doing bodyweight workouts until I collapsed onto the cool stone floor. It was surprisingly comfortable, and I managed to fall asleep.
I woke back up some time later, no idea how long I’d been out. By the cell door was a wooden tray with some food on it. My stomach growled upon the sight, reminding me it had been well over a day since I’d last eaten. My meal – if you would call it that – was a small pile of dried meat and some water, but it may as well have been a gourmet experience with how hungry I was. Even under normal circumstances, it would’ve been a step above regular prison food.
With the tray cleared, I sat back against the far wall to wait for someone to come collect it. After about an hour, I hadn’t so much as heard movement outside of my cell, so I gave up my hope of someone appearing. I resumed my workout to occupy my time, trying to keep my mind from wandering too much. Eventually, I tired myself out too much and fell back asleep.
When I came to, the tray was gone again. Frustrated, I yelled out. “Hello?! Is anybody out there?” I waited a moment, but the only reply came from my echo. I tried calling out again, but yielded the same result. I impatiently paced my cell for a while, hoping someone would have heard me, but nobody showed up. The same cycle repeated over the next few days, causing me to become paranoid. I’d work out, fall asleep, and wake up to food or my cell and bucket being emptied. No amount of shouting or pounding on the walls and bars brought anybody to my cell, and I began to wonder if I was fated to waste away in prison, slowly losing my mind to isolation.
By the fourth day, I started talking to myself, just to hear anyone’s voice that I could. The lack of windows and unchanging dim light gradually destroyed my sense of time, and I had to resort to counting meals to keep track. My efforts were futile, however, and the days all started to blend together. My body had lost all sense of day and night, so I started sleeping more frequently, which only compounded the issue.
By the twenty-third meal, I had lost all hope. There’s no investigation; no trial. I’m just going to rot, I thought. My mental state was beginning to decline further than it had in the rest of my life, and I started to look for ways I could kill myself. The only thing that was consistently in the room with me was my improvised toilet. Luckily for me, it had a long braided leather carrying strap. If I could manage to remove it, I could fashion a sufficient rope to use the cell bars to strangle myself.
The cord was tied through two holes in the sides of the bucket, secured with a complicated series of knots. It might’ve been two minutes, two hours, or two days, but I worked until my fingers started to bleed, regardless. Eventually, I got one side untied, and went after the other with renewed vigor. It was an even slower process than the first side, my fingers raw from trying to dig into the knots. At the cost of a few fingernails, I was successful yet again, and began tying the strips of leather together by their ends. With a few sharp tugs, I verified the integrity of my improvised rope.
Satisfied, I tied one end to a high bar on the cell door, and gave it a few pulls with the full weight of my body. It held strong, so I tied the other end with a simple slip knot and a few overhands to prevent it from coming undone, and threw it around my neck. There was still a bit too much slack, so I wrapped it around the bars a few times to fix the problem. It wouldn’t be enough to break my neck, but that wouldn’t matter, and that would be less peaceful anyway. Six seconds, that’s all I’ll feel, I thought, psyching myself up.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
I tightened the strap around my neck and dropped my weight, cinching it down further. Immediately, it felt as though my head would explode, and my eyes were popping out. It was rather painful, but still paled in comparison to being impaled, so I tried not to focus on it. Quickly, my vision started to tunnel, as no oxygen was making its way to my brain. As I accepted my death, I suddenly heard heavy footsteps somewhere outside my cell, and got a heavy surge of adrenaline. I tried to stand up, but my feet slipped out from underneath me, causing me to fall and tighten the cord even more. With only a narrow point left in my vision, I heard a loud clang, followed by the tension falling out of the line.
I desperately pulled my head free, and rolled into the fetal position, clutching my face. The sudden rush of blood made it feel like I just got shot, and I tried to let out a groan, but all I managed to do was cough sputter like I’d just been pulled from the bottom of a pool. I heard the cell door slide open, and I was lifted to my feet, with my arms cranked painfully behind my back. I grit my teeth and accepted it, making my best attempt to remain quiet and cooperative.
My escort consisted of six armored guards. Two to carry me, two in front, and two behind. The plates they wore were a strange minty green metal, trimmed with gold. Each of them had a dagger on their left hip, the two holding me equipped with swords on the opposite side, and the rest armed with large poleaxes. I was dragged through a mess of different hallways, until we came into a large room, where I was tossed to the ground.
The walls were draped in banners, the same minty green and gold of the armor worn by the guards, accompanied by a silhouette of some animal native to Astema, likely a symbol of honor, or something of the sort. The room itself was simple and rectangular, with a long banquet table on each side, and smaller conference style table on a raised platform on the far end. Each side table had ten people, and the one on the end held five. Each person present, aside from the guards, held a crystal similar to the teleport shard, but all glowed a dull white.
At the center of the conference table sat a man, yet again dressed in those same colors, making intense and disapproving eye contact with me. “Identify yourself,” he said, and all eyes in the room fell on me.
“My name is Zachary Petel, sir,” I responded with a raspy voice. Several of the attendees lightly murmured to each other as the man tilted his head and his frown deepened. The closest guard on my left gave me a firm shove to the floor with his boot, and barked an order at me.
“You are to address your king properly!” I felt a twinge of panic, realizing I wasn’t just in front of some judge. My eyes darted around the room, my mind quickly revisiting the plan to fight my way out. I shoved the thought aside, tried to swallow my pride, and picked myself back up.
“My apologies, your highness,” I said, bracing for another kick, but none came. “Please understa-” That earned me the kick I had been expecting, throwing me to the floor once again. The second one had a good bit more power, so I elected to stay on the ground for a while, clutching my ribs.
“Zachary Petel, you are accused of psychic assault and attempted enslavement,” the king – because of course he would be the king – started. “To even think of doing such a thing is heinous, and we have gone over two hundred years without someone so much as attempting to use control magic within Nakstal. You will be executed for these crimes, but I will give you the opportunity to reveal who ordered you to carry out the attack. If you do so, your death will be swift.”
I lifted my head to make eye contact with the man, furrowing my brow in confusion. Is mind control like terrorism here or something, I asked myself “Nobody ordered me to do anything. I knew it might’ve been wrong, but I had no idea it was illegal. I’m from a different world, where magic is just a fantasy, so we don’t have laws regulating its use. I can’t have been here for even a month yet, by my best guess.”
Most of those seated at the tables started murmuring to each other again, but nobody seemed particularly convinced. “That is absurd. No mortal is capable of crossing the veil between worlds. Doing so would require more energy than a soul is fit to handle. Even if I were to suspend my belief, your actions were despicable. It would be irresponsible of me to allow you to reside anywhere within my kingdom, or to expose any of Aziah’s allies to the risk that you pose,” stated the king. It seemed as though I had been condemned before ever being dragged from my cell, but the fact that I was being listened to at all made me hopeful.
“Your highness, if you’ll give me the chance to explain…” He crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat, giving me a nod to continue. I simultaneously felt relief and disgust, happy to be able to keep talking, but livid that my survival depended on my ability to properly grovel to a glorified politician. High-society type meetings were already bad enough when my life wasn’t on the line.
“I’m not sure how I can prove that I’m not from here. I accidentally burned all of my possessions while I was destroying the nearby dungeon,” I explained, attempting to highlight that I had already been useful. “Two dungeoneers, Selka and Arlin, might be able to verify that I had some very unique items with me. Unfortunately, the historian, Irayim, didn’t survive the encounter, or he might’ve been able to confirm it as well.” That comment earned more chatter from the audience, including several whispers at the king’s table.
“Regardless of that, though… I am from a world called Earth. We do not have magic there, but according to Deimos, someone from this world was able to locate my world and use what you refer to as a teleport shard to travel there.” That elicited a small gasp from the table to my right, accompanied by more fervent whispering, but I ignored them as best as I could. “Due to… unfortunate circumstances… I encountered that man on Earth, and was tricked into touching the shard, which brought me to Astema; specifically just to the West of Kentrall. Sadly, when I woke up, the crystal was broken. While I was wandering the woods, I was chased by a knell, which I later helped the villagers to kill, and was given the antlers for delivering the final blow.” The more I explained, the more the spectators’ conversations grew animated, and the king had to intervene to quiet them.
“This is quite the tale, but I fail to see how any of that justifies your attempt to enslave one of my citizens,” he said. I nodded in agreement, waiting for everyone to properly quiet down before continuing.
“Yes, I understand. My apologies, your highness, I was getting to that,” I responded. When no kick came, I kept explaining. “I sold the antlers when I arrived in Nakstal, and ended up commissioning the artificer, Casten, to repair the shard. He told me it wouldn’t be possible, and he’d need to replicate it, which unbeknownst to me, requires the antlers. I tried to get them back, but the shopkeeper had already sold them, and wouldn’t reveal who purchased them. I desperately want to get home, so to make things easier for myself, I tried to make him tell me.” I hung my head, realizing how bad that decision sounded out loud. “I wouldn’t say that makes it justified… I just arrogantly assumed he wouldn’t remember and no harm would’ve been done.”
The king chewed his lip in contemplation for a while, then began discussing my statement amongst his table. It appeared that there were several different opinions being thrown around, and I found myself holding my breath in anticipation. The rest of the occupants of the room's focus kept switching between myself and the head table as they continued to argue, but the room fell silent as he spoke back up. “Remove him for now,” he said, motioning toward the guards beside me. “We have much to talk about. You will be summoned again once we reach an accord.” With a wave of his hand, I was swept off the floor and escorted back to my cell, thankfully with a little less force involved than before.