The world erupted into shades of brown and green as the impact blasted all of the dust and leaves in the area outwards, fast enough to leave me on my ass like I’d just tripped over my own feet.

“Language Damion!” Narrator gasped in my head.

“Stop reading my mental dialogue Narrator!” I quipped back, making sure to only send the message mentally as to not make any noise. Gotta say, I really need to get better at that before I get to Aldir lest I cause some ‘fun’ interactions…

I hadn’t expected to need an actual weapon going into this, but that was two weeks ago and here I am… so I pulled a small knife out of my bag as I got up, trying to see what just landed. It had only been a few seconds since they landed, but I couldn’t get a clear view through all of the dust, so it threw me for a loop when I hear a voice coming from my right.

“Why hello there small child.” They said to me, almost as if we had known each other for ages.

I recoiled sharply towards the left, completely surprised by the shockingly little distance between us.

“Relax small child, I’m not here to do you much harm.”

Now that the dust had mostly settled, I had a good look at this new figure and I gotta say, I was not expecting something like this to happen. I had thought that the guy was old given the ‘small child’ comment, but I might as well have been staring at a mirror from how the guy looked. He was the same height as me, almost six feet tall, with a lithe body that unlike mine, hid a near insane amount of muscle mass. Recovering from the initial shock, I noticed he was scanning me with his black eyes as he smoothed out his straight brown hair that had been ruffled from the impact.

“I told you kid; I don’t want to hurt you now.” The impersonator said, almost as if he was bored.

“And remind me how I’m supposed to know this Mr. Possible Serial Killer?” I responded, trying to figure out who this person was and why he looked like me.

The man paused for a second, clearly caught off guard before reaching behind his back and withdrawing a pair of ornate blue bracelets before putting them on his wrists with a large grimace. Looking back at me, it seemed as if he was waiting for a response.

“I’m sorry, is this supposed to mean anything?” I asked.

“Why are you apologizing to yourself Damion?” Narrator interjected jokingly. “Just seems kind of weird if you ask me.”

“Dunno Narrator, maybe if you shut up, we might make it out of here in one piece!” I shot back mentally, though I had a strong feeling my thoughts might as well be laid barren before the impersonator given that he clearly had a plan.

“Seriously?” The man responded, “What do you mean, what do I mean? I sealed my mana! How the hell am I going to hurt you now?”

I’m not sure if he knew that I thought he was crazy, but his next words gave it away.

“Listen kiddo. These bracelets are hard to come by, even for me. They seal the mana of whoever wears them, so they’re normally used exclusively on slaves, hostages, or prisoners. Geez, I don’t know how they train kids these days, but I thought this was basic stuff!”

“Wait he can use magic?” Narrator said. “Maybe he can teach you magic and maybe help us out of this maze of trees!”

It took me a second to digest this new information, but given he seemed like the kinda guy to use magic, I might as well shoot my shot. “Yeah, so… uhh… I can’t exactly use magic,” I responded to the man, hoping to appeal to him, “but I was looking for someone to teach me. Can you?”

I wasn’t sure what I did, but the man’s eyes widened at my words, almost in shock. I backed away another step, but as soon as my foot hit the ground, he was back in front of me, mere inches from my face.

“Hold up, you can’t use magic yet?” He exclaimed, “That’s great, now I don’t have to go through the trouble of finding another test subject!”

“I’m sorry, what-“ I started to respond not really wanting to hear the reply, but before I knew what was happening, I fell to the ground.

“Yeah, I’ve been searching for a test subject for ages now,” the man continued as my consciousness slowly faded out. “I’ve been wanting to try these two things for ages now, but all of the people I tried to do it with have died pretty horribly. Here’s hoping you won’t be failure number seven! Oh, and I’ll leave you on the outskirts of the forest in case you live.”

I wanted to respond, but my body wouldn’t listen to me. For a moment, I genuinely thought I was going to die until I heard a few soft words echo through my head.

“Don’t worry, you won’t be awake to feel the pain!”