So I'm not too good at writing stories, I won't lie. But I figured i'd take a crack at this because I had an idea that seemed interesting. Roast me in reviews.
Most stories start off as some humble beginnings for a hero destined for greatness. Kinda like Fable. Others can start from being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Kinda like Fallout: New Vegas. Mine is a little bit of both.
The name's Jack, by the way. Last name is mostly unimportant, so we can skip that part. I got shoulder-length, dark brown, curly hair and hazel eyes, I'm not exactly muscular or skinny, but I wouldn't call myself fat either. I am 19 years old and going strong. That's my basic description, and you can probably tell that I'm pretty unremarkable.
The day started out like a normal one: I woke up, ate breakfast, brushed my teeth, got dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, then played some video games. School had let out for summer, so I was pretty much taskless. Here's the part where one would have some huge event happen to them. Like their home would get attacked by invaders, or nuclear bomb drops on their city. Maybe they would get shot and left for dead. Lotta different ways for a hero to begin their journey.
Unfortunately, or fortunately based on how you look at it, my journey begins in a very... bland way when compared to examples listed. I spilled Mountain Dew on my computer. That's when I freaked out and began my attempts to clean the sparking and rattling box of metal and circuits. It didn't work, as one would expect, and I turned to get one of my parents. That's when things got interesting.
I say that because my computer screen turned into some giant swirly circle of white, blue, and black and began to slowly suck me in. I screeched in terror, a very manly screech obviously, and despite my best efforts in grabbing anything and everything to anchor me down. The portal engulfed my body and I found myself floating in a void.
I floated there, panicking and hyperventilating, for god knows how long. After what seemed like an eternity the empty space I was in seemed to crack, and multiple different windows began to open up. I saw lots of things through them, but mostly they were games. More specifically, the games I had had on my computer.
I saw characters and NPCs going about daily life as if I were playing the games at that very moment in time. Cuphead and Mugman were fighting debtors, Lee and Clemintine were surviving, and many other characters were just doing their thing. It was enough to leave me in silent awe.
I watched these sights in said silent awe for at least half an hour. Then one of these windows decided that they had enough of me floating there and began to pull me in. Normally one would jump at the chance to live in their favorite video game, but not me especially not this one. This is because the game that began pulling me in was a horrible one. Not horrible in the sense that the game itself is bad, but the circumstances of the world there were.
The first game that attempted to pull me in was Bloodborne. Not one to prefer the death of being brutally mauled by eldritch horrors my mind would hurt to comprehend, I began to struggle with all of my might. It slowed me down significantly, I think, just long enough for a different game to decide to try and pull me in. Right next to the window that held Bloodborne lay the window that held MGQ, which was a much more preferable land when compared to the former. I hadn't really delved too deep into MGQ, but I was sure it was probably way safer than whatever Bloodborne had in store for me.
The forces pulling me from both windows were about equal in strength and about half of my body wound up being pulled into each, but through pure stubbornness I was able to grasp the edge of the MGQ window and pull myself through. Upon climbing through this window my vision went white. The world spun and I collapsed, I passed out near instantly upon hitting the ground.
Now my journey had begun.
I found myself staring at a large figure in front of me, it was at least 5 meters tall. However it was... blurry and cloaked in shadow. I couldn't quite make out what it was, and from how it had it's head(?) cocked to the side it couldn't understand what I was either. I reached out to touch it, only for searing pain to go up my arm the moment I made contact. My arm began to get pulled into it, and I was quite sick of getting pulled into obscure shit by now so I obviously fought back. For once, it worked. I pulled my arm out. The figured let out a distorted roar and raised an arm to crush me to pulp, but right before it made contact I woke up.
I was flat on my back in the middle of a forest. I sat up and looked at my surroundings. It was pretty much just trees, flowers, and chirping birds. However there were no signs of nearby civilization. I stood up and dusted myself off. Now I believe my next reaction is understandable. I freaked out, immediately. When I said I never really delved into MGQ, I actually never played it at all. Hell, I never even read a game summary. One of my friends said it was the perfect game for a virgin like me, but I only downloaded it for irony reasons.
eventually I calmed myself. Losing my head in a forest that is filled with monsters is no situation I want to place myself in. With that in mind, I picked a direction and began walking. And walking. And walking. Oh my god how long is this going to take. I walked for hours and my feet were killing me, but I happened upon a road. Luckily the sun had probably just risen when I arrived, as the sun was almost overhead, noon, I had plenty of sunlight left.
I began my trek down the road in hopes of reaching a village. However there was one problem. I came across some purple haired kid getting his shit rocked by a slime-girl-thing. I hid behind a tree and watched the fight from there. The kid sloppily slashed at it, only for it to heal immediately. One would assume that after seeing this happen you would switch tactics right? Not this kid, he just kept swinging. After a few minutes of this he barely manages to drive her off.
I decide that now would be good time to reveal myself. "Dude, that was pathetic." Not the nicest greeting I ever gave, but I couldn't help myself. "Wha- Where did you come from?" He jumped in surprise at my sudden appearance. "Oh I was watching you fight from behind that tree," I pointed to the tree, "and I'm no swordsman, but I'm pretty sure that you aren't swinging that thing around properly." I gestured to the blade in his hand.
"Oi oi, I've been trained by the heroes that pass through Ilias1 Village!" He cried out in his defense. "Yeah, well they didn't teach you very well did they?" He opened his mouth to retort when the ground shook as a large explosion sounded out through the forest. Me and the kid both looked in the direction of the crash. "Should we go check that out?" I asked. "Yeah we probably- wait no I have to get back for my baptism." He looked at me and sighed. "But if you're going to check it out, then I'm going with you."
"Dude if you have something to do, go do it. I'm not helpless, plus I'm way bigger than you." That wasn't a lie, I had at least half a foot on this guy. "Look go get your baptism and I'll come and tell you what I found." I insisted. Unfortunately, he shook his head. "No, I'm going with you!" I sighed at his response. "Fine." I'm going to feel super guilty if he's late, so I better wrap this up.
We rush over to the crash site and find a woman. A purple woman. A purple woman with a long, red snake tail. The trees around her were destroyed and the ground below her was dented, did she fall from the sky? "Is she... breathing?" I ask. "What should we do? If she's still alive and we don't help her..." Luka trailed off. I sucked in a breath of air through my teeth. "Right." I muttered and cautiously approached the unmoving woman. I poked her in the ribs with my foot. "Hey. Are you dead?" No response. I turned and walked back to the kid. "Yeah, uhh I think she's dead." The kid looked sad for a moment, then his eyes widened as he looked past me.
"She's standing right behind me isn't she?" I felt something wrap around my left ankle, that's probably not good. Suddenly my world was turned upside down as I dangled in front of the woman. She stared at me with cold, yellow eyes before turning to the kid. "Where am I?" She demanded. The kid stammered for a second before choking out a "Huh?"
The woman asked again, "Where am I?" The kid had a look of hesitation on his face. "You are just outside of Ilias Village." The woman had sneer cross her face for a split second. "That girl hit me this far... what strength." I was confused for a moment, but I had priorities. "Uhhh, can I go down now?" She turned to me with an unimpressed look on her face. "Who are you two?" She was very rude. "I'm Jack. I don't really know who the kid is." I pointed to the purple haired boy. "I'm Luka, hero apprentice of Ilias Village." Glad I got his name, I was getting tired of referring to him as kid.
"A hero apprentice huh? That means that you're unbaptized... you do smell pretty delicious." She licked her lips to punctuate her statement. Luka took an awkward shuffle backwards. I believe I spoke for both of us when I said: "Okay I'm uncomfortable now." Luka seemed to remember that he had a baptism, and in doing so forgot that I was taken hostage, as he turned to leave with a, "Sorry I have to go!" The woman coiled the rest of her tail around me and gave a squeeze. "Stop." Luka turned to see the peril I was in and thankfully skidded to a stop.
"Ilias' baptism... How foolish." She thought aloud. Luka looked shattered. I guess he really took that baptism seriously. I don't know what was so important about it, but still, disrespecting what other people find important is a shitty thing to do. "C'mon give Luka a break, he finds the baptism important. You don't need to-" My statement was cut short as she gave me a sharp squeeze. I decided to change the subject.
"Any chance we could get your name?" I asked. She ignored my question, opting to ask her own. "Why didn't you two kill me?" Me and Luka were pretty shocked at that question. "K-kill you?" Luka choked out. "Well aren't you heroes always itching to kill us monsters. You had a golden opportunity." "Um, well I'm not becoming a hero so..." I trailed off as she shot me an annoyed look. She looked back to Luka. "How could we kill you without knowing whether or not you were bad or good?" The woman scoffed at our responses.
"To not want to kill any monsters, but have the goal of killing the monster lord. That doesn't make sense. Do you crave fame, fortune, or-" Luka cut her off. "I don't want to be that kind of hero." The woman quirked an eyebrow at that but let him continue. "I don't hate any monster, I don't even want to kill the monster lord. I just want to live in a world where we can all coexist peacefully!" Luka beamed as he said the last statement.
I don't know much about this world, but from his last statement it was easy to see that monsters and humans didn't exactly see eye-to-eye. If it was anything like racism in the early 1900's then maybe coexistence was an option. I just hope it wasn't any worse than racism in the early 1900's. However it appeared that the woman didn't share the ideal as she frowned and called Luka an idiot.
I wanted to hear the rest of the conversation, but my mind grew unnaturally fuzzy, my ears began to ring, and my vision blurred. Neither of them seemed to realize this, and the talk continued but I couldn't make out anything they were saying. Eventually Luka turned and leaft. The woman didn't let me go though. She turned to me and said something I didn't understand. She made a face I couldn't read because of my blurred vision and then repeated herself. Her tail squeezed me tighter as she attempted to illicit a response, but I found that I couldn't move or speak. She looked into my eyes and her's flashed a bright silver. My head cleared up, but almost all of my attention snapped to the woman. I tried to look away from her irritated face, but found I couldn't.
She muttered something to herself, and she gave me a cold glare. "What are you?" She demanded. "Huh?" She leaned in closer to me and repeated herself. "What. Are. You?" I didn't know how to respond to such a question, but felt inclined to. "I'm a human." I responded, confused. The woman seemed to smell me for a second. "You don't smell like the other humans. You smell... off... not bad, just... off." The woman then uncoiled me.
"Follow me." She said and slithered off. Oddly enough, I couldn't bring myself to run or resist. Wait. Did she hypnotize me? Aren't you supposed to not realize that you've been hypnotized? Meanwhile I'm still walking behind the snake lady. We get to the wooden walls of what I assume is Ilias Village, and the lady does some hocus-pocus and suddenly looks like a normal woman. Well... Normal is subjective I guess. She is very scantily-clad still and her left side has large tattoos covering it.
She grabs me by the arm and proceeds to leap over the wall. If I had control of my body I probably would have cried out in shock. We then surprisingly landed in almost utter silence. I follow her for a few more minutes before we walk up to a small house on the outskirts of the Village, and with a little more hocus-pocus on the door lock we slipped inside. Immediately the woman changed back.
She proceeded to glance around the home. "House is pretty clean... for a human's." She didn't say anything after that. We then waited for a long, long time. Imagine the most boring, awkward moments in you whole life. Yeah imagine that but 100× worse. On top of all that boring, awkward silence and stillness, I had no clue what we were doing in this specific house. She obviously didn't live here, and I didn't know who did. That being said, I decided to pass the time by trying to break this hypnotism the best way I knew how. Using that one thing the girl did in Kill Bill.
'Wiggle your left toe...' I thought as I tried to generate some type of movement in my left shoe. I made very slow progress, in fact I made no progress, but I was determined to break free from her hold. Luka walked into the front door with a sad look on his face, he and didn't seem to notice either me or the woman. That is, until the woman broke the silence with two words: "You're slow." Luka jumped almost high enough to reach the ceiling.
"How did you find my house?" Luka asked his uninvited guests. "Your scent. One whiff of your unsophisticated scent was all it took to find this place." I sat in silence, unable to take any action in this situation, as I was still hypnotized. I focused as hard as I could on moving my arm and to my utter joy it began to feel fuzzy. I think that's progress.
"More importantly, how did a monster sneak into the village? A low-level monster like a slime caused a huge panic, so how could you get in?" Luka questioned further. By now I honestly would have asked the most obvious question of "what do you want," but I guess Luka was more focused on the safety of the villagers. That's noble I guess.
Status report, arm feels fuzzier but there is still no movement. "You humans are easy to fool, sneaking into this village was easy. Just who do you think I am?" At that very moment I was able to clench my fist. And just like that, the woman's hypnotism shattered and I was freed from the torment that was her iron grip. Unfortunately, the fuzziness in my head, the ringing in my ears, and the spike being driven into my skull all returned with ten times the intensity.
"Well-" Luka was cut off by my agonized scream as I crumpled to the ground. He barely caught me before I hit the floor, clutching my head. "Are you okay?!" He asked me, but I couldn't respond through the blinding, searing pain. It felt as if something was attempting to rip open my skull from the inside. "Does he look okay to you?" The woman asked apathetically. "Wait here, I have to get him to the temple of Ilias!" Luka shouted as he struggled to carry me out the front door.
I saw multiple villagers spare us glances as we slowly made our way to the temple. 'What, no help for the outsider? You will all bleed for this...Wait, what?' These thoughts scrambled in my mind along many others. Eventually one kind soul assisted Luka with carrying me to the large temple in the center of the village, but I had blacked out before making it through the front door. I had no clue what was going to happen to me, then again, if I did I wouldn't have gone.
Not that I could have resisted in my situation.