Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25724 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25724 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 129(@200wpm)___ 103(@250wpm)___ 86(@300wpm)
And the reason I’m here in this gods-forsaken forest? Because back home in Drokthar, I killed a zombie.
Yeah. A zombie.
It was guarding some necromancer’s apothecary, and I was injured. I broke in for a healing draught, got ambushed, and did what any trained warrior would do when something half-rotted lunges at him with a blade.
I took its head off.
Apparently, that zombie was part of a state-sponsored workforce rehabilitation program. Technically alive, they said. Protected under necro-labor accords.
I did not get that memo.
So, I was sentenced to five years of magical imprisonment and declared “unfit for reintegration.”
Then, without warning, I woke up on the ground in this cursed place with nothing but a threadbare shirt and a splitting headache, with vague memories of a portal and bad dreams.
Redemption through relocation, a voice said in my dream. Serve your time in another realm.
Nobody mentioned being ejected from my world and dumped into this plane through a swirling portal. Or this forest being alive and hellbent on eating me for breakfast.
As if to prove my point, a twisted root lunges out of the undergrowth and nearly takes me down. I catch myself on a tree, panting, the bark gritty beneath my callused palms. I pause, trying to get my bearings. The forest gives me nothing—no moss to read, no stars to navigate by. Just dense shadows and a strange sense of being watched. The kind of awareness that prickles your neck and makes you feel like prey.
A rabbit scampers out of a nearby bush. Its eyes catch mine, see the scars and the sheer size of me, and it bolts like I lit its fur on fire.
I don’t blame it.
I’m not a good man. Hell, I’m not even a man.
I’m an orc. Big, broad, and green. Black hair, green eyes, tusks. My hands are better at breaking than building. And my temper... well, that’s what got me caged in the first place. Gods-damned zombie.
Now I’m free—sort of. Banished, technically. With no map and no way back to my world, to my friends, to a tavern with decent ale and too much noise. Anything but the sound of my own breathing in this cursed place.
The sun has set, the temperature dropping with it, but hunger claws at my insides and thirst burns my throat like fire. I don’t remember the last time I ate or drank. Or felt something that wasn’t weariness.
Luck finally throws me a bone when I hear rushing water. I don’t hesitate. I crash through the underbrush like a half-mad… well, orc, thorns and branches slapping me as I barrel toward the source. Hitting the riverbank, I drop to my knees, plunging my hands into the icy current. I drink until my stomach aches, cold water dribbling down my chin.
Heaven.
When I can breathe again, I sit back and scan my surroundings. Moonlight slices through a break in the clouds, turning the world silver. A long, straight branch juts from the brush, and beside the river, obsidian glints like black ice. I gather both, begin flint-knapping the rock with another stone until I’ve chipped it into a wicked spearhead. Tearing a strip from my tattered shirt, I lash it to the wood. Probably overkill for fishing. Don’t care. I’m hungry and pissed off. Besides, having something sharp in my hand makes me feel orc-ish again.
The weapon makes the orc as much as the orc makes the weapon.
I wade into the shallows and wait, muscles tight with anticipation. It only takes three tries before I land one—a fat, wriggling fish. I gut it with a sharp obsidian edge, the stench of raw flesh hitting my nose as the entrails steam on the cold stones.
A spark, some kindling, and soon, I’ve got a fire. The fish sizzles on a flat rock propped above the flames, the smell so good I almost moan. Smoke drifts upward, curling through the trees.
I slump beside the fire, exhaustion wrapping around me. For the first time in too long, I feel something resembling comfort.
My eyes narrow as a light flickers through the trees, warm and golden. Rising above the treetops is a tower. Tall and narrow, with only one window perched like an afterthought near the top.
The clouds shift, moonlight pouring down in a ghostly beam that illuminates the tower in full. It looks ancient. Moss-covered. Haunted, maybe. Possibly cursed. But that light…
I squint. It must be an oil lamp or a candle.
Who the hell lives there?
I assume it’s a man. Or maybe a couple. Surely no woman would live alone in a forest like this. Not with the way the shadows move and the trees feel like they’re watching. This place hums with hunger. Testing. Wanting… what? My blood? My life? My energy? All of the above?
I’m not sure yet.
I’ve spent the whole damn day trying to get out of this strange place. It’s as if the forest doesn’t want to relinquish me, holding me captive as surely as the void prison I left behind.