Noah Armstrong slid over to the injured woman, naked, frantically trying to remember the steps of CPR. At the same time, he wondered if she might just slash him with the sword at her side if she woke up. He only prayed that this situation was really a dream.

  ***

  Noah's competitive spirit first awakened in elementary school, and it wasn't long-lived.

  One day, the principal had announced a reading competition with a hefty cash prize, in the eyes of a kid anyway.

  At the time, Noah's best friend had been a person whose home was the library, so they made a promise to each other that they would read more than anyone else, and they would do their best to meet in the finals.

  He failed. Two days after the competition announcement, Noah had all but forgotten about the competition. His friend had gone on to the semi-finals, while Noah had read only three books out of the fifty they had chosen together. It was the first of many failures.

  A few years later, he'd seen his brothers drawings hung in the art room, receiving praises from teachers and students alike. So he had tried to draw. He'd left it soon, after deciding that his hands weren't fit for it.

  He had grown up a few years, and the tension around the house had gotten worse. Noah decided to study hard, get a scholarship, and escape home for a year or two. He couldn't do it. After that, he acknowledged that wasn't a person who could achieve much, and so he aimed for a regular office job.

  So why could he still not do it? He was holding that history book in his hands, but he couldn't read. Words didn't register.

  He put down the book and sat on his computer chair. It hadn't been fifteen minutes since he started studying, but he decided that today was one of these days when he just couldn't study, so it would be a waste of time to try and force it. Instead, he would spend the rest of the day gaming to finish more games and free-up time for studying later. Deep down, he feared that he was only coming up with excuses to clear-up his conscience.

  Sometimes he wondered if others fell into the same dilemma. He wanted to sit down and study, he really wanted to, but looking at the book made his mind magically shut down. Did other people struggle to force it as much as he did? Was he just a failed human?

  The guilt ate up at him, and he stared emptily at the monitor. It was a suffocating sensation that he could not escape. It was raining outside, so he had nowhere he could go, and no one at home to talk to. Now that he didn't want to play, nor did he want to study, Noah himself couldn't tell what he wanted to do.

  Finally, Noah realized that he was going down an unhealthy spiral of thoughts and he desperately needed a change of scenery. It was a crazy idea, but he grabbed an umbrella from the rack beside the door and went outside, not knowing where he was headed. The place didn't matter.

  It was dark and slippery, so he walked carefully. More than that, he wasn't used to the streets at night. The darkness transformed it into a different place, something like a parallel realm of the same streets he walked everyday at noon.

  He chose to go to the park situated around half-way to his school, driven by the curiosity to see if anyone else was crazy to take a walk there in that weather.

  Actually, he met a few people out on the way, but the park itself was empty. It made sense; it was even more dimly lit than the streets around his house, with only one light shining in the distance. He walked in the direction of that light. Noah didn't know why, but that tiny light looked strangely attractive, like it was inviting him. But he wasn't a mosquito, was he? His thoughts were getting strange, but we slowly wandered to the light anyway.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  He was feeling around his way in the dark, trying to reach the source of light, when even that light went off. He was starting to feel dizzy, but he assumed that this was the effect of walking in total darkness and drenching rain. He tried to turn back in the direction he came from, but the dizziness got worse. He no longer knew which direction he was headed.

  Soon enough, he lost the feeling of the ground beneath his feet, and fear took over. A bunch of sensations attacked him next. It felt like he was swooping around in the air. Then a feeling of floating down an ice-cold river, only that river was crowded by whispering ghosts. The sensations got increasingly weirder, to the point that he couldn't tell what to make of them. This lasted for what felt like half an hour.

  Finally, journey came to an end, and his vision sharpened gradually. When he opened his eyes, he took a jumped back in surprise and tripped. He fell on a transparent surface, the stars shining beneath his feet. Things were still not making sense.

  He was standing in the sky, surrounded by distant stars from all directions. A huge, dark figure extended an arm to him. The hazy purple edges of that figure made it look like some kind of divine woman. A linking constellation of stars extended from her fingertips in a zigzag that ended on her shoulder. With her hand, she made a motion that urged him to step closer.

  He didn't move. Not that he could trust his own brain at the moment, and he was most likely just having a fever dream, but his instincts warned him not to touch her. He took a step back.

  The woman shook. The figure did not have facial features, but her motions told him that she was angry. A divine figure was angry at him. She lifted her hand as though to swat him like a bug. He turned around and tried to run away, but the huge hand came down, and everything went dark.

  ***

  Noah woke up, and the sun was shining down on him. He was struggling to open his eyes, but he could tell from the heat that it was noon. His first thoughts were gratefulness that the awful nightmare had ended, and being shocked that no one had woken him for breakfast.

  His heart sank as he realized that the sunlight wasn't supposed to cover him from head to toe. He opened his eyes to see himself lying directly on grass, his body wet and itchy. It hadn't ended. Trees surrounded him from all directions, and there was no place like that near his house.

  Maybe someone had drugged and kidnapped him, but it didn't make sense to leave him here. Many possibilities wrestled in his mind, but none of them led anywhere.

  It didn't look like he was in immediate danger, so he decided to absorb the situation more slowly. Panic wasn't going to help.

  First, he stood up. Lying on the grass—contrary to what movies had led him to think—was not a comfortable experience. He couldn't get over the sensation of bugs crawling over him.

  Then, he checked his body. No apparent cuts or bruises. Actually, he felt more refreshed than he had felt in years, as though somebody had oiled his joints. The only issue was that his skin was burning from lying in the sun.

  The act of carefully examining his body had relieved his anxiety, so hunger kicked in. His mouth was also quite dry. Food wasn't urgent, but he had to find water soon.

  Noah brainstormed a couple of ways to find water. His best guess was to follow his ears, as he thought he was hearing the sound of running water in the distance.

  He set off, slightly shivering whenever a strong gust of wind passed by. The spot he woke up in seemed safe enough, but the thoughts of encountering other forest inhabitants wasn't exciting. Anxiety returned. He took slow, careful steps on the grass to make sure he wasn't stepping on insects or tiny animals. Sounds coming from between the trees made him jump every now and then, but nothing came out to attack him. As he came closer, he grew surer that the sound was that of rushing water. He ran.

  Emerging from the trees, he saw a body of water that looked like a branch of a river. He sprinted, then he had to stop himself from jumping inside the to rid himself of this terrible itch. He didn't know how to tell if the water was clean, but he would have to take the gamble and think about the consequences later. He cupped his hands and dipped them in the water.

  Tasty, he thought. I didn't even know water could have a taste.

  He drank again, and after taking his fill, he sat with his hands stretched out behind him. Relief washed over him. He would still have to find food, but he could search for some fruits or mushrooms later. The problem was shelter.

  Then it dawned on him how bad his situation was. This whole time, he was operating on survival mode and only thought about water. His kidnapper could still be out there looking for him. And if he didn't find shelter in the next few hours, he could die from the cold tonight. It couldn't really get any worse.

  As if the world responded to his thoughts, he saw something floating down the river. It was a corpse.