"What the hell was that?" he said aloud to himself.

He waved his hand in front of him, trying to summon the words back from the air, pinching and pulling the vacant mist back and forth and side to side. He did this for a while before he realized how dumb he must have appeared to any onlooker.

The sentence appeared in his mind again, as he tried to make sense of it.

You have struck a trihop for 7 damage.

It must have just been a figment of his imagination that was jostled loose from his stressed mind. He placed his hand over his rumbling stomach and fruitlessly tried to recall the last time he had eaten.

This is not good, he thought. I'm becoming delirious, imagining weird sentences. And what the hell is a trihop?

He walked over to where the trihop had been, and noticed a slight and shiny object on the ground. It was black and would have blended in with the dark color of the mud were it not for the faint glimmer that caught his eye. He bent down and held it in his hand, feeling the cool metal against his palm and recognizing it as a key. Then he held it up to his eye, revealing the inscription "HRDTS" cut precisely into its side. But before he could inspect the key any further, he heard the familiar high pitched honk of the trihop in the distance, and realized how far it must have hopped away from him.

Surely an animal wouldn't walk, or hop in this case, towards danger, he thought. But am I seriously going to follow a three-legged annoying thing into the - wherever it was?

He tried to think of a different course of action, but nothing came to mind, nothing but the piercing honk of three-legged creature that beckoned him to follow.

He tucked the key away into a pocket formed out of some of the fabric breaking apart on the inside of his garment, and used a sinewy weed on the ground to make a tie around it and secure it tight.

And so he began his trek again, dragging himself through the mud, swatting the clumps of grass that would stick to his feet at first, then later accepting its clinging to his skin as his arms became tired of flicking them away. His ears would perk up every time he heard the honk of the trihop, which was now his beacon in the foggy field. He increased his pace to keep the trihop within earshot, wondering that if got too far, he'd be directionless forever.

As he walked, his mind returned to the text that appeared before him just moments ago. Well, at least I can still read, he concluded. My brain isn't that damaged. Just damaged enough to make up sentences and hallucinate them. And imagine a key. Maybe the trihop would lead him to some food and water. That would clear his mind up and help him regain his bearings. He couldn't remember the last time he ate. Well, he couldn't remember anything about himself at all, of course, he conceded to himself.

There was little else to do, though, but to press on. The sky was beginning to darken and the urge to catch up to the trihop asserted itself within him. He did not want to be in the middle of this field when it became dark. Who knows what other creatures there were. Or which other ones his mind would conjure up. He put the thought he was losing his grip on reality out of his mind again and began jogging towards the sound of the trihop, which honked again in the distance.

The tiredness began to creep up his legs as he began climbing up a hill. He had to lean forward and assist his ascent with his hands, propelling himself slowly with all fours. His hands sunk into the wet ground but moistness and the darkening sky only strengthened his resolve to catch up to the trihop.

Finally, he reached the peak of the hill, and allowed himself to sit down. The wet ground, which had been his bane, was finally accepted as a suitable place to sit and relax his body. He crossed his legs and saw he was almost face to face with the trihop which sat on his right side, staring at him.

Its eyes were black, and an eyelid made its way slowly across it, moistening it, barely reflecting anything.

The trihop tilted its head as it stared at the man, then its milky colored throat filled with air.

"Murp!" it honked, then hopped down the hill at a breakneck pace.

He didn't know if he had been expecting answers from the trihop of all things, with its incredible one word vocabulary.

He sighed, rubbed his eyes, and then saw that the trihop had indeed provided him with some kind of lead.

As he watched the trihop shrinking into a dot as it sped away, he saw orange and yellow - fires - clustered next to one another in the distance.

Who set them there - what set them there - he had no clue.

But he at least figured that he wasn't going to be walking to a camp of trihops.