New World

Right in the middle of a blooming subtropical forest, there was a small clearing. The rays of the sun standing right above could clearly be seen radiating through the roof of leaves.

It was an enchanting atmosphere.

A small ruined archway stood right in the middle of this clearing and on its sides were magic-radiating runes engraved. In the air around some faint shimmering auroras faded into and out of existence again and again, which showed that a powerful ancient spell was cast not long ago.

Right below them laid the body of a boy. He had pitch-black hair, an ordinary built body, and wore a simple-looking light-gray pajama.

Slowly he opened his amber-colored eyes and looked at the sky. He could clearly feel the warm breeze of the wind and the radiating rays of the sun on his face.

When he realized where he was, or to be more specific where he wasn't anymore, he stood up in shock.

'What happened?'

'Where am I?'

'Is this a strange dream?'

These thoughts lingered in his mind while he was observing his surroundings.

A few moments ago he was at home, in his bed, then he remembered having some strange dream with a maze of sorts until all his memories went black.

Looking at the ruined archway next to him he noticed the still lingering auroras and was fascinated by the sight. Never before has he seen something as beautiful as this. After a few seconds though they suddenly vanished completely.

Then, laying at the base of the archway, a simple-looking brown backpack with a sheathed sword attached to it caught the sight of his eyes.

He kneeled down and took a look at it.

First, he inspected the attached sword and unsheathed it. It was an ordinary-looking short sword made of a material similar to iron. This was the first time in his life the boy wielded a true sword, a tool to kill, to take lives. He saw much more interesting-looking blades in countless games and shows but it still was a new feeling for him to hold something like that in his own bare hands.

His gaze was fixated on it for a long silent moment where one could only hear the sound of flora and fauna coming from the forest.

After observing it silently he sheathed it again and then took a look at what was inside the backpack.

Inside he found a simple white linen shirt, a medieval-looking leather jacket, and similar leather armored pants. Immediately he changed without thinking much about it and then took a look at the other things without wasting any thoughts about who they might belong to. The last thing he found in the backpack was a leather-bound bottle with a white envelope attached to it.

The envelope was sealed with a seal of magenta wax that showed a pair of wings.

After staring at it for a moment the boy broke the seal and took out what was inside. It was a white piece of parchment engraved with golden letters.

As he tried to read them he realized that the message was written in a language unknown to him but after a brief moment went by the letters started to glow and rearrange themselves into a new order, more comprehensible to him.

A few seconds ticked by and the surprised boy could now clearly understand what was written. He stood there, completely stunned by what he was just allowed to have witnessed, and stared at the message:

'Dear child, I hope you have arrived well and are not too shocked about your current situation. It all has a different impact that entirely depends on the person if they are caught in a similar occurrence like yourself. I am sure you want nothing more but to know what happened to you, what the circumstances you are currently in are, and in the following lines, I will tell you a more simplified version, easy for a young human, like you, to comprehend. Sometimes, entirely dependent on the interferences of our world's chaos, anywhere in this vast world, in any of its universes there can be different events that greatly impact the lives of the individuals involved. Even among those special occurrences, your case is something rather special, because your life wasn't simply pushed into a new path unknown to destiny but you were entirely ripped out of your universe and taken into the unknown. And to make it near-unique you were also sent into the one origin-universe which had been the first in our world to exist. Fortunately, I have detected the event of your arrival in advance and prepared this small "welcome gift" to help you a little bit on your path. Young human, I hope you understand your case and accept it, because for you to continue there is only the option of acceptance. From now on here will be your new life but know that nothing is absolute. Maybe one day you will find your way back, your way back home, to the ones you love, to your family, and to your friends but I also have to be honest with you: The chances for you to truly find your way back are slim though still existent, so please have hope but do not set it to high, for your own good. I wish you the best of luck on your journey and I am truly looking forward to meeting you in person. May the gods bless and favor you, my dear child!'

A silent tear ran down his left cheek. Realization packed him. It was no dream, no hallucination.

Everything was real!

He felt like his life was taken from him. All his friends, his family, . . . he may never see all of them again.

His face became visibly pale and a few seconds after the first tear fell, he completely burst into tears and for a moment he forgot everything around him, . . . everything except the pain, the sorrow, and the loss, . . . the loss of all his loved ones.

Minute after minute passed and only pain and sorrow dominated his thoughts.

Suddenly, a moment before he lost himself completely in negative emotions his mind became clear his sorrow flew away and he felt completely refreshed.

The vanished auroras came back into existence and the boy was surrounded by a pleasant feeling. His thoughts told him to accept what happened and to go forward into the future without falling because of things he could not change at the moment, things he had no influence over.

'One day I might find my way back, one day far in the future, . . . . but to make that happen, I have to find my pathway here in this new world, and beat the challenges that may come into my way.'

It was almost like someone whispered it directly into his mind . . . but this thought was what he held onto, what helped him stay calm, what gave him strength and made him stand up again.

As he stood back up, the reappeared auroras vanished again, and the clearance of his mind with them, but despite that, he stayed completely calm and held onto his hopes.

In the next moment, he stepped forward, attached the sheathed sword to his waist, and shouldered the backpack in which he stored his belongings.

He looked around. Trees as far as the eye could see. A beautiful and stunning sight of wild and untouched nature, a mystical forest as lively as he never had seen before in his life.

Not knowing where he was nor where to go, he picked a random direction that felt right for him to take and started walking away from the place he woke up, . . . the place that greeted him after arriving in this unknown new world. Without any tool to keep track of time, he walked through the forest, sighting marvel after marvel. He watched birds he has never seen before in all colors one can think of and flowers more beautiful than any he has seen so far in the world his origins lie in. Before this very day, he has never visited such a lush and mystical forest full of wildlife.

It almost felt like a dream again . . . but certainly a good and pleasant one.

After wandering in the same direction, for what felt like hours, the boy got thirsty and so he remembered the leather-bound bottle from before, that he had found along with the envelope in the bag he was now carrying. He put the backpack on the ground and took out the bottle to look at what kind of liquid was inside.

To check what it was, he poured some of it in his hand and saw a crystal-clear liquid flowing out. After tasting it, he realized it truly was water, clear fresh and cold water in the highest sparkling quality possible, and directly started downing the whole bottle.

Revitalized he packed his things up and continued the journey. After thinking about it for a moment he thought his decision to empty the whole bottle was an unwise one because it was not clear when he would find something to quench his thirst again. But for now, he could not change his previous actions and could only hope for his luck to find something like wild fruits or berries, so he also will have something to eat or maybe a spring to at least quench his thirst again and refill his bottle.

Luckily his journey continued without any dangerous encounters until he found another much larger clearing than the one he woke up on. It was in a circular shape and on its rim there were countless 3-meter high waystone-like monoliths embedded into the ground in intervals of about 4 meters.

Right in the middle of it, there was a small hill with a man-made-looking entrance and two partially broken stone pillars in front of it.

Slowly and as quietly as possible, he cautiously sneaked into the open zone of the clearing through the gap between two of the waystones. Step by step he stealthily approached the hill while he strode through the waist-high grass like a tiger chasing his prey. Crossing the distance he got closer with every passing moment, slowly but constantly.

Getting near the entrance the boy noticed thousands of rune-like symbols engraved into both pillars. The seconds ticked by and he just stood there, quietly observing all the runes and patterns, completely losing the caution he showed just moments ago. With most of them, he was unfamiliar, though he could recognize some parts because they looked similar to Norse runes, Greek characters, and other parts of ancient ways to write he saw in history books while studying for school.

Curiously he observed them for a bit longer and found more and more parts he thought he recognized and also repeated patterns.

His thoughts about why things he knew from his homeworld would appear here, were disturbed by a sudden whooshing sound, which grew louder and louder like something was charging up accompanied by the strange phenomena of tiny pebbles and other things on the ground starting to float.

Surprised by the sudden change in atmosphere he rapidly unsheathed his sword and sneaked up to the hill's entrance.

His heart was beating rapidly, adrenaline flowed into his vines, and the fear of the unknown was omnipresent. With each step, he got closer, closer to the entrance, closer to being able to see what was inside the hill, . . . he got closer to facing what was there, closer to unraveling the source of this unnatural phenomena.

'One more step!'

'I got this!'

With these thoughts, he tried his best to not succumb to the fear, . . . to give himself the courage to move on, to take the last step.

Taking a deep breath he tried to calm himself. Overcoming what was holding him back he took the last step and peeked around the corner. There he saw it.

Right in the middle of the hall-like room that looked many times larger than the hill he just saw from the outside, there was a light-blue glowing magic circle engraved into the floor. Similar patterns like the ones he observed moments ago on the two broken pillars glowed and pulsated full of power. Though he still was a bit further away from them, he could clearly see every single one of the lighted runes.

In the circle's core, there was a rift-like thing slowly opening wider and wider and getting more into an egg-like shape. Space around it was shifting with tiny cracks opening and closing every second. Curiously the boy went closer step by step without actually thinking about what he was doing, just wanting to know what this magical thing in front of him was, his legs moved by themselves.

As he got close, the expansion of the rift and the shifting of space around it, both stopped and the marveled boy could see right through it.