It was rough the next morning, as Jake woke up to the sudden sensation of falling. He once again found himself sprawled out somewhere entirely alien. The landing was rougher than the past two days had been, finding himself sprawled out in what felt like a pit of gravel and jagged rocks.

The rougher landing was not all that was different about today. As he pulled himself up and busied himself with removing the grit from his hand, he was shocked to discover that he was not alone. Crowded around him, keeping a fair distance from the stranger who would have fallen from nowhere seconds ago, there was a gathering of thirty or so people and growing.

The gathered group of people were all dressed similarly wearing long undyed tunic-like shirts and pants roughly sewn together. Nothing they carried was dyed or colored in any way. Looking around he could see they all had long, scraggly hair that traveled past their shoulders which they wore in single, thick, braids. He saw only variations of brown hair, and the variations he saw were so minute they might as well not have existed. They were all incredibly tanned and fit, he could see signs of bulging muscles on even the youngest gathered. He saw a few scattered within the crowd wielding spears or cruel axes made from what looked like copper or rough iron respectively. Though the construction of the tools looked haphazard, the blades themselves looked polished and sharp.

Looking behind the scattered crowd, he saw scattered huts made from what looked like woven hay and tied logs and cruel fences demarking pastures of grazing rams and budding crops. He was still a bit disoriented and shaking the sleep from his head, but he was confident wherever he was, it wasn’t anywhere he was familiar with. The people and buildings he saw looked prehistoric, resembling diagrams he could remember from his world history textbooks.

He took a tentative step forward, raising his arm in what he hoped looked like a friendly greeting, and called out:

“Hello?”

He was met with a series of almost animalistic grunts and stretched-out vowels directed not at himself but inward toward the crowd. He couldn’t understand what the hell they were saying amongst themselves. Their language was rough and resembled nothing he’d ever heard before. It relied on guttural throat sounds, loud screeches, and wild pumping hand movements.

Still, he remained hopeful that he could bridge the verbal gap between them and come to some sort of understanding. He was starved for some human contact and though he guessed a proper dialogue between himself, and the people gathered around him was impossible he still wanted to try for some form of connection. He hoped that maybe they would take pity on the kind mystery man who showed no hostile intent, perhaps even seeing him as some unknown ancient god. He had appeared in a rather mystic fashion after all.

As he was lost in daydreams of his godhood, or even just a simple (if one-sided) conversation, the crowd surrounding him made their move. Advancing quickly, four men brandished pointed spears towards his chest and head, and in loud grunting shouts he couldn’t follow began to make demands Jake had no hope of understanding. In a panic, Jake threw his hands above his head to try and show he had no hostile intent, quickly calling out:

“Wait a second, please, I…”

But whatever panicked plea he was planning to make died in his throat as one of the men surrounding him thrust forward with his spear, grazing Jake’s cheek and drawing blood. The tribe surrounding Jake had no interest in humoring the words of the mysterious man who appeared from nowhere. His strange mannerisms, speech, and dress posed a threat to the scattered and small tribe that had only recently managed to secure a foothold of decent land to live on. They were unwilling to risk anything for this stranger, and though Jake couldn’t understand any of this, plans for his imprisonment had already been made.

Jake was left unable to move, frozen amidst the blades pointed at him. After what felt like an eternity, he was forced forward as his hands were grabbed and quickly bound in rough hemp rope. Led forward by the new leash binding his hands he was led to a dark burrow carved into a cave. The inside was dark, illuminated only by a single torch and a few sparse cracks in the wall through which minimal amounts of sunlight bled through.

The cave was home to six small meter-by-meter pens made of thick logs woven together and lodged securely into the rock walls. A horrid odor met his nose the instant he was through the cave's entrance. He saw a few other men and women with their legs bonded together forced to scrunch into the pens to fit. Jake had been led to the tribe's jail. He was unceremoniously led to one of the open pens and shoved forward, crashing into the opposing stone wall. He offered no more resistance as he felt the rope binding his arms cut away and a new rope tightly put in place to bond his legs instead.

Even with his hands-free, he had no means of escape. Any attempt to remove the bond around his legs or escape through the cave would be met with any angry, armed guard whom he had no way to communicate with. Waiting was his only option. A clear pattern had emerged over the last three days. Three times now he’d violently been thrust into some new situation he couldn’t explain. What exactly was happening to him, he didn’t know, but he suspected (and hoped) that twenty-four hours from now he’d fall somewhere completely new. Without any angry tribals to deal with.

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As the escort who had led him to his pen began to dissipate, save for a one-armed spearman who took up a post at the entrance of the cave to keep watch on him, he reached into his pocket for his phone. No one had bothered searching his pockets when they’d abruptly captured and detained him, he suspected it was because none of their clothes had built-in pockets, so he’d managed to keep hold of all his personal effects. Quickly turning the phone on and off, to try and prolong its already halfway depleted battery life, he saw that according to the phone, it was roughly eight seventeen in the morning.

With a sigh, Jake repocketed the phone and did his best to curl up comfortably. It would be a long wait, so he was planning to try and fall back asleep. Unfortunately, this plan was soon interrupted by his constant string of visitors. While he was not allowed to leave his pen, it seemed no such rule existed to keep the tribals from coming to him. For the next few hours, he was inundated with visitors amazed by his appearance. This kept reaching out to feel his short-cut black hair or the fabric of his clothes. A few times Jake tried to resist them, but this would always invoke angered shouts and retaliation from the guards.

Jake also soon discovered the source of the putrid smell that dominated the cave. There was no separate place to use the restroom, all those forced into one of the pens in the cave had to relieve themselves in the tight confines of the pen. Soon, shamefully, Jake also had to follow suit, relieving himself in a corner nearest a crack in the wall with the hope the smell would drift outwards from the cave. This plan didn’t pan out and Jake was forced to stand upright, pushed against the opposite wall for fear of mingling with his mess.

He wasn’t sure exactly how long he’d been stuck like this; he was finding it hard to keep time internally with no external stimulus, but eventually, an elderly man approached his pen. Jake assumed he held some sort of leadership role within the tribal community he found himself in; the old man carried a carved staff that looked to be important and was wearing robes dyed reddish colors. These were the only dyed clothes Jake had seen, so he assumed this man was of some importance.

His social status didn’t matter; however, he still couldn’t talk to Jake in any meaningful way. Jake gave it his best, waving his arms around to try and mime that he meant no harm and couldn’t understand the old man, but no progress was made. The old man repeatedly grunted and made the same sounds over and over while he stood in front of Jake, and to Jake’s best estimate he was being interrogated. There was a sort of angry, accusatory tone to his grunting that let Jake know his questions were probably important but no matter how hard he tried it meant nothing to Jake.

In the end, frustrated, the old man turned and left tossing a bundle of dried leather into Jake’s cell without another grunt. Examining the bundle which had, thankfully, landed in a clean spot in his cell Jake found a few pieces of dried meat. The meat itself was tasteless and rough to chew and reminded Jake of the leather it had come wrapped in, but he was immensely grateful for anything to fill his stomach with.

The visit from the old man was the last he had for a while, as after he left no more tribals came to examine him. Perhaps the unsuccessful interrogations, or his weak-willed resistances, had labeled him as too dangerous to visit? Or maybe the tribals had ended up writing off the stranger who fell from nowhere as boring. Whatever the case, he was left alone to own (rather boring) devices.

Eventually, Jake saw the light slipping in through the cracks in the stone wall fading away signaling both the coming of night and the changing of the guard as a new guard came and replaced the posted watchman keeping an eye on Jake from the front of the cave. It seemed they had no intention of letting Jake out of their sights.

As time stretched on, he found himself drifting to sleep occasionally as his overwhelming boredom combined with his natural exhaustion, however, his immense desire not to fall into his own bodily waste kept him awake. He spent the whole night like this, eyeing the waste corner and being careful not to stumble into it as he grew more and more delirious from lack of sleep.

He’d expected this to be how his time here in the tribal village ended, slipping away while ignored. But to his surprise, early in the morning as the sun was rising the elderly tribesman appeared before him again. He’d seemed so frustrated at the end of their last attempt at talking that Jake figured he’d never bother coming to see him again.

The elder was carrying a rough cup carved from wood filled with water. Excited to see the water since he was incredibly thirsty Jake reached forward to try and take the cup but maybe trying to discipline his rash behavior or taunt his prisoner the elderly tribesman chose to toss the water into Jake's face before placing the empty cup in Jake's hand. Jake was shocked by this, not expecting the sudden wake-up call from the water, however, fortunately, he’d had his mouth open when the water was splashed at him, so he was still able to swallow a decent amount.

After this, the elderly tribal once again began to try and interrogate Jake, but Jake paid him no mind. He could see the rising sun coming in through the cracks in the cave wall, and though he couldn’t check the exact time on his phone right now, he was confident twenty-four hours was almost up. Sure enough, in the middle of the elderly tribesman's interrogation, the unknown prisoner who’d appeared from nowhere returned to nowhere, disappearing without so much as a sound or a flash. He simply ceased to be before the tribesman's eyes.