Enoch sat up, stretching his arms and yawning. Smacking his lips a little, he sat there, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. He enjoyed the sensation of dew on his skin, warm sunlight mingling with cool air to dance harmoniously upon his skin.

After a few minutes of escaping the final tethers of sleep, Enoch looked around, a nagging feeling in the back of his head. He sat in a garden, fenced in by a large three-floor building surrounding the garden, similar to some old Chinese manors. He sat upon some of the most supple and lush grass he’d ever seen. “It kinda feels like a crime to sit here on this stuff…” Enoch shook his head again, observing the scenery. He was surrounded by other-wordly plants, with colors and shapes that did not provide any evolutionary advantages.

After he’d taken in the garden, Enoch stood up, slowly turning around. Not far off a path of stones led away, to the wall he’d been facing when he awoke. He slowly walked over to and along the path, toward the building. After a minute of roaming, Enoch saw a door leading inside and an interesting item, sparkling in the sun filtering past the vines that had grown over the absent roof of the courtyard.

Shrugging, Enoch walked over to the sparkly bit, which he noticed was a humongous gem. It was perfectly reflective, in spite of the odd angles of the cut gem. It was the size of a fist, which was, as far as Enoch knew, definitely not something people left lying around. He looked around, looking for a camera, then picked up the gem. It felt heavy, but also light, which made a loopy Enoch just shrug and continue to the door.

Enoch stopped in front of the door, still sleepy. He was starting to get a little annoyed. “Man… Why am I still so sleepy?” he muttered, still groggy. Shaking his head, he opened the door and walked inside what looked like a small lounge. Enoch sniffled and walked over to a plush-looking chair, figuring he’d take a small nap to help him wake up later.

He sat down, absently grabbing a glass and holding a hand over it, causing water to spill from his palm, filling the glass with water that made a slight rime appear on the outside of the glass. Enoch took a sip, holding the water in his mouth, then raising the glass in front of his head, peering blearily at the glass of water. He swallowed. “Hmmmm…” Enoch stood and walked over to the bathroom. He took the water and splashed it in his face over the sink, then looked at the mirror.

Enoch started shaking, and not from the cold. His eyes started going wide, he took a step back from the big mirror in what he was now noting was a very old-english-looking powder room. Another thing Enoch noted was his absence of clothes, and a massive gem still clutched in his left hand. Enoch darted back into the lounge, looking around more and more wildly.

“Have I been kidnapped? That girl was acting pretty creepy… Damn, I guess I do have some charm.” Enoch chuckled to himself, but with notably less-than-ideal sanity. He darted to the other door in the room, which was on the opposite side of the one he came through. He came into a foyer, with a more ostentatious door affixed to the exit, with small windows giving view of the outside. He rushed to the window and looked out, observing his surrounding environment.

The world outside the window was like nothing Enoch had ever seen before. The grass was an odd blue shade, like teal, and the tree line about one hundred yards out was made up of trees with typical brown bark, though a bit lighter, and boughs of royal blue. The sky was no different a color than he was familiar with, yet it couldn’t be more alien, with the many islands floating with the clouds.

Enoch stumbled back, his entire understanding of many things being uprooted like a tree in a hurricane. He stumbled over to a chair in the lounge, attempting to gather his thoughts by speaking aloud, “Breathe… What the hell? Blue grass? Floating islands??? What the hell is happening to me?...”

He sat there, his mind short-circuiting, when a crashing sound came from the foyer. Enoch darted over to the door leading into the foyer, peering as stealthily as possible at what the commotion was, which fit his horribly odd day perfectly.

Standing on top of a door that had been smashed to the ground from its hinges, three little odd fur-balls were standing on two legs, little rocks clenched in their hands. Enoch was not put at ease with the very racoon-esque creatures, as they were looking right at him with clearly-hungry eyes.

There was a pause, silent of every noise except the sound of Enoch’s exponentially faster breaths. Like a starting pistol, Enoch gulped and the three little racoon-men, only two feet tall, charged like kamikazes at Enoch, who ran like an olympic sprinter in the opposite direction, straight for the garden in which he had awoken.

Enoch flowed like water over the furniture in the lounge, a skill he doubtlessly did not possess just hours ago. As he reached the door, he spun, shutting the door and holding it as if his life depended on it, which it presumably did.

It took only a moment for banging to start shaking the door far more violently than those little creatures should have been able to. Enoch took a deep breath, closing his eyes and trying to regain complete control. ‘I’m clearly in a completely unfamiliar world, with very hostile racoon midgets trying to pound down an english parlor door to a very magical garden. There are floating islands, blue trees, and gigantic gems just dotting the land around me. I need to do someth-’ Enoch’s thoughts were cut off as a rock burst through the center of the door, splintering the wood and letting Enoch see the little creatures trying, and succeeding to hammer down the door currently shielding him from the little people’s wrath.

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Enoch paled, realizing he’d come to a fork in the road, one of the rare moment in life where only two possible options lay before you. In this case, Enoch had to choose: run away again and hopefully find a hiding spot where the creatures would give up on him and he could try to find some type of people who knew what was happening, or stand here and fell three little racoon people who’s only weapons were rocks.

A big con of the former was that Enoch could wind up cornering himself and get bludgeoned to death in a corner. A pro was that he was certain he could outpace the creatures for a long time, their difference in height not being made up for with swiftness. A pro of the latter was that he possibly didn’t have to deal with another creature after them. A con was that he only possibly had to not deal with more. If Enoch got injured, he’d be done for the next creature he found.

In his indecision, Enoch didn’t notice an arm with a small rock slip through the gap they’d already made and ring it crashing down on the hand holding the door shut. Enoch crashed to the ground with a very emasculating yelp when the hand he was pulling with suddenly lost functionality.

As he looked up from a face full of grass, the door was being opened, and Enoch felt something inside him snap. He could only reign it in so far, and animal instinct and emotion were starting to make decisions for him. Hurt, angry, alone, and in unfamiliar land, Enoch had reached his limit. He scrambled to his feet quickly, lower his hips and facing the door, about ten feet away, eyes full of fury and fear.

The door handle was being shaken, then slowly turned. As soon as the door started to swing in, Enoch let loose a tremendous shout and charged straight for the threshold. A startled racoon tried to move, but was hit like a truck with a shoulder, tumbling to the floor in a heap.

Enoch, whirled around to face the others, in time to catch a rock with his nose, spraying blood down his chin and chest. Enoch, in a truly blind rage, hardly faltered as he grabbed the thing’s ankle and hauling back like he was pull-starting a mower, then swinging it like a bat at the other one, who’d been sent stumbling back by the door being knocked open. The heads of the two creatures collided, a sickening crunch coming from the neck of the racoon Enoch had swung and sending the other one reeling back again. Tossing aside the dead creature Enoch was about to bowl over the staggered creature when a rock slammed into the side of his knee with its own crunch.

Enoch howled as he hit the floor, thrashing his other leg at the racoon’s to knock it down from the high blow it was trying to bring down on his head. Face twisted in animal rage and pain, Enoch rolled on top of the creature, pinning its arms under his knees. He raised up both hands, curling his fists into as much of a hammer as he could, then bringing them down like thunder on the creature’s head, taking to it like a needle to a balloon. Gore splattered everywhere, but mostly on Enoch’s lower body, which he just now noticed was bare like his chest.

He rolled off the creature to turn around, again catching a stone to the head, but this time a glancing blow of his chin, which still jarred him plenty. Eyes unfocused from the blow, a stone hit his collar bone. Enoch grabbed the arm that had struck his collar bone and yanked the racoon man around him, forcing it off balance. Enoch scooped its ankles to put it on its back then brought his elbow down with another splatter, followed by him sitting there, panting.

He rolled to the side, clothed only by gore that had exploded onto him. Enoch felt the roiling rage and fear leave him, fatigue and confusion replacing them. He felt no triumph. He laid there for a long while, not paying any attention to the time passing, or his dry tongue, or his growling stomach.

He sniffled, some tears welling in his eyes as he emptily gazed at the ceiling while thinking about what to do, where to even start. He was alone in a world of fantasy, which was so far not the whimsical and fun journey some novels portrayed it as. He frowned after reaching the part of his thoughts regarding fiction. There were plenty of ways for his situation to have been way worse, not to mention factors he was trying to both remember and forget.

For example, he could have arrived in some hellscape with demons all trying to feast on his flesh, or been trapped in an animal body, losing his intelligence, or even simply dying. He sat up, looking around him. He cringed as he noted the smell and visceral decor now dotting the entire doorway he’d fought the racoon-people at. Struggling to not spill his guts, he stood up and cried out in pain as his left leg, the one that had been hit by the racoon, buckled.

Wincing, he started to inspect the joint, baring his teeth as he noticed the very swollen and very painful swelling taking place there. He started scooting towards the foyer instead, groaning as quietly as possible as the pain from dragging the leg he’d hurt.

Once he made it to the entrance, he looked outside, noting that nothing was outside. He sighed with relief and slumped onto his back, closing his eyes for a moment, which turned into sleep in a matter of seconds.

…

In the sky over the house Enoch was summoned to, a man was riding a small paraglider-looking device, if it was made for a steampunk/medieval convention. He was casually strolling about when he felt a force prickling his senses. He reached into a small bag at his side and pulled out a tablet the size of a ream of paper. Runes were carved densely along the entire thing, and only some were glowing a bright red, the rest glowing white. He frowned, “Who the hell would break into my house and kill my adorable little guards? I’ll kill the prick!”