Chapter 4 The Encounter

(1600 words)

That didn't go as I have imagined. I am talking about the lucid dreaming idea I had came up with. I had such high hopes for it too... First of all, I can't really imagine whatever I want. It probably is because I retain my human features in the intelligence depertmant and for the fact that I am not technically asleep. I have tried a lot of things like creating a city to wreck but I am only able to create a copy of my 10 m²(it is 3.5 meters by 3.5 meters so about 100 square feet?) room without most of the furniture. It has a desk, a chair, a bed and nothing else. Yep. When I try adding more stuff somehow my "head" hurts. I wonder if I can upgrade or overclock my "specs" in the future through status or possibly magic, though I came up with this because I don't have such abilities... 

The environment is really blurry in all five senses of the word. I am a humanoid without any intricate details like body hair or imperfections on the skin. I wear a white single-piece simplistic white outfit because I found out that this consumes least amount of space in my "RAM". You might want to ask why have I created a body and outfit for myself even though they consume my precious brain juice that could be used for other stuff. And the reason is, to escape from reality of course. It is the same thing you do when you take a break from your tasks or work and go to a vacation, watch a movie,  or read a book. The stress in that type of situation is a given and rather than ignoring the issue, if we take it into consideration and ignore our work for a while, we are usually more efficient, especially on the long run. By the same principle, rather than insisting upon a given situation and losing my sanity out of boredom for being fully paralyzed in out of nowhere, in a different world. I would much rather prefer to keep my wits with me. In this situation even though I can move around, I can't really go for a jog or something. So I've got to use something that's compact and not very intricate to distract myself with. I set up a running mill, it didn't really help me too much. Sure it did decrease the mental burden of my situation a bit but because of the superficiality of my senses and environment, it didn't really intrigued me after a while. Then I remembered that I could play gambling games. Ugh, now that was a failure. I couldn't really make stuff be random. I unintentionally think about which numbers would be- and in this situation "should be"- on top when I roll the die. The same thing applied for card games too. When you remove the luck out of gambling, it becomes boring as hell. So I decided to play some chess! The me vs me situation kind of sucks but there's not much to do if I can't use anything that involves luck. I knew chess, though I wasn't great at it like some stereotypical nerd -I think the main reason why is that my delayed inner awaking of my nerdiness. After a certain age; accepting a new habit, hobby or a quirk as a part of your identity becomes less likely to occur. And I wasn't really super into it but learned a bit of how-to-play and except some very situation specific ones, some of the rules. I created a giant board and chess pieces, placed them in their positions and started playing against my self. I moved pieces mentally, imagining them to, and it was actually pretty fun! This was heaven for my neurons filled with dopamine. You can't really blame me, for a long time while being paralyzed, I used to watch trees and clouds for entertainment. Now that I remember, there hadn't been any rains since I have come here, despite the fact that I am at a forest. Weird. Anyhow, I do not and could not really know why. So I will just accept it as it is until I get rid of this paralysis. Anyways, I tend to drift off topic. I've got to improve my language skills if and when I meet an intelligent being, I wonder how am I going to solve the the unkown language and culture problem while communicating with them... 

And my mind wondered in thought about possible future occurrences for a long time, while playing chess of course! After a while I got better at chess. After some point it almost felt like playing with a real and different opponent. Of course I was too immersed in my fantastical thoughts and chess to notice it at the time. 

-"What?!"

+"You think that you can beat me with such sleepy movements?!"

-"You fell for it, fool! Thunder Cross Split Attack!"

""Incredible by crossing his bishops he can attack while keeping his guard up! It's a perfect strategem!""

""No player has ever escaped it.""

-"That's-"

+"Useles, useless, useless, useless! You haven't thought about this opening did you?!"

-"I can't move. Bastard.."

+"Weakling weakling! You thought you could 'stand' upto me, you utter fool?!"

+"Coming here has guaranteed that you will lose like a dog! Now allow me to provide you with the most virtuos death I can offer! Check, mate."

Uaarghh!! I lost! Damn it. Oh wait, on the bright side I win yay, me!

Huh, what is that noise? 

I quickly plugged out my non-existent VR headset. 

"For thousands of years I laid dormant. Who has disturbed my slumber?!"

I had been practicing that one under the sky, for the last- ah nevermind, I can't speak...

Even though I was dreaming(while not actually sleeping), I left a bit of my focus on my hearing. Oh by the way even though when I first come here, the day cycle was weird; because there was literally no night whatsoever it seems to have returned to normal, whatever that means in this world. Days are a thing now. Though they are a lot longer than Earth's average day. I'd say about 20 hours or so, and the nights are 12 or so hours. Even though it is still different than Earth's day and night cycle, it feels a lot more normal. And there have been a lot of weather events, once there even had been a fierce storm and a lightning hit a tree nearby me. Thankfully the fire didn't spread. Because trees and especially the rocks are important! I am still not sure if fire could hurt me but I couldn't have done anything if it were to burn me. Scary. Scary thoughts, go away! Ugh, the solitude is making me more childish with every passing "day". In the world, every day an intelligent rock becomes more of a man child, research say. For every dollar you donate, we will supply such individuals with a bag of Doritos in the name of rehabili... Arghhh!! I CAN'T EATTT! Beside, there is no Doritos in this world, those darn politicians. Not thinking about actually solving the issue. The solution is simple, make me have humanoid abilities God damn it! And-

Just when I was about to continue my daily routine of playing the victim, even though I had been granted a second chance at life. Something entered my line of sight.

 Wha- wait, are those kangodeers?(kangaroo deer hybrid creatures from the prior chapters). Why are they coming now after all this time? 

There seems to be about two dozen or so of them, and they're headed my way. I instinctively started yelling HEYY! I AM HERE! and started waving my arms while running towards their direc- of course none of that have happened, have you forgotten that all of my physical abilities are of an ordinary rock? And there is the question of whether they'd hurt me or not. Who knows, perhaps they use intelligent rocks like me as a sacrifice? Or there is the chance of them seeing me as a God of some sort. But the most important thing is, do they know that I am an ordinary looking inordinary rock. While I was wandering in thought, they scattered into 4 groups. It seemed like they were looking for something. Wait, don't tell me they know of me?? Shit, this might turn ugly or really good. And the worst part is I won't be able to do anything... I think the one with the outstanding outfit is the commander or something, because they were still in the distance I couldn't be sure but he was next to 5, 4-man(deer) squads and was looking like giving a speech of some sort, with arm and I think hand gestures and everything. Ok, he is the leader for sure. I didn't really know they were this smart though. I hadn't really seen them very often, even at the limited time frame they weren't absent. Except one or two occasions they were always quite a distance away from me, at the time it seemed very weird to me too... Anyways, so I hadn't seen them communicating at this level. They must be a lot smarter than I thought... About an hour passed and they spotted me in the end...

(The end of the chapter)

Hey, it's me again! The story's prologue is getting pretty close to its end, and soon will give way to the more exciting era. Adventuring and exploring!

I didn't have much time to check for grammar errors so please notify me if you spot either grammar errors or inconsistencies of any kind. Furthermore any criticism is appreciated!

Thanks for reading. Please let me know of what you think of this chapter! Have a great day!