CHAPTER 19: CHAPTER 19: WHAT THE FUCK!

Next day, he was woken up by the bright sunlight stabbing through the cracks in the roof like a dozen nosy fingers poking his face.

He tried to ignore it and sleep again, but it was like a nosy neighbor that didn’t understand the concept of privacy. He groaned, rolling onto his side, eyes half-open.

He groaned, rubbed his eyes, and sat up slowly. The makeshift fur and hay bed creaked under him. He suddenly noticed that this place was quiet, like a bit too quiet.

He looked around and found that Arelia, Verya and Liora weren’t here. And Lyra herself was crouched by the doorway, tying a bundle of woven vines around her waist, as if ready to leave too.

She looked up when she noticed him awake. "You’re up," she said, voice soft but hurried.

"Where are others?" he asked, oh, they...they have already gone foraging.

"There’s fruit in the bowl. Eat something before it spoils. I have to go...the others are waiting."

He nodded.

Her lips curved into her signature faint gentle smile before she disappeared through the doorway, the sound of her footsteps fading into the distance.

There was a bowl of fruit sitting on the floor near his bead, left for him — small yellowish orbs, soft-skinned and slightly sticky, a few with tiny bite marks.

"Breakfast, huh," he muttered, grabbing one.

He bit into it and instantly juice exploded across his tongue... sweet, but not like anything from Earth. There was a faint spice under the sweetness, almost smoky, and the texture was strange... fleshy like a mango but fibrous like sugarcane.

But it was good, really good.

"Damn," he said to himself, chewing slowly. "Nature still got it."

He sat there eating for a while, watching dust specks float in the sunbeam. The silence was loud enough to make his ears ring. For the first time since waking up in this strange world, he felt the weight of it. No phone. No hum of a fridge. No background noise, no civilization. Just... quiet.

And only quiet, honestly, he would be lying if he said he wasn’t missing the modern life, phones, internet, and delicious foods, but there was no use thinking about it now, he had been reborn into a new world, it was new beginning.

He leaned back against the wall, chewing slowly, letting his eyes wander across the room. The walls were plastered with a mix of mud and grass. A few bone hooks stuck out, holding dried herbs, necklaces, and a clay knife.

No furniture. No luxuries.

Just what you needed to survive.

He finished his fruit and tossed the seed aside. The dull thunk it made on the floor echoed weirdly. He sat there for a bit, staring at it, then sighed.

After finishing his third fruit, he tried to push himself to stand, because his body felt... weird. Lighter. So, he wanted to try... and his legs didn’t wobble this time.

He took a deep breath, rolling his shoulders. The muscles stretched tight, but the pain was almost gone.

"What the fuck," he whispered. "I was half-dead yesterday."

He felt around his body, the weakness had faded faster than it should have. He frowned, rolling his shoulders. "That’s weird," he muttered. "Bodies don’t just fix themselves like that, at least not this fast." It was like the body had skipped the recovery stage and jumped straight to "ready to fight bears again."

In fact, his body felt... light. Not perfect, but too good considering he was supposed to be half-dead a few days ago. The stiffness was gone. The dizziness too.

He rolled his shoulders, stretched his arms, even squatted a little. The pain that had been gnawing at his side was gone, replaced by a weird warmth under his skin.

And that brought up the question he’d been avoiding...what the hell even injured the old him?

Like really what the heck happened that day, because his memory of that day was still fragmented, he remember going outside looking for some small prey, but afterwards he doesn’t remember what happened, how he was inured, or even how even injured him, and that fucking injury was becasue he didn’t had scar or anything like that.

It didn’t make sense. Unless this body had some serious mutant DNA, or something else was helping him

He didn’t like either option.

And what the hell was this world, anyway?

Sure, it looked primitive... the huts, the clothes, the stone tools ... but which primitive? Caveman? Tribal? Ancient civilization knockoff? He couldn’t tell.

And that monster from his memory... Thornomow....that thing with teeth like daggers and a body that looked ripped straight from a paleontology fever dream... yeah, he didn’t remember Earth ever having something like that. Unless he’d missed a Discovery Channel special titled "When Evolution Gave Up and Made Nightmares."

Either this was a different world, or the timeline was so far back it had gone full prehistoric DLC mode.

He rubbed his temples. The more he thought about it, the less sense it made.

He had too many damn questions.

Where was he?

What time was this?

What rules did this world play by?

And, most importantly, how the hell was he supposed to survive here without ending up as monster lunch?

Still, sitting around wouldn’t give him answers. So he decided to go out. Get a feel for the place. Maybe catch a clue or two about what kind of prehistoric mess he’d landed in.

Before that, though, he noticed the empty water jars near the door. Right. Water first. Always water.

Before his injury, fetching water had been his morning duty. Everyone in the tribe had one. The men hunted, the women gathered, the older ones crafted, and the unlucky bastards who were neither strong nor experienced... like him... got stuck with chores.

After he’d been injured, Lyra had taken over that too, fetching water after dusk once she was done foraging. Dangerous as hell, but what choice did she have? They needed water.