Chapter one: Call of the Wild
Marlin was his name, he was a fairly normal fellow. There wasn't a whole lot to speak for in terms of any excitement in his life. Well, not until today at least. He worked at a local supermarket part time to keep a little bit of cash in his pocket as he went through college. Right now he was working a register at said supermarket.
"Jesus, this shift feels a whole hour longer than normal. Then again I suppose it is a Wednesday night, and who the hell goes out to get food on a late Wednesday evening?"
He said this just as what seemed to be several masked men in hoodies burst into the store. Each was holding a weapon of some sort, at least if you considered a computer keyboard a weapon.
"Everybody down!" One of the men shouted.
Of course this had to happen... I mean, why wouldn't it? This is me we're talking about here. Still though a little inconvenient considering I have that big test tomorrow morning.
Marlin thought this as he crouched below the counter with his eyes closed just waiting for the men to leave. Oddly though, as he crouched below the counter he didn't hear any movement. No stomping of feet or anything as he crouched below the counter. There was no one telling him to open the register and empty his pockets or anything. Did they leave?
Marlin was, to say the least, perplexed by this odd turn of events but never the less he stayed just as he was. At least until he started noticing how the legs he was kneeling on felt... damp? He opened his eyes now, his curiosity getting to him.
"What the fuck?!"
He was now very, very confused. He had good reason to be as well as he was currently kneeling in the middle of a very thick forest. It was more of a jungle really but details are details.
"Am I dead? Is this the afterlife?"
His only answer was a rather vicious sounding roar coming from probably no more than a quarter mile off, though in what direction, Marlin could not tell. Upon hearing this he quickly decided he would rather not take his chances and got up on his feet. The terrain around him was more or less smooth though peppered with rocks of varying sizes, some were the size of pebbles and others more or less the size of small boulders. The foliage was quite dense though not so dense that it could not be passed through. It consisted mostly of large ferns, miniature palm tree like plants, and large trees of the deciduous type. Oh and also bushes, lots and lots of bushes.
Marlin first off needed an initial plan of action. The most important thing right now would be to find shelter, but to do that he would need to know the surrounding area to figure out the best spot. The solution was obvious but the actual task wasn't quite so simple, at least for Marlin.
"I'm really starting to see why people keep telling me to start exercising. Then again maybe I'm just seeing why no one over 17 climbs trees..."
Marlin isn't fat by any means, he just doesn't bother with physical exercise all that often. Eventually though, he miraculously made it all the way to the top of the tree and was able to have a look at his surroundings. When he did look around he was awestruck.
"Damn son, that's one big forest."
It was in fact a very large forest. Actually, it was the largest forest Marlin had ever seen that wasn't on television. Then again it may have been the only forest he had ever seen that wasn't on television. He doesn't really get out much. Off to the east there was a sizable cliff face, to the north he couldn't see much other than trees due to some low hanging clouds, to the south he could see a very unpleasant looking desert about a good 25 miles off to his estimate, and finally to the west he saw a... castle?
"This is supposed to be the fucking wilderness! Oh wait... it is. Still though, what the hell is a castle doing all the way out here?"
He climbed down from the tree to go and head towards the castle, it wasn't like he has anything better to do out here, and hey, maybe they had food not to mention it would fulfill his need of shelter.
The walk was rather long but he made it eventually. Or at least he made it to a bridge.
"I can't help but feel like Indiana Jones here with this old rope bridge. I just hope it doesn't collapse..."
He began his crossing of the bridge, being careful to avoid particularly rotten boards, which, mind you is no easy feat. It took a couple of minutes but he crossed mostly unscathed. However, his mind had been scarred slightly by the sight of some unidentifiable corpse at the bottom of the ravine he had just crossed.
Now that he was across he decided it best to follow the extremely overgrown trail which supposedly led up to the castle he had seen earlier. After a good five minutes of following the trail he spotted his query.
"Ah, civilization at last! Wait... Oh fuck me! This is abandoned! For a moment there I was really starting to believe in a world that didn't completely hate me."
Indeed the castle was abandoned, for a couple of hundred years at least. Vines crawled up the weathered, half destroyed walls of the castle. It would have been quite beautiful if it wasn't currently turning night. In truth it looked scary as hell now in the darkness.
"Only one choice now, go inside and have look around. Shelter is shelter right? What do they say about survival? You need food, water, and shelter I believe, at least according to that guy tele. At least this falls in one of those categories."
On that note we wandered through the decrepit archway. This place was likely a very grand palace at one point, but now it was nothing more than most of a heap of rubble.
What could have driven out this castle's previous owners I wonder? I doubt anyone would give up something so magnificent so easily without being forced. I also doubt that it would have been attacked by another kingdom, they most certainly have kept the castle for themselves to spread the empire and their influence. At least that's what I would have done.
He was now in what he assumed at one point was a room dedicated to the study of the cosmos or something like that. This assumption was based off of the odd looking pedestal like thing in the center of the room that at one point likely would have held 7 orbs. Now there was only one large stone one in the center left. The others were likely stolen or destroyed. Marlin went with the latter based on the bits of shattered stone on the center of the room. The edges of the shards were still fairly sharp as if they had been broken more recently than the rest of the castle.
"I think I'm done exploring for tonight. I can leave all of that for the morning."
He lay down in a corner of the room looking up at the sky watching the bats as they flew across th-
"That's no bat! That's a motherfucking bat winged horse that is! Well one things for fucking sure Toto, we sure as hell ain't in Kansas anymore."
As he said this one of the flying horses looked like it seized up falling down into the forest not far away, oddly though, none of the others went to follow it.
"Might as well go get a closer look at it. It isn't like I'd ever sleep comfortably on a stone floor anyways."