Traveler of Worlds: This is not your world. You have traveled to a land far beyond the one that you originate from.

That was the first explanation I’d managed to wrestle out of my magic page. As I read those words, the ground shook and the songbirds stopped their singing. Not fifteen minutes had passed since I’d awoken in this thornwood forest and the world was already ending.

An exaggeration? Yes, but there really was something shaking the ground and it definitely wasn't an earthquake. You could tell by the pace. A real earthquake shakes you with the fervor of a madman. This barely kept pace with the tick of a grandfather clock.

It started off weak too. I barely even noticed it when I woke up next to my grave, but by the time I stood and found a page in my pocket, it wasn’t something that could be ignored so easily anymore.

When I discovered the page’s magic, it felt like someone was slamming boulders onto the ground and when I felt comfortable controlling it, the rumbling had only gotten worse.

By that point, I wasn’t just feeling the earth shake, I was hearing the sound of whatever was causing it too. Not too far off, but still muffled by the many trees between us, I could hear the sound of the earth being stricken, the sound of stomping, the sound of footsteps.

Abilities, Possessions, anything useful in this situation.

Before those commands had even fully formed in my mind, the page was already responding to my unspoken intent. What space it had left between its margins, it filled with my abilities and possessions it considered of note.

Abilities: Major Woodcutting, Climbing, Luck with Giants, Minor Cunning, Minor Farming

Possessions: An Axe, This Page

I turned to my shallow grave and rolled up the magic parchment. A second’s glance was all I needed before pocketing it.

Wedged in the dirt next to my grave was an axe, my only possession listed other than the page itself. Probably useless against something that could make the earth quake, but I’d rather have it on hand.

After freeing my axe and stringing it from a loop on my belt, I moved over to the nearest tree branch. Climbing seemed like the most useful of the abilities my page had listed and I planned to do just that.

As I ascended, I felt as quick as a monkey. The trees around here had trunks as straight as spears and thick branches that were much the same. And each tree had so many straight branches that it felt like I was climbing stairs and ladders.

Halfway up and about two stories off the ground, I stopped at a place where I could easily maneuver. I didn’t know which way the ground shaker was coming from, but I knew I’d be able to get the tree between me and its line of sight.

With my back against the trunk, a branch between my legs, and my arm locked around another, I steadied myself. By now, the small boulders creating waves on the lake had become large and the sound of stomping had become more than just a whisper muffled by the trees.

From my perch, I scanned the forest. The shaking grew ever stronger and it felt like the source was practically on top of me, but still it was nowhere in sight. Or at least, nowhere in sight from my position.

Careful, but swift, I moved around the trunk, then peeked. As soon as I did, I saw him.

Along a path where the trees hadn’t grown so tight together, a huge man leading a parade of farm animals walked. He wore no shoes, the sleeves of his shirt were short, and his pants barely reached past his knees leaving plenty of his stone grey skin revealed. And as for how tall he was, well, the draft horses in his parade weren’t looking so tall next to him.

To give a more accurate measurement, I want you to imagine a tall man. Let’s say a Dutch man. The grey man was as tall as a Dutch man sitting on the shoulders of another Dutch man sitting on the shoulders of a third Dutch man who just so happened to be standing up.

Yes, the man was a giant. And without a doubt, he was the source of the ground’s shaking.

Putting that into consideration, the parade of livestock behind him was surprisingly well behaved. Not a peep from a sheep or squeal from a pig. A level of discipline for the animals made all the more impressive by the fact that the giant was currently kicking up dust clouds into their faces as the ground exploded under the weight of his every step. But of course, who needed discipline when you had magic?

As the giant passed by, I saw shimmers of gold flickering in the air that rested between him and his herd. It was hard to see from where I was, but there were thin gold lines connecting from the giant's hand to some of the livestock. Maybe even all of his livestock. Well, all except for two...

At the rear of the parade, there were two more giants carrying large sacks. Unlike the first giant, they had orange skin with dried, cracked, and blackened blood streaking across the surface. They wore no shirts and instead of pants they had on the skirts of legionnaires. And though they were shorter than the grey giant by more than a head, by the look of their protruding guts, I’d say they still outweighed him.

A rage boiled up within me. For some reason, just looking at them pissed me off.

But before I even had time to think about that—and before the giants had time to walk away—I heard a songbird sing loud enough that I could have sworn it had snuck itself onto my shoulder. Covering my ear, I whipped my neck back. The bird continued its song and I looked for it, but in the sea of branches, looking for it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. All I could tell was that it was away from the giants in the same direction I was. Which is exactly where I didn’t want it to b—

The bird quit its chirping. A shame it only did so after the ground stopped shaking.

“Boss?” One of the orange giants called the grey one. As I peeked back around the tree, I made it just in time to see the grey giant raise his hand and point straight in my direction.

The orange giant looked around and when his eyes aligned with where I was sitting he said, “Oh.” He elbowed the third giant, “Hey look, Og,” then pointed my way.

“Oh!” The third giant exclaimed, looking in my direction. He seemed much more excitable than the other two. “Boss, has real good eyes.” Beginning the ground shaking anew, he—Og—stepped off the giant’s path and stumbled his way into the denser woods.

Though he was coming my way, I kept my place. My thought was that if I couldn’t spot a bird in this sea of branches, then there was no way they could have seen me peeking out from behind my tree. And even if they could, did they really think they would catch me here when the trees were packed so tight?

Off the path, the forest almost acted as an obstacle course for Og. With how big he was, there were branches scraping against his skin, poking against his sack, and blocking his way. A couple of his wounds were even reopening as he made his way towards me. And with everything in his way, he didn’t have a chance of catching me. Which is why he was lucky that I wasn’t his target.

Halfway between me and where he had started, Og threw his sack down and looked up into a tree he was next to. Following his line of sight, I found a couple of branches that weren’t branches at all. Though the rest of the body was hidden, an arm and a leg were poking out from behind the tree’s trunk. They would have been easy for me to miss even if my attention hadn’t been taken by the approaching giants.

Og opened his sack before reaching up into the tree and yanking the corpse from it by the leg. Holding up the dead man like a trophy, he turned to his fellows with a grin and chuckle.

“No...” I whispered. My heart sank. The way Og was holding the corpse let me have a clear view of its face and it was someone I knew. But who?

I racked my brain for his name, but that felt like the mental equivalent of running into a wall. Not a thing I could tell you about the man and yet he looked so familiar. Not a memory with him in it and yet my heart ached for his loss. It was an ache not for a stranger, but for someone I had known.

The forest began to shake again as the grey giant started back on his path. His livestock followed close behind. After lowering the corpse of the familiar stranger back into his sack, Og began wrestling his way back through the trees and onto the path between.

I watched the giants until they disappeared beyond where my sight reached and held my position until the ground’s shaking became weak. In not too long of a time at all, the ground became still and the songbirds returned to their singing.

“This is not your world.” I whispered. It was something that I was going to have to remember.

With my rear still glued to the branch I’d sat it on, I pulled back out my page. Starting with my name at the top, the page was organized as such:

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Jack

Also Known As: Jacob

Stories (of Note): Jack and the Beanstalk

Traits (of Note): Teller, Transferred Soul, Traveler of Worlds

Abilities (of Note): Major Woodcutting, Climbing, Luck with Giants, Minor Cunning, Minor Farming

Possessions (of Note): An Axe, This Page

Relations (of Note)

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

The five main sections of my profile were listed under a Of Note section, so I just added the words to the end of each title in my head. As for the Relations section, it wasn’t empty, I just hadn’t gotten around to expanding it yet.

Back to what I was doing, I looked to my Traveler of Worlds trait before ordering the page to minimize its definition with a thought. The page did as I commanded right away which put the slightest smile on my face. It was nice to know that I really had figured out how to control it.

Now confident in my ability to do so, I ordered the page to display me descriptions for my other traits along with itself.

Teller: You have an inherent knack for storytelling and grabbing an audience's attention. The stories you touch may bend to your whim as long as your goal is to make them richer for it.

Well, if my life counted as a story, being a Teller sounded like one of the most overpowered traits I could get. Only problem was that that description was the only thing I knew about it.

Transferred Soul: Your soul no longer inhabits its original vessel and now inhabits a different one.

This Page: A magical parchment that can display noteworthy information within categories about a character.

That description for This Page was about what I’d expected and considering that an indoors type like me had just rocketed up a tree like he was Tarzan, I had some confirmation on Transferred Souls description too.

With all the earth shaking going on, I hadn’t noticed at first, but my city boy hands had grown hard skin and calluses that I had never earned. They were hands fit for a lumberjack now, yet it felt like they had already been that way for quite some time.

Though I had missed the changes to my hands—and the growth and toning of my muscles—I had noticed the changing of my clothes. Jeans, jacket, shirt, and shoes—everything I’d been wearing was replaced. I now wore a short-sleeve tunic with a long-sleeve undershirt and a belt to keep both ‘round my waist.

Add on the pair of trousers and the pair of boots and I had the whole renaissance fair look down. Too bad the whole thing was covered in dirt.

I looked down at my shallow grave. No doubt a good portion of the dirt had come from there. I’d have felt bad for body snatching, but considering where I woke up, I doubted the first guy was at liberty to use it anymore.

His name was Jack, by the way. Or at least, I think it was. It would have to be for even a part of this to make any sense. As for me? Jack was my name too.