《Land of the Gray》


 Prologue

    Light shines luminously through awindow, illuminatinga young man sleepingsoundly. Analarm screeches from beside hisbed, wakinghimup. Witha groan he rises from hisbed, hisslender framequicklyjumping up to get a start on hisday. Preparinghimself for school, he brushes his dark brown hair from his face ,his hazel eyes and caramel skin showing him to be of mixed descent. ¡°Eli hurry up oryou''llbe late¡± his sister yells athim." Groaninghequickenshispace, finishingeverything up before leaving hisroom. "ThanksAngie,I''llsee you after school¡± he tells his sister on his way out.Unfortunately,this would be the last time he would see her for a long time.


    ¡°I wonder ifit''sbad I hope Brunotriesto bully someone today since I want a reason to get in his face¡± Eli thinks to himself. ¡°Imean I don¡¯t want those kids getting bullied but at the same time I really want to put him in his place.¡± Lost in thought Eli fails to notice a shadow on the road following him despite nothing castingit, glidingominouslya fair distanceaway. Elicontinues towalk, eventuallyreaching a basketball court on the outskirts of hisschool, wherethree boys surround one smallerone. Noticingthe largest of the three asBruno, Elismouth curls up into agrin. Hewalksup, notverystealthily, but the boys are all focused on thesmallest,so hisapproachgoes unnoticed. Walking closer he can hear the three hurling insults at the bullied kid,elicitingboth anger and happiness from Eli. Anger at the fact suchblatantbullying isoccurringbut happiness at the fact he has very good reason to step in and release somepent-upanger. GrabbingBruno by the shoulder and turninghim, hepuncheshim hard in the face as the others gosilent. Blooddripping from hislip,Bruno''sface goes from pain to recognition and finally purefury. Witha roar ofanger,he chargesEli, tacklinghim to theground. Despitehis struggles Eli issuppressedby the larger boysweight, havingto surrender himself to the onslaught of blows that are beingdelivered. Asthe fists slow,he pushesBrunooffhim, standingand backing offquickly. "Whatthe fuckEliyou sucker punching little bitch¡± yellsBrunogetting to his feet,panting heavily. ¡°I told you the next time I saw you bullying someone I''d teach you alesson¡± Eli says with a sneer ¡°I''llshow you how strike fear into someone¡± Sprinting towards him Eli ducks to his left, delivering a jab hard intoBruno''ssolarplexus knocking the wind out ofhim, then snaking one of his legs behindBruno''srams his palm into his chest putting him on the floor. Once on the floor he kicks him several times in the ribs eliciting groans of pain, the sound of bones cracking witheverykick. Stoppinghis kicking Eli drops down into acrouch, hiseyes alight with mad delight, he whispers to thewhimperingchild. ¡°Next time you ignore something I say itwon''t bethisbad, itwill be worse.¡± kicking him one more time before limping away with blood dripping from his hand, he goes around the corner of abuilding. Leaningagainstthe wall he slidesdown, andthen falls into the shadowitself, falling into a black abyss.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

 Chapter 1: New world

    Chapter 1


    The young man falls through the darkness, limbs flailing about in panic. Feeling air pushing against his body,it gets strong and stronger, slowing his fall. Eventually, he hits the ground with nary a thud, his eyes wide with fear and panic frantically looking around. ¡°Hello is anybody there?¡± Seeing a light in the distance he slowly starts to walk in that direction, it being the only source of illumination. It slowly starts to banish the darkness from his surroundings, forming into a sort of doorway.


    With a feeling of unease, he walks through what looks a cave mouth to him out on an alien world. Exotic sounds grow louder and louder as he walks forward revealing what would be a normal forest if not for the fact all theplants are vastly different from what he¡¯s used to. While still green the trees have a more sinister look, with the leaves looking sharper, the trees more of a dark purple, and the carcasses of animals by the tree. With the trees clustered somewhat close together and the additional tree branches obscuring sight, Eli walks forward slowly eyes alert to any danger around him. As he moves through the forest, he looks at some of the leaves on the ground. Bending down to pick one up he yelps, dropping it back onto the ground. Gazing at his hand with the cut he gazes at the scenery around him. ¡°Where the hell am I that the leaves are sharp enough to cut into my hand easily¡± he thinks to himself ¡°What am I supposed to do? I have no idea where I am or what just happened.¡± Looking to his surroundings again he grabs one of the bigger branches from the ground that looks like it fell from one of the nearby trees. ¡°Well at least now I have something to protect myself with. I have the shelter of the cave, now I just need food and water¡± he says to himself.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.


    As he traverses through the forest, he sees a clearing with some shrubs that haveyellow colored fruits, looking like apples but a bit smaller and more oval rather than circular. Looking like they¡¯re relatively harmless he grabs a few off the shrub and stuffs what he can into his bag. As he¡¯s closing the bag, he hears some leaves moving around to his left. Looking up he sees an animal watching him. Slinging his backpack over his shoulder and grabbing his makeshift stave, he gets up and starts to back away towards the direction of his cave. Once he sees that the creatures staying still, he moves faster away from the creature while keeping eyes on it. As he gets farther away he gets behind a tree outside the clearing. Waiting patiently till he¡¯s sure the animal isn''t chasing him, he looks back into the clearing to see the animal, along with three others, one slightly smaller and two much smaller. As they all make their way towards the bush with the fruit he was just picking from, the biggest looks to be keeping a look out while the others start to eat the fruits. ¡°Well at least I didn¡¯t pick poisonous fruit, probably shouldn¡¯t have eaten it before making sure anyway.¡± As Eli walks back to his cave while keeping an eye out for other animals, he takes a few of the fruits out and starts to eat them.


    Finally making it back to the cave, he lays out the fruits on top of some the textbooks he had, he clears the ground of any stray pebbles and sets the pack as a makeshift pillow. Laying down with his body towards the opening to keep watch. Zipping up his jacket and pulling up his hood, he starts to cry. ¡°I miss home, I miss my parents, I miss my sister.¡± he says quietly, afraid something might hear him ¡°I don¡¯t know what to do and I¡¯m so scared of this place, what should I do?¡± He shakes his eyes of the tears and stops his sobbing. ¡°Enough of that Eli, all this is scary but we¡¯restill alive and we¡¯ll get through this. Let''s just sleep now and worry about everything else tomorrow.¡± His eyes slowly start to close as the light gets dim from the sun setting outside. Closing his eyes, he falls asleep.

 Chapter 2

    Chapter 2


    As the sun rises, Eli opens his eyes to the cave mouth with the suns shining down on him. He gets to his feet, slinging his backpack with some fruits, strangely still ripe, around his shoulders as he grabs his stave. As he treks through the forest, he notices that everything seems a bit louder than before. ¡°Should I stay in the area or explore more?¡± He says to himself ¡°No we should explore, see if we can find some civilization. Maybe then we could figure out where we¡¯re at.¡± Walking through the forest while keeping eyes on his surroundings he fails to notice the presence watching him from the trees. Hours pass as he walks towards the forest, taking breaks from walking and eating more fruit while getting more from the sparse shrubs. Coming upon two clearings separated by some trees he makes it about halfway until he hears some rustling to his left. Turning quickly and getting his at the ready, his eyes widen as what looks like a boar about his height and but far wider steps into the clearing. With tusks an ivory color, a gray bristly coat but with dark maroon streaks, and a long tail swinging about with a round piece of bone at the end of it. As the two stare each other down the boars scuffs his foot and with wide eyes Eli recognizes that it¡¯s about to charge. Moving with reaction times and speed unfamiliar to him he dashes to the side at the last second as he narrowly avoids the boars first charge it circles around quiet quickly and charges again. Unable to move out of the way Eli can only prepare to endure the charge, narrowly avoids getting gored by the tusks. As it pushes him backward with its greater mass it bites down on most of his stave with a jaw that expands greater than it should be able to. As they come to a standstill Eli leaves the staff in the boar''s mouth and dives to its side, which the boar crunches with some difficulty as two little pieces fall to the ground to the sides of the boar. With his back to a particularly large tree at the edge of the clearing the boar turns and charges him again after shaking its head. Diving with even greater urgency before Eli only dodging due to the boar''s charge being slower than the last. Seeing the boar has one of its tusks stuck in the tree he makes to run only to hear a snap and then a squeal as the boar rips part of its tusk clean off,unable to free it completely from the tree. As it stumbles away from him, Eli seeing the weapon dashes to the tusks and pulls with all his strength ripping it free. With a roar of anger, he rushes at the boar still recovering from its self-inflicted injury and plunges the tip of the tusk into the boar''s neck. Over and over, lost in his rage, he stabs the boar with its former weapon. Collapsing in exhaustion next to the boar, Eli lays there for a few minutes and then pushes himself to his feet. He lays against the recently dead boar and opens his pack to find some squished but still edible fruit. As he eats, he starts to feel better, clarity coming to his mind and realizing he could be attacked again picks up the tusk and looks around the clearing only to find it empty. Seeing that it¡¯s going to be dark soon he grabs some of the fallen branches and carefully picked leaves to make a makeshift fire despite having no flint. As he sits there for an hour trying to light a fire with friction at the center of the clearing, he finally gets a spark and the fire steadily grows as the branches finally light. Pulling out some meat he had ripped from the hole in the boar,he uses the tusk as a skewer cooking the meat. Pulling the slightly charred meat from the boar he devours the meat, feeling even better after the hearty meal. After repeating the process with other misshapen pieces of meat, Eli lays down by the fire as it slowly dies down. Shaking despite being warmed from the fire, he sobs for a bit before suddenly steading himself. ¡°Calm down, yes we almost died but didn¡¯t it feel exhilarating triumphing over that beast?¡± he whispers to himself ¡°Yeah but how did we do all that stuff anyway? There¡¯s no way we should¡¯ve been strong enough to not get trampled much less stop the boar. And don¡¯t even get me started on how we started the fire, what the hell is happening?¡± With a snort he laughs ¡°Who even cares, what matters is that we did it, we¡¯re amazing who cares.¡± Laying down he closes his eyes, drifting off into a light sleep.If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Later that night while Eli is sleeping, the previous presence in the tree continues to watch him. Stealthily climbing down, he gets close to Eli without waking him. He stands there for a few moments, just observing the young mans troubled sleep. Climbing back to the trees he turns and lets out a barely visible pulse before he departs into the shadows.

 Chapter 3

    Chapter 3


    As the sun rises Eli¡¯s eyes open, birds chirping but not quite the same as he remembers. Getting to his feet with a groan, he stretches to relieve some of the soreness from yesterday''s exertions. Grabbing his boar tusk, he looks to the boar carcass surprised to find it hasn¡¯t rotted all that much through the night. ¡°Weird that no animals came and tried to eat it, not going to push my good luck.¡± Stripping more meat from the boar with some difficulty, he relights his fire with more ease than the day before. Cooking enough for breakfast and some to take with him, he quickly eats and then puts out the fire. Gathering some leftover fruit and the meat into his backpack he sets out back to the forest, weapon at the ready. After a few hours of walking through the forest Eli snags his foot on a tripwire, then he feels a sharp pain in his side before falling at the foot of a tree. As he tries to get up, he slowly starts to lose feeling in his body. As the feeling gets stronger Eli realizes it''s going to paralyze him, he sets his body against the tree. His body finally is fully paralyzed, stuck with nothing but his own mind. As times passes at first, he is struck with panic that someone or something is going to come get him in his helpless state. After about an hour he starts to relax as nothing has showed up yet, he notices that something in him doesn¡¯t feel completely right. It''s almost feels like another body part attached to himself, and as he tries to move this phantom limb, it feels like something else inside his skin. After a couple hours of trying to manipulate this feeling, his body slowly starts to move as whatever was paralyzing him wears off. After a couple minutes of slowly moving his limbs he finally regains full control. Looking at his surroundings he notices a dart lodged in his side, it being very small maybe two inches long and a green matching the leaves around him. Checking the area close to where he lays down, he finds a thin rope, broken from when he tripped over it. ¡°This a is a trap, maybe there''s people nearby.¡± Eli whispers with hope in his voice. ¡°Yeah but that doesn¡¯t mean they''re friendly¡± He says to himself. ¡°If I could find them, maybe they¡¯d tell me where I am. Assuming we speak the same language, but first I have to figure out which direction they''re in.¡± Checking the area around him he finds a light trail as the sun starts to set, leading away from the trap. Gathering his pack, Eli sets camp for the night far enough so he can see the location of where the trap is, he huddles next to a tree. Eating a about half of the boar meat he has left along with a few fruits, he lays his head on the tree with his hoodie up using a shrub close to the tree as cover. As the sun sets, his eyelids slowly close, letting him fall into a light sleep.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.