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(Avicii, Aloe Blacc- Wake Me Up)

Adam

Patches of sunlight drifted through the gently swaying leaves above me and I filled my lungs with air. The air was crisp, clean, and dry like a late-summer afternoon in the shade. It was serene and beautiful. And then I realized something.

My fuckin’ back hurts.

As I tried bending my neck to look around, jolts of pain shot up my stiff back. It felt like a rock was driven into my lower back, but it hurt too badly for me to stay there and think. I tried slinging myself up, only to cramp and seize. Rolling off of whatever hard, uneven surface I was draped over, I landed on my hands and knees. My hands swept over the forest floor, which was littered with dead leaves and tiny green shrubs.

Holy shit, why am I so buff?

I didn’t even realize I muttered this as I examined myself. My muscles were rippling and huge. Even the loose off-white tunic covering my torso was stretched by the sheer size of my chest and back. It was everything I ever wanted, but never tried for. All for free. Well, I died, but technically it was free. I pushed myself up. It was so easy. Like nothing. I lowered again just to be sure I wasn’t fooling myself, and then pushed my body up with ease. In fact, I pushed so hard that the momentum carried me to my feet. I bounced on my toes, getting a sense of the noticeable change in the power my muscles could exert and an astounding lack of fat.

I had on a shirt like an old medieval tunic with some rudimentary gray pants and leather boots. My skin was a natural green color with gray undertones and I could feel large bottom teeth, like tusks, just two of them poking out from between my lips. Even though it would have been jarring before, I didn’t even notice they were there until I prodded at them with my massive sausage fingers.

In front of me was a tree line and a large rock that I had been laying on. I reached a hand to my lower back to rub at the wide bruise while I took in the rest of the scene. My eyes passed over the dark tree line where spindling branches were ominously towering above me. Behind me was what looked like a small clearing of ferns, grass and shrubs illuminated by the morning sun, a strange bright pink tone to the stems of the grass and shrubs. Oddly enough, there was a covered wagon with what looked like crates in it, but no horses in sight.

I moseyed into the clearing and let the warm breeze brush over my skin.

This, whatever this is, is real. This body is real. This… place… is real.

A woman’s cheery, slightly deep voice drifted from behind some shrubbery on the other side of the clearing.

“Hey, you, you’re finally awake. Good. Some monsters attacked me, tore up my clothes. Could you grab me something from the wagon?”

“Y-yeah.” I was certainly startled by the voice, but it didn’t sound hostile so I complied.

I awkwardly stepped around the wagon, casually glancing where the voice originated from. I pulled the rough burlap cover off a box of what looked like some strange green bulbs. My nose caught the sweet, almost candy-like scent of these fruits.

I turned around and tossed the burlap tarp to an extremely pale hand poking out from the bushes.

I slowly wandered toward the bush. “Who are you?”

After a few moments of the bush rustling, a pure white, almost translucent, soft featured but thin face popped up and scanned the pasture. It was outlined by a head of full, deep crimson hair that gently waved down past her shoulders. Vertical slitted pupils surrounded by bright ruby red irises locked onto me curiously. Then she smiled, showing off her expressive red lips with two very prominent fangs peeking out from between them. She shot up and postured like a femme fatale.

“The name’s Vetia. Vetia the vampire hunter. Half vampire, half hunter. And you?” her smile broke as she pulled the poorly wrapped tarp up higher around her curvaceous figure. “You’re Adam, aren’t you?”

“You… you know my name?”

“Of course I do.” She pointed casually. “You’re the hero that was sent to save us.”

I’m- I’m a hero?! Fuck yeah!

“Right. I woke up weird after having that conversation with a god.”

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She tilted her head curiously at me. “A god? So it really is true?”

“I guess so.”

“What’d the god say to you?”

Shit, I’m terrible at lying! I just need to act like Ryan Gosling. It always works.

I didn’t say anything, just shook my head slowly and mysteriously.

“No memory or… you can’t say?”

I nodded slowly, trying to seem as distant as possible.

“So, Adam, what do you do? What skills do you have?”

I dramatically gazed over my shoulder, furrowing my brows just a little. “That’s behind me now.”

“You’re a real clean slate, eh?” She squinted at me as if piecing together my persona.

I have to be more convincing.

“Something like that.”

She smirked. “You’re the hero, smile a little.”

I can’t. It’s like she’s testing me. He would never just smile like that.

“Or not, Mister cool guy. I see how it is.” She peeked over her own shoulder and stepped out from the bushes. “I’ve got a problem. I’m not exactly strong, but my mates are in there. Mind getting them out for me? I need to check on them.”

“Mates?”

Why is she looking at me like I’m- ah fuck, I guess I’m still autistic.

“Friends, Adam. They got a different word for that in your world?”

I silently nodded and climbed into the wagon, which bowed heavily under my weight. Two bodies were strewn over the crates of the wagon. I grabbed hold and pulled at their legs, readying myself to lift with everything I had. My legs planted firm and pushed back as hard as I could, but I may as well have been pulling nothing. I tumbled backward out of the wagon with both of their legs in my hands.

She stood over me in approval as I stared up at the sky in shock. “Nice.”

I nodded awkwardly, clumsily picking myself up and setting them down in a patch of short ferns. They weren’t waking up.

One of the figures on the ground looked like a person with thinner features, long, pointed ears and slender but toned muscles. He had skin like amber honey and hair the color of the night sky with a strange, wispy sheen about it that fell down to about his shoulder blades. His head was strangely large with a neck much thicker in the back. In fact, his whole head seemed a size too big for his small and thin, but broad body. I prodded at his neck looking for a pulse to no avail. Vetia stepped up and carefully pulled back at his eyelid, checking for a sign of life. His entire eye, except for the pupil, was light blue and seemed to gently roll like waves in the ocean, or maybe it was an optical illusion from the sunlight.

She nudged at his side with her foot and shrugged.

I turned to her. “By the way, this body is… new. Mind telling me what color my eyes are?”

Vetia stepped right up to me and squinted into my eyes, slightly smiling with interest. “Hmm. They’re a… how do I put it… eh, like hot pink. Kinda cool.”

The other person was a human with rigid, but handsome sun-tanned features and short, scraggly blond hair. He had a rough goatee parted by a river of drool. His body was like that of a well-trained rock climber. She pulled his eyelid back and it was normal, but he had vibrant, verdant irises.

“His pulse, can you check it?”

She put a hand up to me. “Don’t worry, they’re alive.”

We both stood there awkwardly waiting for something to happen.

My distant eyes zoned out on them. “So, what now?”

“I thought they’d wake up faster.” She bit her thumb, then sneered at the tarp she had on. “I’m gonna change. In the meantime, get your bearings. This world is probably different from the one you know, hero.”

I slowly glanced up, then back down and examined the world around me.

Fuck! Am I gonna have to keep this up forever?!

Small green plants rustled around my feet. They were shaped like ferns, but the leaves got longer toward the top and shorter at the bottom. Their stems were thick and vine-like, wrapping around whatever tree it was lucky enough to sprout near.

I tilted my head all the way back, gazing up at the trees with almost black bark and deep green needles. Even the smallest ones rivaled redwoods in size. I shook my head and gave up with a sigh. This wasn’t gonna help me figure out anything.

I paced around the two guys on the ground and tried to discern whatever I could about them. At the very least, they were alive.

The human has on a green tunic and brown pants with an archery glove. The elf is in a black cloak with a really nice white shirt, black pants and boots. I’m gonna say the human is a ranger and the elf is a rogue.

I shrugged and looked over at her for answers. “Who are your friends?”

She poked her head out from the wagon and chuckled. “The human is my adventuring party’s archer. The other one is our rogue. In fact, the archer’s been a real pain in the ass recently. You’re big, and he doesn’t know you. Couldja give him a nice scare for me?” She turned her head downward and gazed up at me, almost shattering my persona.

Awkwardness is setting in. Just say nothing and nod mysteriously again.

I nodded, a little too rigidly for my liking.

She smiled and winked. “Thanks, hotshot!” Then she retreated back behind the crates.

Holy shit, here I am. A hero. In another world. Life couldn’t get any better. I’ve got an adventuring party, a cool body, a hot vampire hunter in my team, and a world to explore. Life really can’t get any better, can it? What an awakening. Words can’t describe the reality shock. Being here is like waking up from a disorienting dream and having a constant sense of confusion at everything around me. I’ve never been so far out of my element before, so everything is a shock sending my heart into panic. But I can’t worry now, I’ve got a world to save, starting with scaring this guy.