The Strange New World

Michael washed all the blood from last night off himself in the river those three wretch's told him about, at least that part of their statement was true. By then, it started to stick and harden, his clothes were stuck to his body, especially in his stab wound that still ached horribly, and felt worse when his clothes took the scab with them. By the time he finished cleaning of all the blood, making sure there wasn't any left on him that wasn't his own, the water around him was clouded a dark red. Clearly, he was stained with more blood than he knew about, and most of it wasn't his own. The stains in his clothes wouldn't wash out completely, leaving a dark red pattern all over his jacket and pants.

Michael couldn't help but think about what he had just done last night. He had unleashed the monster and killed three men. They may have been scum, they may have subjected many more before him to a far worse fate, but that didn't make him feel any better. Now he had some idea of how fearsome the monster inside really was, and he feared that by releasing it, even only once, it would only be a little bit of time before it took over entirely.

With all the blood washed off, and the sun finally shining, Michael could see good wounds from just a few hours ago. His hand was turning a horrible shade a purple, black close to the center. He could even see all the way through his own hand, one that Michael doubted would scab over, even if it was already starting to.

The wound in his chest didn't puncture a lung or his heart, but it ripped a somewhat sizeable hole. Michael could even see some of the rib that was scratched deeply by the knife.

With the excruciating pain in both his hand and chest, Michael redressed in his blood-soaked clothing and decided to move further along, hopefully, to find a town with a doctor before infection set in.

Michael got back to the road and went there same way he had been going, the bodies of the men he killed far behind him now. This route took him to a cliff side, the road barely big enough to allow one cart to pass at a time. Of course, the driver could not be allowed even a single mistake, lest they fall hundreds of feet. They wouldn't be able to count on trees below somehow cushioning their fall, because there was nothing down below except more rock, the horizon was just a barren wasteland, not a single plant or living thing in sight.

When Michael traversed the barren cliff side, there were thick woods surrounding both sides of the road. This worried Michael, with the plains, at least he'd be able to see what was coming, and nothing would attack him on the cliff side. But now, he was susceptible to anything jumping out at him from the bushes, be it a hungry wolf, an angry mountain lion, or even worse, some creature particular to this world, some horrible monster that could only be dreamed of in the darkest recesses of his mind. Perhaps that was a worse threat than any other human.

As the sun started to set, Michael exited the woods, relieved that nothing had happened while he was in them. Ahead, he finally saw some civilization.

There was a city if he kept going ahead, mostly smaller buildings, but a few giant skyscrapers filling the land. Bright lights painted an intricate portrait of it's layout, bright electric lights. Michael expected to be sometime in the medieval ages if he really was in a different world, considering that was the case in many similar stories, but this one seemed different. Not something new, like he'd see in normal modern ages, but these people had technology. Along with the aforementioned electric lights, there were also trains, guns, small rails to take people throughout the vast city, cars, and even, up above them, Zeppelins flying rather quickly to parts unknown.

Rather than a medieval world, one without any sort of helpful technology, Michael compared this one to a post-industrial era world, a steampunk world, if you will.

He took some time marveling at the city before the intense pain in his hand and chest reminded him that he came here for a reason. He went through the outskirts of the city, where some people tend to live isolated from the safety and security of the inner city, though it was clear that not many people actually lived there. When he got into the more industrialized parts of the city, it even felt warm, perhaps from all the steam coming off the primitive machinery that littered just about every corner.

Though Michael, hoped even, that someone might notice him with his many wounds, or even the still noticeable blood all over his clothes, not a single person did. The armed guards walked by without even looking at him, nobody noticed him and offered to get him to a hospital, even the wandering doctors didn't stop to look at him. He tried to get the attention of some people, but most pretended not to notice if he even made himself more present.

Perhaps he started to feel the infection in his wounds coming, but the trip there felt far more exhausting as it finally concluded, he felt nauseous and as if his body would give way any second.

Eventually, he couldn't take standing up and walking around any more. He knew someone else might try to rob him if he was caught alone, or he might be trampled if he collapsed on the street full of ignorant people. He looked through all the alleyways he passed by, before finding one that no one else had claimed, no vagrants like him, or workers maintaining the machinery. He got out of sight of the crowd in the rest of the city and slumped down against the ground. If someone was going to rob him in his sleep, let them. If his infection would prove to be too much, he didn't care. He just wanted to fall asleep.