Arrival

A number of people gathered around, looking at a man's body that lay on the side of the shady alley. He had dirt all over his body and his clothes were different from theirs as if he was not from here. For a moment, the people there thought he was dead and kept murmuring to themselves in low voices.

"Do you think he died from the cold since he had nowhere to go? one man said to another.

"The weather has been severely bad and piercingly cold in these few days. But I don't think it was enough to kill this man."The second man responded to the first man who nodded as if the man was making sense.

"He doesn't look like he's from here. Look at his clothes." one woman standing nearby said to another woman who responded in a low voice.

"I wonder what happened to him. Do you think someone killed him?"

The first woman who spoke replied,

"It's not impossible here in Arindale. Anything can happen to anyone at any time. We live in a strange city where one cannot be sure of what could happen next."

The second woman nodded to the first woman's words before her eyes shifted to look at the man on the ground. She said,

"But I see no wounds or cuts-" before she could complete her sentence, she saw the man on the ground waking up and her eyes widened,

"Look, he's waking up."She exclaimed drawing others' attention.

Now seeing the man waking up, the people who were gathered there thinking the man was dead began to disperse with some muttering to themselves. These were people who had nothing to do and always looked for some kind of gossip to feed on. Seeing the dead man, they would spread rumors about it, making up false and horrifying stories to those who were equally lazy and jobless to listen to them.

One man who looked annoyed said,

"What a waste of time. I thought he was dead. He must have drunk so much to lose consciousness and lay by the street." he turned and walked away from there and so did the others.

Craig opened his eyes, where the first thing he saw was the sky which was turning dark with every passing minute. He lurched, getting to his feet and dusting the dirt off his shoulders and arms. He felt weak and parched, and while looking around, he found the people and the place to be very unfamiliar.

In a split second, realization dawned on him and he suddenly turned conscious of his surroundings. He was in the outer world. A place where he had never been to and where he knew no one, except for the King he was looking for. His hand moved to his neck where it touched something around it.

Looking down at his neck, he heaved a sigh of relief that he still had the Leos pendant in his possession. He tucked it beneath the shirt he was wearing so as not to draw attention.

Looking around, he was quick to notice people staring at him with wary eyes as they walked across the alley. He took note of the kind of clothes they wore and knew he had to change into something similar unless he wanted to draw unnecessary attention to himself.

He began walking, taking hurried but measured steps away from the alley until he appeared at an open place that was bustling with people walking here and there. He saw vendors shouting and calling out to customers where everyone wanted to sell the items in their hands. Right now, he was the only one that looked odd among the lot. He continued walking not knowing exactly where he was going and having no sense of the passage of time when it was only getting dark.

Without realizing it, he bumped into someone where the person's bag fell and the groceries in it scattered on the floor, he bent down immediately to pick them apologizing profusely to the person who also got down to pick up her things, she seemed annoyed and right before she could utter anything, her eyes fell on the man who had bumped into her. Her eyes widened like saucers before she narrowed them and stared at him intently. Craig who was done picking up the things on the ground stood up along with the woman who continued to stare at him. He stretched the bag forward and bowed deeply,

"I'm very sorry." he apologized for the umpteenth time waiting for the woman to take the bag from his hand, but somehow the woman never took the bag, and for a moment he thought the woman had left without her bag, the only thing was that he saw the hem of the dress she was wearing while he continued to bow signifying that she was still there.