Chapter 4: (Zack) Awakening Part II
Zack awoke with a start and immediately banged his head against what appeared to be a log of wood. As he sat massaging his head and cursing under his breadth, he tried to remember where the hell he was.
He remembered going to the Mulberry Village, a wrong path..? Zoe's mirthful smirk. Raorka saying they were on the right path. And then.....
And then a great darkness. Something had hit their car. What...?
And then something to pierce that darkness. A golden light. And the same words repeated again and again.
Save us.
Save us.
Save us.
Zack was almost 40 years old, not an age where people believe in gods or fantasies or reincarnation. His wife Zoe was much more open-minded.
Oh Zoe, Zoe, Zoe. Raorka.
The voice has assured him that he needed to find his wife and son to save them, whoever them was, and he was determined to do just that.
But first he had to determine where he was in the first place. Zack stood up and looked around. He was in some sort of beach. The ocean waves gently lapped at the shore a few feet away. Above him, he saw some sort of a cliff jutting out.
A cave more than a beach?
Yes because it seemed that the "beach" as it were was very small, stretching out only a few metres on either side of the rock enclosure under which he found himself. Looking again at where he was lying he found a large log was placed right by his head, and that was what he had struck when he awoke.
The rock enclosure behind him seemed to go on for some distance and then there seemed to be stairs carved onto the rock-face that led upwards towards where the cliff was jutting out from.
A man made structure huh.
Zack had never considered for a moment that there could be no human presence wherever this world was. His only concern however was his clothing. He was sure he was not in his home world, therefore whatever his clothing was would be ill-suited for this region.
What if they kill me, thinking me to be a foreigner here to spy on them?
Zack began to panic a little. He was never the most resolute man under stress and he was especially bad when the situation morphed into something unexpected. And this situation was wholly unexpected.
Hell maybe I should have chosen to die.
Zack immediately dismissed the thought when it came to him, and was even ashamed a bit by it. The faces of Zoe and Raorka flashed before his eyes, and he got some of the determination back.
I need to reunite with them first.
Therefore he slowly walked forward towards the stairs creeping along the rock wall.
Zzzt
A sudden shock from the rock wall and Zack immediately jumped back with a yelp.
Static electricity
I shall grant you the power of electricity
The booming voice of the golden light came back to Zack.
But what did the power of electricity actually mean? Surely it didn't mean that he was now able to shoot sparks of electricity from his hand.
Laughing Zack extended his arms in front of him and waved it around as if he were shooting a beam of electricity.
Zzzzt
Zack jumped back again in shock. But this time the electricity had come not from the walls but from his own fingers. He had seen the blue-white spark of it as it extended from his fingers and struck the wall in front of him. He slowly stepped forward towards the wall where the electricity had struck and saw the confirmation.
A black burn mark on the wall.
He could control electricity!
"What the hell...." Zack whispered to himself as he shook his hands once more. Again he saw the sparks from the ends of his fingers. Suddenly Zack didn't feel afraid at all. Certainly with a power like this, there was nothing to be scared of. If anyone threatened him, tried to attack him, he would hit them with the electricity coursing through his fingers.
Yes, yes nothing to be afraid of.
With newfound confidence, Zack bounded up the stairs on the cliff wall.
.XX.
Zack was completely out of breadth by the time he reached the top. He didn't have the healthiest of bodies or lifestyle, preferring leisure. He had developed a potbelly and was no longer in good shape. He had fair features, with dark blue eyes and hair that was almost completely white. In some ways he was the polar opposite of his wife, who still looked young enough to pass for the supermodel she once was. Zack however looked completely his age.
After reaching the top, he sat down for a while to recover his breadth and survey his surroundings. He seemed to be in the outskirts of a town at the edge of the cliff. The ocean near which he had woken up stretched out as far as the eye could see in all directions. He could see no boats or ships on the ocean.
As for the town, it seemed like a normal human town from the middle ages. There were huts strewn throughout and in the midst of it were a few double storey houses, evidently the home of the bourgeois in the town.
However what immediately caught Zack's attention was what appeared to be a fight not far from where he was standing. He saw three figures in red cloaks fighting against about twenty of what appeared to be the townsguard.
All of them seemed to be using magik of some form, not different from the electricity Zack had recently discovered himself. But the scale was far above what Zack had been using.
He watched in awe as one of the red cloaked figures leapt up effortlessly and unleashed what seemed to be a blade of wind, dismembering one of the guards and beheading two more. The second red cloak seemed to be using ice, he made several ice blocks and shot them at extremely high speed towards the guards, several of whom toppled dead right away. The man who seemed to be the leader of the guards was engaged in a one-on-one with the third figure. The leader was also an adept magic user and he seemed to be using grass, twisting the blades into long swords that stabbed lightning fast towards the red cloak. However the latter was also a seasoned fighter, he effortlessly dodged the blades of grass, even catching one in mid-air and tearing it with bare hands. It seemed to Zack that his magik was physical enhancement than any element like the others he was seeing.
Soon enough the other two red cloaks had dispatched with all the other guards, and the ground was stained with their blood. The leader of the guard stood, panting, before the third red cloak.
"Give up now old man. It's you who is outnumbered now." The third red cloak taunted.
"Three deer do not outnumber a lion." The man said simply and put his hands on the ground, shooting out blades of grass from under the feet of the two other red cloaks.
"Be careful Pende. The old man still has tricks up his sleeve." The red cloak who was using ice said as he jumped up.
"Humph, Epta is always a scaredy cat. Give him hell Pende, ain't no way I am helping you." The red cloak who controlled wind shouted, and Zack realised that this specific red cloak was a woman. She did not bother to jump but rather cut the blades of grass with wind so that they scattered on either side of her.
"Will you two be quiet? I don't need any help defeating an old man." The red cloak, evidently named Pende said with a snort. He then jumped up, very high, extremely high in the air. In fact Zack couldn't even see him as he jumped even above the clouds.
The old man appeared unperturbed and raised in either of his hands two swords, made of razor sharp grass.
"Come." He said in a low voice.
As fast as a bullet, Pende dropped from the sky. With tremendous force he seemed to be punching straight towards the old man's head. As if he had been expecting this the old man had already pivoted away and stabbed both of his swords towards Pende's midriff. With extreme agility however, Pende twisted his body in mid-air and then punched the ground in front of the now displaced old man, raising a column of dust. Zack couldn't see what was happening inside the cloud of dust but he heard two thuds as loud as bangs of thunder coming from within.
When the dust cleared, Zack could finally see. The old man was standing limp, half of his face blown off by Pende's punch. His swords of grass hadn't even scratched the latter's body, lying broken beside him. Slowly he crumpled to the ground, dead.
Pende shook off the blood from his hands.
"As I said, didn't need the help of you two useless fools." He said addressing the other two red cloaks.
"Well Enea wouldn't help even if you had asked her." Epta said with a scowl, to which the other red cloak, evidently named Enea, responded by sticking out her tongue in a mocking gesture.
It was Pende who first noticed him. The intensity of the battle had knocked Zack back on the ground, and he was quite forlorn, realizing that his electricity power was useless against actual fighters. As he got up slowly, he got a shock again when he noticed Pende right in front of him, staring at him with open curiosity.
"Who are you? Are you with the Crown?" He asked menacingly.
Zack found his throat had completely dried out and he couldn't even make a sound. He just shook his head rapidly to indicate no.
"Hey Pende let's dismember this one too. Seems like an enemy." Enea said in such a joyful tone that you would be forgiven for assuming she was talking about eating sweets rather than brutally murdering a person.
"No, no....these clothes...." Pende was evidently deep on thought.
"I am no friend of the Crown." Zack finally found his voice.
"I don't even know this land. I woke up beside the ocean."
"A common excuse." Epta said nonchalantly and conjured up and ice blade in his hand.
"NO!" Purely as a defensive measure Zack extended his hand forward as if to block any attack of the blade, but a spark of electricity shot out from his fingers, hitting the unaware Epta straight in his chest and sending him flying back.
Pende and Enea both began laughing at this, and when Epta stood up, he looked absolutely furious.
"You little fucker. I am going to freeze you until you turn to fucking dust." He spat out advancing on Zack, with a burn mark clearly visible on his chest.
"Stop Epta." Pende said calmly.
"Why the hell should I?"
"I think the boss would want to see him." Pende said nodding towards Zack.
"What? Why?" This time it was Enea expressing surprise.
"Well judging from his clothes he isn't from around here." Pende said slowly and then again looked at Zack.
"Y..yes that's absolutely it." Zack stammered out.
"If my assumption is correct, then I would venture a guess that little Mr Electric over here is actually an Otherworlder."
That term brought an audible gasp out of Enea and Epta.
Other...worlder?
It seemed to Zack that they already had a term for people who reincarnated into this world like he had.
Does this mean there were others like us....and they failed?
"Well Mr Electric, you have two choices as I see it." Pende said twirling his finger.
Zack felt his throat drying up.
"Which are?"
Pende smiled a brilliant smile and Zack saw that he was actually quite young, not much older than his son.
"Well choice number 1 is that Enea here dismembers and then disembowels and then dis a lot of other things and then you die."
"Yippe yippee I really like this choice." Enea was dancing like a child.
"A....and choice number two?"
"Choice number two is you come with us to our leader. I'm sure he would appreciate an Otherworlder in our group."
When presented like that it wasn't really a choice, was it? Zack felt himself remembering what the golden light had said.
Do you want to live?
"I take Choice number 2."
"Good man. Well then Epta, I know he shot you with electricity but then again you made a threatening gesture what do you expect there?"
Epta was clearly not happy but he acquiesced in the end. Clearly Pende was the leader of the group.
"Well then Mr Electric time to go."
"B-but before we go, I don't even know who you guys are."
Pende smiled again, then displayed the red cloak proudly to Zack. And here Zack saw that the cloak had what looked like a black moon on the very middle.
"We are enemies of the Crown. The people know us as the Chianti Hunters."