“Fuck!” Remember kids, eloquence.

“What is it this time?” While I didn’t appreciate the tone of my little ‘jailbait’ companion the concern was nice.

“I stepped on a rock. God I wish I brought my shoes.” It seems being transported to this world had its downsides, a lack of shoes being pretty high on the list. At least I’m wearing pants. It’d be some kind of sick irony to be labeled a sexual predator by walking into town half naked behind a child and her TOTALLY HARMLESS guardian.

“So what? Do you want to go get them?” Grey gestured off to his right laughingly.

“Hell no.” I answered while peering in the direction he’d gestured. Curious, I wandered through a few sparse trees before coming to a precipice overlooking a massive forest. In the distance I could see hills and mountains piling up towards the sky to such an immense degree they had no business calling themselves mountains anymore. The clouds spilled through the valleys in soundless rivers before burning away near the foot of each behemoth. A thick forest carpeted the gap between the mountain’s feet and our own small hill with a single finger of clear land infringing on the forest’s ancestral home.

“Fuck.”

“Hahaha yeah that was my reaction too.” Grey smacked my shoulder good naturedly. “We found you down in that gap there.” He said, pointing to the finger. I squinted down at it and could almost imagine T-Aang running around making Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannons [that’s a penis, if you don’t read Gintama] out of sand for passerby to admire. “Yeah and you can even see the pass to the city between those mountains.” Following his finger I saw a trickle of forest making its way through the shallowest part of the mountains, the forest’s only revenge against its towering neighbors.

“It’s like I’m seeing the spine of the world forcing its way out of mirkwood.” I exclaim breathlessly.

“Hey that’s a good one!” Kel suddenly chipped in, “we haven’t thought of a name for the mountains yet so why not that? Spine of the World?” Well if we don’t mind being bent over a table by copyright…

“Hell no! The abbreviation would be SOW which would confuse the hell out of farmers.” Grey made a point. I have no idea if it’s a good point but I’m sure farmers everywhere would thank him for existing. After their daughters made it through puberty of course. Or sons, actually.

“Where is this anyway?” New place, need useful information. I would praise myself on asking but I just realized I spent the deceptively huge distance from that destruction gecko to here and the only thing I’ve learned is the sexual preference of my companions and the fact that hiking without shoes is only fun for hobbits. Well and the fact that there’s both a city and a town I guess. “Oh also couldn’t there be useful stuff down there too! I mean the minifridge is probably a lost cause but my computer might be fine and I even collected a few swords?”

“Oh I got most of it.”

I turned to Kel with an empty expression. “What?”

We were running from a new monster there’s no way she actually bothered to collect stuff from my room or the wreckage of. I mean I was unconscious at one point but there was definitely no time for that.

“Yeah I grabbed some stuff that looked useful and left what wasn’t” Kel said while dropping the pack from her shoulders. Kel stuffed her arms in up to the elbows and started rummaging around. “I got a blanket, some hats, these scarves here, a sword, aaaand a bag of McChicken sandwiches!” She exclaimed whipping out a white McDonalds bag from her rucksack. I totally forgot I had those. There’s probably ten of those bitches in there.

“Holy shit Micky D’s?? You did good Kel!” Grey voices the excitement I feel. I fukkin love McChickens. “Alright we could all use a hat ‘cause you’ve got a couple and we’ll sell the ones we don’t use. Give the rest to Newb.” I feel like I should get a say in distributing my own possessions but it sounds reasonable, after all, my hat collection was always meant to be shared. Sharing is caring and lice are just a symbol of friendship. I wrap my old Crew scarves around my feet and slide my favorite Domo hat over my ears. God bless fluffy cotton. After stuffing the blanket in my backpack I look back at the other two.

“Hey how far is town? And hey, split those up; I paid sweet cash for that.” Bastards were eating my McChickens.

“It’s about a day’s hike on the other side of the mountain, and we saved your ass; this is the finder’s fee.”

I would gladly kill you for a McChicken, Grey.

I steal the eight remaining sandwiches from the gluttonous bastards and grab one for myself. “Well if it’s going to take that long we should save these for rations. I’ll just take the lettuce out first.”

“What? Why?” Smart little Kel: always asking the important questions.

“You ever have a cold McChicken with wilted lettuce in it? Shit’s nasty.” I pile the extra lettuce onto a wrapper before putting the rest of the sandwiches into my bag. “Well actually there’s an uneven number, so here.” I hand a sandwich to Kel. “You guys can split one and eat the rest of the lettuce too.”

“One??” Grey asked incredulously.

I’ll fucking fight you, you knight bastard.

“I’ll pay you back properly later! Just eat the damn sandwich!” Grey grinned a little then turned to see Kel lick her fingers with a satisfied burp. Stories would later be told in taverns far and wide of the horrors I saw that day. The last light of the setting sun reflected in the empty eyes of a seasoned killer. His prey struggled vainly against his iron will (Not a euphemism) with victim’s tears dripping from her eyes, only moistening lips that had moments before stood witness to the peerless hubris that led to their owner’s demise. Her death was not swift, but she did not regret for a moment.

“Hurry up you two it’ll get dark if we stay here.” I called over my shoulder while trotting up the road.