Chapter 1: One Life To Another
My eyes shoot open at the sound of my phone's alarm and small trickles of light seeping through the cracks of the curtain from the early morning light, slowly raising my arm I rub the sleep from my eyes. Fumbling my hand around the bedside table I turn off the alarm before slowly sitting up, in the newly acquired silence I could barely hear the distinct gun sounds of a game. He's always playing games when I see him, I'm not sure how he even pays the rent but he does and he keeps to himself. After waiting a little bit to wake up I pull the blankets off and head to my dresser to grab my clothes. I walk out of my door the sounds getting much louder as I do and I can hear two voices, so those two are playing this early in the morning. I walk down the corridor to the bathroom but before entering I peek around the corner and see two of my three roommates playing an fps, a big white guy easily six foot but also 300lb who looks like he showers every other year, on the other hand, the second guy was an average height around 5,10 black guy with muscles on muscles but I know what he does for a living he's a P.E teacher and a pretty nice guy as well. I step back and enter the bathroom I put my clothes on the counter and grab a towel from the cupboard, I enter the shower and turn it on.
I'm buckling my pants when I hear a knocking on the door and a soft Mexican voice "Hay man you almost done in there I've gotta get ready for work man." followed by a couple more knocks.
"Don't get your panties in a twist Angle Im already done." I said with a smirk as I opened the door to the only real friend I had anymore. He responds with a chuckle and a pat on the back before quickly moving past me while closing the door I chuckle a little, He's got too many jobs but hay he will get out of here before me that's for sure. I walk back to my room locking it as I entered, I walk up to the table pick up the lamp on it and grab the keys under it. I look at the four keys picking the one for my table I use it pulling open the drawer, inside where my father's 1911handgun, puukko knife, and wallet I grabbed them all putting the gun and its holster into the waistband of my jeans along with an extra magazine and put the knife on my belt I then grabbed my phone putting it in my pocket and locked the table drawer. I walk over to the mirror in the corner and straiten my black and white flannel making sure the guns not showing off, after making sure I look good enough to work a good job its time to get crushed by the slave work of the warehouse. I check the time 7:30 put on my romeos quickly and walk out of my room locking it as I left, the noise has mostly stopped I noticed that it was just the white guy playing now the other guy must be getting ready now too. I'm stopped in my tracks as I turn around nearly headbutting the guy I was just thinking about he was grabbing a snack from the fridge in the disgusting kitchen the fridge being the only clean thing in there.
"Aaaay sorry about that man wasn't watching where I was going." He said in his deep voice before stuffing a day-old burger in his mouth and walking past.
I turn a little and say "I wasn't either don't worry man." before turning back and taking a few steps before leaving the building. The feeling of a cool spring breeze hits me sending a small shiver down my spine as I look around at the shared yard of the apartment buildings, seeing nothing of interest besides the big tree in the middle of the houses. Moving around the side of our shared building and crossing the road behind it to the city proper I start my twenty-five-minute walk to work falling into the normal pattern of shortcuts and ally ways.
I enter and stop at the last ally way before the straight shot to work feeling uneasy, I look around but seeing nothing out of the ordinary I quicken my pace only making it right before the corner before hearing a voice that stops me in my tracks. "Well, well, well, what do I got here a stray in the allys, A little one looking for a purpose maybe? One looking to help? Looking for power? Oooor are you looking to shake things up a little and cause some Chaos? If you're looking for one of those things I can help just stick out your hand." The voice seemingly changing position, tone, volume, and gender put my hair on end and kept my body from moving. After only a moment my arm seemingly with a mind of its own stuck out to shake a hand that wasn't there, my head started pulsing with pain as a tight pressure formed around my hand before I blacked out.
I awoke to bird song, the soft rustling of leaves, and blue sky. Sitting up quickly I look around the area, I'm in a small clearing of tall trees luckily tho a path dirt path is cutting through the middle of the grass. After taking a breather and getting my barrings I stand and walk up to the path, one part is clearly more used by its larger mouth, and a larger amount of hoof tracks there are going in and out the other exit was covered by long grass and few hoof tracks. Whoever used these trails must have horses and hopefully a farm or town nearby, I stand and start following the more used trail. As I walk through the woods the light getting through the trees is barely enough to make sure your not tripping over things but past the path, the thick bushes surrounding you could see nothing past them. The hopes of things not being able to see me through them were quickly dashed as the sound of growling all around me sent my heart to my stomach and my hand to my pistol. Drawing the pistol I quicken my pas hoping they just want me out of their territory, the sounds of rustling bushes behind me gave me my answer. The sound of wood hitting dirt behind me makes me quickly stop and turn, The silhouette of a wolf rushing me is what I'm greeted by so I respond with two shots. The sound of cracking wood echoes along with the crack of the bullets as logs and sticks come rolling to my feet, In my shock and with the ringing in my ears I don't notice the rustling coming from my sides. Suddenly two more pop out from the bushes one chopping down on my right leg and the other on my left arm, with a shout of pain I put two in the skull of the one on my arm and unloading the last four from the mag in back of the one on my leg.
I reload replacing the loaded mag in my pants with the empty one, I look around making sure nothing else is coming while trying to ignore the ringing in my ears, when I'm sure I'm not going to be jumped again I neal down to look at what they did to my blood slowly dripped from multiple wounds on my arm non seemed to bad that I need to worry too much but the leg still had teeth in it and was bleeding a decent bit. Taking off the flannel I cut its already bloody fabric to good bandage sizes I tend to the leg first slowly taking each wooden tooth out and bandaging it the best I could I got the blood to stop on my leg and arm. After taking a second to breathe I notice that the wolfs were made out of wood but how that's when I saw a little glowing light coming from one of the piles of wood I dug through it and found a glowing green gem. The sound of growling came from behind so I quickly turned dropping the gem and pull out the pistol again but all that was there was half a wolf made of wood and an eary green glow coming from its chest. I slowly and methodically move towards it, its growls get loader and loader, and when I was right behind and above it I sent my foot into the back of its neck making a loud crunch. I pick up the gem from that one giving it a good look but saw nothing I could tell what it was, that's when I noticed that the wood was slowly creeping toward the gem I had dropped. I figured the wolfs were the gems I found and tossed all three of them as hard as I could in separate directions before moving along the path again with as quick of a sept as my injured leg would let me.
After ten minutes of stumbling throw the dark corridor of the trail, the trees start to spread out more with fewer bushes around the path as well my hopes that I will make it back to civilization, after a few minutes of walking and the trees continuously getting fewer I see a pretty straight line a few more yards down where the trees stop. I pick up the pace I'm finally going to get out of this crazy forest. Existing the forset I slow to a near stop as I take in the sight of a large town that sprawls out about a hundred yards away the largest buildings only being three stories high with an od mix of early modern and late medieval buildings, but the thing that put me most on edge as I approached was the fact I could see no people. When I reached the center of the street I could hear the sound of clattering metal and wood coming from around the corner of the street, I quickly duck into the alleyway peeking an eye out as the sound gets louder. Then I see a group of small horses with gold armor and spears marching in orderly columns come around the corner, curiosity gripped me as I stayed still letting them approach I wanted to get a better look which I got the one seeming leading the group was brown with brown main but the row behind it had almost every color imaginable and what looked like horns or wings. Seeing enough I decide its time to leave before whatever the fuck those things are find me.
"Halt creature move and I will have to use force" A masculine voice called out from behind and above loud enough to let the whole block know. "Move out into the street creature and you might be allowed to meet with the princes."
Not knowing what to do and with my injuries starting to make their presence more and more known I slowly raised my hands and walk out into the street with the clop of hoofs behind me where the horses were already in position a few feet away. My brain was racing all that I could get out once I turned to them was. "so what are you going to do with the creature you cornered."
The brown horse cleared his throat saying. "We want to know what you are, what you want, where your from, and how you got here. If you have the ability to speak and understand us then you should have no problems answering." Our eyes never leaving each others trying to judge the others character.
I take a second to process what he said, they clearly didn't bring me here maybe they aren't bad if they were they could have killed me and not tried talking, I resolved to tell the truth hopefully honesty is the right call here. "I'm a human, I want to get back to my normal life away from the wood monsters of that forest away from whatever this place is, I'm from the united states of America, and I have no clue as to how I got here I just woke up in that forest."
This caused a wave of chatter to come from the horses in the back of the formation before a whistle from the brown horse cut it all off getting everyones attention before the horse behind me came flying over my head and then landing next to the leader before talking into his ear his eyes never leaving mine. "Alright If what you say is true then you should meet with our princes. But know this if you take any actions against her all of these fine ponys will make you regret that!" He said that last part with dark humor in his voice as if I won't even make it that far but lacking the malice I expected to accompany it and with a cheer that startles me the ponys as I now know them create a box around and above me with the brown one walking up to me in the middle. "Alright human follow me and no sudden moves." He says as he turns and seeing no other options I silently comply as we start to walk.
The walk was quiet other than the clacking of metal and wood, with the sound of a dozen flapping wings I could take in the sight of the town's tall concrete buildings and wooden cottages and an odd-looking building that look like gingerbread on a corner of one the streets we passed. At the end of the walk and the end of the road was a giant crystal tree, The doors were covered in a blue and pink glow that seemingly came from two of the ponys with horns when it suddenly cracked open with no one touching it. With zero explanation Im swiftly shuffled inside by the ponys in armor as the doors are shut
just as fast.