The Day He Opened His Eyes

(Friday, 1st of Dawn Star Moon, 2021)

Our hero woke up with a pounding headache.

He sat up on the mattress and looked around, trying to understand where he was. Given the layout of the room, he was in a modern yet fancy room that was an average size, but still appeared to be humble. He didn't know why, but this room felt familiar to him for whatever reason, was this perhaps his room? He didn't remember anything about himself, not even his name. He looked at himself in the mirror nearby, noticing that he was wearing what appeared to be pajamas, a dust colored shirt with some kind of emblem on it with shorts that had a clockwork pattern on them.

"Is that…me?" His throat was dry and his voice was coarse. Likely from not drinking enough water.

He was a rather fit male in his early 20's. Maybe he was 20 or 21? His hair was short, curly, and dark, his complexion a bit tanned. His eyes were orange in color, and they seemed curious. His legs were covered with the dark green blanket that covered the bed. The only source of light in the entire room was a single wicker lantern that was placed in the middle of his ceiling, which glowed a soft golden light, that combined with the wicker lantern's branches covering most of the light, his room looked like it was covered in stars, which gave the room a soothing feel to it. There was also a window, but a pair of gray curtains blocked the outside world from his view. He ran his fingers through his hair, he felt well enough to get up from the bed, so he slid his legs out from under the covers, but he didn't feel his right leg...maybe it was asleep. He shifted his legs from under the covers with his eyes closed, since he was still a little sleepy, and he placed both his legs on the ground. He was about to walk forward, but instead, he fell onto his stomach, letting out an 'oof' noise in the process. He was confused, so he looked at his legs, and instantly noticed something was off.

His right leg was missing.

The exact parts that were missing were everything below the knee, and luckily, it appears to be a clean cut. He had no bandages covering the missing limb's former place, allowing him to see that it was perfectly healed, and now just a leg missing everything below the knee. How did it get injured in the first place? He tried using the wooden bed frame to support himself to get up, but as he did so, the door burst open to reveal a woman with his hair color and amber colored eyes, followed by a man with black hair, a stubble, and mint green eyes. The woman was wearing a pair of jeans along with a white shirt, while the man wore a plain black shirt with military pants.

"Jack, you're finally awake!" The woman crouched down to hug the protagonist while the man crouched next to her, did these people know him from somewhere? "Ever since we found you-!"

"Excuse me, but who are you two?" The man apparently named Jack had no idea who these people were, and the woman looked hurt, as did the man, but the man looked like he was expecting this, but hoping it wasn't true.

"Jack, we're your Aunt and Uncle, she's Aunt Matilda and I'm uncle Enrique." Uncle Enrique appeared to introduce himself and Aunt Matilda, the latter of whom was still crying. "We have two kids, a daughter around your age named Noemi, and a younger son named Lucius."

"Thank you for introducing yourself, but where are your children?" Jack asked, since he wanted to cover all his bases. "Or my cousins?"

"They are your cousins, and they're both busy with their own things. Noemi is visiting some friends of hers and Lucius is at the park with Florence." Enrique explained. "Jack, do you really not remember who we are? Do you at least remember the names of your parents?"

"Parents?" Jack had no idea who his own parents were, odd, shouldn't that be the first thing someone remembers? "I'm sorry, I can't remember anything, is there any chance you can catch me up on what's going on?"

"Well you just graduated high school, and you got accept-" Enrique was suddenly cut off by Matilda putting her hand over his mouth, then shaking her head, a signal of some sorts.

"You just graduated highschool, and you're still looking for a university to attend." Matilda answered, but to Jack, it was pretty clear something was off about what she said. "You're really good at studying history, so maybe you should become a history professor."

"You also play video games with Lucius and I, so far we're playing Craftmine together." Enrique decided to tell Jack about his video game life. "You're also close to one of Noemi's friends, the goth one, I forgot her name though, and I don't think you guys were dating."

"You two aren't, you both were always busy with your studies to form an actual relationship, other than one of mutual respect." Matilda was now telling the truth, Jack don't know how he was able to figure this out, but he was just able to.

"What about my parents?" Jack asked, and his aunt and uncle just looked at each other for a moment.

"Would you be mad if we told you that conversation would have to wait?" Matilda asked, and given their expressions, it was a sensitive subject, so Jack decided to not ask about it.

"Okay, what about my friends?" Jack didn't remember anything about anyone, so he was curious if he had some friends or not.

"Your friends are going off to a...special college." Matilda was once again hiding something from Jack, good news was that he was able to piece together that she's trying to hide something from Jack, and that something is connected to a university of some sorts. "They're busy packing right now since they leave in a couple days, so I don't think seeing them is a good idea for now."

"Okay then... I have no more questions." Jack decided to stop asking questions as Enrique helped him onto his bed. "Thank you."

"No problem, your prosthetic leg should be coming in any day now..." Matilda informed Jack, and while he didn't want to inconvenience anyone, Jack did want to be able to walk like a normal person. "I wonder what's taking so long."

"In the meantime however, let's go to the living room."

Jack was given a pair of crutches, and to his surprise, he was surprisingly dexterous, it was like he spent most of his life training to be more agile. Jack followed Enrique and Matilda as they discussed something in front of him, but they did it quietly, so Jack didn't hear most of it. Jack was escorted down a hall with large glass windows on one side and a wall of pictures on another. He looked out the window first, noticing that the house appeared to be some kind of desert, the kind with a solid ground and dry plants sprouting at random locations, not the kind with sand. They were also high up, and Jack could see that he was apparently in some kind of mansion on a mountain overlooking the desert. He couldn't see what was on the other side of the mansion, other than what the window allowed him to see.

"I hope there's more windows." Jack sarcastically murmured under his breath before turning his head to look at the wall of pictures.

There was a picture of a girl around Jack's age with black hair and mint green eyes like Enrique getting a pedicure, he guessing she was the one known as Noemi. Next to it, Jack saw a young boy with blonde hair and amber eyes holding a console above his head while Jack was in the background blowing a kazoo, Jack was guessing he must be Lucius.

"Uncle Enrique, Aunt Matilda, who are these people?"

Jack was looking at one picture in particular, one that struck him as familiar. He was sitting at a table wearing a gray t-shirt with a pair of brown pajama bottoms that had a fossil bone pattern on them. Jack wasn't alone at this table however, beside him was a blonde girl that was his age with blue eyes wearing a black sweater with some kind of metal band logo on it along with a pair of sky blue gym shorts. Across from him were a pair of twins, both of whom were male and had orange hair and gray eyes. Both of them were practically identical, and the only way he could tell them apart were their long sleeved shorts that they wore with black pants. One wore a white shirt with red vertical stripes while the other wore the same thing but with horizontal stripes. At one end of the table was a boy with long blue hair, a blue hoodie, and dark blue pajama pants. At the head of the table was a girl with long black hair that was tied into a messy bun at the top of her head, paired with a black, yet old fashioned night dress, paired with a set of black glasses over her amethyst eyes. This was clearly some sort of sleep over, but what kind of sleepover was this? In front of each person was a couple pieces of paper, seven kinds of multicolored dice, a pencil, some kind of small figure of a person that rest on a board along with several other figures of monsters, some pizza, energy drinks, and in front of the black haired girl was some kind of foldable wall that prevented everyone from seeing what was in front of her. Jack was screaming at his set of dice while standing up, the blonde girl was laughing, the blue haired boy pulled a pillow over his head with his hands while crying, the twins appeared to be scheming something evil, and the black haired girl looked smug about something. Despite the vast array of nonsense in this picture, it felt warm, and Jack could tell everyone was having fun.

"Those are your friends, that was the week before your guy's high school graduation." Uncle Enrique explained. "You had all of them over for a Castles and Crabs session."

"Castles and Crabs?" Jack has never heard of that game before, and judging from his expression in the picture, he was passionate about that game. "What do I do?"

"Nerd stuff with math dice, I never got into it, but your friends enjoyed it quite a bit." Uncle Enrique explained. "In fact, I think that game got all of you into your goals. Alice became a warlock, the twins became weapons, and-"

"Aaaannyways, let's go see what's on the news!" Matilda guided all of them to the living room, which was down a flight of stairs that was at the end of the hallway. The living room looked like an average living room, albeit a bit more on the high end of society kind. Jack sat down on the couch while setting his crutches to the side while Matilda and Enrique sat on the other end of the couch together. Matilda grabbed some kind of remote and turned on the television, causing the news to appear on the device.

"A recent update on the High King's disappearance; his most trusted servants left with him, according to investigations." The news lady reported. "There is no trace of any of the trusted servants, even the servants who were left behind have no idea as to where they went. All that's known is that the servants took their families with them, the high king took the legendary slayer weapon known as 'Once Upon a Time', and a couple pieces of gold. They left their most valuable treasures behind. If anyone has any reports on the high king's current whereabouts, please let us know. This kingdom can't operate without him."

"Who is the high king?" Jack wondered out loud, and this didn't appear to be a sensitive subject or a part of the secret these people were hiding from me.

"The High King is the one in charge of all the kingdoms, empires, alliances, businesses, religions, and tribes around Dresponia, the continent we live on." Aunt Matilda answered. "He's kind of like a father figure while all the groups I mentioned earlier are like his children. He doesn't intervene much unless they start fighting each other, hurt someone, are doing something illegal, or anything else that might force the high king to act."

"Is it wise to have one man dictate the fate of an entire continent?" Jack asked, that sounds pretty risky. What if the man is evil?

"He's constantly being monitored by a group of monks who can detect the thoughts in one's head." Uncle Enrique told me about the monks. "While they don't read the exact contents, they can judge someone's moral alignment. They are bound by an oath to overthrow the high king the moment his thoughts go towards harming his own people. Then they'll choose someone new to become the new high king, either by judging the people the group's chose to represent them or by contacting an oracle about where to find the next high king, then searching."

"Sounds like a rough job." Jack couldn't imagine being under so much stress. "If I were him, I'd run somewhere where no one would find me to escape my responsibilities."

"I have a feeling that's exactly what the high king did." Uncle Enrique thought out loud. "There's only one place I can think of that the High King and his servants would go to."

"Where?" Jack asked, and he noticed Aunt Matilda was rolling her eyes, Jack got the feeling she thinks this theory is nonsense.

"Mythia."

"Mythia?" Jack asked, and he had no idea where that was. "Where is that?"

"Mythia is a neighboring continent far into the north, and other than the fact that it's cold, there's not a whole lot we know about it." Uncle Enrique began ranting. "All we know about it is that it's a constant blizzard around it in a perfect circle, and everyone who tried going in there was never seen again. We tried sending drones in there, but most kinds of communication devices fail to work within the blizzard. So yeah, there's a giant, continent sized blizzard happening over the ocean to the north only a couple dozen kilometers away from Desponia. Given how we know nothing about it, we all started calling it Mythia because there is nothing we know about it."

"What makes you think the High King went there?" It sounded like a dangerous place, so Jack wondered why the High King would go there.

"Because it's the only place that technically belongs to him that no one will willingly search for him in." Uncle Enrique continues his theory. "Sure there are ice chunks inside the blizzard, but with a good enough ship, it should be possible to enter Mythia and explore, but I wonder why some people never come back."

"Maybe because they don't want to come back?" Jack suggested, and no one really denied his possibility.

"You never know, tha may just be the case." Aunt Matilda thought about this before changing the subject. "Still, what's taking your leg so long to arrive? We ordered it like a month ago."

(Elsewhere)

An unknown woman was currently inside an unknown basement, drawing a magic circle using black chalk, which was really hard to do because this magic circle had to be the size of a kiddie pool with no mistakes, one mistake and she could potentially summon a pillar of hellfire, and considering her insurance doesn't cover supernatural elemancy, she doesn't want to go through that. To ensure she made no mistakes, she had a friend over to help her. He had placed a camera on the ceiling of the basement. This camera was connected to his laptop to give me a bird's eye view of the magic circle. The basement was mostly empty, luckily, just a couple boxes in the corners of the room for festive decoration storage. The only lightsource a couple electrical torches, which were basically just regular torches but with lightbulbs at the top and wires on the bottom, connecting them to the power grid.

"Alice, I understand you have night vision, but can you please for the love of the Gods can you turn on a light source other than the torches?" The man at the laptop requested. "I know you're an over dramatic girl, but I do not feel safe getting up in this darkness."

"Ugh, fine." The woman clapped her hands, and the torches flew brighter, now giving the room some proper lighting. In the soft orange light, the two people could be seen properly.

The first person looked to be a woman around Jack's age. She had long, black hair that reached her waist. Running through .her black hair was a single white streak. She wore all black, black tank top, black shorts, black boots, black fishnets, and even a choker. Alice was extremely pale, which contradicted her black eyeliner and lipstick. In the slight darkness, her amethyst eyes seemingly glowed purple. As for her companion, he had messy pale blue hair that reached his neck, which complimented his blue eyes. Like the woman, he was pale, but not as pale as the woman. He wore fingerless gray gloves, a dark blue hoodie with the sleeves cut, jeans, purple fur boots, and purple headphones.

"So...Alice, who are you summoning?" The blue haired friend asked while he pulled off his headphones. "The genie, Satan, Cthulhu, a low level demon like an incubus?"

"If I ever summon an incubus, I'll only do it because you need to practice confessing to your crush since middle school." The woman sarcastically replied while adding some protection runes to ensure the magic doesn't escape the magic circle.

"Hey! My crush is way hotter than yours, so it's way harder!" The friend shouted with a red hue on his face. "Besides, he's probably going to a different university than us, so it's probably best if I give up on him."

"That's a depressing way of thinking, but if you're dead set on giving up on him, then I won't stop you." The woman didn't want to force her friend to do anything, especially since her friend has been head over heels for his crush since forever. "If you decide to give up on him, Zane, don't worry, things will be better."

"What about you, how is your crush doing?" Zane asked, and the mood of the room suddenly got gloomy.

"Well he lost his right leg and is unconscious with no signs of waking because of my dumbass, what do you think?" The woman shot a glare at Zane, who flinched before shining behind his laptop.

"Okay, Jack is officially a sensitive topic now, my bad." Zane stated as the door to the basement opened up, and for a moment, the woman didn't know who it was, but then she recognized the silhouette as her grandfather.

"Alice, dinner is ready, and I made some for Zane here too." The newly dubbed Alice's grandfather walked down the stairs carrying a box along with some tea. Alice's grandfather wasn't as pale as Alice was, nor did he have black hair, but he did have a lot of hair. His gray hair was tied back into a ponytail that was tied by a black ribbon that matched his square glasses' color. He wore a white, long sleeve, collared shirt under a black vest with black slacks and sandals. "Hey there Zane, I hope you're not trying anything with my granddaughter."

"No offense or anything, but I'm not into girls." Zane watched as Alice's grandpa came down the stairs with the box.

"Oh I know, but let me have my fun, I never get to say this kind of stuff since I actually approve of that boy she likes." The old man chuckled before handing Zane some tea.

"Well I can never be too sure with you." Zane was always pretty scared of Alice's grandpa, and it doesn't exactly help that her grandfather is one of the most powerful beings on the continent.

"Good, I like to be mysterious." The grandfather handed Alice the long box, and Alice opened it to reveal a prosthetic leg. "1...2. You have both legs, why do you need a prosthetic?"

"You remember the incident at the temple when we went there with Jack, right?" Alice asked, and her grandpa nodded solemnly. "I talked to, Doctor King, the one that examined Jack's condition, and he told us that it would be very likely that Jack lost all his memories, so I want to give Jack a way to remember who he is."

"Okay, I'm going to stop you right there, how do you remember the doctor's name?" Zane questioned from his seat. "It took you a month to remember mine!"

"Well this doctor had a freaking gas mask with glowing green eyes, so he was pretty hard to forget." Alice justified.

"You mean give him a way or remember who we are?" Alice's grandfather guessed. "I mean you've always liked him, but it was more like one sided love, or maybe he was really good at hiding how he felt? I won't say which."

"Well yeah, I obviously want him to remember me, but I also don't want him to forget our dream." Alice grabbed the prosthetic leg and placed it inside the magic circle.

"To graduate from a famous Guardian Academy?"

"No, to explore Mythia."