A young woman sat at a desk, playing a computer game and directing her avatar on the screen through several battles. Frantic clicking broke the pattern of occasional clicks sporadically. Inept at tactics, she was forced to start over several times, but her determination wins out and she made it past every battle- eventually. The sun has long since gone down, and the computer screen was the only thing lighting the room. It shed light on a slightly tanned face framed by untied straight black hair and hazel-gray eyes flecked with gold. She was wearing the white t-shirt and black shorts of her school's physical education uniform, and her name was emblazoned across the bottom of the shirt – SILAS WU.
The room was a mess. Silas was not a neat person. The bed remained unmade, several books mixed in the rumpled covers. Papers scattered the floor, and the little trash bin was overflowing with papers. She didn't eat in the room, so that much was avoided. Several toys scattered the floor, along with what seemed to be a pen, a toolkit, four backpacks, and a pencil box. A wooden practice sword leaned against one of the bookshelves lining the room walls, and a toy crossbow was perched on top of the dresser. Both were dusty and unused. There is also a heavy metal stake that leaned against the shelves. The plastic sword that leaned against the back of her wooden chair seemed to be made more of tape than it was of the original plastic however, showing signs of use. The desk she sat at was little better. The textbooks and assorted reference materials were stacked in a slipshod mess all over the desk except for the clear space for her laptop. There was even the glint of steel from a knife under the materials. They were not organized in any sort of manner, and it often took an hour to find what she needed.
She glanced at the time and started. 3:00 AM, it says. She still had to get up at seven the next morning- she had to go to sleep now, or she wouldn't get any sleep at all. She rubbed her eyes tiredly, finally feeling exhaustion from the late night. She stretched, flexed muscles that have been still for hours and stumbled to the unmade bed across from the desk. She crumpled on top of the covers, dragging the ends over to cover her body. Her eyes closed, and she shifted uneasily into the covers before stilling. The stillness doesn't last long, and she flipped to sleep on her side, then on the other side. By the time her body settled into the stillness of true sleep, her head was on the opposite end of the pillow and she was curled into a tiny ball.
The computer screen continued to glow in the darkness. The single window was open to a game, and the characters wait patiently for the sleeping girl to direct their next move, occasionally letting out a complaint muted by the sound controls. Sound was rarely, if ever on while she plays video games. Silas had forgotten to save and shut down the computer for the night, and the computer won't go to sleep with the game running. The night wore on as she sleeps, but just as morning's first glow touched the sky, the computer screen goes on the fritz, blinking furiously. The image skewed, then tore from side to side, and swirled into a whirling blur of colors. The girl remains uncharacteristically unaware of the changing light levels and didn't even shift in response.
The image on the fritz didn't remain on the computer screen. Like a virus among computer files, it spread rapidly from the screen to consume the laptop, the desk, continuing to the wall and floor, before reaching her bed. For a moment after it reaches her bed, everything around her became pixilated and glowing. Then, everything went dark.
It begins, Silas.Something whispered.
Silas roused. Awareness filtered in as she slowly registers her surroundings. Beneath her sprawled out body was a hard, cold stone floor, and her shoulder pressed against a wall of solid rock. A soft buzz reached her ears as she completely roused. She felt chilled and sore, as if she'd been there for a while. Dry eyes gummed up slowly opened to see a dimly lit hallway. She blinked several times with effort to clear the debris from her eyes. Silas was reluctant to move, but levered her upper body up to get a better view of the area anyway, shaking her head to get strands of black hair out of her vision with little result. The teenager rubbed her eyes with a hand. She feels oddly calm as she stared at the darkness beyond the exit.
For a heartbeat, two, she remained calm. Then, panic set in as she comprehends she was not home. Was not, in fact, anywhere she recognized. The teenager not yet out of childhood scrambled to her feet in spite of protesting joints, fear a bitter taste in the back of her throat and her breath coming in short, panting gasps. Her head was pounding.Where the fuck am I?The thought went unsaid, caught before exiting her mouth.
She swung her head side to side, squinting at her surroundings because of her poor vision. A hand went up to adjust her glasses. She froze as her knuckles touched the bill of a hat she hadn't known was there and fingers touched only skin. A fresh wave of panic hit her; unthinkingly, she dropped to her knees.
Her hands patted the ground and searched her pockets, groping around for her glasses in a blind panic. Moments passed before the edge of crippling fear subsides and she gave up searching for her eyeglasses. She leaned back against the wall, attempting to slow her quickened breath. The bitter, almost sizzling, tang of fear remains in her mouth despite her attempts to calm herself. Silas knew she needed to make a rational decision, unclouded by fear or adrenaline, although she was not the steadiest person in instances of emergency.I'm not home. I don't know where I am. Logically, that means- what, exactly? It means I need to find out where I am. It means I need to make a decision. Stay or go.
It wasn't a hard decision.Go.Silas had always gone searching instead of waiting for someone to find her. It wasn't the smartest course of action normally, but who ever said she was smart needed their heads checked, in her opinion. The gray-eyed girl rose to her feet, entire body groaning with the movement. Her back crackled and snapped as she straightened and her left knee felt odd like something had been joined together improperly, but then again it nearly always did. Her breathing was raspy, and her throat felt slightly congested. The ache in the joints of fingers and knees came from how thoroughly they were chilled, although her left knee was feeling the ache more acutely. She brushed off her off-white short-sleeved shirt and thin green jacket absently, before bending over to rub her knees through tan cloth. Nothing she was wearing is something she remembered putting on, but that wasn't important in the context of not being home.
Relying on her sense of touch more than sense of sight, she ran her hand along the wall as she tried to make the decision of which way to go. She might have made the decision to go looking for a way home, but how to start was another question. Silas' head felt like it was spinning and she was utterly disoriented.
The wall was made of stone blocks, the edges cut so precisely that she can barely feel the cracks. Silas tried to remember any instances of this type of construction, but any modern-day construction that she could think of off the top of her head used mortar to join the cracks. She put aside the information as useless. The teenager turned her attention to the dark exit. There were no more clues to be found in this location. That wasn't what she was pausing for anyway.
Silas didn't want to go into the darkness. Her sight was already bad enough without her glasses. Adding darkness to the mix would only make it worse. She didn't attempt it, instead turning to head towards the other end.
She got moving, flexing stiff joints absently as she walked around the corner and then towards the other exit, which was lit. Her left knee pops and clicks inaudibly, but she could feel those pops and clicks as she bent her knees. She paused to bend and straighten her knees a few more times. After that, the clicking was much less frequent. Silas had never been certain why. It worked, and that was all that mattered.
Beyond the exit, the light flickered and fluctuated like a damaged electric light. She entered the room cautiously, first peering past the door frame before stepping into the room with the strange contraption flashing with electricity. It was as she takes her first steps to edge around the machine that a bolt of lightning arced out with a loud snap.
The abrupt light left her blinking away spots. Where the bolt had streaked to, was a creature the size of a large hawk or eagle. It floated- hovered - in the air. The girl cursed her poor vision as she kept her eyes on the fuzzy blob. Her instincts screamed wrongwrongwrongwrong,but were interrupted by current events before she could investigate just why they were being set off like that.
The attack was not something she was familiar with, not that she was all that familiar with fighting in the first place. She failed to make an attempt to dodge. The bolt of lightning struck her directly on the shoulder. She crumpled, but caught herself on all fours, muscles twitching like she'd been hit by a taser, and held in a yelp of pain.
The creature- whatever it was- was upon her before she had fully recovered. It lashed at her head with talons like an eagle's, aiming for her eyes. She jerked back, simultaneously turning her head away. The claws raked the side of her head in a glancing blow, but Silas could still feel something wet welling up around the stinging pain. It was blood. She hissed quietly, left eye half-closed, but still snatched at the location she last saw her attacker.
She got lucky. Her hand managed to grasp one of the bony, bat-like wings. She dragged it from striking range of her eyes with all the strength she could bring to bear. Still on her knees, she brought her other hand forward, ignoring semi-successfully the tearing pain as her enemy savaged her arm with tooth and claw. She grabbed the neck before being forced to let go with her left. Snarling, teeth bared as air rasps at the back of her throat, she smashed it into the ground with the power of her weight. She was not going to let it shock her again- she had to keep it stunned. Her fingers dug into its neck with a death grip. She shifted her weight to her right, lifting her left leg around to firmly step on the creature's back. Her weight shifts to her left; she was now standing in more of a crouch than a kneel, and she heard something crunch. The girl yanked upward, hearing a crack as something in the creature snapped. A pause.
The body did not move. The creature was dead. She tumbled backwards off the body, landing heavily. The sound of the crackling contraptions returned to her ears along with awareness of her harsh panting. Her throat ached, and she coughed heavily. For the first time, she truly saw the critter, and it wasn't a bat or any animal she recognized. She studied it without really processing what she was seeing. Her mind felt unfocused, fogged, and downright wobbly; although she was not sure the last didn't come from the shakiness in her hands. There was a sour taste in the back of her throat, and her stomach roiled anxiously. She retched, turning to a side, but there was nothing to purge. The nausea didn't come from the killing, though, she was certain of that much, despite her world having literally changed around her while she slept. There was very little guilt at killing the creature. It was not human, it was trying to kill her, and it definitely wasn't one of 'hers'. It was an easy mindset to fall into, somewhat too easy considering the society she had been raised in. Am I a sociopath or mentally deranged? She wondered idly; she'd never really cared all that much for people outside of her 'bubble'.
She stayed in that position for a couple moments, eyes on the dead body of the bat-like creature, recuperating from the battle and pushing away the pain in her left arm. Then she levered herself to her feet and stumbled blindly away from the room back into the hallway. Once a distance away from the buzz of electricity, she slumped against a wall, closing her eyes in exhaustion. It was the first time she had been in combat or anything resembling combat, and the fight had left her without the energy to continue moving. It felt like the time she'd played the whole entire basketball match in middle school because some of her team mates hadn't arrived. She didn't even make the attempt to treat bleeding wounds. Her thoughts drifted back towards the battle and the blurred moments she remembered of the creature. The creature was something she is certain doesn't exist in the world she lived in, no matter how much like a bat it seemed to be.
Suddenly, the teenager heard footsteps interrupting her thoughts. She bolted to her feet through rubbery muscles and spinning head, taking a defensive stance, cold air sharp and burning in her windpipe. Something had already attacked her once, and something else might also attack her. Silas knew that her cautiousness was unlikely to do her much use. She didn't have enough energy to run far, let alone fight back.
They- whoever they are- rounded the corner. There were four of them; a girl with reddish hair, a woman with braided brown hair, a giant of a man with a bald and tattooed head, and a young man with dark brown hair. All of them were armed and some, armored. Silas glanced at each in turn. None of them seemed in the best of health, but they were probably still better equipped to deal with the situation physically than she was. She wasn't an athlete, and was, by her world's standards, slightly out of shape. At least she wasn't obese or fat. Fat might do her some good, her mind reminded her."W-Who are you?" She asked, voice choking through layers of mucus as if she hadn't spoken for days on end. She probably hadn't, given that she had no idea how long has passed since her last waking moment before arriving here by unknown means.
Silas tensed, ready to flee, although she was unlikely to outrun the group. She could do but try. "My name is Adrian," the young man said in a deep voice. "This is Imoen, " he gestured to the red-haired girl, "this is Jaheira," the woman gave a curt nod, "and that is Minsc," the massive man gave a friendly grin.
She swallowed, relaxing but slightly. "My name is Silas. Do you know where I am?"
They are not immediately hostile. That was good. Silas knew nothing of the four. That was bad. They seem faintly familiar in the back of her mind, as if she'd seen them somewhere before. The teenager scrambled for the information, trying to figure out just what she knew about them. Any information was better than none, and it would make the situation feel less out of control. "We're lost as well," the young man admitted after a moment. "Where was the last place you remember?"
He was wary of her. She was wary of him, but there was very little she can do, with neither informational nor physical superiority. "I remember being at home, in Palo Alto. You?" Something in the back of her mind clicked into place.
"My companions tell me that we were on the Sword Coast, near Baldur's Gate."
A.N. Well, it begins. First story, yay! Any more is unlikely to be up until after January. I think Silas is way too calm to be me anymore. Or anyone normal. Oh well.
EDIT: Well, I failed in my promise to update. *chuckles nervously* I really hope no one was expecting it. But I edited the chapter to my liking six months later. Not promising anything, however.