"Say pal, you don't look so good," said a voice that was somehow both familiar and strange.
Wilson managed to register that he was lying on his back. He tried to stir, but he felt very weak, and his head hurt, as though it had been hit by something hard, though he had no idea how that could be or why. He knew that voice, though…
"You'd better find something to eat before night comes," the voice said, and Wilson heard a poof sound.
Wilson forced his eyes open and pushed himself up into a sitting position - his strength was returning remarkably fast, and his headache was going away just as quickly, which was…
He lost his barely-started train of thought as he registered what he was seeing.
He was sitting on a very square patch of grass - about four meters by four meters, he guessed. Around that, the ground was darker and more barren, and there were trees - all evergreen trees, just like the ones that surrounded his house.
Where am I? Wilson wondered. It seemed logical that he was somewhere in the forest that surrounded his house, but when he stood up and looked around, he couldn't see any of the mountains that were always visible in the distance from where he lived. He could see several sizes of trees - even some spindly, leafless saplings - but even they seemed different from the ones near his house, somehow.
Wilson sat back down, closed his eyes, and tried to think. He went through his most recent memories…Another experiment had failed miserably, he'd sat down in his chair, and then that voice had started coming through his radio-
He stopped. That voice! It had been the same voice as the one that had just told him to find food before nightfall - the difference that had made it strange was the lack of static from the radio.
He remembered building the strange machine somehow, with no idea what it was supposed to do…The mysterious man's impatience with his hesitance to activate it…The laughter he had heard through the radio as shadow hands had grabbed him and pulled him down…
Whoever he is, he brought me here, Wilson concluded. Wherever "here" is…
Where is here, anyway? I was pulled into my own floor by shadow hands…
Wilson sighed and shook his head. Shadow hands. A scientific anomaly, if not impossibility. And they had pulled him through the floor. Through the floor! His floor was very solid - it had supported the weight of every invention, big or small, he had ever tried to create - and to have been pulled through it…
There are two possibilities here, Wilson decided. One: I have finally gone mad. I suppose it wouldn't be too surprising if that turned out to be the case, given my total isolation and constant failures. I'd be a bit disappointed by my own mind, though - a lot of things about all this have already contradicted common science…but if that is it, then there are also two secondary possibilities: One, I am hallucinating everything around me; or two, I am no longer hallucinating, but I was wandering through the forest around my house during all the hours I thought I was building that machine, though I would have to have walked quite a ways.
The other possibility…is that I have been contacted and abducted by someone from a parallel dimension.
That possibility was exciting. There were a lot of scientific theories about other universes and different planes of existence, but nothing had ever been observed or proven by anyone before. This would mean a whole new set of rules - it would be the most revolutionary scientific discovery in history! A wide grin split Wilson's face, and he stood up again. This very place, whatever it was, could turn out to be everything he had ever been searching for and more…!
Provided I can get home, he realized, his mood sobering once more. He looked around again. And it doesn't look like that will be happening anytime in the foreseeable future, he added to himself.
Again, he remembered the mystery man's advice to him to find something to eat before nightfall. He looked at the sky. It was hard to be sure, but it looked like the sun had risen recently, which would give him a full day to explore and find something…but while he was an expert in many fields, wilderness survival wasn't something he had ever directly studied. He would have to rely on innovation and his knowledge of plants in general in order to get by.
Finding a way home is what's most important, but my first priority is to make sure I don't starve while I'm here, Wilson decided, and he chose a random direction and started walking.
He looked carefully at the trees he passed, trying to put his finger on what made them seem strange in and of themselves. They're all piney, he thought. Almost…too much so.
He stopped and took a closer look at one of the trees that weren't piney - the saplings. Baby trees are so cute, he thought as he looked. How does this one survive without any leaves, though? For the sapling was completely bare. Really, it was just an enormous bundle of twigs that were all stuck together.
Twigs.
It is the nature of man to conquer his environment, rather than submit to it, Wilson thought; for a gentleman, this is more of a duty. If I'm going to be here for a while, I'll need tools, and sticks tend to be useful.
He stripped the slim trunk of the sapling of its branches in the space of only two or three seconds. When he was done, he had a bundle of twigs. The twigs were small, but they were very pliable, so maybe he could weave them together into a more useful shape.
Suddenly, the bare sapling wilted, as though the trunk no longer had the will to keep standing straight. Wilson stared. How did that happen? he wondered. How and why? He tapped the wilted stick, but it yielded no clues. Still, it looked…sad. It was almost as though it was bowing down in defeat at having its branches taken away.
Well, that'll teach him to think he has the right to keep his twigs, Wilson decided, and he resumed walking, carrying his bundle in his hand.
Less than a minute later, he stopped again, noticing a tuft of grass. The grass was very tall, and when Wilson investigated it, he found that it was dry, but not brittle. He looked at the twigs in his hand, then back at the grass, an idea forming in his head.
He bent down, grabbed a sharp rock that was sitting on the ground nearby, and quickly cut the grass with it, leaving only some small stubs protruding from the dirt. Grass is more useful than most people give it credit for, Wilson thought, having actually used it once or twice in some of his more…strange attempts at invention. Together with these twigs…
He looked again at the twigs, which he had set down beside him. He quickly did a rough calculation in his head, and concluded that he didn't have quite enough twigs for what he was thinking. It shouldn't be a problem, though, he thought; there are more of those saplings around here.
Then something else occurred to him, and he looked at the rock he was holding. He didn't know what kind of rock it was, but it was very sharp, and not too small, either. He looked back at his twigs again, getting another idea. It's kind of primitive, but I suppose beggars can't be choosers…
Not giving himself time for second, rational thoughts, he set down the rock and started weaving the twigs together into a sturdier whole, setting aside some of the longer, thinner ones. Once he had a short rod that wouldn't bend too much under stress, he picked up the sharp rock and the twigs he'd set aside and wove the rock into the base, the longest and sharpest side facing outwards. He had to carefully make a couple of small notches in the rock for the bendy twigs to hook onto, but nothing ended up damaged. It was a little crude-looking, but when he was done, Wilson had a tool that could barely pass as an axe.
He grinned at his creation. I may be a failure at creating new inventions, but I can make things that are already tried and true, he thought to himself.
He stood up, turned to the nearest tree, and started chopping it down. The axe worked a lot better than he expected, and the tree was down in less than a minute.
"Take that, nature!" he shouted aloud, grinning as the tree fell. He felt good - better than he had in years. This was how things were supposed to be: A gentleman in control of his situation and surroundings, and nature itself serving his purposes and bending to his will. If it wasn't for his passion for science and his dream of recognition, Wilson could already almost see himself staying here.
He quickly stripped the tree of everything unusable, then cut what he could use into more manageable portions. When he was done, he had two decent-sized logs, as well as a pinecone that had fully matured. Out of pure intrigue, Wilson picked up the pinecone. It almost seemed to hum in his hand a little, as though a baby form of the tree it had the potential to grow into was inside and trying to get out. Wilson shrugged, then scooped out a handful of dirt from the ground and buried the pinecone, figuring he might as well.
At last, he stood up, his makeshift axe in his left hand. He looked at his logs and his bundle of grass, smiling at how quickly he was managing to acclimate to and conquer the wilderness he had been cast into.
And then it dawned on him.
How am I going to carry all of this? he wondered, his grin vanishing. It would be best for me to keep moving so I can find something to eat - and a way home, for that matter - but I went to the trouble of harvesting these; I won't just leave them here.
He sighed and walked over to the pile of grass. After examining it for a second, he decided it was worth at least trying to stuff it into one of his pockets, so he gathered it up into a bundle in his fist and tried to cram it all into his right pocket.
The grass didn't resist.
Wilson blinked and looked down at his pocketed hand. He could still feel the grass he was holding, but he couldn't see any of it sticking out - all he saw was a bulge from his fist.
He pulled his hand back out, still holding onto the grass. The grass came out exactly as it had been put in, but it seemed to be coming from nothing. He put it back in again, and again, it vanished into his pocket.
Now that's interesting, Wilson thought; and, being a scientist, his natural instinct was to experiment.
He released his hold on the grass while it was still - theoretically - in his pocket, then pulled out his hand. His pocket looked completely empty from the outside. When he put his hand back into his pocket and tried to retrieve the grass, he found it without a problem and pulled it out again, completely unruffled. He stuck the grass back in, pulled out his hand, then opened his pocket without reaching in. He could see the grass, but while it didn't look any smaller, it seemed to take up almost no space.
Somehow, a spatial anomaly has manifested in my pocket, Wilson thought, fascinated. But is it my pocket, or is it this place I'm in? If the latter, it would support the possibility that he had been pulled into a parallel dimension, which, while exciting (and more than a little bit of a relief), would make finding a way home very difficult. Still…
On a hunch, Wilson walked over, picked up one of his logs, and tried to put it in his pocket. It seemed like a crazy thing to do, but like the grass, the log completely vanished into it. What was more, Wilson couldn't feel any of the weight that should come with carrying a whole log. He tried again with the other log, and got the same result.
Absolutely fascinating, he thought. I wonder if it's only this pocket…
He tried fitting his makeshift axe into his left pocket. Like everything he'd put in his right pocket, it vanished, its weight somehow negated.
Amazing. I have to find out what sort of rules make this work…
He had none of his scientific equipment with him, though, and when he looked around, there was only nature in every direction as far as his eyes could see.
Later, he decided; for now, I should keep moving.