4 Chapter 3: A Rough Awakening

A few gentle taps on my shoulders wake me up in the morning. The sun has not yet fully risen but there is a some light, enough to slowly walk. Standing over me is Mordain who appears to be frightened to be waking me up.

"Ugh, this means I'm still here"

Rubbing my eyes and adjusting to the dawn, I can see Mordain try to gesture something at me. His index and thumb are together and he's bringing them to his mouth and mimicking chewing.

"Oh, food? Yeah no luck there. If only I had what I was buying at the store."

Sighing deeply and laying down again, a thought occurs to me.

"Wait, I can make stuff appear! Let's try this."

Closing my eyes and thinking hard on some bread, I reach forward when the image becomes clear in my mind and feel the soft packaging of the italian style bread.

Opening my eyes and seeing the two loaves of bread between my hands, a large smile creeps up on my face.

Maybe everything will be alright, this time the tears are ones of joy. In front of me, Mordain's mouth is wide open in disbelief before quickly prostrating himself and muttering "Quado! Benel de Quado!"

Opening the package and handing a piece to Mordain, I motion for him to get up.

"No need for that Mordain."

I then mimic the eating gesture and say "eat".

"Actually...you know what would be good with this? Some cheese-wiz. I'll see if I can't make some appear."

Closing my eyes again and concentrating, thinking hard on the image of the jar of cheese-wiz….nothing happens.

"Ugh. So that didn't work. Why did the water and bread work though."

In no time, Mordain and I are done with the bread and get up to start walking. From the corner of my eyes, I notice the sand moving. I signal Mordain and point at the spot.

"Hey Mordain, is that uhh normal?"

His reaction upon seeing what I was pointing at was so high tail it out of there at full pace, as fast as a man can limp anyways.

Taking initiative from him, I also run in the same direction. The thing under the sand is fast though and is catching up.

My options being limited, I decide to try a risky move.

I stop suddenly, close my eyes and focus on the creature. I try to search for that same feeling as when I fetched the food from inside the dimensional portal or whatever it is and direct my energy to instead put the creature inside of it.

It feels like it worked and when I open my eyes again, the creature is nowhere in sight.

"So which way Mordain?" I tell him with a smug look on my face. Mordain stares slack jawed for a solid minute before pointing east and limping forward, his leg obviously hurting him from the running he had just done.

"Well...you can barely walk, I'll carry the water then. Just lead us in the right direction."

Any semblance that I was still on Earth disappeared when we encountered the local wildlife for the first time.

Some species of fox with a chitinous carapace was eating some kind of blue bird and it growled in our direction so we skirted around it.

The goal being conservation of energy and water, few words were spoken between the two of us. A few brief sentences only throughout the day. I learnt of a few words like wait "atez" and run. "carir!".

Nonetheless, communication definitely improved between us, I had even managed to speak the English variants of words to Mordain so he would learn my language as well.

Resting after another day of marching, we managed to find respite in a small crevice at the bottom of a cliff. Out of bread and only half the water remaining, we rested our backs against the cool rock of the cave. A loud stomach rumbling got me to look at Mordain and smirk.

"Alright alright. I'll try again. Something better than bread though".

Closing my eyes and concentrating on a wide variety of food, imagining them and sensing if I can reach them until finally one does. Once again my arms feel heavy and not expecting the sudden weight, the bag of potatoes falls out of my hands and onto the ground.

"Great, fucking raw potatoes. I can't boil them nor fry them. Can't even cut them and I was just buying new kni...wait a minute" suddenly a thought occurred to me.

"Everything I've been able to summon so far has been stuff I was buying at the groceries that day...then that means.." Thinking quickly of the knives, their shape and color I immediately feel them at hand, like some familiar object I've held before and grasps them.

"Yes! Okay, well I can roughly defend myself now."

I rapidly hide them behind me so Mordain doesn't notice but glancing over I can see he is busy worshipping the sack of potatoes.

I don't know that I can trust him yet. For all I know, he's only using me until we reach civilization and get out of this desert. He's not done anything bad to me but I don't know if I can trust him with a knife just yet. I need to know more about this power too.

I do feel a small headache after using it, there are also limits to what I can summon it seems, likely some rules of some kind. Eating a raw potato and going to sleep are the last things I remember from that night.