The Body of Jake Underwood

Earlier on, when my senses returned to me, I felt no pain. In fact, thinking back to it now, the pain inflicted by Herdeos had been gone by the time I reached Panthe and Tenea. 

Now, it was back, but in a very different way. 

I wasn't sure I'd ever felt this kind of pain before. 

"Is he dead?" I heard a voice say. It reminded me of when Tenea asked the question, and I wondered if I'd misunderstood things and was still down there with them. 

"Shit, I don't know," another voice replied. "Check his pulse."

A scoff. "I'm not going to touch a a dead guy!"

"Who said anything about him being dead? Just check his fucking pulse and stop being such a damn pussy!"

"If you're so brave, why don't you do it?"

I heard a sharp sound that sounded to me like a slap. I figured it was about time I opened my eyes and this time, it was easier to do so. Also, it wasn't as dark. 

Quite the contrary. 

I cracked an eye open and heard a, "Whoa."

The light was too bright for a moment so I struggled to adjust to it. I tried to raise a hand to shield it and felt pain shooting down my spine. I turned on my side, groaning. 

"Well, now we know he isn't dead," a voice said. 

I was curious, so I kept my eyes open despite the glare and saw a group of four guys forming a half circle around me. The sight of them confused me immensely because they weren't Etrians. I didn't know what the hell they were. 

"We fucked him up good," the tallest one of the group said. He has a very long nose and his oily dark hair was parted in the middle. "He'll never recover from this one."

"Yeah," the shortest of the four laughed. "Look at his face!"

"Who the hell are you?" I asked as I struggled to sit up. I stared at my hands and saw that my knuckles were bruised and scraped. I was suddenly reminded of feeling somewhat similar to this when I first trained with my uncle. I had no experience and he kicked my ass. 

"We've knocked all the sense out of him," the tallest one said, causing the other three to laugh. "Yo, Underwood. Do you know who I am?"

I looked around, nausea rolling in the pit of my stomach. I seemed to be in an alleyway, and behind me was a large…container that stank. Trash was all around me. Cardboard boxes. Empty cans. Some kind of leafy green shit that had different colors. I picked up a long dark green strip and held it up to my face. 

"Hungry, Underwood?" someone laughed. 

Vegetable. The word popped up in my mind even though I'd never heard it before. I didn't even know what a vegetable was. 

I dropped it and stared back at the four guys. Although their forms were similar to mind when I wasn't in my Dragon form, they looked different. Softer, somehow. And their skins were too pale. They reminded me of Raquel, and something hot poured from my mouth. For an instant, I thought it would be lava, but it wasn't. It was cream-colored and burned. Not fire, but something else. 

Puke. 

"Eww," the other guys said, stepping back. "That's fucking disgusting!"

I recalled what Panthe said about sending me to Earth. Was this it? Was this the world Herdeos wanted to take over? I looked around as I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Everything around me looked gray and dull. There was a lot of light, but I didn't see mountains or lava anywhere. And it stank. A lot. 

What was this place? 

"I think he's lost his marbles," one of the guys said. "Hey, Underwood. Don't you hear us talking to you? Are you deaf or something?"

"Maybe we kicked him too hard," someone else stated. 

I made eye contact with them and took my time observing them. They were different shapes and sizes, and wore clothes that didn't fit them. This was nothing like the clothes I wore in Etros. I looked down at my body and saw that I was in a bright red t-shirt with the number '9' on it. I then stared at my hands and arms and saw that I was equally as pale as they were. 

My legs, despite being bruised, were also pale. 

"He's seriously tweaking."

The tallest one in the group walked up to me. I snapped my eyes to his face, not wanting him to get close to me. He snapped his fingers in my face and said, "Hey, fucktard, are you even listening to us?"

I stood up quickly and he backed off. I saw a flash of fear in his eyes before that fear morphed into anger. "Who do you think you're trying to intimidate, loser?"

"Yeah, loser," the shorter one said. "Aren't you scared that we'll beat you up like we did just now?"

Beat me up? I stared at my hands again, at the fresh blood on them, and realized that that was why I felt so much pain. These guys attacked me. Or rather, this body I was in. This pale being that definitely wasn't a Dragon. What had Tenea called the beings from Earth? 

The word came to the forefront of my mind: Humans. 

The guy standing in front of me scoffed before shoving me hard. I was surprised by how easily I stumbled backward, my back hitting the container hard enough to cause pain to radiate down my spine. 

"Yeah, that's what I—"

I punched him across the face with all the strength this frail body could muster. This time, it was his turn to stumble backward. He nearly fell. I clenched my fist, feeling pain in my hand. Was this what being human was all about? Pain?

What a miserable existence. 

"He punched me," he told the others like they hadn't watched it happen. He touched one corner of his mouth and his fingers were coated with blood. When he spoke, I saw how his teeth were red. "You punched me!"

"Get away from me," I said slowly in a voice that was completely unfamiliar to me. It didn't belong to me. It belonged to this weak human I was trapped in. 

All four pairs of eyes were wide as they beheld me. I stared at each of them pointedly. As if it wasn't enough that I was confused out of my mind, I had to deal with this. 

"You're gonna pay!" the one I'd punched exclaimed before advancing. My instincts all kicked in and the centuries of training returned to me in a flash. I sidestepped him before throwing a punch at the back of his head, sending him falling to the dirty ground. The shorter one reached me before the others did, and I wrapped my hand around his chubby neck and squeezed while he clawed at my hand. I then used him as a shield to block the punches of the others before giving him a powerful shove and sending him crashing into one of his friends. They both fell. Only one was left, and he had pale-colored hair and his eyes were blue, like mine were once upon a time ago. 

He raised his hands in surrender when I advanced. "Hey, man. I'm sorry."

I gave all four of them a look before running out of the alleyway. I couldn't exactly explain what happened next. Everything became too bright and overwhelming, and I ended up crossing the road and nearly getting hit by a massive moving machine that hooted at me nonstop, the man behind the wheel calling me an asshole. 

I bumped into more people. They all gave me these looks like I was crazy. Not everyone was pale. There were humans of all colors, shapes, and sizes. They weren't like Dragons. They were weak, somehow. We were taller. Stronger. But some humans were warm-toned like us. Their faces were all different. 

I felt like I was losing my mind in this foreign world, which made me wonder if their minds were as fragile as their bodies. 

I walked on and on, disoriented. Massive structures that resembled our house were everywhere, and they were made of a very different material. There were many colors here and I couldn't see mountains. I didn't see a single one. There were no Souls here either, much less Etrians or Blacktails. Fire was also nonexistent here. 

How could Etros and Earth be so different from each other?

I came across a human holding a small creature on a leash. It barked incessantly at me. I had to keep myself from attacking it and simply walked away. There were these tall green things that I knew were called trees growing from the ground. Some bore flowers, others didn't. Everything here was different, and there was variety everywhere and in everything. 

I knew the names of the things around me though I wasn't sure how. Whenever I concentrated, the words came right at me. I guessed that the guy whose body I inhabited was still somewhere in there. That, or I was dealing with the remnants of his mind. I wasn't sure and had no way of knowing. 

What was I to do here? How would I find Herdeos, or even my Dragon?

I didn't know where to go, or where to look. 

Or what to do. 

In my mind, I cursed Panthe and Tenea. Why did they bring me here? I didn't even know what to do. By the way, how would I even fight Herdeos with this weak body? This guy couldn't throw a punch without his whole hand throbbing. 

I couldn't fight Herdeos as a Dragon. 

How would I fight him as a human?