There was a heavy thud, followed by the ruffling of bushes as someone stumbled past the gnarled roots that shot down in odd angles. The spearman with the short-sleeved black shirt pushed himself up, covered in dirt. He moved behind Christofer and raised his spear. He blew out a deep breath as his spear swayed in the air.

  "Put your hands up, trespasser!" the man said in a slurred, incoherent tone.

  The man took another lazy step forward, scraping the earth with his leather boot to steady himself, as just standing up while holding the spear seemed to put a heavy burden on the man's body in his current state. He was trying to point the spear toward Christofer’s back.

  “No?” Christofer bluntly replied.

  The unexpected reply made the inebriated man pause and his eyes widened while trying to comprehend the reply.

  “But I got a spear?” the man blurted out, obviously confused.

  Christofer twisted around and glanced down at the spear and then at the man. The man with the spear stared up at the large figure in front of him with big eyes.

  “...Why do you have a spear?” Christofer asked, confused.

  The spearman's eyes widened even further. His grip around the spear tightened.

  “Captain, what do we do with this guy?” he said, taking a deep breath, his eyes still struggling to keep focus.

  The Captain crossed his arms confidently. A bright light washed over the area, Christofer looked up and saw the parting of the dark rain clouds. The parting revealed the violet moon, which had been joined by two other smaller moons.

  “Why are there three of you?” Christofer blurted out.

  Realizing he had been distracted, he caught himself, and he looked down at the captain again. A large iron ball and chain and narrowly clanked around his right ankle. The soldier who had snuck behind him retreated as soon as he noticed Christofer had realized what had happened.

  “I- wait. Uh.”

  He looked down on what was now attached to his ankle. He raised his leg to feel the weight of the chain. As if he needed to confirm it was really there.

  “So, I assume I’m under some sort of arrest.”

  “Right, for trespassing.” the Captain said.

  “I have some questions.”

  The men doused the flames of the campfire with a bucket of water and then walked off behind the trees. The whinny of horses then reverberated in the forest. One man pulled a horse along for the captain, who stepped up onto its back via the stirrups.

  “Later. Bring it up with the lord.”

  Two powerful brown horses pulled up next to him with an impromptu carriage, like they converted an old medieval hay cart into what it was now, rough old dark planks and all. People in chains sat tightly packed with leg cuffs on their ankles instead on top of it. The weight on top of it already was evident as the wooden wheels sank down in the rough ground. He pondered, analyzed it, wondering if it could take his weight, let alone his combined with the men already sitting on it.

  “Get on, trespasser. We don’t have all day.”

  Lifting the ball and chain as if it was a football, the carriage creaked worryingly loud as Christofer sat down. The hooves of the horses dug into the earth and escalated their tempo until they heaved the carriage into a sprint. Over twenty warhorses galloped behind it, kicking up splashes of mud. The wagon shook and skipped around the rough trail. His focus drifted from the horses to the scenery of blurry leaves and shadows dancing along the ground. However much time had passed by this point, somewhere in the distance a muffled clap of a gunshot echoed which startled the horses.

  At the same time vibrations from Christofer’s shorts snapped him out of mindlessly staring at the scenery that blurred past him. He dug his hand into the vibrating pocket and retrieved a sleek black mobile phone. The phone lit up and a calming nature background greeted him. He glanced up into the corner, the battery of the phone was currently sitting at a stable 91%, with the time at 04:15. Something that confused him was the date however ― FRI, JUL 16. Apparently, according to the phone, he had a memory gap stretching for about five days.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Christofer thought, ‘Wait, that can’t be right, can it? This is five days ahead of what I remember? So I have a memory gap larger than I thought’. Absorbed with this thought process, the loud noise floated away and was forgotten. He double checked the date. It made little sense to him. He looked up and saw a curious prisoner stretching out his hand, clearly trying to grab his phone. Christofer’s blank expression turned into a vicious glare and the prisoners retreated from the bloodlust, leaving him his own corner. Pocketing the mobile phone, buttoned the pocket, he leaned so that no possible theft could happen and used the cloak as if it was a blanket.

  * * *

  Christofer felt a hazy sensation, light streamed down from above. The lamps in the ceiling cast a flickering glow over the room. There was a familiar humming on his right. He turned his head. A black computer chassis stood on at the leftmost edge of a wooden table with metal legs, to the right of the chassis were two computer screens. Nestled close to the rightmost edge of the table, in front one screen, stood a white fan that was blasting a steady stream of air around the room. A blue L.E.D light shone at the upper front-side part of the chassis, showing it was on.

  He turned his head back, at the far end of the room a large TV screen on another wooden table. The TV wasn't turned on often, as it generated even more heat than personally Christofer did. Behind the TV, just below the window, the radiator made a steady clinking sound, despite still being turned off.

  ‘I’m home? So it was a dream after all?’

  It was home, but something was different, a white haze hung in the room, obscuring the distasteful orange wallpaper which wrapped around the room, interrupted only by the aforementioned window, and a white door to the right of the computer screen. A flowery strip of paper was plastered along the center of the wallpaper, remnants from the previous owners that Christofer just hadn’t bothered to replace. Something was off, the images were clear, but it felt like he was moving through fog. No matter which direction he turned his face to, he felt a steady breeze of cool air at the same part of his face. He glanced towards the fan and turned it off. The breeze didn't stop.

  ‘Where is that wind coming from?‘ Christofer thought.

  He sat up on the bed, pushed aside the covers and spun to his left. As his feet landed on the wooden floor, ripples cascaded outwards as if the floor was made of water. He took another step, and another. It was as if someone skipping rocks in a pond created the ripples. He stopped, turned around and focused on the red light shining from the far end of the room. The alarm clock nudged in front of the TV screen, giving it a strange but surreal feeling, despite only being an alarm clock. It's red L.E.D. digits displayed the time; 10:26.

  Christofer’s hands suddenly felt heavy. Something had appeared in them. In his left he was now holding his beloved mug, in the right, a broken stick. He instinctively looked at the wall. The fog lifted, exposing a portion of the wall where a gigantic crane fly had been slammed so hard that its guts and wings adhered permanently to the wallpaper. The insectoid legs twitched, giving the impression of a recent collision

  'What’s happening? When did I pick up these things?' he thought and turned around.

  He had hit it so hard that he broke the piece of the stick that collided with the wall. He remembered doing this days ago. He dropped the broken stick. It was odd. He still felt the hazy memory of adrenaline. He shifted the mug to his left hand as he circled the bed and grabbed the door handle with his right hand. As he left his room, he glanced to the hall to his left, with tiny little antique table with the mirror hanging over it. Christofer closed the door. He took a step forward and noticed something odd which made him stop.

  Whenever something was about to leave his field of view, it would disappear from the corner of his eye. It vanished like smoke, barely reforming whenever he shifted his gaze back.

  He looked away and back a few times. It repeated. Curious. Trying to uncover the mystery, he once again looked to his left and walked up to the mirror, holding up the comb, turning it, studying it. Placing it back down when he couldn’t find anything unusual with it.

  A soft murmur filled the area which gradually turned to clearer whispers. The whispers stopped, the light changed, from what appeared like a bright morning to a reddish evening, darkening ever more. Noticing the shift, he looked up from the comb, into the mirror. His tired green eyes stared back at him. His reflection moved independently of himself. The whisper now clearly rang out.

  “This. Is. Not. How. It. Happened,”

  The voice reminded him of his own, although far more gravelly, deeper, more raspy and hoarse. The flesh of the reflection started to fall off like sand, revealing portions of his skull. Christofer jumped back, slamming the bathroom door shut behind him and almost falling over as he quickly ran in front of the door to his room. The light shifted back to that of a morning. He rubbed his face worryingly and craned his neck as he cautiously glanced back at the mirror without moving closer. His face was back, as if nothing weird ever had happened. Christofer shook his head and took a step toward the kitchen.

  Each step on the wooden floor echoed out as if the walls and floor were hollow. While the walls had always been the inferior quality material expected of an old house, the yellow wallpaper appeared as if transformed into high tensioned drums, amplifying the slightest creak into an unnerving sound.

  Christofer sidestepped to the right to avoid two chairs, one of which a repeater rested on, providing internet from the floor below. Blinking with an odd green radiance. The other chair locked it in place, which was a simple means of preventing the cat from slapping it into the floor.