A howling ghost-like wind tore through the snow-clad pine trees, freeing the branches of their icy shackles and betraying the frigid silence that accompanies a Colorado winter. The moonlight glittered through the dancing snowflakes, gifting the air with clouds of ethereal gemstones. Below, a road carved its way through the trees and up the ever-vigilant mountains. On it, a single car slowly makes the lonely ascent to the peaks above. Driving the jet-black vehicle is a man in a three-piece suit, also black. He was tall, even when sitting in the driver's seat. He had to move the seat all the way back so as to comfortably fit his long legs inside. He had broad shoulders and a build that suggested he played sports when he was younger, yet many of his muscles lie unused and atrophied from lack of significant strain. His long, mahogany colored hair is tied into a neat braid behind his head, resting gently on his shoulder. Despite his stone-faced expression, the man called Theo Freedman fought back tears that threatened to blind his hazelnut eyes, and thus jeopardize his solemn mission.

Seconds feel like minutes and minutes feel like days as Theo makes the pilgrimage into the Rocky Mountains. He had come from the mortuary where his uncle Raymond had been cremated. Theo had no other relatives. From what his late uncle told him, Theo's father died early on in the war in Afghanistan and his mother, unable to stand the grief of losing her dear husband, fled to another country leaving the baby Theo with his unprepared and unwilling uncle.

Goddamn you, Uncle Ray, Theo thought to himself. Good fucking riddance! The authorities told Theo that his Uncle Ray hanged himself. Likely story. He was probably offed by some junkie he'd been scamming. Piece of shit. Angry tears began to fall from Theo's enraged eyes. "FUCK!" Beating his fists against the car's steering wheel, Theo nearly lost control of the vehicle, swerving into the left-hand lane, his tires screaming in agony and protest. By some miracle, the road was free of any ice, despite the best efforts of mother nature. Theo brought the car to a complete stop, the lack of guardrails reminding him that at any moment he could careen off the road and into the black mountain forest. Regaining control and composure, Theo resumed the long journey upwards.

His childhood wasn't the best. His uncle was a raging alcoholic, womanizer, and drug dealer, among other things. It was a wonder Theo hadn't been picked up by social services. It wasn't for lack of trying on Theo's part, however, as he told nearly all his teachers about his uncle's behavior. Yet he was only ever met with sorrowful glances and apathetic sighs.

Many hours and several emotional outbursts later, Theodore Freedman arrived at his objective: the summit of Mount Evans, his uncle's favorite hiking spot and the place he wished his ashes to be scattered. Given that neither of them had any easily-found relatives, Theo was the logical option. Exiting his beloved BMW M5, Theo took heavy steps to his car's trunk. Even in death, Theo wanted nothing more but to be away from his uncle.

The hike to the very top of the mountain was serene, even tranquil. Aside from the brief, yet gentle gusts of wind, the only sound that broke the peaceful silence was Theo's footsteps crunching in the fresh snow. Carefully following the half submerged trail markers, Theo slowly made his way to the summit of the mountain.

"Alright Uncle Ray, looks like this is your stop." Removing the lid from the urn, Theo walked to a pile of verically stacked rocks. He poured the contents out onto the rock pile, watching as the ashes blew weightlessly into the mountain air. "You weren't very good to me, Uncle Ray. You beat me and treated me like I was garbage. Frankly, I'm kind of glad you're dead." He finished emptying the urn. Placing it onto the pile of rocks, Theo turned his gaze to the night sky. "But even if you were a hateful scumbag, you're still my uncle, and the only person who bothered to give me anything resembling a life", he said through choked breaths. "So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm thankful. And that I'm sorry." With those words, Theo turned around and began walking towards the trail down.

However, another voice broke the silence. "Bravo, Theodore! I can see why you became such a hotshot actor! What genuine feeling! How many times did you rehearse that one in the mirror?" a voice with no discernable gender bored into Theo's ears, causing him to freeze with fear. "It's been a while, hasn't it?" Turning around to confront the source, Theo was met with someone, something, that he thought he killed off a long time ago. A vaguely humanoid, yet somehow amorphous figure was sitting on the pile of rocks, tossing the urn from one "hand" to another, black smoke emanating from wherever it touched.

"You!" Theo tried to sound authoritative, to no avail. "You're a figment of my imagination, I know you aren't real. Go the fuck away!" Theo reached into his coat pocket to find the pills prescribed to him for these exact situations, situations where he wasn't exactly in touch with reality. Or so they told him. "You know I'm real, Theodore. I'm as real as these rocks are hard and sharp and cold. I'm as real as poor old Raymond's toasted body parts." The thing stuck a "finger" into the urn, taking a swab of the residual ashes onto its "fingertip". "Such a shame, really. Poor old Raymond." Rubbing the ashes onto the stone, the entity stood up. "Raymond loved you, you know. It really is a shame that-"

"Shut up!" Theo interrupted the thing. "You aren't real! You're a character, a fiction!" The pill bottle was empty, even though he had the prescription filled earlier that day. "You keep telling yourself that," the thing vanished and reappeared right behind Theo. "even though you know it's false." "Fuck!" Theo stumbled back away from the thing, falling down into a snow drift. It left no footprints in the snow, only black, smokey outlines of what could be called its "feet". "You gave me a name once, Theo. Remember? I think you were only fifteen at the time." Theo refused to recall. That was a bad time. "What was it?" the entity spoke while "walking" towards the prone Theo. "What is my name, Theodore?" "I don't know and I dont care!" throwing a rock at the entity, Theo scrambled to his feet and ran from the thing. The wind had picked up since he arrived, and the calming breeze was replaced with a screaming torrent of wind that prevented Theo from taking complete breaths.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He arrived at the edge of the summit. Here there was no trail, no easily manuverable terrain. The moon was obscured by rogue clouds that threatened to become blizzards in the future. He couldn't tell from the lack of light, but he knew that beyond the drop was nothing but sharp rocks and death for anyone unfortunate enough to lose their footing on the cliffside. Hoping against his better judgement, praying to whatever God he still believed in, Theo turned around. There stood the thing, at the exact same distance it was previously.

"That wasn't very nice of you, Theodore." it played with the arrowhead-shaped rock Theo threw at it. "You think you can run Theodore, but you can't. Not from me. Not from anything." the entity took a step towards Theo. "You see yourself as the tragic protagonist, succeeding against all odds. However-" the thing threw the rock at Theo, striking his left eye. The blade-like stone easily sliced his skin, cutting deep into the flesh above and below his eye. Blood poured from the cut, blurring his vision and stinging his eye."Fuck!" Theo screamed in pain. "I know that you are nothing like that, Theodore. You fancy yourself a 'good guy', one of the pure souls of the world. I know better."

Once more the entity "teleported", coming face-to-face with Theo. Grabbing him by his collar, the entity brought Theo to its "face". "You are a bad man, Mister Freedman. You just don't recognize it yet." The thing lifted Theo effortlessly. Its "fingers" wrapped around his neck, burning his skin like white-hot irons. He couldn't  breathe or scream out. He could barely suffer a few words. "How? You..you aren't real!" Theo said. "You're a figment of-" Theo was cut off buy the entity squeezing his thoat. "How stubborn you are! I truly missed you, Theodore!"

The entity walked to the edge of the abyssal cliff. "You know so much, Theodore. Yet you refuse to acknowledge simple truths." Theo beat his fists against the thing's "arm". "You are evil, Theodore. Your uncle Raymond always told you to remember who you are. Do you remember that?" Theodore recalled the times his uncle went out with his "friends". Everytime Theo was left alone, Raymond would part with the words "Remember who you are, Theodore". The entity spoke once more. "If you won't remember, the I. Will. Show. You." Loosening its grip, Theo began to slip from its grasp and into the darkness below. "One more thing. Theodore." the entity grasped him at the last second. "What's my name?" Theo looked at the entity helplessly, unable to remember anything about it other than the thing was a creation of his own mind, a fictional character in a fictional world. "Pathetic!" The entity threw Theo into the blackness below.

For a short moment, Theo thought he was at peace. Was this how Uncle Ray felt? His thought were cut short. Theo's body hit the rocks, his bones shattering and his corpus splitting open and opening up like a flower in spring for all the world to examine. His crimson blood stained the otherwise pristine white rocks. The moonlight shone down upon him. And just like that, Theo was-

He awoke with a start, jackhammers pounding the inside of his head. He was laying in a bed, a tremendously soft one at that. The peerless scent of the ocean entered his nostrils. Am I back home? Theo wondered. Was all that some god awful nightmare? Sitting up, Theo examined his surroundings. "What the hell-?!" What startled him the most wasn't the unfamiliar, yet luxuriously furnished bedroom he was in, but the voice that left his mouth. It wasn't quite his own, it sounded quite higher than what he's used to. If anything, it sounded younger. "Where am I?" Theo tried to leave the bed. His body violently protested. Every significant movement was met with excruciating pain throughout his entire body. "FUCK!" The words he enunciated were unbecoming of his voice, but that was the least of his concerns.

The door to the bedroom opened suddenly, and in came a man resembling a lumberjack. He had ragged golden blond hair, and the hard face of a man who faced death one too many times. It reminded Theo of veterans he met on one of his many film promotions during his acting days. "Look who's finally awake!" the man sternly said. "If you were one of my kids, I'd have smacked you for that language!" Crossing his arms, the pillar of a man entered the room. "Who are you?" Theo asked. "Where am I? What's going-!" Theo once again tried to sit up, only for his body to resist again. "Whoa there, son. Take it easy. My name is Sigismund Arc. What's your name, son?" The man named Sigismun asked Theo while placing his hand on his forehead.

"My name is Theodore Roosevelt Freedman. Where am I exactly, Sigismund?" Theodore asked, perplexed still by his voice. Why is he calling me son? I'm thirty years old, for Christsake. "Geez, that fall must have messed you up, son. But that's quite a name you've got there." Fall? Theo thought to himself. "Theodore Roosevelt Freedman, you're currently on the Island of Patch, located in the western reaches of the Kingdom of Vale".

"What? Is this some kind of joke? Who put you up to this?" Successfully sitting up Theo confronted the man who sat on the side of the bed. He couldn't notice before, but the man appeared to be significantly taller than Theo, even whilst sitting. Sigismund spoke once more. "How hard did you hit your head, boy? Ain't no joke. This is home, sweet home-Patch!". Sigismund pointed his massive finger to the landscape outside. "It's beautiful here, unlike that damned city they call Vale!" Theo gazed outside, ignoring what Sigismund had to say. The landscape reminded him of Northern California. Rolling, auburn hills teamed with lush green forests to make a cornucopia of color. In the distance, the ocean sparkled like a sapphire. 

Sigismund was saying something to Theo, but he wasn't paying attention. Theo's gaze was fixated on the moon. It was many times larger than what he knew, and nearly as bright as the sun itself. What truly unnerved and terrified him was the fact that this moon, unlike that of Earth's, was shattered on one side, leaving a visible trail of debris on its eastern side. "Oh God." Theo said to himself. "This can't be happening!" 

The in his head returned with a vengeance, causing him to go blind for several seconds. "Theodore! Are you alright?" Sigismund spoke. Opening his eyes, Theo was met with something unlike anything he had ever seen.

System Message:

Welcome, User Theo!

Current Objective:

Gather information about your surroundings.

Next Convergence Event:

26280 hours, 54 minutes, 33 seconds.

To be continued

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