Jack eventually came to.
He had no idea how long he'd been out for, but nothing much had changed. Same room, same ceiling, same bed. It was night, but there was a fair amount of light coming through the windows so he could see quite clearly.
He gingerly sat up, pleasantly surprised to feel no more than a twinge from his previously aching left side. Equally pleasant was that the effort required to sit up felt far easier than it had when he was last awake. Obviously he was regaining his strength!
A quick look at his injury showed that it was almost completely healed, with just a thumbnail sized scar to show where he'd been hit in the void. The void that he was now resigning himself to thinking of as real. No dream could possibly last as long as this!
"Ugh" was his first reaction to discovering that all he was wearing under the covers was what looked like nothing other than an old fashioned cloth nappy. He'd rather not think about who had been keeping it clean! "Right, time to see what exactly I've gotten myself into" he thought, as he swung his legs off the bed and hopped out. Or tried to - as he unceremoniously fell to his hands and knees with a resounding thunk.
"Okay, maybe my strength hasn't quite returned yet" he thought, as he pushed himself to his feet with great effort. He turned his head from side to side, did a few shoulder shrugs and shook his arms to work out some stiffness. He felt great, and from what he could see in the reflected light in the room he certainly hadn't wasted away. If anything, he felt great!
Still feeling like he was walking in a suit of armour, he made his way carefully to the nearest window and peered outside. His mind blanked as he stared. "What. The. Fuck" he quietly swore to himself.
His 21st century mind wasn't sure what he'd been expecting to see.
Perhaps a typical small town street view, picket fenced houses lining a neat little street. Maybe a town center, shops and offices lining a brightly lit avenue? Heck, he wouldn't have been too surprised to find that he was in just another cabin in the woods, albeit a much larger and fancier one than where he'd taken refuge from the storm.
But this? It wasn't that the street that he could see looked like something ripped straight out of an old western. It wasn't that this 1800's looking town was populated with what appeared to be extras from a cheesy martial arts production. Those were at least familiar.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
The people were riding lizards. There were people walking lizards. There were lizards fighting in the streets. The streetlight? Not a light. I was a post with a lizard wrapped around the top, it's tail in the air emitting the soft glow that had been shining through the window. There were lizards everywhere.
The lizards weren't all the same. People were riding lizards the size of cows with six legs, chatting and waving to other townsfolk as they passed, sitting in actual saddles. Some younger kids had cat sized lizards with the more traditional number of legs on leashes, darting this way and that like excited puppies but generally following along quite obediently.
What kind of Westworld-esque nightmare had he been dragged into?
He pulled his stunned gaze from the scene on the streets as he heard the door behind him being opened. In walked the old man, followed again by the young lady. Had he made enough noise getting up for them to know he was up? Was there some kind of monitor in the room that they were watching? It wouldn't surprise him if there was a network of tunnels in the building, with tiny little lizards spying through pinholes and running back and forth to alert the old man of his movements.
He swallowed, forcing down the fear and paranoia that had started to creep up on him. Once again the old man sprouted some gibberish, to which he replied, "Sorry, I still don't understand". The old man walked over to him, seemingly unbothered by seeing him in just the diaper, and started manhandling him.
Correction, the old man was examining him, although the sheer strength behind his actions left Jack with no choice in the matter. Seemingly satisfied with what he saw, the old man strode out of the room. The young lady once again placed a bowl on the bedside table, but this time he noticed that the fruit had been diced into pea sized cubes.
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Jun placed the bowl of fruit pieces down, and then did a brief wave of her hand to attract the imbeciles attention. Seeing him take notice, she picked up one of the fruit pieces and mimed eating it and then nodding.
Success! The imbecile nodded back, maybe his mind wasn't a complete waste? She then picked up a whole handful of the fruit pieces and mimed throwing them all in her mouth, followed by pulling a face and shaking her head vigourously to show that he wasn't to eat many of them at a time. He nodded again - and this time surprised her by lifting a single finger, miming the eating of a piece of fruit and smiling, and then holding up two fingers and shaking his head!
It seemed he at least had some intelligence, if that of a two year old.
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Jack was, in fact, not a two year old and her little performance plus his own experience made it quite clear that eating too much of the fruit at once was a bad thing. He could just picture the scene from Lord of the Rings where Legolas explained that one bite of Elvish travel bread would fill a man for a day.
Watching the girl leave the room, he heard the distinctive *click* of the door being locked. Fair enough, he was a strange man in a house with only an elder and a young woman.