Chapter 1

My eyes slowly rise open, revealing the darkness of the land around me. A forest. A forest with trees so large that they block my view from any of the land beyond it. Sharp leaves scrape my skin as I take in my surroundings. The bustling of the beasts that surround me raises my nerves in the cold night air, providing no comfort for what may be my demise. The scent of rotten flesh and gunpowder sends a chill down my spine as I slowly see a zombie and a tall, green, rectangular beast with tight, traumatising skin and a face that not even a mother could love. Its red eyes shine through the trees providing a threatening warning as my body freezes up. The skin around its mouth peels away, revealing sharp, broken teeth. My gaze lowers for a moment, showing that it has claw-like hands for feet. As they inch closer the zombie lets out a blood-curdling moan and the petrifying beast begins to hiss.

Then my legs start to move all on their own, sprinting in the other direction as I let out silent cries of fear. A voice then speaks out of nowhere as I begin to climb a mountain in an attempt to get to safety. "Hey, you good out there?" The moderately deep voice speaks with haste and grabs my attention immediately. It's reassuring, though he hasn't continued saying anything else. "Where are you? I'll come and get you."

"I'm in a forest!" I shout as I reach the top of the small mountain. My hands are already bleeding from the rocks and dirt. But just as I thought I was safe, a skeleton creaks behind a tree, pointing a bow directly at my head. A spider as large as a third of my height soon follows too, jumping and swinging over to me on its webs. "Help!"

"Don't worry, I'm almost there," The man assures me, sounding out of breath, like he's been running for the past few minutes. My stomach rumbles, hunger taking over my system, though I feel as though I still have the energy to run.

"Fuck I need food," I mumble to myself as I dodge and weave the arrows of the increasing number of skeletons.

"Don't worry, I have some potatoes on me," He assures me again. Then, I hear footsteps. Not the kind that could've been made by the beasts I have encountered so far, but by more of a large person. They stomp their feet and take deep, heavy breaths like they've just been running for the past few minutes.

"I see you!" I shout and begin to chase after them. The cold air blows past my face as I grow nearer to them.

They stop in their tracks and begin to look around, "Really where?"

I freeze, stone-cold as I take in their appearance. They are huge and skinny, most likely around ten feet. Their skin is pitch black, and if it weren't for how close we were right now, I wouldn't have even seen him. He has no hair, only his skin surrounds his entire body. He turns around, revealing a light pink sclera, and pink pupil and iris. His eyes light up my surroundings, glowing pink among the trees close enough to us. His clothes seem quite out of the usual compared to other people that tend to run through forests. He's wearing a black suit jacket, with a white shirt, and a purple tie. Light gray and white wings flow majestically on his back. As I lower my eyes, I notice that he's wearing black dress pants and no shoes.

"Oh there you are," He smiles, revealing sharp, horrifying teeth. I haven't even noticed his mouth before. He then takes out a bow and points it, I duck out of the way and he hits a skeleton clean in the head, going through its skull and killing it instantly. The sound of the bones being shattered makes my stomach roll. We turn back to each other and he begins to pass me some baked potatoes, though I don't look away from his face as he does it. His face is square and eyes seem more and more hypnotising as I continue to stare. The lack of a nose on his face seems to only add to the intimidation factor. Maybe he wears the suit to try and not seem like a threat?

He finishes tossing me the potatoes, if I had to guess, I'd say that I have around sixty-four on me right now. How many potatoes does this dude have? Why the hell does he have so many baked potatoes?

As I slowly munch on them, he kills a few more beasts and guides me through the forest. A small, square map in his hand, though he doesn't seem to even look at it once. He leads me up and down a mountain, dodging and weaving the branches that fly in the wind in an attempt to knock us off guard. As we grow closer, the voices of others begin to become more audible and before I know it, I'm listening to an entire conversation without even being around them.

"Hey, guys, where is my armour? What did you guys do to it?" A high-pitched, fast, energetic, and joyful voice asks, speaking in my head. Just like with this huge dude's voice, this one is also attention grabbing, though it's in a different type of way.

A rise of laughter comes from a few others, including one of them being the man in front of me. "I don't know, check your chests," A more deep, energetic, fast, and also attention-grabbing voice suggests.

"Yeah one of your hundreds of chests," Another voice mentions, this one is also fast, and energetic, but it is in the range of an average deep, it changes pitch from time to time though.

The voices fade into the back of my mind as we rise over the top of a mountain, the light of a small village takes over my complete focus. Beasts make their way to this man and I, and together we sprint away from them, descending the heights and barreling our asses to the light. As we grow closer, I begin to notice horses in a small, far stable. The temptation to steal and ride them around rises within me, but I force it back down. Later.

"We're here," The tall man mentions once we reach the center of the village. He turns to face me, his pink, hypnotising eyes look deep into mine. "You good here?"

I nod and smile widely, "Yeah I'm good."

"Alright, well I'm off now then," He smiles and a shock of fear goes through my spine once more at the sight of his teeth. "See ya later."

"Sweet, thanks!" I force a smile, and watch him as he runs off, disappearing into the darkness almost instantly. As I go to turn around and enter the only house in this village, the unthinkable happens. A hissing appears out of nowhere, and before I could even completely turn around, I'm blown up. The feeling in my entire body completely disappears as I lose sense of my surroundings.

The laughter I heard earlier soon arises once more, and I find myself back in the darkness of the forest. My legs start to move once again, following the same route that that man showed me.

"What happened?" The man asks, speaking through his laughter.

"I got blown up!" I shout, letting out a cry as a branch wacks my face.

They all continue to laugh, "Want me to come and get you?" He asks.

"No thanks," I respond, jumping out of the way of a flying arrow. "I memorised the way."

"Alright then," He says, nonchalantly.

In almost no time, I've already reached the top of the mountain and begin descending it even faster. Damn, I got here faster on my own than I did when I was being guided. Other than a few beasts here and there, there wasn't as much danger for me this time around.

As I finally enter back into the small village, I see a medium sized hole in the ground that the horrifying green beast made, loose dirt almost floats on the earth, like it's taunting me to pick it back up.

I jump into the hole and pick up the dirt, placing it back into the ground in an attempt to cover it up. Though I'm all out of dirt before I even get the chance to fill in the entire thing. "Whatever," I mumble as I stomp off towards the house, admiring a double layered farm not too far from it. Melons and pumpkins are on top and other crops such as potatoes, carrots, beetroots, and wheat are on the bottom.

"Darcila!" A few of the voices I heard earlier shout my name. My head shoots over to see where it all came from, revealing two small bear-looking things, and a six-foot-tall dude in dark, baggy clothes. The guy from earlier is following them a little further behind as well.

"Yeah what's up?" I ask, watching as they all catch up to me. The small bears look around two feet and three inches, they have light brown fur and their entire eyes are dark brown. They both have a small, round face, blank, deep, adorable eyes, a large, fat bull nose, thick, long lips, and small, furry ears. They also both each have a small, dirty, brown leather blanket covering some of their head and body. Despite their adorable eyes, their bear-like faces are very ugly. Their bellies are round and healthy, the usual for animals, and their legs are small, thick, and extremely furry. Just like with the ten-foot-tall dude, these guys also don't wear shoes, their small, furry feet look clean and pristine though.

"What nation are you part of?" The small bear with an averagely deep voice asks, speeding through the words like a rap song.

"What nations are there?" I ask, taking in the sight of the only human looking person I've seen so far. He has a large, round face, noticeable jawline, a long, strong nose, thick full lips, and high-arched, dark eyebrows. His skin is a light tan, revealing that he clearly doesn't go outside nearly as much as I do. His short, dark brown, curly hair wisps in the night wind, revealing prominent, dark brown eyes. His clothes aren't that special either, he's wearing brown, square-framed glasses, a large, black shirt, large, black shorts, and boring, black running shoes.

"East and West," They all answer in a scrambled unison, if it weren't for how close they are, I wouldn't have been able to understand a single word they just said.

"What nation are you guys part of?" I ask, looking between them all. The darkness of the night has nothing against all of the lighting around the village, from the house to the farms, to the stable, and a little shack of some sort, every inch of it all has some sort of lighting for it.

"East," They all respond in the worst harmonized unison as possible.

"Then I am in East Nation," I smile and the excitement and joy in their expressions turn even stronger.

"Let's go!" One of the little bears cheers. "Fuck West Nation!"

The others run back into the darkness, except for one of the bears, it's the one with the high-pitched voice. He watches as the other's cheer and celebrate, laughing softly to himself. Then he finally turns to me, "Follow me."

I do as he says and follow him up the steps to the amazingly lit and designed house. As we go through the two large front doors, I see how little work has been put on the inside. A single, small chest stands on the side of one wall with a table meant for creating things, a furnace, an anvil, and a darker chest with an eye embedded in it to it's left.

He goes down another layer of stone stairs placed in the middle of the room, taking me to a basement full of chests and an open corner of a wall that seems to lead to somewhere else. Perhaps a secret room?

He then opens and goes through a few of the chests while I silently stand in the center of the basement, listening to the voices of the others that are nowhere near us. It's amazing that someone so short can even reach the lower chests, but he's managing to climb and look into the highest of chests, ones that are even higher up than me. He then closes the vast number of chests and makes his way over to me holding some meat, a sword, a pickaxe, and some armour. I put the meat in my pockets, equip the iron sword and pickaxe, and slide on the mixture of armour. A leather helmet, iron chest

plate, chain leggings, and leather boots, all seem to have a small amount of damage and scratches on them.

"Thank you," I smile gratefully as I follow him back up the stairs to the main floor.

"No problem," He smiles back.

"Eh, Renato!" The voice of that other bear takes over the bit of silence that would've probably been awkward.

"What?" The bear in front of me shouts back, staring at the wall.

"We need your help with something!" The voice shouts again.

"Fine!" Renato yells and sprints out of the door, nearly flying down the steps, and leaving me on my own. The first thing expanding in my mind is, what kind of stuff can I steal from him? There sure were a lot of chests. I'll do it later, they did help me out after all. I'll just adventure around the house then, I wonder what's behind that open corner leading beyond the walls of chests.