Immanuel blinked the sleep from his eyes, greeted by light that danced through the tent's fabric. He felt incredible; his body was infused with a strength as foreign as it was exhilarating. Looking at his hands, a silent amazement filled him. He grabbed his walking stick, and with his sword still at his side, he stepped out into the warmth of a world lit by three suns: two bound at the center in a celestial dance and one apart to the left. It dawned on him fully then—this was not his Earth.
---
Immanuel looked up again. The three suns were really there. One set joined at the center, and another hung solitarily to the left, bathing the landscape in a light that seemed to sparkle and dance across the waving grass. Disbelief anchored him to the spot in front of the tent; his eyes were frequently drawn skyward to confirm the celestial spectacle that defied all his understanding of physics and cosmology.
As the minutes ticked by, the surreal beauty of it all compelled him to sit. Grass bent softly under him, whispering reassurance that the world, although strange, was real. He sat there, thinking, trying to stitch the seams of this reality with the one he knew.
"I am really gone," he thought, the realization pressing down on him with the weight of the sky above. "Completely, utterly gone."
Memories of his daughter flickered in his mind—the rapid crawl that would come just before he scooped her up from daycare, her squeals of delight that punctuated the air. "What was I doing when it happened?" he mused. The image of himself in the kitchen, the crisp sound of a knife slicing through a bell pepper, and Amy behind him taking something from the fridge.
Tears, unbidden and relentless, carved warm trails down his cheeks. What about his students? Their philosophy exams were looming—probably already passed.
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, the sharp sting of his new reality setting in. But even as the sorrow of his severed ties to Earth washed over him, a spark of curiosity about this vast, untamed world began to kindle within.
Around him, the grasslands stretched endlessly, a sea of green under the triple suns. He turned to his tent, and with a mere touch, it disappeared back into his inventory. Breakfast was fruits from the same magical storage—fruits that were sweet and energizing, a burst of flavor and vitality.
After his meal, Immanuel began to walk, but the sense of lightness soon urged him to run, feeling the heat of the three suns increase as they climbed higher. More of the colossal termite-like mounds dotted the landscape, and as he approached one, movement caught his eye. A creature larger than a school bus, with enormous claws, was foraging. A sense of dread filled him. "God, I'm happy I did not enter one of those," he thought.
He resumed his sprint, feeling a kinship with the wind until a shimmer in the distance caught his attention. Coming closer, he saw it was a river, broad and serene, meandering through the grassland. Nearby hills huddled close on his side of the river, while the opposite bank stretched flat and unobstructed. Immanuel approached the water carefully.
The river, with its brown waters, was hiding everything within. After tasting and finding the water palatable, he drank deeply, though the fruits had lessened his need for hydration. Seeing several termite hills on his side, he decided to jump across. He leaped, cutting through the air and splashing down midway across the river.
The water was warm. Then, a monstrous fish, a grotesque denizen that must have escaped the deep, confronted him. Its size was immense, and its gaze held an ugly threat. Immanuel's silent scream was one of shock as much as fear, and he swam with desperate strokes, reaching the opposite shore.
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Scrambling onto the bank, he didn't stop, his heart pounding a rhythm of survival. Once he felt a safe distance from the river, he slowed, his chest heaving. "Fuck. Better follow the river from a distance."
Immanuel trudged forward, alternating between a determined walk and an energized run, the monotony of the landscape measured only by the passage of days and nights.
It had been three days since he last encountered the termite hills on the far side of the river. He paused to consume some of the mysterious, energizing fruit. As he stood, brushing the remnants from his hands, a motion in the distance caught his eye. Cautiously, he advanced toward it.
Without warning, a sudden force rammed into him from the side. He was catapulted through the air, pain flaring through his body upon impact with the earth. Before he could gather his senses, another jolt of pain—something was biting into his shoulder, shaking violently.
Instinctively, Immanuel scrambled to his feet, protecting his head with his arms. The creature heaved, sending him flying once more. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, urging him to find his weapon. Desperately feeling around, his hand couldn't find the sword's hilt; instead, the creature's teeth found his leg, dragging him as he struggled.
Flipped onto his back, Immanuel's gaze finally met his assailant—a colossal quadruped with a hide mirroring the hues of the grassland and a massive snout reminiscent of a pig's. The creature was daunting—a behemoth in this unfamiliar world.
Immanuel managed to unsheathe his sword with a desperate, awkward swing, striking out at the beast. It recoiled, then charged, targeting his head. He shielded himself, and the creature bit down on his armored arm, jerking him into the air. His leather armor held, and the beast's teeth could not rend the tough material.
---
Immanuel, flat on his back and with a throbbing pain shooting through his shoulder and leg, instinctively raised his booted feet towards the beast. The creature, its snout frothing, snapped its powerful jaws towards him, only to meet the solid resistance of his kicks. Again and again, it lunged, and again and again, Immanuel countered with desperate thrusts of his feet.
This standoff, a tense ballet of attack and defense, unfolded under the scrutiny of the three suns. Each kick from Immanuel was a second ticking by, and each growl from the creature was a marker of time's passage. The beast, a thing of muscle and fury, seemed to grow frustrated, its eyes wild with the unmet need to devour.
With every lunge of the creature and every defensive kick from Immanuel, the dusty earth beneath them was kicked up, hanging in the air like a mist, the evidence of their struggle settling slowly back to the ground as the conflict endured.
The standoff continued—the beast snapping, the man kicking, neither yielding. As fatigue threatened to overtake his senses, pain was a constant.
---
Immanuel's ordeal with the wild creature stretched on, measured in relentless heartbeats and the slow crawl of the three suns across the sky. Though wracked with pain and the burn of exertion, his body refused to yield to the predator. The duel became a test of endurance; the grassland's silence was punctuated only by the snarling breaths of the beast and Immanuel's own labored breathing.
Immanuel's hand brushed against the cool steel of his dropped sword in the thick of the struggle. In his haste, his grip slipped, and the blade sliced into his palm, drawing blood. The scent seemed to invigorate the creature, its attacks redoubling in ferocity.
Time seemed to stretch as he defended himself, the shadows lengthening with the indifferent march of the three suns. His body screamed in protest, each movement an echo of the struggle's duration.
And then, as the three suns dipped toward the horizon, casting a dimming light on the struggle, the beast halted. Its head rose, ears twitching, perhaps attentive to a sound beyond human perception. In an instant, the behemoth pivoted and retreated, its form quickly vanishing into the grassland, leaving Immanuel alone, battered but alive, in the silent expanse.