As lance was unconscious, his mind was invaded with images and what seemed like old memories. A young teenage girl was crying in the passenger seat of a vehicle.
"How could you do this to me," Lance said; his face was growing redder as he stared at the girl. Her blonde hair draped over her face as she cried into her hands.
"Lance, I'm sorry it just happened. We never meant to hurt you. I never meant to hurt you, hurt us."
Lance slammed his hand down on the steering wheel; the truck honked in response to the slam. "There is no US anymore, Gracie; we're done!" Tears welled in Lance's eyes as he lowered his head. Tears crawled down his face as gravity took them.
"where is he, Gracie? Where's Matt at?" Lance said barely over a whisper as if he hadn't the energy to raise the volume.
Gracie's head shot up. "what?" she said wide-eyed.
"Where is he, Gracie? Where's that backstabbing asshole at!?" Lanced screamed while staring out of the fogged window as the rain cascaded down the outside.
"Lance, you can't take this out on Matt; it was my idea. He didn't want to do it. I talked him into it, please, Lance," said Gracie.
Lanced turned to her furry flaring in his eyes. "You know damn well it takes two people to cheat, your both dead to me now. Who would have thought that the two people that meant the world to me would be the ones to tear my heart out and take turns smashing it." Lance paused as he gathered his thoughts.
The seconds felt more like minutes as Lance decided what to do. "Gracie, I don't want to hurt Matt. I want to end things between him and me. You both ruined an eight-year-long friendship. The least you can do is tell me where he's at so I can end this with what shred of dignity I got left."
"You promise not to hurt him," asked Gracie.
Lance nodded yes. "He's at his mom's," Gracie said with tears falling.
Lance slammed the truck into drive and took off down the road. Tiers skidded as he accelerated.
In the next memory, Lance slammed his fist into a smaller teen's face. "Lance, stop, please you promised you wouldn't hurt him," Gracie cried.
Lance looked up at her tears falling, "Well, looks like we've all lied now, huh." Lanced looked back down at Matts's bloody face. The swelling had made his face hard to recognize but brought no sympathy from Lance as he continued to beat him. "What's one more lie" Lance shouted as he leaned toward Matt's face. Lance's caramel face had blood splatter, as did his knuckles, but that was both of their blood.
Finally, Lance had stopped, but at this point, the damage had been done. Gracies ran to Matt as Lance stood up, staring down at what, at one point someone he would have considered a brother.
"Eight fucking years down the drain, Matt. All because you had to sleep with her. Why couldn't you be happy for me, Matt? Why did it have to end like this, man." At this point, Lance had wailed the last part, tears streaming from his eyes.
"Because I loved her too, Lance," Matt said as Gracie cried, leaning into his chest. "You're not the only one with feelings. Lance, when we all spent the last eight years together, you weren't the only one falling in love."
"Bullshit Matt, don't try and say you loved her, you slept with her to get back at me, and you know it," yelled Lance.
"Not everything has to do with football, Lance. Some of us have lives outside of sports," Matt said, wincing from the movement of his mouth.
Lanced stared down at the both of them as the love of his life cried into his best friend's chest. The more he stared, the more it felt like his heart was ripped out. "Fuck this," said Lance as the realization of losing his two best friends sunk in.
Lance got in his truck parked in the front yard, slamming the door shut rocking the truck. Lance took one last look at Gracie and Matt, embarrassed in the front yard. He slammed the truck into reverse, dirt and grass flying as the truck took off back onto the street and then into the drive as he stormed off down the road.
The truck reached dangerous speed as the roads became ever the slicker in the rain. Lance cried as he remembered the three of them growing up together, how Matt and he had joined football, but over time Lanced shined, and Matt continued to remain on the bench. Even though Matt put in as much effort as Lance, the size difference between the friends allowed Lance to shine while Matt could only remain in his friend's shadow. While Matt was an average height guy, Lance still had to look down on him to talk. Lance had the looks and the curly black hair that Matt wished he had, and the only one he could seek help from the jealous hatred that was forming was Gracie. As he would go to her to vent his feelings, they both started to fall for each other, and eventually, they began to sleep together behind Lance's back. While Lance had thought that Gracie and he were the perfect couple and that his best friend would always have his back, they both were actively betraying him.
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As Lance continued to speed down the road, he reminisced of all the times Gracie would cheer for him when he was on the field during game nights and how terrible their first date had gone. The only saving grace was the kiss at the end of it as he had dropped her off at her house.
As Lanced spaced off, his truck slowly drifted off, and before Lance realized the truck was off the road and into the muddy ditch. Lance tried to turn back onto the road, but all he caused was the truck to turn sideways and begin to roll. The only thing stopping it was when the truck's roof slammed into a large cotton tree.
As the memories came to an end, Lance woke up. His vision was blurry at first but quickly adjusted to the dark interior of what appeared to be a large tent with a handful of cots and a campfire in the middle of the tent, the smoke escaping through the small vents at the top of the tent.
Lance sat up and looked around a bit more he could hear voices outside of the tent speaking back and forth but could make out what they were saying tell the last part, "Fine, start packing up camp, and ill go check on him" a feminine voice said with a frustrated tone.
A few seconds later, a short, stocky girl came into the tent. She looked up at Lance as he stared back at her. She had long blonde hair that went to the middle of her back, and slightly pointed ears stuck out from the hair. Her skin was a bronze tan that gave a unique appearance to the girl that couldn't have been over 140 centimeters tall. "About damn time you woke up. I'm Mia, by the way," said Mia walking over to stand next to Lance's cot.
"Nice to meet you, Mia," Lance said, clearly nervous, "How long was I asleep?"
"Well, this is the start of day five, so more like a comma than really sleeping," She said with a smile that would have made a model jealous. "Yeah, you got pretty messed up by that crag. Luckily Harry got to you before it could have run off with you." She said with a cute chuckle.
Lance looked down at his arm that was in the crag's mouth. Not even a scar was on it. "What happened to my arm," asked Lance.
"Oh, that was nothing that a couple of my healing and cleansing spells couldn't fix," Said Mia.
"Spells, like as in magic," Asked Lance.
"Well yeah," said Mia as if it were self-explanatory.
"Sorry, I can't seem to remember much before when you guys found me," Lance said.
Mai looked shocked. "Well, that changes things. What do you remember?"
"Well, I just had a few memories come back to me. I think they are my memories. I think my name is Lance. The other memories don't help out with figuring anything else out." Said Lance as he scratched the back of his head with a chuckle. "Also, if you don't mind me asking, what's up with your ears?"
"What's Wrong with my ears," asked Mia as she reached for her ear.
"Oh, nothing, just that they're pointy," Said Lance.
"Well, I am an elf. That's kinda what we all have"
"Elf," asked Lance, "I thought elves were supposed to be tall?"
"Well, most of us are, but I'm a mountain elf," said Mia.
"So like dwarves," asked Lance.
Mia started to laugh. "No, not like dwarves. Mountain elves are normally nomadic and travel across mountain ranges. Dwarves Like to build cities in the mountains."
"So Dwarves live inside the mountains, and mountain elves live on top," Lance said.
"Well, there's more to it than that, but that's not what's important now, now is it," said Mia. "Let me go get Walt. He's the leader of our little band here. He wanted to talk to you woke up."
Mia started to walk back out of the tent but stopped and turned back towards Lance. "Oh, and don't worry, Walt is one of the nicest men. I'm sure he'll be able to help you with what happened to you."
Mia turned and left the tent.
"Well, this couldn't get any stranger," said Lance.