room5/Alone

5.1.2023 : ROOM FIVE / Alone at the Tor 

You yell Clays name. The creature hisses at you with the back of its throat. It’s body is invisible in the night, only it’s nearly almond-shaped eyes can  be seen. Without blinking it turns and dissolves into the darkness. 

You stir up the embers of the fire and get it burning again. Clay does not return. In a state of physical, emotional and mental discomfort you think about what you have experienced since you woke up in this world, everything which has brought you here to this moment. 

Warmth of the fire is reassuring, stirring some primal comfort within you. The woodsmoke is gently soporific helping to bring an inner harmony for you to focus on as you reorientate yourself. 

You think clearly about it all, finding necessary questions. 

How does Clay know English language? How can you understand what he’s saying? Is language encoded into the brain so you automatically know how to speak whatever language is indigenous to this world? 

Clearly you are a different person, yourself, despite using the brain previously occupied by and symbiotically grown with its previous inhabitant. You realise Clay did not tell you his brothers name. 

Clays way of thinking, if his words are anything to judge it by, is simpler and straightforward than your own which has adapted to the world and it’s culture which you have left behind. 

You clear your head of such unanswerable confusions. That you have ended up here at all is on the side of magic and not science. Questioning it any further is pointless. Intrinsic rigid thinking from Clays brother or the way this bodies brain works help you to focus more deeply here in the living moment. 

You let go of a vague awareness so it slips away that perhaps you were previously somehow what in your own world is described as undiagnosed autistic spectrum disorder. 

Here, your senses are sharper. The air is crisper. The flavours are stronger. The depth of the night is deeper. Things seem somehow simpler. Yet they are so alien. It’s not the differences which make it seems so strange. It’s how familiar it all seems. 

You pull your warm fur-lined animal skin cloak around you tighter and fall gently into a comforting sleep. 

When you awake the fire has burnt itself out again. Clays pack is where he left it. There is no sign of him, not even footprints because the ground is dry. You are stuck for knowing what to do. From here you can see to the horizon in all directions. There is no sign of Clay at all. 

Discerningly you discover not far from the camp fire is Clays green metal short sword, unsheathed. You pick it up and hold it, swinging it half-heartedly in an attempt to find out what it feels like to wield such a weapon. 

Do you wait to see if Clay returns? 

Do you continue walking? If so; 

Do you travel North toward Fort, following his plan to settle as farmers in a community. 

Do you travel South toward Port and risk your life in pursuit of greater knowledge of this world generally?

Do you travel East toward the Hills?

Do you travel West toward the bandits Forest? 

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