Hours, days, months; time rolled by as late autumn brought the early winter to bear upon my home. Bare trees, humid air with unending precipitation and strong winds painted a bleak picture of this time of year. It would be much better if the temperature finally dropped below zero, but it remained steady just above. At least the landscape would be a little brighter. I always preferred snow to that annoying endless drizzle.

We just left a corporate party, me and my two colleagues. Nice guys, if you ask me, they are a little weird, but who isn't? Around the same age as me, one is three years older, another is four years younger. I'm thirty four, almost thirty-five already. We've just completed an extensive project, which involved going into a crunch at the end, but the payout was all worth it. Now our small team is on vacation for two weeks, while economists and lawyers are sorting things out before we start a new project. A pretty little bonus that a rather small company can offer, while the big sharks will throw you into work right away without any delay.

After the party at the office, which involved quite substantial amounts of alcohol, we continued at the local club. Of course, we would prefer a bar, but there was none nearby and we were too lazy to travel anywhere far. So now we found a more or less quiet corner for ourselves, where overly loud music wouldn’t make it impossible for us to converse. I don't know how long we've been here already, but we had a great time, even tried to dance like three morons, but who cares after such amounts of booze, anyway?

Now the guys left me and went 'to smoke and hit on ladies'. Well, I wish them luck… Just kidding — with this amount of alcohol in their bloodstream, it's more likely they will get into a fight rather than woo any women. I'm not a fan of smoking, so I opted to just kick back on the couch and relax for a while.

"Pardon me, guys, but I won't ever join you outside just to get soaked under that damn icy drizzle," I said to myself.

My initial drive was wearing out and melancholy kicked in, like it often happens when you drink more than you should. I've been reminiscing about my life for some time. My childhood was pretty good overall, for which I'm grateful to my parents, though my smooth-sailing life ended not long after I turned eighteen. Both of my parents died in a car accident. Maybe I would feel better if I had someone to blame for it, but there was none, really. I was lucky I was eighteen already, so the story with a shelter for underage orphans did not happen. I was a single child in our family and had nobody to care for, left completely alone.

I had to cover my expenses somehow and continue with my studies at the university at the same time, but there was still some bright side to my situation. My childhood friend. He and his family helped me big time when those events happened. That is what you call a genuine friendship. While you're young, you can't quite understand that concept fully, only with years it comes to you.

We've been through thick and thin together. Alas, a year ago, he left this world. The cause? Prosaic as it could be, he started drinking after several failed love affairs. Despite being a social and party person, he must have felt lonely without being loved. Not all of us can be strong as a rock inside; we're only humans. He hid it well from everyone, even from his family, as well as he hid his illness, until it was too late. His liver had a low tolerance for alcohol, as it appeared. It was that simple. He never drank in large quantities, but did it too often, and that was enough to bring disaster. Many tried to talk to him about his new habit, but he never listened. I still can't forget my sorrow and quell my anger at this whole situation, even after more than a year had passed.

Our close circle of friends mostly crumbled after that, as he was in its center, always cheerful and full of crazy ideas on how to spend our free time. People started focusing on their jobs and families, and for the past year we've never gathered in full again. I met with some of our friends just a few times in a span of a year. Some of them never showed up anywhere ever since, apart from online chats. I was the same, almost living on my job, but doing this for a long time burns you out, apparently; this feeling is already there. I need to change something soon, lest it’ll break me eventually.

I sighed. Well, this is life. Sometimes you just have to let things go, hard as it may be, and live on, swap your attention to something else, find a new way, a new place for yourself, maybe even love.

Clamor and laughter, coming from my two colleagues, interrupted my trail of thoughts. It seems they've made fools of themselves again and were taunted by the local girls. I'm not surprised — it often ends like that, one way or another. Their return yanked me from my melancholic mood. We continued our celebration there for some more time, even got dragged into a silly competition by the local animator and actually won. Yes, the prize? Three bottles of champagne, and we were stupid enough to drink all three. We all knew how bad it would turn out in the end. Oh yes, we knew full well where it was going to if we polish all that stuff we drank before with champagne.

My memory about what happened after that is failing me. I just remember we paid our check and left the establishment, not without difficulties. It was already past three o'clock in the morning, too late, or perhaps already too early, to try public transport, so I just ordered myself a taxi. I just dropped onto the backseat, snoozed and didn't even notice when we had arrived. The driver woke me up. I thanked him and got out of the car on unsteady legs. Strong, wet, and chilling wind instantly gave me shivers. The streets became glazed with a thin layer of slippery ice; the temperature finally fell below zero, and by a good margin at that. Returning to my house now seemed quite a tricky affair.

Well, that happened. That just had to happen… That — just — had — to, damn it! My soles lost traction with the ground, and my body slid to the side, because the sidewalk was slanted. I could not call myself an acrobat before, and I definitely can’t call myself one now, not with all that booze running through my blood. I glided for a short while and then lost my balance, my legs flying to the side, wrecking face-first into the lighting pole. My fall didn’t stop at that and just continued on a new trajectory instead. Damn, it hurts! I was already preparing for the inevitable meeting with a dirty surface of the street, now falling backwards, but felt a sudden sense of weightlessness instead. I shut my eyes tight, preparing for a new handful of pain, but the impact never came. Opening my eyes to see what happened, I saw patches of weird bright colors flooding my vision. “What’s with my eyes? Have I lost consciousness from the hit? I must wake up! Lying on the icy street will not end well for me.” These were the last thoughts I could remember.

A strong hit threw me back to reality and the overwhelming pain came immediately after. It felt like I was hit by a truck, or maybe I fell face-first from some height. I tried to cry out in anguish, but a pathetic muffled groan was all I was capable of. The whole body ached, like if put through a grinder, and was paralysed in a reflexive spasm. I squeezed my eyes shut and clenched my teeth, desperately waiting for the pain to subside, curled up on the floor like a shrimp.

After an indefinite amount of time the tide of pain gradually subsided to a tolerable level, and I finally noticed the uncomfortably bright light shining even through my shut eyelids. It was warm around, hot, even.

“Where am I?” I thought, slowly moved my trembling hand, and felt the surface I was lying on. It was a cool coarse stony surface to the touch, with copious amounts of sand and dust piled up on its surface.

“That’s certainly not a hospital.” I had no recollection of what had happened whatsoever.

“Was I that drunk I can’t remember?”

The pain was still present all across my body, but I forced my eyes open, despite the irritating, almost painful light, squinting. Stone floor, stone walls, stone ceiling, with sunlight shining through some large hole in the ceiling. My vision blurs, no matter how much I squint and blink. Overcoming the pain, I propped myself on my hands.

“Fuck… That headache is killing me.” My voice was too low and raspy. Do I have a concussion? My vision is failing me, still refusing to focus. “Where the fuck am I?” My throat was extremely parched, the voice sounded grating and dry like sandpaper.

I sat myself on the floor, slowly. Every single move caused pain all across my body. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed there was something wrong with my hands. Taking a closer look, I was shocked to find them thin, with saggy wrinkled skin, like that of an old man with one foot already in a grave. I carefully checked the rest of my body and my heart sank from my findings. My whole body was in the same condition, malnourished and withered, weak, fading away. I clutched my head in horror only to find that now I had no hair. My hands slid down to my wrinkled face. There were no eyebrows, no eyelashes and not even beard stubble, though these latter findings were not that shocking and grisly as the initial ones, just piling atop the all-consuming desperation. Everything seemed like a nightmare, but it was reality. I moved my tongue about in my mouth and sighed in slight relief — at least my teeth are in place. I tried getting myself together — panicking won’t help resolving my predicament.

It was really hot in here and I was still wearing my warm, high-collar coat, so I took it off, my shirt too, all my clothes felt baggy on my now shriveled body. Dropping those on the floor, it left me only with a beige T-shirt and jeans on. My hat was nowhere to be seen. I pulled my phone from the pocket of my coat. It showed ‘5:34 AM’ and it was the same day as I remember. Only an hour and a bit had passed, but that seemed like nonsense — the outside must be dark at this hour. There was also no signal on both of my sim cards and the battery was on its last legs. Geolocation — failed, networks list check — empty.

“Great…” I exhaled slowly, throwing this useless piece of junk onto my coat. “What happened? Just where the fuck I am and how the hell did I get here?” I grumbled, looking around, but I had not a single hint in my head to help with finding any answers. Still, it’s so hot here; I’m lucky I didn’t wear my warm pair of boots, but this one is not light either, quite a sturdy pair.

I sighed. “Let’s see what shit I’ve got myself into…”

I took a better look around, my eyes started working a bit better, but still a far cry from how they are supposed to see. It appeared I was in a large stone room, or rather a hall, with the same coarse, moss-covered slabs for walls and ceiling. There were no doors and no windows made in the walls. Am I trapped here? The ceiling had a large square cut made at its center to let the sunlight in. I can see a clear blue sky over my head, but I still cannot find a way to climb up there to get out.

Right under the square cut in the ceiling stood a round pedestal of some sorts, slightly larger than a meter in diameter, reaching my waist in height. The pedestal was empty, just like the rest of the room. The web of water erosion covered it densely. This structure must be quite ancient, but these thoughts were not helping my situation. Is this some kind of ancient temple? I still can’t connect the dots about how I ended up here. Where am I, and where are the ancient temples? I and those should never be placed in the same sentence.

I searched the room for an exit, and there was indeed something resembling a door on the surface of one of the walls, but the potential exit was blocked by the stone slab and was almost merging with the wall itself. Is there any mechanism to open it? Searching the walls produced no results, apart from finding some fine pictures and ornaments carved into the stone. I turned my attention to the center of the room and walked towards the pedestal. This action showed how strained and weak my legs were. “Damn it, this is bad. I just walked a bit and my joints already ache.” After an unfruitful search, I tried to climb onto the pedestal in hope it would activate some kind of mechanism, but the sharp pain prevented me from doing it.

"Marvelous! That's just marvelous! Not only have I aged, I'm ill all over to add insult to injury…" I said to myself in fuming frustration. Well, I still have to try. Maybe there is some sort of pushing plate on this altar which will reveal the exit. Ignoring the pain, I finally climbed atop of the altar, but nothing happened. Now I feel like an idiot.

"Shit! Seems I watched too many adventure movies. How stupid and naive…" Climbing onto the altar was a pure act of panic and desperation. Deep down I knew it would never work.

A sudden flash of green light blinded me and some force pushed me off the pedestal, making me land on a hard stone floor. My worn out body did not react well to such harsh treatment. Well, I survived another fall, barely. A flash of anger exploded in my mind.

"That damn old fossil! One day I'll get back at you for everything!" I grumbled through the clenched teeth while getting up from the floor. "What the hell? I don’t remember having a habit of spouting random nonsense before—" I did not have time to finish my outburst of cursing.

With another sudden green flash, I felt a whipping slap to the back of my head, with a sharp sound of the hit, though it was not too strong, more like a glancing blow.

"Ouch! What the..?" I shouted in anger.

“I can hear you, Ray!” I heard a deep, loud, and reverberating masculine voice. “Don't you think you can curse at me when I'm not around!” The deafening voice said in a joking manner. The voice continued: "I see you've arrived in one piece. Good. Very good.”

“Can you fucking stop shouting already? My ears hurt so much, and my head is almost splitting!” I shouted back at him, whoever he was.

“My bad. Sorry, Ray, the interference was just too heavy. Now it should be fine.” The voice got much quieter to my relief.

“Yeah, that’s much better.” Only at this moment did I realize we were talking in some very unusual language. It was not one of those I knew, but I both understood and could speak it without a hitch. “Now tell me who the hell are you and what is happening here… and where are you at all?”

The voice sighed. Turning my head to the sound, I finally noticed it was coming from a strange object which appeared on top of the pedestal. It looked like a black four-sided pyramid, with a side around forty centimeters. Glowing green runes I could not understand were encrusted into the sides of it, made of some crystals or faceted gems. The runes looked weird, and the surrounding space had gained a shade of green, despite the fact the emitted light was not strong enough to do it. Mild flashes of soft yellow light flooded in waves from time to time from within the pyramid, lightning up the runes in yellow.

“I knew it would be bad for you, but I didn’t think it would be that bad,” the voice continued after a pause. “We had spent too much time, Ray, perhaps I should have thrown you out earlier? No, the time was not wasted, it was all for your own good, and it was also your own decision. The extra delay sure took a heavy toll on your body, but this is nothing we can’t deal with, really.”

I've been spaced out for some time. The voice seemed strangely familiar, but I still couldn’t remember whom it belonged to. The words spoken by the voice disturbed me even further, but also lit up a hope inside me.

“Huh? So you know what happened to me? Because I fucking don’t! You also seem to know me. Ray, is this my name? Yeah, sounds like my name, why do I even ask?”

“Memory, Ray, your memory. You lack a bigger part of it right now, but don’t worry, this isn’t permanent. It was expected when we started all this.”

“We? We started something? But I don't even remember who you are. Stop, the clock on my phone, it shows it was not even two hours from the moment I — fell — on that street. Now how can I possibly lack some good chunk of my memory?”

The pyramid unexpectedly lit up with a blinding light. Two bright yellow silhouettes looking like eyes appeared above it, surrounded by a mildly glowing greenish cloud. The voice had spoken again, this time it seemed more clear and alive: "One. One. One, two, three, check. Seems fine; the link is stable. Good, now I can see you at least."

“The hell are you!” I got a slight fright from the unexpected appearance of this thing.

“Come on, Ray, it’s just a simple avatar I offhandedly made for our conversation.”

“Avatar, huh? Made by some future tech or something? Or maybe it’s an alien thing? Tell the green men I say ‘hi’ next time you see them.” I said sarcastically.

“No. It’s magic, and I’m no friends with those little bastards, mind you,” the avatar replied nonchalantly, ignoring me making fun of him.

“Ah, of course it's magic! Avada Kedavra, bitch! Who would believe in that crap?” My voice seeped with poison.

The avatar sighed deeply. “I had almost forgotten how you were… back there, right when we just met,” he grumbled. “Yes, about your clock… You know, time is a very relative thing, especially when you are crossing the borders of the universe.”

“What? Are you still bullshitting me? What borders of the universe?”

“Please, don’t show me that reaction, you are usually much more resourceful and adaptable, Ray. By the way, you look like s– really terrible. But don’t worry, I’ll patch you up. Our endeavor can be deemed a success now. Though this is only the first step, the rest will be up to you now, mainly. Seems you have forgotten more than I supposed you would.”

“Yah! Because I don’t remember shit!” I almost shouted, raising my hands up in irritation, but that only worsened my headache, forcing me to press my hands on my temples and close my eyes.

“Alright, alright, I’m listening, there is too much illogical idiocy happening around, so I’ll give you the benefit of a doubt,” — I said, irritated, — “but I have no idea what you are talking about. So, are you finally gonna actually answer my questions?” I asked impatiently. “Seems I had a one of a kind drinking party that night… a party I’ll fucking remember for life, goddamnit.” I grumbled quietly.

The ‘avatar’ boomed in laughter. “Now I see my good old Ray is back. Well, this may be unnecessary, but let me reintroduce myself. I’ll be succinct, as you will remember everything with time. I am Falda’ar, the Master of Life. Official titles aside, I’m also your boss and teacher. We prepared for this day for quite a long time, by your perception, of course, and now I successfully beamed you into this world.”

“This — world? You tell me this is not Earth? Fuck, are you serious?” I said with round eyes. “It does not look like a prank… all things considered, to my regret.” I thought to myself.

“As serious as it can get, and… we weren’t on Earth when we first met to begin with.”

I covered my face with my palms and slid them down my face slowly, looking at that simple avatar from under my brows, scowling. “Do you… understand how I feel now? The last thing I remember is falling on the street after I got too drunk… Now you are telling me we were doing something insane in another world… I see no reason for being here, and I don’t know what to do at all. My body is deteriorating and my whole life that I know is fucked up and destroyed, if what you say is true. If there are some lost memories, I need them right here and right now. At least something! Something that will help my current situation to start making any sense! Anything!”

The avatar sighed again. “Can’t blame you for your reaction, Ray. I promise the first of your lost memories will return after we finish our talk. This is the only opportunity for us to converse directly for the months or, perhaps, even years to come. We should not waste our time here, it is not infinite, and your body needs — a certain treatment, the sooner, the better.”

“Yeah it sure does. Feeling myself an old wreck ready for decommission.” I forcefully tried to calm myself down and climbed back onto the pedestal with a groan, sitting myself there, stooping and dangling my legs. “You mean it can be fixed?” I half-turned my head to him.

“Partially, the rest will be up to you, but I am more than sure you will succeed.”

“I’m… listening.” I said, looking down to the floor again. “If we had some plans, we must have predicted this outcome, right?” I pointed with my hands at myself.

“Naturally. Turned back on your cold logic at last? Good. That's the trait I like about you the most. Don’t panic, the most dangerous part is already left behind, follow through with our plan and you will be alive and kicking.”

“Enough praise and chatter, just brief me. I’m barely holding myself together. Give me a new reason… to exist, I guess I had at least one, because now I’m utterly lost.” This exchange started to calm me down, like if we talked like that a lot before. That strong feeling of deja vu… Maybe what he says is true, I feel it, almost. I even want it to be true. No tech on earth is able to reproduce this ‘simple avatar’ of his. If I really got myself into another world, then I want to get back my lost memories. Otherwise it will be all for nothing.

“So, is there anything in particular that you want to know before I start?” Falda’ar’s avatar asked, arching his glowing brow, which appeared out of nowhere only to vanish afterwards.

I had put my hand on my chin, scratching it while thinking everything through. “Yeah, tell me what the fuck has happened with me on this — that day.”

“Long or short version? The long one you’ll probably remember pretty soon.”

“Then let’s go with the short one.”

“Fine. To sum it up, you screwed up big time, Ray. That foolish fall would have ended badly. Luckily, I was keeping an eye on you, as well as on hundreds others.”

“Luckily for me or for you?” I made a brief and quiet mirthless laugh.

“For me of course, you are not mistaken in your doubts about my motives at that time. But for you, too. I yanked you from your world, and from your home universe itself as well. That’s not such a simple process as it may sound. The universe resists such attempts, as everybody is connected with it in a multitude of ways. For simplicity, sometimes it is called fate, though it’s a very crude term.

“The more you are interconnected with the universe, the more impact you have on events and society, the stronger is your fate. But the opposite is also true. You were one of those opposites, Ray. You have withdrawn from surrounding life, making your connection to your world weaker. Your state of mind played a major role, your growing indifference to everything around. And your heavily intoxicated mind added to it, too. Such a set of conditions can bring trouble on your head, like a curse, or a jinx. Your folk have a lot of words for it, but you get the idea. I guess it has happened. Your fall was bringing you to a disaster…”

“Was I… going to die from that fall?”

“Maybe,” the avatar replied with uncertainty.

“Hey… That’s not funny, you stole me from my — universe just because you thought I could die?”

“Like hell I would have saved you, if not for your traits, compatibility and a really good timing of your fall!” The avatar shouted in a bassy voice. “Ahem… Sorry. But you were not the only one who could be saved, but you know, I’m not some sort of a noble hero to come save mortals from their miserable fates.” His voice was tinged with a good amount of disdain. “What I did with you is almost illegal. Well it isn’t, as long as I don’t get caught, but who cares about a single mortal anyway, right? I witnessed entire civilisations dying due to catastrophes or their own stupidity, and I had neither the right, nor the desire to intervene, as it all happened in a natural way, without external influence. Do you understand me now?” The eyes of the avatar turned menacing, exuding the feeling of danger.

“And my job is keeping worlds safe from such things, but not protecting mortals from themselves. But still, I chose you for my purpose and gave you a new chance at life, a chance almost no mortal can hope to have, and not long ago you were still grateful for this chance. Until your memory got blocked, which led us to this unpleasant talk.” The avatar calmed down from his brief outburst of irritation.

His ruthless words angered me, but I could not completely refuse his reasoning.

“Am I just a pawn for you, then?”

The avatar didn’t answer anything for a long time.

“Not anymore, Ray. You have stopped being a pawn a long, long time ago…” The avatar finally looked back at me, his gaze sent shivers into my very soul, almost freezing me in place. It’s the first time I felt the glimpse of his — power, the depth of it. “Never again call yourself a pawn, Ray.” Falda’ar said calmly, as if reminiscing something. “You have earned this right.”

“Alright…” I almost whispered back.

The avatar sighed. “Sorry. Back on Earth, the alternative for you was to live in a wheelchair with a broken neck, paralysed, with no chances of recovery. Who would have looked for you and paid your bills? I know you wouldn’t want such a life.”

I fell silent, inhaling deeply and nervously rubbing my face. “You are correct. Continue.” I wheezed in a powerless, almost robotic voice, disturbed by this revelation.

“Like I said, the process wasn’t simple. I couldn’t just take you away without consequences to your world, so I had to cut off the most crucial things connecting you to your universe.”

“I don’t like where this story is going, but I’m listening. What has been cut off?”

“Everything that reminded the universe of your existence. Such things like memories of other people who knew you. Nobody will remember you, because the universe itself can no longer remember you. You still had left your trace in your world, though, but nothing will tell it was your trace. Everything will continue pretending you were never there. That also means that the road back to your home universe is forever barred for you.”

“That sounds… really terrible, but incredible at the same time. Are you even telling me the truth? This is a thing only some godlike entity can manage.”

“Oh, no, no, no. Never call me a god, we’ve already been past that. And lies? Lies, you say? Such lowly methods are unbecoming of my status. I never lie.” The avatar took on quite a haughty appearance. Well, as much as such an avatar could, at least.

“Such big words…”

“You'll see for yourself later.”

I sighed. “Alright, it’s useless to argue. So, now I’m just a nobody with no home to return to. Great. Are those all the surprises?”

“You own memories of your old world, Ray. Some of those are forever lost to you, like your old name. Others may be a little faded too, but they may return. It’s just a side effect.”

“So, ‘Ray’ is not my real name? Can you tell me my real name?”

“No. There are no exceptions, it was wiped from my own memory as well.”

“Ah! Yes! I have my passport and driving license in the pocket of my coat! There must be a name.”

“Then look,” said the avatar with a sigh, and soon those items floated out from the pockets of my coat and were presented before me. This trick may have surprised me if not for me already getting numb to such wild stuff, pouring onto me one after another ever since I woke up on this goddamn stone floor.

“What the hell?” I was twirling my driver's license in my hand, trying to understand how in the world my name and photo, along with all my private data disappeared from under the thick laminated film. The passport was the same, with almost empty fields. The photo was blank… No, not completely blank — the background was there, but I had disappeared completely from the photo.

“See?”

I put those now useless things aside and turned to face the avatar again. “Yeah…” I fell silent for quite a long while. “Then tell me, why the hell my body is so fucked up. I don’t remember being old and weak before.”

“What do you think happened when you fell down? I managed to open the inter-layer tunnel, connecting your dimension, and this one, dragging you right into it.”

“What is that — layers?”

“Layers? Those are universes, stacked close to each other in a multidimensional space. We call them as such. They are close, not physically, but in the terms of interdimensional space. Don’t try to imagine it, it’s a futile endeavor. It will remain an abstract thing to you unless you get to my level somehow. Those universes can be infinitely similar, but dig a bit deeper, and you’ll find a similarly infinite amount of differences. The farther you go, the less recognizable the next universe will be to the one you started at, and I’ve sent you through a whole crazy lot of those.”

“Huh… I guess I understand, more or less,” I mumbled, scratching my head and trying to digest those concepts. “You mean… we are currently on the same Earth, but from some faraway dimension?”

“No. Not… exactly. Honestly, your Earth as you know it stopped existing in further layers somewhere after the first quarter of your way here, but this world has some slight connections to it. It’ll make adapting to life here somewhat easier for you.”

“Eh… Now I feel like I don’t understand anything again.”

“That’s alright. You’ll understand sooner or later. Where were we… Ah, yes. Surviving inside such a tunnel with your mere mortal body is an impossible thing, the matter of your body and even your soul would have disintegrated to the very basic elements, scattering all across the multiverse. And no, predicting your question, those aren’t quarks.”

“Guess I had already asked that…”

“Yes, you did,” the avatar replied with a chuckle.

“So, how did I survive? And how long was I — traveling in that tunnel?”

“I gave you some protection, but even with it, it was not a complete one. Though it was sufficient to protect you from the distortions of dimensional space. The time, however, is a more tricky question. Its flow is never constant there, the only rule is: it never flows back. Inanimate objects, like your phone, spent mere seconds there, very close to a real time flow back there on Earth and here, too. But your body, and more importantly, soul, were separated, and spent a considerable amount of time there.”

Those words elicited a raised brow reaction from me, but I didn’t say anything.

“I have decided that you should spend your time more effectively there. So I built an illusory tiny realm, where your soul could live, while it all lasts. There, I taught you some important things. Naturally, only your soul existed there, while your body was floating inside the tunnel, awaiting your arrival. We spent years there, but nothing is free in this life. While your body and soul still had some protection, I could not give you full sustenance.

“In order for your mind to keep working, your body took a heavy toll over the years. It slowly weakened and aged, and the state of your body was also the limit of our time there. I even postponed ejecting you from the interdimensional tunnel by your request, but this was exactly the reason for your current state. We’ve gone into overdraft slightly, so I had to finally kick you out, lest you’d kick the bucket for real and we’d fail our whole plan. Your lost memories I talked about were exactly about that time we spent there. The separation of body and soul creates that memory loss, temporarily.”

“This is madness…”

The avatar looked around. “Damn, there isn’t a single well around…” he said with a light chuckle, surprising me with his humor. “But jokes aside, now you’ll have to deal with all that.”

“Well, okay… Though that still doesn’t give me any idea what I’m doing here.”

“Patience, Ray. But in short, you are my eyes, and most importantly, my hands in this place. Being of my caliber will crush the balance of this world should I personally come, and my intrusion will be surely detected by my — colleagues, and that spells problems for me. I smell some trouble brewing here, though I’m yet unsure which kind of trouble it is. For some reason, I can’t detect anything from the — ‘outside’, so to speak. But for you, it’s none of your concern, yet. You should adapt to this world and get yourself a nice foothold here first. I’ve sent you here for an extended time, and you have arrived early and have more than enough time to prepare. I doubt anything drastic will happen here anytime soon.”

“Huh? But what can a mere human do with the events of such cosmic proportions?”

“Ha! You are no longer a human, Ray. Well, not an ordinary human, at the very least. Your soul is now bound to the domain of ‘Life’, just like mine. It has its benefits, and it has its drawbacks, too. That leaves an unresolved small matter — your body, Ray. Your body is still the body of a mortal. It’s incompatible with the soul you now possess. Your soul is just too much for it, and will burn it down in a matter of days, but I have it covered.”

Falda’ar turned to the small pyramid behind my back. I followed suit.

“This little thing contains a complex spell I personally designed, along with a crazy amount of energy inside, at least for mortals, that is.” He chuckled. “And I successfully beamed it to you, too. It will reform your useless body to be worthy for the one of ours. Yes, Ray, now you are a part of quite a big family, and also an enemy of an even larger lot of bastards and creeps. That’s why you should never call yourself my pawn. Though I’m still your boss.”

“Then what am I?”

“Just another bearer of an aspect of ‘Life’, Ray. No more, and no less. You’ll understand it very fast when your first memories return.”

“Ah, whatever… So, what exactly should I do then?”

“Well, first, camp around here for a few days, five must be enough for the changes to settle in your body. Then get to civilization safely, as this seems to be a rather remote place. Talking globally, your goal is to recover as much of your memories as you can, until you can remember a way to contact me again, then we can talk once more and discuss your future actions. I place no real restriction on you here, just make sure you won’t die, that’s all I ask of you. You won’t be very — durable, at the start. That can even take years. It may seem a miniscule time for me, but not for you.”

“Fine…” I fell in thoughts for a while. “Civilization, you say? I hope it is a human civilization, then. That won’t make much sense if I’ll be looking like an alien here.”

“I don’t want to crush your hopes, but… There is not a single human living on this planet. But don’t be discouraged, there are lots and lots of different sapient species living around here, bipedal included. In fact, there are so many you may just say you came from a faraway place and nobody will suspect you. Before, there were even incidents with portals to some adjacent worlds, so some species are not even native to this world. And you even talk in the most common language, though it may be outdated for a few centuries… Apologies for that.”

“Why did you make an accent on bipedal?”

“Because they are not the majority of local folks, obviously.”

“Are you pulling my leg? Damn! I’m stuck in a world dominated by…”

“Quadrupeds. Though I’d not say ‘dominated’. There are also dragons, or what’s left of them, at least. I guess it’s their laziness and personal greed which prevented the world from being really dominated by them.”

“Seems like this world is a dangerous place.”

“Any world is a dangerous place, especially the one flooded with magic. But this one is on a milder scale of magic worlds, honestly, despite the heavy density of magic here. The principle of harmony fuels it at its core, but don’t be fooled by the name. It does not mean everybody here will be content with sniffing flowers on the meadows and living peacefully. Though, harmony has a subtle influence on local life and population, making them somewhat less violent. But magic creates monsters, Ray. In all possible meanings, so never forget that when in a magic world.”

“I’ll keep that in mind…”

“Ray, we really should stop wasting time here on idle talk,” Falda’ar interrupted me. “I know you have a lot of questions, but most of them have already been answered, you just have to remember. Let’s proceed with fixing up your body. The time is running out, too, the link is slowly losing stability, and I’m really far away from where you are.”

I sighed. “Okay.”

“A few last important things. I’ve depleted most of my free energy beaming you and this artifact to this world,” Falda’ar said in a serious voice. “Ah, such a waste…” he added in a low voice with regret.

“Stop being a miser. I’m listening, by the way.” I was surprised as such words left my mouth without much thought, but he had no negative reaction to them.

“Yeah, I know. Anyway,” — Falda’ar continued, — “that means I could not provide you with any useful gear, except for these little gifts from the creator of this world. She can no longer look after it, so I’m keeping an eye on it instead of her, while she is away. This world is her little treasure, so, please be kind to locals, and don’t accidentally destroy it.” Falda’ar boomed in laughter. “Yes, I know it’s out of your league for the foreseeable future, but you get what I mean, and there is more than enough trouble here. She is our ally, and this world can be an important asset for our side one day. ‘Harmony’ and ‘Life’ may not be the same things, but they are usually a good match.”

“Huh, so that was the reason you started all this?”

“Yes, generally, but what’s wrong with it? Can’t I act on my own at least once in a hundred thousand years? I used my own resources for it, and you are my first — genuine subordinate. I never had one before. I’m still new to all this business of keeping order around.”

“I… don’t have anything to say about it… Alright, gifts from the creator of this world, you say? What’s her name?”

“Equa, and the planet is named Equis after her. Though she may not be the original creator of this world, it was in her possession for a long time, and she had made a lot of changes here.”

A saw a flash from my right, and something appeared on the altar.

“These,” — three elongated and round brown objects floated up from the surface of the altar, — “are the seeds of the Lutiana tree. Equa had created it by my request quite a long time ago. The peculiarity of this plant is that it can absorb our special type of energy, ‘Life Essence’, to grow quickly and provide fruits with optimal composition and balance for your body, or the body of anyone you have nearby. Very useful at times when you are in a mortal shell.”

“Sounds interesting. You know, you have quite a lot of peculiar phrases, like that ‘mortal shell’ and a few others.”

“That’s how I see things, but let's put that aside. Plant the seed anywhere suitable, provide it with water and your life essence, or just sit and meditate, concentrating your attention on the plant, if you don't yet remember how to project your energy by will. Having received enough essence, it will grow a fruit in several hours at the slowest. It won't do much with the meager energy reserves you will have after I tamper with your body, but at least it won't let you starve or develop illnesses due to a lack of vitamins or other vital substances. Don't plant more than one, for you won't have enough energy for more at first, and don't forget to collect seeds. That little tree will wither in your prolonged absence, as it constructs its cellular structure and sustains itself on your energy only.”

“Shit, Falda’ar?” I said with a groan.

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m starting to feel worse, my head is aching again and I feel dizzy.”

“Yeah, I had already guessed when you went rather taciturn. That’s why I was hurrying you. One last thing.”

“Yeah?” My voice turned weak.

He put the seeds back onto the stone surface of the altar and picked up a little cube with his invisible grip.

“The last item is this little cube, I don't know how it works nor I want to know it, it's a one-use artifact meant to teleport anyone within around three meters radius to a random location, and it will work even on you, a being with an alternative type of inner energy. Your point of arrival will not end up in the open sea or other dangerous locations. At least it will be a habitable zone without an extreme environment. This thing is meant to save your ass once, but there is a catch. It works via injection of 'magic', and you are incapable of doing that. The most you can do with magic is absorb it from the environment and convert it to ‘Life Essence’, but you can forget about using it like locals do." He chuckled mildly. "Funny, isn't it? You'll have to find yourself a helper if you want to use it. But whatever, it's a gift, so just take it. Maybe it’ll come useful one day, though be mindful that it does not differentiate between friend or foe."

“Something is better than nothing, anyway.”

"Yeah. Everything else you should remember later. Yes, the exit from the room is over there." The eyes turned to the wall with weathered but intricate carvings. "Just place your hand on the image of the eclipse. It should work. There should be more doors like that around here, so check them later. Maybe you'll find something useful, or maybe not. This place was out of use for millennia, it seems.

“Got it.” I desperately tried to remember all this flood of information, ignoring the pain in my head and the overall weariness.

“Also, your body will need some time to adapt to your energy structure. ‘Life essence’ will power up your body gradually, enabling your ability to manipulate it, and partially restoring your physical condition, but not completely. You will have to work on it yourself to complete your recovery. And there is something I must say to you before it all starts.”

I looked at him quizzically. “Yeah?”

"First of all, sorry for dropping you off in the middle of nowhere, but I had to conserve my energy to ensure nothing goes wrong. This power node was the most suitable in terms of energy and safety. Local wildlife avoids this ruin, even plants, so you are safe here, mostly. Don't overload your head with your goals in this world. That's a thing for the future, and please, don't die out there. Things will get better over time, but you have to be very careful."

I nodded. “I guess you had your circumstances to drop me off here. That’s fine. I’ll be careful.”

"Now, are you ready?" Falda'ar asked.

There was no use in any further hesitation. My answer was simple, "Yes, go ahead."

“Lean back and sit still, so you won’t fall forward. The process is not exactly painless. New energy channels have to be seared into your body and soul, connecting them completely at last. Brace yourself for what’s to come.”

The eyes of Falda'ar's avatar became bigger and narrowed, not unlike furrowing his brows. The intensity of his glow picked up a notch. Visible vertical pupils appeared in those eyes and green haze billowed outside. I mentally readied myself. At this moment, Falda'ar's avatar disappeared in a flash of white, and the pyramid glowed dazzlingly. It levitated up, moved in front of me and stopped at the level of my chest. Then, with a sudden flash, a light green, almost white beam struck my chest. It felt like I was hit by a train, but there was no physical impact. The pyramid started to shrink and melt, turning into pure energy, until there was nothing left of it. The beam narrowed and dissipated as well.

I lost control over my body and fell on my back like a rag doll. It was not long before a searing pain started to spread out from my chest, like red hot wires were drilling through my body from the inside, burning their way to every other part. My bones, flesh, everything was engulfed in pain and I felt immolating heat inside every bit of my body. I wanted to cry out from all the pain, but I could not, letting out only muffled wheezing. My body was not listening to me; I could hardly even breathe.

“N-not… e-exactly… p-painless? F-fuck!” I growled through gritted teeth, stammering at every word. “T-this… is… h-hell!” My fingers clenched and unclenched as the pain tortured me.

When this creeping scorching sensation reached my head, I finally gave in to the sweet embrace of unconsciousness. Everything went dark.

Author's Note

As of 02 Sep 2022, there is no more prologue in this story. It was overhauled completely and became a full-fledged chapter. The numeration of further chapters was shifted up by one.