13 Chapter 13

I had a hard time falling asleep. There were too many things going on in my mind. Oscar on the other hand was snoring loudly already. The fire crackled and dimly lit the cave, casting monstrous shadows on the walls. I looked up at the ceiling and reflected on my day thus far. There was no doubt that this was real. But what exactly was this?

People from at least my town were transported here but with the amount of people I've encountered, one living guy and two corpses it was awfully sparse for my town. Either not everyone was transported or they were transported really far from each other.

This brought me to my next problem. What about May? She was in a coma living on life support. Without the facilities of the hospital she would have already perished or would be halfway there if even if no external factors came into play.

As this thought crossed my mind I went blank for a moment as a wave of sadness washed over me. The only thing, the only person that kept me sane and grounded was gone. I spent day in day out looking at her laying there just waiting for the day she'll open her eyes but now that day will never come.

After sadness came anger. My fists were tightly clenched as I cursed this place. If things were normal she would have one day woken up but now this world took away her chance.

I steeled my heart and decided I will find out what actually happened here. Find out if she was moved here and then kill whoever or whatever caused her death.

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When I woke up the next day my throat felt dry and parched. We hadn't had any water since yesterday afternoon. The fire had gone out and now we had clay pots that we could store and carry water in.

As I got up and fumbled about in the dark, Oscar woke up as well. He cast a fire spell and reignited the fire. We had a small breakfast of some leftover bear meat and packed the rest for the journey.

"So what do you reckon we should do now? Look for survivors at the campsite we saw yesterday?" Oscar asked.

I nodded at him before adding, " After finding some water".

The clay flasks we had baked overnight would work as water bottles, all we needed to find was a water source close by which wasn't difficult considering my Ranger Skill. As we left the cave, Oscar closed up the opening with mud to conceal it.

Within half an hour we had found a clear stream and extinguished our burning throats. After filling the bottles, small patches of cloth sufficed as stoppers. Now it was time to investigate the fire trail we had seen earlier.

We decided to take the same route we took uphill yesterday in order to not accidentally stumble onto nests of some dangerous animals. Using the Ranger Skill to scout we moved towards the area. Soon, trees started getting sparser and there were a lot more grass.

The grass kept on getting taller and denser. Soon, grass was all you could see with only a few trees here and there.

"I'm not liking this terrain at all" remarked Oscar, "I think moving forward may be bad idea".

I agreed with him, although my Ranger skill would alert us of enemies but if we have nowhere to hide it would be of no use.

"Lets climb a tree and scout around", Oscar advised. So we climbed the closest tree and looking into the grassland. It proved to be futile, the grass covered as everything and concealed whatever roamed in it.

Suddenly there was a commotion, a loud cry was heard from the grassland. Oscar pointed towards something and I could see the grass ruffling as something moved very quickly in it. It was too far away to ascertain what it is.

"Help!", the cry was heard again and this time it was certainly human. Oscar made as if to jump off and head towards the moving figure but I grabbed his arm.

"Wait. That person is running from something, lets hold off for a moment

And sure enough there was a change, the grass started moving all around that person as one after the other various things moved in it. All of them converging towards the human who was crying for help. They were all faster and numerous and surrounded the human in no time. All we saw were the waves of grass they left in their wake before they all met at the same point.

There was a heart wrenching cry and then silence.

Oscar sucked in a sharp breath and remarked, "Lets get out of here quickly"

We both jumped off and started briskly moving back towards our cave.

The grasslands were far too dangerous for us to venture in. Atleast for now.

Oscar also decided to give up trying to find the source of the fire trail we had seen earlier. The recent experience seemed to have killed his curiosity.