I’m so fired.

Scattered thoughts struggled together into a semblance of consciousness. Jake was laid out on his back, and definitely not at work. On the plus side, all his limbs were still attached.

Everything ached. His eyes begged to stay shut a little longer. He overrode their objections. Blinding light overpowered his senses. He squeezed his eyes shut, too late to stop his temples igniting with pounding agony. At least he wasn’t dead.

Where was he? The damp, springy ground beneath his back felt like grass, but that couldn’t be true. The air tasted fresh and earthy, full with the scent of decomposing leaves and wood instead of discarded couches and beer bottles. Not that anything else had made sense. Either he was losing it, or something very weird was going on.

Let’s go for the latter for now, huh?

There had to be a rational explanation. If he approached it with an open mind and the scientific method, all would be revealed. He opened his eyes a sliver at a time, giving them the time to adjust.

Was it him, or was the sky a different color? He frowned. There weren’t trees like these anywhere nearby. At least, that’s what he’d thought. The evidence before his eyes said otherwise.

That had to be a perfectly normal orange-tinged sky. How often did he really look at the sky? His gut clenched. It didn’t sit right, but what was the alternative? That this wasn’t his sky? That was impossible. The overhead sun wasn’t helping. Besides being a shade too orange, the searing heat on his face was quite unbecoming of winter.

Eliminate the impossible and, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. What did that leave him?

Clearly, at least 12 hours had passed, and, predictably, no one had rescued him, at least not beyond dragging him into a field. He clenched his jaw. If you need a job done right…

That was quite enough indulging himself; it was time to make a move. He pulled himself to his feet and bit his lip, tasting salty sweat. He frowned. Winter wasn’t supposed to be boiling, and trees weren’t meant to be that big.

Fuck. He was not in Kansas anymore, not that he had been originally. An enormous forest stood beyond the small clearing he was in. His jaw hung open. The thick tufts of green could conceivably have been grass, but the trees—the huge, interlocking sprawl of wood reaching up to the heavens—were unlike anything he’d ever seen before.

Branches linked every tree together, mingling into one another as far as the eye could see. His breath stalled, and he blinked. He’d never seen anything like it. Were they a single organism? Like quaking aspen, but joined above ground as well?

Wood cracked, only just loud enough to hear. Adrenaline spiked, giving Jake that increasingly familiar rush. Still as a mouse, he scanned the forest. A broken branch meant movement. Movement meant danger. Whatever was out there, he wasn’t getting caught flat-footed again.

There. The flurry of motion came to an eerie stillness. Without the creature’s streak of red blood across its flank, he never would have picked it out from the trees. The green and brown camouflage fur was unlike any such creature he’d ever seen, but otherwise, it looked remarkably familiar.

Four legs, a tail, and brandishing two razor-sharp canines surrounded by an equally worrying array of teeth. A wolf, or close enough to make no difference. A hundred feet out, if that, and staring right at him with hungry intensity.

He wouldn’t make it far if he ran. Even if he had stood a chance at outrunning the beast, sprinting across the rough, unfamiliar terrain would have been suicide. Once again, there was only one thing for it—but this time, he stood a chance. He knew how to kill a wolf.

Well, at least on paper. He wasn’t a hunter, and even if he were, he was completely unarmed. Still, he had more of a chance against a wolf than a cloud of darkness. Especially a wolf with an arrow already sticking out of its side.

There had to be something he could use as a weapon. He stood completely still, moving only his eyes to search. Grass. Grass. More grass. Could he strangle the wolf with his bare hands? How strong were they? More to the point, how strong was this one?

Salvation! A thick branch, a short way in the wolf’s direction. If he was fast, he could pick it up and swing before the wolf—and its razor-sharp teeth—made short work of him.

Not that he’d make a very good meal, all skin and bone. Little comfort, but it eased some of the tension holding him stiff. He needed to be fast and smooth. Rigidity would get him killed.

The wolf’s paws were huge, doubtless sporting equally large claws. He’d have to avoid those, as well as the teeth. It was already wounded. Could he exploit that? Probably not fast enough. If the arrow had hit anything vital, it would already be dead, not hunting him.

There was no way he could come out of an extended struggle uninjured. Could he end the fight off the bat by caving in its skull, or would it be too thick for that?

Wolf

Level: 4

The awareness popped up at the front of his mind, that sixth sense rearing its head once more.

Levels? Alright, brain, when this is over, we need to have a little heart-to-brain, because this isn’t a fucking video game.

HP: 32/125

Under half hit points. Sure, maybe his traumatized brain was imagining it all while he bled out, mugged in the alley, but if not, this was the first bit of good news in a while. He kept studying the wolf. Knowledge is power, and he needed as much as possible before the inevitable confrontation.

Stamina: 150/150

Status: Hungry

Less good news, but not exactly unexpected. It wasn’t like wolves tended to attack humans. Too much trouble for a scrawny meal. The poor thing probably just wanted to survive until sundown, same as him.

And right now, it wanted to kill him. It was him or the wolf. Hesitation would get him killed. He coiled up, ready to dash for the branch. One good strike might be all he needed.

The wolf charged. Jake darted for the fallen branch, his heart thundering. He grasped the thicker end of the branch and planted his feet wide. It was hefty; would it be enough?

The hungry beast bounded through the tangled trees, its huge paws effortlessly finding purchase. Its jaws opened, teeth ready to strike.

One shot. He put his entire body into the swing. A vicious, stomach-churning crack rang out. He didn’t let himself flinch or turn away.

22 bashing damage dealt!

Blunt weapons skill increased 0 → 1!

Not enough. Teeth pierced his left arm. His nerves ignited with pain that shattered his every thought.

47 piercing damage received!

He wasn’t going down, not like that, not against an overgrown mangy dog. Red-hot pain-fueled rage took the reins. Only ten hit points to go, and time was running out.

The wolf held on with its powerful jaws, refusing to let go of his arm. He gritted his teeth and slammed the club down on the wolf’s head again. Another crack rang out, louder and even more sickening than the first.

13 bashing damage dealt!

30 bashing damage dealt!

30 bashing damage received!

Injury received (broken arm)!

100 XP received!

Level increased 0 → 1!

Jake muffled his scream as best he could. He didn’t need anything else in the forest thinking of him as an easy lunch. The wolf slumped to the floor, its eyes wide open and its tongue hanging out.

Sorry, buddy. Jake’s stomach hardened. It was you or me.

Adrenaline dropped off a cliff, replaced by an all-consuming pain that stabbed again and again. He stared at his smashed-up arm. Why did he have to be so damned stupid?

His medical knowledge was second to, well, everyone, but even without the notification, he’d have known it was broken. To add insult to injury, it wasn’t the wolf that had broken it.

He needed a better plan. At least he couldn’t see any more threats. Hopefully, the wolf didn’t have stealthy friends looking to play. Either way, he wouldn’t stick around to find out.

Priority one was finding safety, or as close to it as he could. Then he could assess what he had, what he needed, and how he was going to get it.

He slumped behind a tree and tenderly held his arm. The pain was incessant. It wasn’t going to stop anytime soon, was it? He gritted his teeth. He’d have to bear it. On the plus side, his headache was gone. He chuckled to himself. Some upside.

Where was he? That was the first question, and possibly the hardest to answer. One possibility was he’d completely cracked. If so, then based on the current predicament, not only was he seriously off the deep end, but also even more depraved than he’d thought.

That possibility could be discounted. Not because it wasn’t likely—he had to admit it was the most plausible explanation—but because if he was that crazy, a logical plan wouldn’t help.

It felt real. Too real and too damned painful to be a dream, or a simulation of any kind. At least, not one that had been developed yet, not on Earth, anyway. He shook his head. He’d need a lot more evidence before considering aliens or time machines as the explanation. Not that the evidence was consistent with any other scenario he could come up with.

Shadows chasing him. A voice that smashed its way into his head. Waking up… wherever the hell he was now. And none of that was even half as weird as the other message, the one that felt like it came from inside him. He couldn’t just pretend it never happened.

Quest received: Save your father, save the world.

His fingernails dug into his palm. Quests weren’t real, not like that. Then again, neither were alien worlds or hit points or skills or experience or half the things that had happened lately. If it wasn’t real, then nothing he did mattered. If it was, he was in deadly shit.

Whatever was going on, he’d play along for now.

Jake cocked his head. When he’d focused on the wolf, the weird sixth sense had eventually offered up information. What if he…

Jacob Williams

Level: 1

Experience: 0/400

HP: 138/215

Stamina: 220/220

MP: 230/230

Status: Hero, Broken arm

Muscles unclenched throughout his body. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, but there it was, mathematical proof he wasn’t even halfway dead. Still a third of the way, but better than it could have been.

He’d have to deal with the broken arm sooner rather than later. For now, he’d grit his teeth and tough it out. The phrase “not yet out of the woods” had taken on an altogether too literal meaning.

The other status was a mystery. Hero. What did it do? Was it some kind of reward for killing a level 4 wolf at level 0? There was no indication it was temporary.

Nor on the broken arm effect, either. Was he stuck with that until he could heal? What about the lost hit points? He patted his pockets, but his smartphone was missing. All he had were the clothes on his back and a thick branch. He shrugged and stared at his current HP, willing it to go up.

One thousand, two thousand, three thousand…

The count went higher and higher, and his HP refused to increase. He counted off a minute on his fingers, then two. On the third, he growled and kicked the ground. Pain shot up his arm and he winced. Why did he have to be so stupid?

There had to be some way to work out his health regeneration. Of course! He rolled his eyes and focused inward again.

HP regeneration: 3.4 per hour

Stamina regeneration: 0.9 per second

MP regeneration: 1.6 per second

Quick mental math gave him sixty-three hours until fully healed. Unless he found some magical healing pronto, he’d be in for a gritty ride.

That was one side of the coin. In better news, his new inner sense confirmed that MP meant mana points. He might not know any spells yet, but surely if he had MP, magic was at least a possibility.

A giddy, tingling possibility that might even make this all worth it. Who wouldn’t want the power to make things happen with their mind? So much less messy than…

His gaze settled back upon the wolf’s lifeless corpse and its caved-in skull. Anything was less messy than that. Having some distance from his foes wouldn’t hurt, either. Less than half an hour in and he’d already taken nearly three days’ worth of damage.

The arrow protruding from the wolf caught his eye again. The wolf was still hungry. Whoever had shot it was still out there somewhere. Best case, they could help. Worst case, they’d kill him quickly.

Either outcome was better than sitting under the tree and praying that nothing came by for the next sixty-three hours, kept company only by the increasingly foul scent of blood. He hauled himself to his feet. Which way had the wolf come from? He set off into the forest, hopefully in the right direction.

***

What did it even mean? Jake circled again around everything that had happened. With every futile lap, his chest grew a little tighter. The quest was important—he knew that down in his bones—but it raised a lot more questions than it answered.

The longer he traipsed his way through the tangled mess of the forest, the more appealing playing along was. In a world gone mad, he needed something to keep his mind focused on. A goal to be his North Star.

For the moment, that was finding this hunter. Even someone trying to kill him was better than trekking through the seemingly endless forest. Thick undergrowth often blocked his path, forcing him to backtrack and find another way around.

Near constant shade from the trees kept the heat tolerable, at least as long as he kept his leather jacket wrapped around his waist. Of course, that left his arms exposed to the sharp thorns of the forest, which it had in abundance.

With the sun still as high as it was, it was useless for navigation. With all the backtracking, it was hard to tell if he was traveling in circles. If only he had a compass. He paused his stride and cocked his head. Would a compass even work here?

He shrugged and continued on his hopefully more-or-less straight path. It was an interesting question, but without a compass or magnets, there was no way to test it. His phone had one, but in keeping with the spirit of “screw you, Jake,” that hadn’t made the trip. All he had were the clothes on his back and a chip on his shoulder. Nothing new there.

Save the world? He didn’t even know what world it was! His blood boiled. The sheer cheek of not just abducting him, but expecting him to save the world afterward. He had enough problems of his own, thank you very much.

Yet there the quest sat, taking up space in his head and goading him with its presence. He didn’t want to complete it. Screw that, he had his own quest in mind of “Get home asap,” preferably before he failed his degree and missed out on his ticket out of beans and rice every night.

But the quest was there, and it needed doing. An entire world in need of saving, and someone, somewhere, had decided it was his job to do it. Just how bad did it have to be for him to be the one this world’s hopes were pinned on?

Then there was the other half of the quest. The one that kept coming to mind, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it.

“Save your father.”

Jake’s fist slammed into a tree, accompanied by a frustrated roar.

1 bashing damage received!

Years of not knowing, and now this? Heat flushed through him, and his nostrils flared. Had someone stolen him away? Was it the same people who’d taken him? Why? Where the hell was he?

More. Fucking. Questions. That’s all his dad had ever given him, wasn’t it? Questions, and now a stupid quest that was probably going to get him killed.

He stomped through the forest. Was dying even possible here? Would he respawn? He searched inward, but his new sixth sense offered up nothing but his painfully slow health regeneration.

Getting angry wouldn’t help. He had to view the evidence without prejudice, and right now, all evidence pointed to this world working like a video game. For one thing, despite walking briskly for at least an hour, he was no more tired than when he set off.

His internal awareness of stamina confirmed it was full. He sprinted for a few seconds, and it immediately went down. Video game rules it was, then. He grunted and shook his head. At least it wasn’t one of those games that killed you every five seconds until you got good.

Though, at least those games made death trivial. What if death was permanent here? His inner sense offered up nothing about saving, loading, resurrection, or reincarnation. Better not to test it. He’d probably find out soon enough, anyway.

“Hold it right there.”