The pitter-patter of rain could be heard as it fell upon the roof of his waggon-truck.

Goodie listened to it as he lay there in the dark, wrapped in enough blankets to build a fort, several satellite towns, and a kiosk.

He was cold, not from the weather, from stress. He didn’t know how that worked but no matter how many blankets he put on his feet just wouldn’t get warm. It happened every time he freaked out.

He sighed as he rolled over to stare out the skylight, his bed on the second floor of his new home. The view, unmarred by pollution, was of an endless expanse of stars, its beauty lost on him as he wallowed in misery.

The caravan train had left the city a week ago. On their six-month journey to the new settlement he had assumed. No. They had stopped at a village three days out from his former home, a prearranged meeting spot for the recruiters and their followers. While low-born locals were more tolerant of foreigners like him, most were still reluctant to venture into the city for fear of disappearing. Apparently, it was a long-held belief that for every Earther that appeared, a local would take their place back home. So, Eric and his lot would gather everyone here in ‘The village on hill that produces corn’, the name of the village according to Eric.

They would be here another month. A month and a few silver down the drain.

While Eric had promised that his basic needs would be provided for by the waggon-train, emphasis and basic. The money being saved for what was described as an extremely successful recruitment drive. A hundred and seven families so far, apparently, hence the waiting while they and the other recruiters converged on the ‘Village on The Hill’.

“That Produces Corn.” He added.

The money Eric and the others had started out with combined with the money that they city had generously donated for taking Goodie of their hands was more than enough to see them to their destination, at least on paper. But money wasn’t food. The entire region was experiencing minor a drought, nothing catastrophic but the perfect excuse to gouge prices

At least he hoped they were being gouged. If what they had been charged was the norm, this whole expedition was screwed. The train had to of course buy food in bulk, at some point there would inevitably be a moment that they would have no alternative from whom to buy it from and on that day, some lucky merchant would have them all over a barrel.

At the moment, Goodie was getting a packet of rations the size of his hand each morning, some type of trail mix that he was told would meet all his dietary needs for the day. It looked horrible, tasted horrible, and for some reason it gave him a migraine if he ate it while drinking water. So, he brought normal food. Not a lot, not just because he was trying to save money, but because there was nowhere to store it and buying too much would have raised the prices, earning him the ire of his fellow travellers.

But the money…the money. Three months, even if he spread things out it would only extend that measure to four and a half, at best. He sometimes wished he never learnt math.

His intestines shifted as the bubble of stress that had been lodged within them these past few days grew once again. Goodie predicted that he would be spending another night in that shed they called a toilet.

He sighed.

It was pathetic. He had everything handed to him on a silver platter and all he could do was whine about it like a spoilt rich kid because he didn’t know what to do with it.

He tried to be optimistic by thinking up one of those meaningless uplifting messages that people often posted online. Like, ‘anything’ could happen in three months. It was the wrong thing to think, as the moment he did so, his mind offered him a comprehensive list of all the things that could happen in three months. Negative things. Horrible things. To him.

They could all happen to him.

He pulled his blankets tighter, trying to hide himself from the world. Worlds. That’s what he was ultimately doing here, in his home. Hiding. It’s what he had been doing his whole life. On earth he would ignore the outside world, losing himself in games and movies to such an extent that he knew that if he hadn’t been transported to this world, he would have kept doing it until he either died of old age, or more likely have ended up on the streets due to lack of the basic knowledge and skills needed to take care of himself.

It’s what he did in the city. He stayed at Ms Kolsin's lodge because the old man told him to. He hunted rats because the old man told him to. Never once thinking for himself, just hiding behind the ‘I was just following orders’ excuse.

It was what he was doing now.

Hiding.

Hoping that if he covered himself with enough blankets, the big bad world would leave him alone.

He tried to distract himself by staring at his surroundings, the act meant to pass the time rather than reveal some new bit information.

The inside of his home looked as plastic as the outside, fortunately it didn’t have that synthetic smell that was present with most modern man-made vehicles. That always gave him a headache. He was in a bed on the right side of the upper floor, directly over the truck-waggon’s cabin. The bed was a mirror of its left side twin, the two separated by a thin set of steps half a metre long that also served as a shelf.

Filled with a few cupboards and shelves, one of which he had filled with the equipment that the city had bought for him. Everything in shades of grey, the sole exception being a tiny leather couch, the brown of its leather covering the sole splash of colour in the room. Aside from his pasty white arse.

The room…was it a room? …the compartment? It was lit by something the old man had sneaked onto the list, a magic lantern, although the note that accompanied it stated that it was technically classified as mundane. A silver, palm-sized lantern that housed a wisp’s essence, emitting no heat, it bathed the walls in a dim white light.

Her Majesty had taken to sleeping in front of it each night, the pale glow negating the weakening effect of the night’s darkness upon her.

Down-stairs was basically just an empty box, but whoever had designed this thing had taken the whole toy concept to heart as there were dozens of fold-out shelves and attachments embedded in the walls. He could even open parts of those walls so that he could run a shop out of it, if he wanted to.

A shop! His widened as the thought occurred to him, only to close shut when he realised that he couldn’t do it.

What would he sell? How would he resupply himself? A flock of questions crossed his mind, each one resulting in a negative answer. Further proof of his inability to do anything to take care of himself.

Loser. He was a loser. He had never been beaten or abused, by related to him at least, he thought as he remembered his knee, he had a basic, albeit incomplete, education, and he had a small amount of money. Yet with all this. He had no clue how to provide for himself. He was sixteen years old. Old enough to marry. Old enough to not just run a business, but also own it. What was he doing? Lying in the foetal position, trying not to cry.

He had even killed before.

Okay…technically it was the zombie and Her Majesty that killed them, but he set it up.

A small part of him tried to stand up for itself. Tried to point out the truth of the matter.

He was a kid. Sixteen may have made him an adult here but he wasn’t from here, he was from earth. A white boy from a middle-class family in a first world country where there were forty-year olds who had never learnt to be adults.

And he was level zero.

And his so-called advantages? All a lie.

This vehicle of his was luxurious even by earth standards, the supplies and equipment that the city had given him, a small fortune, even Her Majesty and the magic he wielded. None of it was his. Sure, he had a piece of paper saying that he owned the truck-waggon but that was worth more as toilet paper than anything else. All of it, even the silver he had earned could be taken. Taken or destroyed by anyone with the desire and the power to do so. Which set a low bar as he was sure a trained monkey could put him down with little effort.

All just a comforting lie. But then again, he was also lying. At least about not having a clue as to what he should do.

He sorta knew what he needed to do. Anyone who ever read manga would know.

He needed power.

He sighed as he admitted it to himself.

But he didn’t want it.

Everyone new how that would go. The never-ending quest for more and more power, whatever form it took, money, influence…oh and magic as well, couldn’t forget that was an option now could we. Then would follow the constant need to bully everyone in front of him into submission. Then genocide as he tried to build an empire to protect said power. The whole arsehole game.

He didn’t want it.

But need and want were two very different things.

He had tried to think of new ways to increase his power. Preferably ones that didn’t end with him being tried for war crimes. The only things that came to mind were money, influence, and training his skills.

All of which he had tried, all of which he had failed.

He had tried to work out a deal with the village head but as soon as he offered to kill off the local vermin, the man had looked at him as if Goodie had just offered to shit in his mouth. Goodie still didn’t understand why. Talking to people was…complicated.

As for skills. He had tried studying the parts of his home that may have been influenced by shadow magic in the hopes that it would somehow make him stronger or give him some sort of breakthrough he needed to advance, but he had no clue how study things. He loved science-fiction but that didn’t mean he knew anything about science. And despite the fact that he could actually cast magic, it was a similar situation. So, he spent his days just staring at things, letting himself sink into a deeper depression.

That’s why he had wrapped himself up into a little bundle of stress, the only alternative being to wear a hole in the floor, endlessly walking back and forth in worry.

Stress. The only companion he could rely on.

He could feel it coursing through his veins even now, that old acidic burn. He’d gotten so used to it over the years that it was almost comforting when he felt it. Almost.

He shut his eyes as he gave in to the tingling sensation beneath his skin.

“Help me”, escaped his lips. A soft whisper. He spoke it so quietly that even he wasn’t sure if he said it or merely thought it. He’d been saying it a lot recently. Every night, in the dark.

“Please, help me.”

A small prayer to anyone, or anything.

He had taken to whispering these small prayers night after night. He didn’t expect anyone to answer, even in a magical world, he would have freaked out if someone had. But he didn’t know what else to do.

Yes, he still had a couple of months but he was out of ideas and he had no one to ask for help. He had tried talking to everyone he could but once the novelty of the boy on the run from the nobles wore off, most of the people in the train ignored him.

He let loose a “Fuck!” before sighing.

He new what he had to do.

He just didn’t want to.

He needed a new plan.