“While he was on a fateful voyage. It happened. The people in his care turned on each other whilst he wasn’t there. It escalated. Hate bred hate, violence caused violence. When he returned, he found his village a field of the fallen. The few surviving children had starved, or worse.”

==========================================================================

A part of John was excited, and another part was nervous. He didn't know what he should be more. Not really knowing what he should do with himself, he watched attentively as Cary plugged the console into the TV.

“Of course, the magical console has plugs that fit our TV perfectly, what else would it have.” Cary murmured to himself.

“Don’t turn it on until I say so.” Cary warned.

“I won’t, who knows what could happen.” John answered back assuredly.

John laughed at the sheer ridiculousness that was happening, or perhaps because he was nervous, but some part of him thought it was hilarious that the magical console had standardised plugs.

Cary, for his part, thought it was funny too, but started coughing because of dust that hadn’t been cleaned of the TV stand, which only caused John to laugh even harder.

His laughter died down when the TV turned on by itself. No start-up logo or anything. The moment the console was plugged in, the TV was on.

It wasn’t just that the TV was on; it was playing soft music, sounding like tribal drums, coupled with roars of different animals.

I was the same title: “THE LOST WORLD”, although in a slightly different styling, the words were built with wood pieces with grass sticking out everywhere around the letters.

Then there was the background. A rotating panorama shot, shifting between different terrains, first a jungle, then a desert, a mountain range, a forest, and so on.

Cary noticed the light and music from the TV and ducked his head out from behind the TV, and glared at Cary.

“I didn’t turn it on, it turned on by itself.” John was quick to raise his large hands defensively before Cary could say anything.

“What is it with this game console…” Cary grumbled.

“The Lost World, huh.” John took one controller and handed the other one to Cary.

‘Press A to start’ it said below the title.

“No time like the present.” John said encouragingly to no one in particular and pressed A on the controller.

He wasn’t sure what he expected, but a character selection screen wasn’t one of them.

It said:

Player 1, select your character

Characters:

Sergeant Edward ‘Fortis’ Smith

Apprentice Thomas ‘Simiae’ Smith

Choose wisely.

John was player one. And, although apprehensive about what was happening, something inside of him told him to pick the second option. He wasn’t appealed to being a soldier, and a position of learning was much more interesting to him.

He confirmed with Cary that assured him he wanted to pick the first character.

He pressed A, and the screen now said player 2 instead of one, and his character now had a strike-through, leaving only one option to pick.

Cary nervously pressed the button, worried about what might happen when dealing with this obviously magical console.

And in an instant, they disappeared from Earth.

No clothes left behind, no dust. It was like they disappeared from existence the very milli-second Cary selected his character.

==========================================================

John’s view changed, like when you blinked, and you were somewhere else. It was like from one moment to the next, he saw something entirely different. He was stunned, blinking several more times to confirm that it wasn't an illusion.

Finally accepting his situation when he felt a warm breeze on his face, something he shouldn’t have felt seeing as he was inside Cary’s room, or should've been inside Cary’s room, at least.

John realized they hadn’t really talked over what they thought would happen. They were too smitten with something magically appearing in front of them to rationally discuss it. They jumped into it completely blind.

Unlike most people would be in his current predicament that wouldn’t really know what was going on, John was able to somewhat rationalize what was happening, as he was partially responsible for his current situation.

First, he established that he wasn’t in his own body. He was almost a meter shorter than he used to be. He looked at his skinny arms, dirty and worn shirt.

‘Thomas ‘Simiae’ Smith, I’m probably in his body, that’s the character I picked.’

‘Shouldn’t I be an apprentice? Am I some farmer’s apprentice, maybe? I need to figure out what I am learning specifically.’

He finally looked at his surrou-.

“Keep moving! You slaves always try to take breaks, start walking, or I’ll make sure you never walk again.” A gruff voice sounded behind him.

A harsh kick in the back sent him tumbling into the dry dirt. He got up immediately. He wasn't good at thinking on his feet and reacted instinctively, getting back up to fight back, raising his fists an-.

“I’m sorry master, I’ll make sure he keeps working. It won’t happen again. Please spare him. Thomas is normally very hardworking.” A figure stood between him and his opponent, a figure that quickly went on his knees to beg for John’s, no, Thomas’s, life.

“You bow too, apologize for your mistake,” the figure's hand grabbed him, a wrinkled, aged hand, and easily pulled him down to the ground beside him, showing surprising strength. The hand went behind his head and lightly pushed his forehead into the dirt so it looked like he was begging for forgiveness.

He heard the gruff voice again: “I’ll forgive him this time, make sure that it doesn’t happen again, the next transgression will be his death.”

The person with the gruff voice walked away with slow, heavy steps.

The hand still didn’t move away from his head, holding it against the ground.

That’s when John had the time to realize his mistake. He’d acted on instinct, forgetting that he wasn’t in his old body, fighting the first thing that came at him, without even knowing what it was.

‘Stupid, stupid, stupid, of course I can’t take on someone when I’m in the body of a child.’

‘Okay, calm down. What did I learn? I learnt I’m a slave, I am indeed in Thomas’ body, and the person I’m bowing with probably just saved my life.’

His heart chilled at the realisation.

'I'm a slave.' Every terrible thing he'd heard about slaves went through his mind.

'I'm a slave.' He was someone's property. He could be killed if he did something wrong.

'I'm a slave.' This isn't what he wished for. He wanted to study the wildlife, the people, the culture. Not be a slave.

The hand finally moved and lifted his head instead. That’s when he was face to face with an ancient and angry man.

“Are you crazy?!” He hissed, “standing still right in front of a slave master?! What in the world convinced you to stop? You could’ve been killed, right then and there, you’re really lucky you weren’t.”

"Wha-? I could've -!?" He shuddered visibly at the word killed. 'I could've been killed?!'

The old man in front of him was practically seething with anger. John's response was a half-hearted "I'm sorry" his mind was elsewhere. He didn’t know whether or not to treat this as a game yet, but whatever had happened to them, a game console appearing out of nowhere, was magical. No matter how you look at it, it wasn't some RPG with stats. The man in front of him was very real. And in reality, death meant death. No restarts.

John was shaken by the fact that he was a slave. I mean, who wouldn't? You wished to go to a fantasy world, and you're suddenly a slave? He looked down, unable to meet the old man's eyes. He earnestly hoped he wouldn't regret his decision to play 'The Lost World'.

“I’m really sorry, I…I just…” was all he could eke out

“What is it? Spit it out!” The old man hurried him.

“…I forgot what I was supposed to do.” He finally let out after a moment, hoping it would give him some hint of where he should go, although he feared the answer.

The old man did not like that answer. “You forgot?! How can you forget something as simple as moving rocks?” he practically hissed at John, but then stopped.

He looked deep into John’s eyes and said quietly: “Don’t give up yet, I know it’s hard, but your brother will come and save us, I’m certain of it, he can do anything.”

John nodded, a tiny bit of hope returning to his mind. ‘If this really is a game, I have to survive until my brother can come and free the slaves. He's good at games, he'll know what to do.'

He reassuringly told the old man with a look of newfound confidence that was only half-faked: “I promise, old man, I won’t let you down. We’ll survive until my brother can save us.”

John was responsible for his current situation. While he still had the clarity of what he'd wished for, he would try his very best to play along.

Satisfied by John’s answer, the old man said: “Good, now go! It will look suspicious if we keep standing here!” and shooed John away.

Properly looking around this time, he saw 2 lines of slaves, one carrying large rocks and the other walking in the opposite direction without any.

‘That’s an obvious sign if I ever saw one.’ He said to himself, trying to shake off the last of dread he was feeling. Quickly hurrying over to the line where they weren’t carrying rocks, quietly integrating himself into it.

Sadly, he noted, he wasn’t the smallest slave there, briefly glancing around, seeing 2 smaller than him, one of them a girl.

The line was moving neither quickly nor slowly, at a comfortable walking pace, the slaves too exhausted to move any faster.

That’s when John finally felt it.

Walking forwards with his head down like all the others, finally becoming aware that he wasn’t wearing shoes, but was walking barefoot.

Intermittent sharp pains when he stepped on something sharp.

As he walked, trying to avoid any sharp stones, he started becoming exhausted.

Before, he merely felt a bit tired and weak, not really feeling anything except when the slave master kicked him.

Now, he felt a deep, soul-crushing exhaustion. All the energy inside him was simply gone, and he was ready to collapse at any minute.

It was like his body was finally properly integrating with his mind. He finally connected with his new body, Thomas’ body.

Every signal his brain received was negative. Not a single part of his body was healthy.

Hungry, sore, and tired.

He felt it with every step and every swing of his arms. He was very, very, tired.

Everything ached, his skin stung when the wing blew against scrapes on his skin. His hands were swollen and partly numb.

Inspecting them, they were unlike the hands of a child at all. They were worn, his nails were broken on some fingers. His palms had thick skin crusted with dust.

His knees and back were especially bad, like he’d carried too much for too long.

The dread returned in full. 'This is what it's like to be a slave.' This time able to keep his shuddering internal.

The only thing he could do was walk, trying to focus on his breath, to recover as much energy as possible. He didn’t know what else to do, and simply fell back to his old routine between workouts, efficient breaths and smooth movements.

The dread disappeared as quickly as it came. He didn't have the energy to care.

Focusing on anything else other than walking was using too much energy. His world, his mind, was slowly shutting down.

It was like when he was running, except instead of his body taking over in order to gain an edge, his body was taking over so he wouldn’t collapse.

Mindlessly taking the rock he was given and joining the other line.

This line was a bit different. Everyone walked at different speeds. So, John, or rather John’s body, had to pace him, not too fast to get exhausted, but fast enough that he didn’t get whipped at being too slow. John, as an athlete, had learnt to be as efficient as possible in his movements, something normal people really didn’t have any reason to be, but when you were squatting 300 kg, the difference the tiniest movement could make was enormous.

That gave him an edge.

His tank was entirely empty when he started walking, but when he dropped the rock into the pit and picked up another one, he felt himself have just a tiny bit more energy than before. Just a tiny bit, that was lost, when he was given a larger stone on his third drop. John couldn’t really think as he had no energy, and he assumed neither could the others.

He didn’t remember how many rocks he’d dropped by the time night fell; all he knew was that he was fed some watery soup, given a thin piece of cloth and went to sleep on the uncomfortable bets, which were more or less square sheets lifted off the ground by each corner.

Just before he went to dreamland, hopefully a better place than this one, he looked around at the other slaves.

They looked...Numb. None of them talked to each other. They simply put on their blanket to sleep. All of them had dead eyes. They stared at the empty air in front of them, not meeting his gaze.

Nevertheless, John wasn’t there for most of the day, thankfully. His body was using as little energy as possible with each drop, trying its best to be resourceful with whatever it had.

John’s mind didn’t return until someone collapsed in front of him on the second day.

It was a man, John noticed, that collapsed whilst carrying his rock.

He paused, not knowing what to do. The man was wheezing in exhaustion, and unsuccessfully trying to get up again, but falling back down each time.

John simply stared at him, wanting to look away, but unable to.

Suddenly, a slave master came, easily picking the man up and putting him on his shoulders.

The slave master leisurely joined the line with the rock carrying slaves, about the same pace as John had.

John couldn’t slow down, as he was already as slow as possible, but he wished he could stop.

The man that had collapsed was staring at John from the shoulder of the slave master.

Refusing to look anywhere else than straight at him.

John wanted, no, wished, he could look away, but it was like the man had commanded John with his gaze, to forever burn his face into his mind.

The gaze staring at John was growing more and more frightened and pale. He didn’t want to guess why.

They walked all the way to the pits. The collapsed man was looking like a ghost.

Then he was thrown from the ledge.

He tried his very best to ignore the soft thud of the body hitting the bottom.

John dropped his own rock a moment later. He could see the corpse, broken and smashed against the ground below, hoping he'd had a quick death. The rock he dropped fell on the corpse, destroying it further.

He felt sick. He wanted to throw up any food he had left inside him and nearly did. Barely able to force himself to swallow whatever bile was threatening to come up.

The corpse was going to be covered in rocks before John came with his next one, like a buried memory.

The gaze of the frightened man had successfully burnt itself into John’s mind. His body might be buried under hundreds of rocks, and forgotten by everyone else, but he knew he would never forget it.

He realized that when they wished that they could be in another world, they forgot that the world was real enough all on its own.

‘Brother, I sincerely hope that you aren’t going through the same thing I am. I know I will come out of this a changed person, for better... Or for worse.’

And that was all the thinking he allowed himself to have, seeing a man die could traumatize and scar people for life, but he didn’t have the luxury to be scarred, he didn’t have the spare energy to be affected by it more than he already had.

One step at a time, one breath at a time, he joined the line, ready to pick up another rock.

His mind slowly shrunk itself into his body and let it take over once again.

Anyone looking at him would see a child that had lost hope, something that had been broken by the world around it, and, although the inside wasn’t as damaged by the world as the outside was; sleeping to protect itself from most of the horrors, it too, with time, would break.