“So tell us, Zed. What brings you to this part of the hell hole that is this world?”

They were seated back inside the house in the room the creature and Zed had been in last. None of them seemed very bothered by the gore of a chopped off limb and pools of blood. Zed had thought his victory over the blob was an impressive enough feat but was beginning to think he might’ve been wrong.

Chris sat cross legged in front of him and he stood with folded arms over a blood stained blue shirt.

Ash hung back, resting against one side of the broken wall while Oliver and Jason were out. According to Ash, they were canvassing the clearing and fixing the wards. He still wasn’t entirely certain what all the parts of that meant.

He stared down at Chris with a curious thought, wondering how she was so comfortable despite her disadvantageous position. She’d quite happily given him the advantage of the high ground without knowing.

I know I’m new to this, but am I really that weak? He wondered.

His eyes made a slow pan to Ash at the back before coming back to Chris. Or are they just that strong?

“Hey, new guy,” Chris snapped her finger at him. “I know my friend’s cute but I’m the one talking to you.”

“Again,” Ash said with a groan. “Not your friend, Chris.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Chris said over her shoulder. “Now back to you, Zed. How’d you get here?”

Zed weighed his thoughts momentarily. A lie would be the best answer for his situation. He could be a simple guy who’d stumbled into a stretch of woods and gotten lost inside. Yeah, and for some reason the monsters that jumped you stole your clothes for fashion week.

While he didn’t take well to his own criticism, it did have a point. Also, he was a wandering guy from where? The few names of places he could barely remember and put a location to were nothing like where he was now. So that lie was also gone. And if they were as strong as they were beginning to seem, the last thing he wanted was to be seen as an enemy.

He sighed internally and went with the truth.

“Don’t know,” he said. “Just woke up naked in the woods on the other side of the road, took a walk, and now here I am.”

----------------------------------------

* You have entered a [Safe Zone].

----------------------------------------

Zed stared at the notification, confused. A moment ago this place had a monster in it so how was he suddenly in a safe zone. Do safe zones just pop up, he wondered. Or does it happen when there are no more monsters?

But the monster had died a while ago. Now was too late for a safe zone to appear because of it.

Chris’ lips cracked in a smile a beat before she burst out laughing.

“Can you believe this guy?” she asked Ash. “I mean, he gets points for bewildering originality but—”

“What did we miss?” Jason interrupted, strolling in with Oliver.

“New guy over here says he just woke up.” She said the last phrase with air quotes. “And get this, he says it was on the other side of the woods, and expects me to believe that.”

“So what you’re saying, if I’m getting you correctly,” Jason said slowly, a smirk growing on his lips, “is that he’s saying he doesn’t know where he’s from, correct?”

“Sounds like it.”

“Ha!” Jason barked a laugh and turned to Oliver. “Pay up, kiddo.”

“He hasn’t said anything… yet,” Oliver protested. “Not knowing where he’s from isn’t what you chose.”

Jason paused, then shrugged. “Alright then,” he turned back to Zed. “Where are you going to tell us you’re from?”

Oliver groaned and threw his hands up. “Not like that. Now he’s going to know we’re expecting him to lie so he’s not going to.”

Zed looked from one to the other, confused. Were they casually making a bet on what lie he would tell them?

“Doesn’t matter,” Jason was saying. “All that matters is what he says. So what’s it going to be, Zed? Where you from?”

Zed looked around and saw varying levels of anticipation on everyone. It wasn’t as wild as Jason’s or Oliver’s but it was there. Chris bit her lip gently to conceal hers and Ash looked out into the clearing in feigned disinterest.

“Did all of you make a bet on what I would say?” he asked, shocked.

“No,” Oliver said, but it came out like a question more than an answer.

“When did you find the time?”

“Does it really matter?” Chris asked. “We’re still going to ask where you came from, and we’re still going to get an answer. So where you from?”

Zed sighed. As much as he hated to admit it, she had a point. And considering their numbers, he couldn’t get out of here if they didn’t want him to.

“Woke up in the woods today,” he said finally. “And I have no idea how I got there.”

“And your clothes?” she asked.

“No idea how I lost those.”

“Wow.” Ash shook her head as if he’d said the wrong thing. “You’re really sticking with that.”

“Cause it’s the truth,” he shot back, feeling defensive.

“Ha!” Jason laughed, turning to Oliver again. “I refer to my earlier statement of victory and say, again, pay up, kiddo.”

“That doesn’t count. He said he doesn’t know.”

“No,” Jason corrected. “He’s lying that he doesn’t know, and he’s saying he just suddenly woke up naked in the woods. You said he’d claim he came from the northern parts of the country.”

“And you said he’d say he just stumbled on the clearing.”

“The man just told us he woke up in the woods with no clothes and no idea how he got there and somehow got here. Sounds like stumbling on the clearing to me.”

Oliver opened his mouth to argue his point and closed it without a word. Jason chuckled at his dilemma. Oliver turned to Ash.

“Ash?” he whined, “help me out here.”

“Nope,” she shook her head. “He pretty much stumbled upon us from what I’m hearing.”

Oliver’s mouth fell in shock. “How could you?” he stuttered. “We’re family.”

“And I already told you to stop making bets with Jason. Cough up what you owe and let’s get out of here.”

Oliver fished into a side pocket, grumbling. He pulled out some notes and shoved them in Jason’s outstretched hand.

Jason counted it with a dramatic flare before putting it in his pocket. “’Twas nice doing business with you.”

“Now that that’s out of the way,” Chris continued, only to be interrupted by Ash.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Now that what’s out of the way?” Ash asked. “You, too. Cough up what you owe.”

Chris turned to her with a frown. “I thought you said we aren’t friends.”

“And that’s why I’ll take your money and sleep like a baby.”

Chris frowned at Ash and Ash shrugged.

“Yeah, yeah,” she made a gesture with her hand. “Pay up.”

Paper bills switched hands and Zed realized they looked nothing like the notes of money in his memories. They were a deep shade of blue with no faces on them and carried only complex symbols, depending on which one.

A new currency? He mused. Or am I just somewhere I haven’t been before?

Chris turned back to him. “Now that that’s sorted out,” she said, bitingly, as if daring someone else to interfere. “What do we do with you? I say we leave him.”

Jason shook his head. “Not possible.”

“Why not? Not like anyone will care.”

“Yes, but the camp needs more hands.” He shrugged, leaning his weapon against a wall. “And Heimdal will have my head if he finds out we left someone who could fight out in the woods.”

“That’s true,” Ash said. “The camp needs all the fighters it can get.”

“Besides,” Oliver said, “a Beta’ll die out here.”

“Well, he’s already shown he can handle himself, somewhat.” Chris looked at his bloody tomahawk lying on the floor beside him. “Maybe he’ll be alright.”

Ash pushed off the wall. “That’s exactly the point. He’s already shown his got the courage to face monsters. And at category one he did it with a tomahawk. You know how most of the new guys at the camp are, Jason. Give them something that looks like a tiger or an overgrown horse and they get scared and try to fight through it.” She gestured beyond the hole and out to the dead monster in the clearing. “But give them a giant spider sloth and they piss their pants and freeze up like its medusa or something. I say we take him.”

Chris raised her hand. “I say we leave him.”

“I say we—”

Jason smacked Oliver’s arm down before he could raise it. “You don’t get a vote.”

“Why not?” Oliver complained.

“Because you’re just going to vote in favor of your sister. What do you say, Ash? Do we take him or leave him?”

Ash gestured at Zed with her head. “How’d you get all that blood on you?”

“Got through a few animals before I got here,” he answered.

“You already told us that,” she replied. “How’d you get the rest? You told Ollie you’re not sure he wanted to know, but now I want to know.”

“What I told your brother was that I wasn’t sure,” he explained. “All I know is that when I got to Beta,” he gestured at himself, “all of this just happened.”

“Wait,” Oliver looked at him, bewildered. “You just ranked up?! Like, just now?”

“More like a few hours ago,” Zed clarified. “But yes, I guess.”

“Like today,” Oliver gestured wildly, his excitement growing. “Not yesterday.”

Zed quirked a questioning brow at Ash and she shrugged.

“I know you’re already in favor, Ash,” Oliver said. “But in case you’re having second thoughts, don’t. He just ranked up and he took out a Beta rank monster of his own category with just an axe. In fact,” he turned and pointed a finger at Chris, “if we leave him behind I’m telling Heimdall.”

Ash shook her head slowly. “No one likes a snitch, Ollie.”

He stuck his tongue at her. “And no one likes poor decision makers.”

Ash raised her hand with a sigh. Jason shrugged and Chris grumbled.

“I guess that sorts it,” Jason said, then turned to Zed. “You’re coming with us.”

Zed raised a finger and asked, “Is this, like, a kidnapping or something?”

“What do you… Oh,” Jason rubbed a hand down his face. “We forgot to ask if he wanted to come with us, didn’t we?”

Ash nodded. “Yeah. We did.”

“Sorry about that, man,” Jason said. “Do you have somewhere you’re headed, or somewhere you’d like to be. We won’t be able to take you there but we can, maybe, point you in the right direction.”

“No,” Zed shook his head. “Not really. I can come with you guys.”

“Then why the fuck did you bring it up?” Chris scowled at him.

He looked down at her and, beneath all the blood, gave her his best smile.

“Because it’s polite to ask.”

…………………………………………

Zed found himself in the back of a pickup truck an hour later. Apparently, the group came with a vehicle which he was pleased and surprised to know. A part of him had just assumed that if there were monsters running around with mutations and ranks, then the world must’ve gone to shit. At least the one he knew in all his memories. And if the world had gone to shit it was safe to assume technology and civilization had followed.

Yes, Jason’s futuristic looking gun and Ash’s sawed off shotgun could be representations of the fact that technology still thrived, but those were weapons. And the humanity he knew had a penchant for developing and advancing weapons first. Besides, it wasn’t all too difficult to make a weapon, all you needed was…

He frowned as the truck drove over a bump and rocked to the side. He’d had the thought right at the tip of his tongue, so to speak.

He discarded his inability to remember how to make a weapon aside with little worry, chucking it up to a part of whatever was left of the incomplete pocket memory. Maybe he’ll know more once more parts got repaired.

In the walk they’d had to the car he’d learned a few things about the group. For starters, Jason was the oldest in the group. He was also the strongest. He was twenty-five years old and was a category three Rukh mage. Which, apparently, was quite powerful compared to a Beta rank mage despite being only one rank above it.

Oliver was the most active, with an amiable personality and an imagination that could sometimes border on childish. He was the youngest but the second strongest as a category two Rukh mage. When Zed had asked Oliver his age, he’d been told it was strictly need to know.

Chris was a category two Rukh mage who swore she was just on the verge of advancing to category three if she could just get that one push, whatever that was. Apparently, there was a general consensus that Oliver was the stronger of the two. Whatever metric they used to decide this was beyond Zed and their refusal to explain it kept it beyond him.

As for Ash, while she was the second oldest, she was the weakest. It turned out she was Beta rank, too, just like him. But she was at the peak of it at category three. Like Chris, she claimed she was also looking for that evasive push.

Zed was given a piece of rag to sit on and rest his back so he didn’t stain the car seat too badly. He sat in the back seat and on both sides of him, Ash and Oliver sat huddled very close to the doors while Jason drove and Chris sat in front.

Zed thought about what he really wanted to do now that he had a starting point. So far the world wasn’t the same one his memories had shown him, and while most of his memories didn’t portray the world as kind and loving, there had definitely been no monsters with giant arachnid legs or futuristic looking guns that glowed when aimed at you.

For now, he had a starting point, at least. He would follow them to this camp and meet this Heimdall person. From what he could piece together he was the man in charge of fighting the monsters wherever they were going, which was a good thing. He certainly needed to learn how to do it better than he was doing now. There was no way he was doing it right if he was getting injured left and right.

As for what he would do after learning how to kill those things properly, that was anyone’s guess. He’d most likely just remain there, helping around. There was a part of him that wanted to find the woman in his memory, but with nothing to go on, there wasn’t much he could do about it. If the pocket memory was repaired maybe he’d get a hint. But until then, he was stuck with these guys.

He was still going through the idea of potential plans when the truck’s speed started to dwindle. Beside him Oliver and Ash didn’t seem bothered by it and there were no signs of people anywhere to be found.

“Why are we slowing down?” Zed asked.

“Monster,” Oliver said as the truck came to a stop.

Oliver opened his door and stepped out with a hop. On the other side of the car, Ash did the same. Everyone else was already out by the time Zed had meandered his way down with as little stain to the rest of the car as possible.

“So where’s it?” he asked, looking around.

The road was tarred but broken and cracked. Behind them it seemed to go on forever and the same could be said for what laid ahead.

Jason hefted his gun and handed it to Oliver.

“Still got your shotgun?” he asked Ash.

Ash removed it from a faded holster and held it out to the side.

Jason nodded.

“Still don’t see any monster,” Zed repeated, turning now, searching. His heart was beginning to pound, worry clawing at him from being unable to see the enemy.

Oliver stepped up behind him and gave him a reassuring pat on the back. “Remind me to teach you aura sense when we get to the camp.”

“What’s that?”

“What lets us know that there’s a monster coming,” Chris said. “And what you don’t have. You want to survive out here, you need one of those.”

Zed looked at her. “Where’d you get a bat?”

“Same place you got your manners.”

Zed turned to Ash and found her walking up to him with his tomahawk. “Is she always so friendly?”

Ash handed him the weapon without batting an eye. “Only on weekends.”

The floor shook beneath them and Zed held his arms out to steady himself.

“Careful now,” Jason announced. “We’ve got a big one.”

“A big one?” Zed asked no one in particular.

The arachnid blob and the mutated tigers were big. Just how big was this one that Jason felt it was necessary to announce it?

“Uh-oh.”

Zed looked at Oliver and found the boy slowly easing back. “Uh-oh? What do you mean uh-oh?”

“How do you want to handle this?” Chris asked Jason as she stepped back as well.

Zed took the cue and sidled back.

“Alone,” Jason said with a grin. “You all just hang back. And, Ollie, keep that gun ready in case something goes wrong.”

“Is something going to go wrong?” Oliver asked. He didn’t sound too bothered.

Jason looked back still grinning when a massive beast appeared in front of him as if from thin air.

It was as tall as a building and stood on two massive legs with elongated arms that simply twisted like ropes where humans had knees and elbows. It had no neck and its head was a long upward stretch like a cone turned on its opening that ended at a sharp point.

Jason rubbed his hands together, walking up to it. “No shots yet, Oliver.”

Zed’s fist tightened around his tomahawk. “What’s he doing? Why aren’t you supposed to shoot?

All of them continued to look nonchalant as Oliver answered, gun aimed at the monster. “Sometimes he likes to show off.”

Zed’s mouth fell. “Against that!? Who shows off against a house?!”

In front of them Jason shook out his hands at his sides and the air rippled around them, distorting as if under the effect of heatwaves, and it hurt Zed’s eyes to look at.

Then the air trembled.

A moment after, orbs of translucent light enclosed his hands then deepened into yellow lights reminiscent of the sun. They blazed, growing into a slow blare.

“Alright then, you big bastard,” Jason said. “Time to show the new guy what it really looks like when a mage goes hunting.”