Jake woke up with a horse scream which died in his throat, coming off as a dry sputtering cough. The sky above was pitch black, no stars or moon hung above to illuminate the curtain of night. He felt disorientated and nauseous, and it felt hard to breathe. Something felt like it was pressing down on his head, and he couldn’t feel anything in his left leg. Panic overwhelmed him as he struggled to try and sit up, but the effort was impossible. He could hardly move his arms at all as they hung lifeless at his side, ignoring his call.
Beyond his narrowed line of sight, he could hear hushed whispering that first started when he began coughing and seemed to be growing louder with more intensity as he twitched and struggled to move. Panic set in as the whispering grew closer and more frantic, and he desperately began flailing in a futile effort to drag himself away.
Pain rocked his body at the sudden movement, and he began convulsing violently at the sudden movement as breathing became impossible. His hurried attempts at escape had become horrific spasms across the floor as his vision began to flash and his lungs felt like they were collapsing. His vision slowly filled with white spots as even his screams of pain were lost, leaving him suffering in silent agony. Then, all at once, the pain slowly faded away. He felt his body numbing and breath easing as a calming presence emanated into his chest and radiated to the rest of his body.
His breathing eased and the spasms slowly stopped; he lay panting slowly as his vision remained blurred.
“Sohdvh, grqw pryh”
Whispers near his ear he couldn’t understand nearly caused him to jump again in shock, but he had no energy left. He was left simply laying there numb, gasping for breath. Eventually, his vision began to clear again and he could see a hand pressing down against his chest, right above his heart.
A woman he couldn’t recognize was kneeling beside him pressing down as her hand emitted a soft, white glow. She looked to be in her forties or fifties and was dressed rather plainly. She was wearing a brown cloak which covered a simple set of tattered clothes covered in multiple sets of patchwork repairs. She had curly blond hair, which was currently frazzled, sticking up at odd ends and falling over her face obscuring her facial features. Behind her, he could vaguely make out the forms of two other people but they were still far enough away that he couldn’t make them out clearly.
Jake began to raise questions he had to the woman across from him, but the effort to talk only brought about another violent coughing fit.
“Vkk,mxvw euhdwkh, lwoo eh rn. Mxvw euhdwk qrz.”
The woman said in a soothing voice and Jake could see a small, sweet smile peek out from beneath her matted hair.
After that, Jake gave up on talking for the time being and just lay back as he let the stranger next to him continue her work. He was curious about what was going on, who she was, where he was, and what she was doing to him, but it hurt too much to think or question those things at the moment. For the time being he opted to simply enjoy the calming, numbing, feeling emanating from her hands that seemed to help ease all the pain away from his body.
After a while, though, she finished her work and pulled her hand away. As her hand left so did the numbing sensation. His body still felt more at ease than before but the numbing sensation went away, replaced by a stinging sensation radiating out from his back.
“Gr brx nqrz zkhuh brx duh?”
She asked, turning to face Jake, brushing the hair from her face to reveal large opaque eyes.
“I’m... I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re asking?”
Jake said hesitantly, both being careful not to agitate his body and fearful as to what her response would be. Sure enough, just as he feared, he saw confusion cloud her face before she turned to talk to whoever was standing behind her, asking,
“Gr brx nqrz zkdw kh mxvw vdlg?”
Jake couldn’t hear or see their response but when she next turned to face Jake her hand was glowing again, a bright red this time. Quickly, Jake began trying to plead, calling out in a hoarse voice,
“No, No, please I’m sorry, I’m sorry, wait please wait”
But his terrified cries seemed to fall on deaf ears as the woman lifted her hand to Jake's head before he could even attempt to dodge or drag himself away. Jake expected horrific pain as he watched the red glow enter from her fingertips into the base of his forehead, but instead, he felt nothing. He was left sitting there unsure of what to do next as the woman kept her fingers pressed to his head for several more seconds, before finally pulling away and flashing him a smile saying,
“No need to panic. It’s ok now, I promise you. Just answer my questions slowly, ok? Do you know where you are?”
“How did you do that?”
Jake was so amazed at being able to understand her that he missed the second half of her sentence, completely ignoring her question for a second time now. She didn’t seem to mind though, as she just chuckled and said,
“Simple magic of the mind, I’m more surprised you’ve never seen it before it’s pretty rudimental magic.”
“I’ve never seen any magic before,” Jake said still amazed, now rubbing his forehead where the red glow had entered his head “And no, I don’t know where I am.”
“You’ve never seen magic before?! I didn’t know that was possible!” The woman called out with an amazed gasp, a look of surprise and wonder in her eye. It was her turn to miss the second part of Jake’s sentence.
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“Lala, focus, please. Or better yet actually, let me talk to the kid please.” One of the figures behind the woman, whose name Jake now knew as Lala, moved forward till he was within Jake’s limited field of vision. He was an equally aged man, probably older than Lala judging by the wrinkles around his eye and lips and the slight balding occurring on top of his head. He was wearing full armor, broad-shouldered and thick. The armor itself seemed to be made of steel, ordained with golden trim and regal patterns for flair around the pauldrons and chest plate. However, whatever shine it once had was lost as it was no longer polished and instead covered in scratches and dents.
The man knelt next to Jake and locked eyes with him. Jake had expected him to take a stern demeanor with him from the way he approached but instead, he was met with a kindly tone and smile as the man said
“You’re positive you don’t know where you are right now? If that’s the case, then nothing we can do about that right now. Can you tell us anything about what did this to you?”
Jake froze up, about to reaffirm he truly had no idea where he was but now, he couldn’t move a muscle. The memory of the monstrous beast that had hunted him through the night, the eye that stared him down with a remorseless gaze filled with nothing but killing intent. He could do nothing except shake in fear now, struggling to even begin to answer the question, to describe what he had previously thought of as an unthinkable monster. Perhaps seeing Jake struggling to speak, the man began to speak again,
“We found you unconscious on the side of the mountain in a pool of blood. You lost a lot of blood; Lala says you were practically dead when we found you. A minute or two later and we wouldn’t be talking right now. I thought whatever attacked you dropped you while dragging you to its den, but we couldn’t find any sort of trail or den around here. Do you remember any details about what attacked you or where you were when you were attacked?”
An involuntary sigh of relief escaped Jake’s lips when he heard he’d been found on the side of the mountain. He’d managed to hold on till sunrise. Even if he didn’t remember it he had escaped. It couldn’t reach him anymore. Trying to regain control of his shaking voice, Jake began speaking slowly.
“I… wasn’t attacked anywhere near here. The monster that attacked me can’t reach me anymore, so you don’t have to worry about it.”
Jake decided that explaining the process of falling to a new world every sunrise was too complicated for right now, especially since he didn’t fully understand it either, so he stuck to the most important pieces of information for now. Jake doubted his word alone would do much to convince the man in front of him he didn’t need to worry about the monster. Honestly, no matter how much he knew it was true himself Jake struggled to believe it, forcing himself to repeat over and over in his head “It can’t reach him anymore” just to try and calm himself down.
Jake expected the questions to continue as he realized he had given an unsatisfying answer but the man in front of him simply looked into his eyes a few more seconds before giving a short nod and stepping away. Then he was left alone with Lala again, who after the man stepped away helped prop him up to a semi-sitting position and began forcing him to drink what felt like several gallons of water in slow, measured gulps. It was only now, sitting up somewhat, that he became fully aware of his physical condition.
His shirt was gone, removed to reveal tightly wrapped gauze surrounding the whole of his chest. His entire body looked deathly pale and incredibly sweaty, and he could feel what felt like a rag lying flat across his forehead. The shorts he’d been wearing previously were gone as well, replaced with a pair of simple cloth pants tied via a cloth string belt. They were rolled up fully on his left leg revealing what looked like even more ample amounts of bandaging and gauze than what currently wrapped around his chest, as well as a continuous shimmering field of light that kept his leg numb and lifeless.
Once he had finished drinking, Lala laid Jake back down flat against the ground and whispered,
“Shhh, rest now, we'll talk more later, I promise”
Before once more taping his head with fingers doused in red light, sending him drifting off to sleep without giving him any opportunity to object.
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Leopold watched as LaLa collapsed into a heap next to the kid she’d found yesterday morning. He’d never seen her work herself so frantically as that. He’d been ready to write the kid off dead as he felt what little was left of his pulse fade away, figuring that though it was tragic there was nothing that could be done to save him anymore.
Lala had disagreed, throwing herself over his dying frame and frantically casting complex healing array after complex healing array, all while demanding gauze and wraps from the supply bag. Leopold had been hesitant at first as they may need the supplies as their journey pressed onwards, while Rick firmly refused to help, but seeing the fervent determination in Lala’s eyes Leopold felt he had no choice but to relent and help as well.
Looking down at the slumbering kid next to the collapsed Lala, Leopold wondered what the hell could have happened to this boy. The skin of his back was lacerated, which was bad enough already, but his left leg looked destroyed down to the bone. It had taken Lala half a day of unending concentration and physical and mental exhaustion till she’d managed to repair it enough to a point where it could be safely gauzed. Her work wasn’t even over yet, if she wasn’t still constantly numbing his leg the pain would be so immense he’d wake up screaming no matter what magic she cast to render him unconscious.
His answers to the questions asked hadn’t made any sense either. Leopold could understand struggling to remember details such as locations or descriptions due to shock. But to be so completely convinced he was safe? After sustaining that much damage and becoming so traumatized he was shaking and muttering to himself, it didn’t make sense.
Turning back and marching back over to Rick to patrol the area once more for whatever beast had caused the attack, Leopold felt that something about the injured boy passed out in their camp wasn’t right.