Wherever I go online, everyone seems to have this image in their head about how Australia is so hot and it's practically unliveable… Yeah, it's bloody not.
It's a couple hours past midday and I'm freezing my ass off, it's ten degrees Celsius and yet I find myself outside. I don't do 'outside' on a regular day, much less a cold one, I'm the type of person that only leaves bed to go to the fridge, yet here I am walking out to my car.
I don't even know why I'm walking out to my car. I mean if I'm talking literally, I know why. But I don't know why I got a message telling me to go to the local soup store. I would only learn that nefarious mystery out when I got there…
It's pretty strange come to think of it. I was playing a favourite game of mine on my computer when I heard the distinctive moan that doubled as my message notification noise. Which was weird since I don't get messages, ever. I reached over to the general direction I heard my phone moaning.
After slapping the cold plastic of the phone, I latched onto it and like a vampire in sunlight, I pulled my arm holding the phone into the shadows of under my blankets.
Hissing at the sudden flashbang of the bright screen, I waited a few moments for my eyes to be readjusted to the ungodly light emanating from under my blankets, only to see an ominous text showing itself to me.
UNKNOWN: Meet me at the local soup store…or else…
I snorted. Yeah, as if I'd do that. I swipe the notification, resulting in me being brought to the messaging app.
"Stf up stupid idiot. im not scared of some wanker who decided to look up my number in the phone book try something more intimidating than the soup store lmf ass off."
The reply was practically instantaneous, and it was honest to god horrifying. No words had been said by this mysterious person, they seemed to believe in actions more than words as they had sent a photo of me. If it was just any photo of me, I wouldn't've cared, I make the silliest of expressions when I'm getting my photo taken, even my driver's license is a picture of me going cross-eyed with a derpy grin.
But this wasn't a photo of my driver's license…
This man (or woman or gender fluid/gender neutral human) had sent a photo of me making fun of a kid that had fallen over at the local park from the other day. It's a hobby of mine to make fun of stupid kids, I wasn't making fun of the kid because he was black or anything, the kid tried to swing on the monkey bars but miscalculated and face planted.
Never mind the kids skin colour, I was genuinely shaking under my blankets, whether it was because I was cold, or because I was terrified who knows, both were likely. This was really bad… If they managed to get that photo of all things, then who knows what other photos of my other hobbies they had. Even if they only had the one photo, it was incriminating enough to ruin my life. I wasn't in danger legally, something as silly as this wouldn't be illegal or anything (I hope), but it'd ruin my life just the same. Twitter would 'cancel' me… This was more than just life or death.
I didn't want to… But I knew I had to follow Mr. or Mrs. Unknown's instructions or else my life was gone, so if they're going to make me do some sort of malicious shit to get them to delete that photo then I'm going to enjoy myself!
I ripped open the blankets in a vigour I haven't had in literal years and jumped out of my Lightning McQueen racing car bed. The cold air would be excruciating for anyone else that was semi-naked like me, but they didn't have the vibrant electricity of adrenaline pumping through their veins, they simply weren't motivated enough, but I was more than a little motivated.
The biggest concern was what to wear… I had plenty of weird degenerative shit to wear, one could say that I only wear weird shit.
After scanning the single-roomed apartment I saw my distinctive kinky cowgirl boots with stiletto heels. I rushed towards them, putting them on without hesitation, I don't need foolish things such as pants or new underwear, as long as I had my kinky cow-girl boots I was all set.
But was I all set? Why only wear my boots when I could (as my favourite anime says) go beyond! Plus Ultra!
I scanned my apartment again and as if I had gained the Eagle Eye sense from the famous Hitman's Faith video game series from Ubihard studios; all the items I desired for my ridiculous plan were highlighted in a glowing gold colour.
Without any time to lose in making myself look like an embarrassment: I rush towards the extremely large bra in the corner of one of my room. Fastening it on, I wasted no time going for the watermelons. Putting one watermelon in each bra cup as the cup sizes were just that colossal.
After securing the melons, I scurried across the wooden floor boards like the rat I am, for my stylish steampunk mask that was based on the main protagonist from the game 'Unhonoured'. Not only grabbing that but grabbing the huge pink top hat that was right next to it as well.
After equipping my extra-long gothic coat, I ran outside to my bright pink rusted car. People think that I'm irresponsible and immature, but how could I be when I have my seatbelt on and my Pickle-Rick driving gloves on. After readjusting my melons just to be cautious, I raced off towards the soup store.
Which leads us to here where the soup store is in sight. The traffic was medium, pretty easy to notice the amount of traffic, but not enough to delay me much. I parked my car directly outside of the soup store and stared at my phone expectantly.
UNKNOWN: Good, you're here.
UNKNOWN: I want you to not be here. Go back home.
I look at the two messages the person sent me and the anxiety I was feeling, couldn't help but turn into unbridled rage. This prick really made me get out of bed to go to the soup store, just for him to tell me to go back home? Yeah, no. Fuck that.
I started typing furiously on my phone.
"You did not just make me get out of bed just to be told to go back home... Youre going to order me around like the sick pervert you are, and you'r going to fucking like it."
I felt a little bit of smug pride even with the spelling mistakes as I watched my message going from the received status to the read status. Good... Kinky Gentleman: Corvo Attano did not fuck around.
UNKNOWN: …
UNKNOWN: …You certainly have unique characteristics.
Ahh, so he must have seen what I'm wearing.
UNKNOWN: Go home, further instructions await you there.
Ohhh… Now I get it, they're trying to do some sneaky shit. Get me out of my house and plant shit while I'm not there I respect 'the grind' as the kids say.
Understanding now, I turned my car back on (the only thing I can turn on surprisingly and even then, it's a struggle) and backed out of the parking space. Seeing that the medium traffic from earlier had now turned into an absolute ghost town without a single car in sight, I wasted no time in speeding off.
It was only until I reached a cross roads did I decide to stop. Not because I was lost and didn't know which way to go or anything, I knew where I was going. But because I had thought of a clever (and in my opinion) funny insult to hurl at this mystery figure. It's not like there was any traffic to hold up, and if there were, they could either wait, or go past me.
I unlocked my phone with my overly complex password and began typing my funny insult. It was a pretty lofty message since a couple minutes through typing it, I could actually hear a car driving. I didn't bother looking, they can go around me.
The car seemed to be speeding up by the sounds of it. "They're probably drag racing or something" I said out loud to no-one in particular, even though I could only hear one car.
The car only seemed to be getting louder and when I finally finished typing my message, I sent it. Looking up, I went to put my hands on the steering wheel, only to see the car on my right, smash into me.
Whenever I watch movies and all that, they make car crashes look so tame, so peaceful as everything in the car gets flipped around in slow motion… Yeah, I found out that the movies were full of shit.
After being slammed into by the car everything went black…
I woke up in a groggy mess. I was in my car? Why? And why did the outside look upside down? I looked around to get an insight on what had happened, only to notice my Ed Sheeran album cover was on the ceiling... Why? That's not supposed to be there…
I grabbed the album cover from the ceiling and put it in the cd rack next to me, only for the cover to fly back onto the ceiling. Did God decide to invert the gravity, so he could laugh at everyone getting fucked over? It was only when I smelt the gasoline leak did I realize what had actually happened.
Oh… I don't care how I die but could you at least not give me a stereotypical action movie death? I don't want to die in a car explosion.
I unclipped the seatbelt and unsurprisingly face planted into the car ceiling. I laid down for a couple minutes as I recovered. If it was a regular face plant I may have shrugged it off, but I'm still wearing my mask so having the plastic and metal dig into me kind of hurt.
I wasn't laying there for too long as the car door was ripped off its hinges. Ahh, was this my buff fireman to come and save me?
A hand reached into the car and seized my forearm as if it was welded to it. My buff fireman wasn't very gentle as they yanked me out of the car onto the asphalt of the road. Buff, he was. A fireman, he was not.
I looked up at my glorious saviour to see the most stereotypical security guard I've ever even seen. Seven-foot-tall, buff Wesley Snipes 'Blade' looking prick, he even had the Blade haircut and the sunglasses he wore in the movies. But something that Blade didn't wear, was the black unbuttoned-suit revealing the white dress shirt accompanied by his black tie.
This guy literally looked like he would not just break me into two, but break me into quarters.
"Wesley Snipe's evil corporate twin? Is that you?"
Wesley's Twin may not have found my joke funny, but at least he understood it. He sneered and backed up a bit, allowing another man into view. "Thank you for the help Presley Shoots." The man said to Wesley, garnering his and my attention.
The man was black in skin colour, wore the same as Wesley's Twin, except this man had his jacket buttoned-up. He had very short black hair, big ears and an intelligent smile.
Holy fuck…
How in hell did I somehow make Barak Obama my enemy?
"Former president Obama?" I said, my voice somewhat croaking as I had to get over the shock. "What the fuck are you doing in Australia?"
"I was on vacation with my family." He continued to smile at me as he reached for the insides of his jacket's pocket. Pulling out the same photograph that started all of this, he said. "Excuse my language, but you pissed off the wrong family."
My eyes went wide as he unfolded the picture to reveal in the background at the very right side of the picture revealing Obama's wife, looking cross as she stared lasers into my head.
That wasn't some random black kid that I had made fun of, that was OBAMA'S black kid. Like a reptilian, the former president seemed to smell the fear coming from me, or maybe that was the piss he was smelling?
In the most stereotypical 'villain boss' way ever, he clicks his fingers and Wesley's Twin pulls a pistol from the inside of his jacket.
"Wait hold on a bloody minute…" for some reason, my words seemed to stop the vampire killer's evil corporate twin. "You can't just kill me in the middle of town in broad daylight!"
Obama made an exaggerated show of looking for witnesses that could be around. "Oh? And why not? There isn't anyone here. Why do you think there suddenly wasn't any traffic?"
The words hit me like a freight train hitting a homeless person. He somehow removed all possible witnesses. I'm absolutely FUCKED!
"I am a generous man, so I'll give you this… Do you have any last words before my associate here ends your life?
In my panic, I blurted out the first thing in my mind. "If you kill me it's a hate crime and you're racist!"
There was no sound of the gun firing… Only the twitch of Presley Shoot's finger and blackness.
The blackness slowly faded to whiteness, and then back to blackness. And I started seeing some greyish blue blurs. The best way I could describe what I was seeing was as if I was an unfocused camera.
The cacophony of greys, blues, whites and black colours started to mend together to slowly form a picture. But before the picture had fully formed, I started feeling… Motion? It felt like I was on slow and bumpy rollercoaster or something.
I then started to feel the surface I was… Sitting on? My cold and naked feet were resting on what felt like wooden planks, which was also I was sitting on.
I then started hearing things… A lot of things. The sheer number of things I was hearing was almost overstimulating. I could hear the distinctively satisfying clip clop of a horse's hooves, but not just one horse, but many. I could also hear two people to the left of me, they sounded like they were laughing and talking about prisoners for some reason?
Only then, did my vision finally start to unblur itself. I was on a carriage? I looked down to see that my hands were bound. There were three other people in the same carriage that were also bound.
The person in front of me was a white coloured man with chin-length blond hair parted down the middle, a strand of hair on his left braided. He had blue eyes and a rough stubble. His face looked rugged but somewhat handsome. He wore a chain mail which was only barely poking out of the greyish quilted leather armour underneath a relaxing blue cloth which had leather belts fastening it around the torso.
After staring at him for a solid minute, he noticed I was looking at him "Hey, you. You're finally awake. You were trying to cross the border, right? Walked right into that Imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there." The blonde man in front of me had said.
I looked at the other two people to the side of me. The person next to me was similar to the guy in front of me. He was white and had blonde chin-length hair, however unlike the first man, this one had his hair swept back and instead of a braid on the left side, he had one on each side. He sported blue eyes, a bigger nose and a neat beard. The clothing was also different to the first man. He had a monotone colour scheme with a black cloak with a trimmed grey fur and black pants. What was most surprising though was the gag over his mouth as he stared at me disinterestedly.
The last person was to the right of me, but in front of the guy next to me, so about a 45-degree angle. The last man on the carriage was also a white person. Although he looked the exact opposite of the previous two. The previous two looked noble, like warriors. This guy was certainly not noble or a warrior.
He had shoulder-length, brownish-red coloured hair that was roughly swept back in contrast to the other two's neat hair. He had brown coloured eyes and sported a muddy and haggard face that expressed a look of terror on his pointy and angular face.
His clothing wasn't that great either. He was wearing a sorry excuse for clothing, it was probably more accurate to call them rags glued together than actual clothing. Muddy, grotty, and a disgusting yellow-brown colour.
"Imagine not having proper clothes, what a fucking loser" I sneered to myself.
"You're not faring any better." The brunette (ginger?) haired person snapped back.
In a look of confusion, I look down and looked at myself for once. What was I wearing? I was wearing an outfit identical to the person I was just making fun of! "Where are my kinky cow-girl boots and my boobs?!" I shouted to myself in shock.
One of the guards at the front of the carriage interrupted my thoughts. "Shut up back there!"
"Where the fuck am I?" I asked, whipping my head back to the first person who addressed me.
"I don't know where we are, but the only thing I know for real, is that where we are going, Sovngarde awaits." It was when the blonde finished talking did the brunette snapped.
"Damn you Stormcloaks! Skyrim was fine until you came along. The Empire was nice and lazy. If they hadn't been looking for you, I could've stolen that horse and been halfway to Hammerfell." Why did these words feel familiar to me? Stormcloaks? Skyrim? Hammerfell?
I felt nauseous and I almost didn't notice the brunette talking to me. "You there... You and me, we shouldn't be here. It's these Stormcloaks the Empire wants."
"I don't care. I don't even know what a Stormcloak is. What is Skyrim and Hammerfell? I have no bloody idea where I am and here you are speaking fucken Spanish terms that I don't understand!" I said, letting loose my Australian accent. Wait… What was an Australian? Was that where I came from, or was it an object or something?
The brunette paused, before barking with laughter. "This is hilarious!" He said in a sarcastic, solemn tone. "I'm in a carriage about to be executed with two Stormcloaks and an insane buffoon!" He continued before howling with more laughter.
"Hey!" I shouted at him in annoyance. "I'm only insane on a Saturday night if you know what I mean." I said with a grin at the end.
One of the guards next to me was sick of my shit and smacked me on the head. After recovering my senses after that dazing hit, I re-noticed the gagged man. "What's wrong with him? Did he upset the Twitch mods?"
"Watch your tongue. You're speaking to Ulfric Stormcloak, the true High King." The ungagged blonde man replied with. More names I feel should be familiar… Ulfric? High King? This was getting more and more confusing.
The brunette made a shocked gasping noise but kept quiet nonetheless. Has he finally accepted death? Wait, why am I being executed? I could vaguely recall that the blonde-haired man's first words to me addressed why, but I couldn't remember them. "Why am I here? Am I a Stormcloak too?"
"Gods no! You would never be a Stormcloak. Only those truly loyal to Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak can ever become a Stormcloak." Not sure why, but when the man had said this, everything clicked back in my head and I understood just where I was.
"Holy fuck! I'm in Skyrim?!" I shouted to myself. The brunette snickered quietly to himself. No… Not just any brunette. I remember his name!
"Lokir of Rorikstead" I said under my breath which garnered his attention.
"How do yo-" I cut him off as I pointed to the blonde hared man.
"Ralof of Riverwood." The confused expression on his face was glorious to me. I pointed at the other one and was going to say his name, but then I realized that they already told me his name. So instead of saying his name I just raised my hands in a praising manner.
"LET'S FUCKING GOOO!" I shouted to the heavens. "THIS IS AN ABSOLUTE POG CHAMP MOMENT!"
All three of my carriage buddies looked simultaneously confused and concerned. I looked to Ralof with a smug, shit-eating grin and said "don't worry bro, we're going to be fine. We aren't dying today." I wanted to explain how I knew but I couldn't think of the words that would correctly explain my situation, so I decided to go with the good old 'time travel' excuse. "I come from the future in a land where there are automatic carriages don't need horses."
Ralof seemed incredulous, whilst Ulfric appeared sceptical. On the other hand, Lokir in his absolute despair, latched onto my words like they were already facts. "Thank the Nine!"
"Ahh shit, sorry Lokir. I should've been specific." I started, his incredulous look became weary. "When I said we're fine, I meant us three." I said, pointing to Ralof, Ulfric and I.
His weary expression became horrified. Just as I heard the guard to the left of me about to hit me again, I raised my hands in a defensive manner. "Wait, hold on a second. I'll be quiet now. Promise!"
For some reason, the guard accepts my offer and looks back to the road. I turn to the two Stormcloaks. It may sound ridiculous, but a Dragon's going to come and interrupt my execution.
"Preposterous!" Ralof scoffed at me.
"It's true. I promise. Not just any dragon though, but Alduin, The World Eater"
"Alduin The World Eater?" Surely not, I thought he was just a myth… A legend?"
Ulfric made the first sound he's made this whole time, but whatever he was trying to say fell on deaf ears because of the gag in his mouth… The gag that could be easily removed…
I reached for his face and took the gag off in the quietest way I could manage. He moved around his mouth, getting used to being gag-less.
"When misrule takes its place at the eight corners of the world. When the Brass Tower walks and Time is reshaped. When the thrice-blessed fail and the Red Tower trembles. When the Dragonborn Ruler loses his throne, and the White Tower falls. When the Snow Tower lies sundered, kingless, bleeding: The World-Eater wakes, and the Wheel turns upon the Last Dragonborn." Ulfric mutters so that we could hear.
"Sorry, what's that supposed to mean?" I asked.
"The prophecy of The World Eater, written in the book of the Dragonborn." Ulfric replied without hesitation. "The first line references the year 3E 399, when The Eternal Champion uses The Staff of Chaos to free the emperor. The second referring to the Warp in the West event. The third line is probably about The Fall of Red Mountain. The forth is the Oblivion crisis. And now we are in a land sundered, kingless and bleeding. Skyrim is at war with itself. The prophecy and this strange man make sense."
Whatever the FUCK Ulfric just said was completely lost on me. I never played the other games so I wouldn't know about the events.
"Okay, you talk too much. You're losing your talking privileges again" I said, before gagging him again.
Ulfric looked at me with an unbelievable expression that screamed to me "really bro? Did you really just do that?"
I found his disappointed expression hilarious.
"I don't want to risk the guards fucking me senseless. I'm having a nap, wake me up when we get to Helgen."
Ralof looked in wonder "How do you know we're going to Helgen?"
That was a bit of a bruh moment… "I literally told you I come from the future."
Ralof made an 'oh' sound as I rolled over and went to sleep.
Ralof the prick, did not in fact wake me up, when we got to Helgen.
I was jolted awake with the harsh pulling of the guard. He pulled me to my feet before harshly pushing me off the carriage.
Landing in the mud, I got up, tired and pissed off. I looked at the guard in the eyes and said "when the dragon comes, I'm killing you." The guard looked at me like he had no idea what I was saying… But that didn't matter because I knew what I was saying.
I ignored Lokir's panicked ramblings and smiled, as I practically skipped ahead of the pack, waiting for Hadvar to start the list.
"Step towards the block when we call your name. One at a time." One of the commanders ordered to the pack of prisoners.
"Empire loves their damned lists." Ralof and I said at the same time, albeit I had a mocking tone. Ralof looked at me confused for a moment, before a smile immerged on his face. I'm not sure if it was because he found it funny, or because he had finally, truly, believed what I've been telling him this whole time.
The man I knew as Hadvar called out the first name on his list "Ulfric Stormcloak. Jarl of Windhelm."
Ralof was about to speak before I interrupted him. "It has been an honour, Jarl Ulfric." If he didn't believe me before, he definitely did now considering I said exactly what he was about to say. Ulfric walked to the left of us towards the execution square.
"Lokir of Rorikstead" Hadvar announced again.
"Here we go." I mumbled to Ralof who looked confused for the umpteenth time.
"No, I'm not a rebel. You can't do this!" Lokir took off running, desperately trying to run away from his death. But obviously, the dumb fuck never knew about the concept of archers because as he ran, he was riddled with six different arrows before he dropped dead into the harsh stone of the road.
"Oh crap, maybe I should've told him not to run…" I thought to myself out loud.
Ralof heard this and softly laughed in a sadistic manner. Bloody hell, have I already started infecting him with 'me' disease?
Ralof's name was called next. He tensed up and looked to me, before I nodded and he visibly relaxed. And went to stand next to one of the Stormcloak's already there.
"You there, step forward." Hadvar called.
I skipped straight into the arms of Hadvar, forcing him to carry me in a bridal style. "Hey there cutie" I said, putting an overly emphasised kiss face.
Hadvar dropped me and one of the soldiers next to him pulled me to my feet. "Who are you?"
"Good morning Hunky Hadvar. I'm not on the list, but the Empire's corrupt and gonna execute me anyway, so I'll just be on my way!" I said with a smile and a skip in my step.
I skipped over to where Ralof was waiting for Alduin to inevitably strike. General Tullius was already talking to Ulfric when I finally stopped walking.
"Ulfric Stormcloak. Some here in Helgen call you a hero. But a hero doesn't use a power like Th-"
"Shut up and get along with it. We all know the backstory!"
Tullius looked at me with the biggest stink eye I think I've ever seen, just as he was about to continue his speech 'heroic speech' to Ulfric, the roar of Alduin could be heard from the distance.
Ralof looked at me again with that same surprised and wonderous look on his face. It was starting to piss me off. "I've already told you what happens and proven it. If you look at me like that again, I'm breaking your legs and watching you crawl away from the dragon.
His expression turned to frightened as he looked onwards. I did the same and saw that the priestess was giving us our rights.
She seemed to drag on and it had gotten to the point where I had just had enough. "Shut up, fuck off and let's get this over with."
She wasn't very impressed with me but can you blame me? I don't want to be in Helgen all day. The quicker I get to Riverwood, the quicker the real fun begins.
She let out a very snobby 'hmph' noise. "As you wish."
I made my way to the chopping block and hovered over it. Waiting for one of the soldiers to put me into the execution position. "Come on, I've got places to be, I don't have all bloody morning!"
They kicked behind my knees, forcing me to bend over and kneel on the ground. Then, with their foot, they pushed me to the executioner's block.
Another 'mysterious' roar had interrupted the execution. As I waited for Alduin to come, I looked at Ralof and grinned my teeth at him. But maybe I shouldn't have looked at Ralof… Because if I hadn't looked at him, I wouldn't have seen the person next to him. The man next to Ralof wasn't anything special. He wore the same armour as Ralof and had a similar hair style to Ralof as well, except his hair was red. And it was then when I realized my mistake…
Alduin comes when the main character/dragonborn/player is about to be executed, so in my haste I wanted to speed it up…
But the dragonborn was the second to be executed. I, however, was not the second.
The axe swung down…
(I have made a severe lapse of judgement and I sincerely apologize for the cringe fest that I have created)
This submission was a part of an Emerald Library writing competition starting on June 30, 2021. To participate or vote in the competition, you're welcome to join the discord link we have on the profile.