Chapter 1: Ch.0001 – A Rude Awakening

Ash was tired. 

Tired of the shitty pay, shittier customers and the shittiest boss that he had ever had the displeasure of having known. Tired of having incompetent people scream at him for not doing their job. Tired of dragging himself home some days too exhausted to even remember the journey back. 

“I’m going to quit.” he said. He didn't see her anywhere near the front of the restaurant but he knew that she could still hear him. “I’m really going to quit.” he repeated with a bit more ‘oomph’ to his tone. 

He was really, really going to quit. 

A laugh echoed out from the other side of the restaurant. “Is it that time of the month already?” teased a feminine voice. Ash scowled as he put away the mop and stretched his back. “I mean it this time.” he said snappily. 

Allie grinned as she turned a corner, a tired yet playful look on her pale face as she put away her broom. A stray lock of her frizzy, ginger hair fell towards her eye that she swiftly batted away. “And I’m sure that you meant it each of the last few hundred times that you swore that you were quitting.” she said with a grin. 

"You know that that was just me venting. But not now. This is the real deal, Allie. I got a way better job lined up.” 

That got her attention. She gave him a surprised look that demanded more details. 

“Stevie and I have been planning a little thing for a while. A new software kind of deal, and it’s finally up and running.” 

Allie quirked an eyebrow and crossed her hands in that way that he’d come to understand meant that she was far from convinced. 

“Stevie? That roommate of yours? And a start-up, Ash? Really? You’re only twenty, right? I thought you were saving for college. What happened to that?” she asked in a tone that both conveyed her surprise and made it sound like he was being an idiot. 

And maybe he was, but Ash knew himself well enough to know that college had never really been his path to a bigger and better future. 

“Pointless and too expensive.” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Besides, Stevie is smart. Like, genius-smart. The guy’s insane when he puts his mind to something and even someone as clueless as I am with the kind of software that he’s working on can see the potential in it. He can make it big, Allie. The-next-Steve-Jobs kind of big.” 

“Oh? And what part do you plan on playing in this venture, hmm? Never figured you for a tech guy.” And though he sensed a playful little jab at his intelligence in her words, Ash nonetheless decided to ignore it with the maturity that, in his opinion, being an entrepreneur demanded. 

“I’m not, but he needs someone to do the talking and the hand-shaking once we start and I figure that that’s where I come in. He’s not exactly comfortable around people, and I love dealing with people.” 

“That is true. You do have a certain way with words but – eh, still, I dunno man. Honestly seems like a gamble. Do you even know how many start-ups fail before they even get off the ground?” 

Ash nodded. “I know.” He and Stevie both had done their research. A lot of it. A year and more of gruelling data sieving and drudgery. He wouldn’t claim that they were perfect or prepared for every possible eventuality, but Ash could say with confidence that their little seed had its fair shot at blooming. 

Of course, some people would never be convinced no matter how well put together his research had been. Like his brother. Or Allie, apparently. 

“It’s not like we’re jumping into this blind or anything. We’ve secured funding, a building to work in and we’ve even started hiring for a few roles that we need filled. We’re solid.” 

The woman still wore an unconvinced look on her freckled face but eventually gave in to his boundless confidence and sighed. “Well, I’ll not saying that I’m fully on board with the idea but hey, good luck anyway. I guess I should’ve figured that you’d eventually branch out into your own thing. You always were a ‘master of my own destiny’ kind of guy.” 

Ash grinned and accepted the compliment as it was. 

“Honestly, I’m just a passenger along for the ride. Stevie’s the one with the actual know-how. He’d probably get it done even without me.” 

The woman snorted. 

“Ash, I’ve met Stevie, and believe me, that kid is hopeless without you around. Hell, wasn’t he gonna quit school until you stepped in and stopped all the bullying? Like you said, he needs you to schmooze and cruise whilst he gets the work done.” 

“You know about that?” he asked, surprised. 

“It’s a small town, Ash. Word gets around.” 

He frowned. The revelation grated on him. Why couldn’t people just shut up and mind their own business instead of nosing into matters best left buried? Or better yet, just stop picking on people weaker than themselves in the first place. 

Of course, he might as well have been wishing for unicorns and fairies for all the good it did. 

“When do you start?” asked Allie in a softer tone than usual, having noticed the dip in his mood. 

“Monday.” 

“Ah. You sticking it out until the weekend?” 

“I was planning to, but I can’t take it anymore. I think I’ll call it quits today. Let the lump know by text and spend a few days resting up.” 

Allie cringed. “The lump won’t like that one bit.” 

Ash snorted. “Since when did the lump ever like anything other than stuffing his mouth and fucking with us?” 

Allie gave him a look that said that she couldn’t argue with him there. Their branch manager was a truly reprehensibly irritating human being after all. The man alone was the definition of an incompetent middle-manager and was ninety percent of the reason that he was quitting and why their branch had such a high turn-over rate. 

The sooner that he could worm his way out of the lump’s clutches, the better. 

“Well, I guess congratulations are in order then. You want some of the left-over stuff? I haven’t thrown it out yet.” 

“If I never see another meal from this place again in my life, it’ll still be too soon.” he replied dryly. 

“Can’t blame you for that. Well then, cheers, I guess. Here’s to hoping your new job treats you better than this one did.” 

Ash grinned and held up the imaginary wine glass to the woman. They did a clink, drank down the cool air in one gulp and then laughed for a few jovial minutes as they went about closing the store. 

Half an hour later and Ash was out the front doors for what he hoped would be the last time, a goodbye to Allie echoing in his wake. Though he wouldn’t miss the job or the management, he would definitely miss some of the people, with Allie being chief among them. The woman’s good cheer and constant support had been some of the only reasons why he and so many others had managed to hold out for as long as they’d had. 

He promised himself then that he wouldn’t allow their friendship to wither away without a fight. He had her number saved. It was the digital era. There was no excuse for falling out of touch. There’d been far too much of that in his social circle as it was. His unrelenting focus on his entrepreneurial activities had cost him some friends, but he wouldn’t let Allie be a victim as well. 

They would stay friends for a long while yet if he had anything to do with it. And maybe more, though that was for when he had a little bit of liquid courage in him. 

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Ash smiled at the thought as he strode down the moonlit street towards his home. His apartment complex was nearby – one of the few perks of the job – so the walk back didn’t take too long. 

A few minutes later and Ash was trudging towards his bed, too tired to bother changing from his uniform despite the sweat and the greasy oil smell that clung to him like cheap perfume. That was a problem that tomorrow-Ash could deal with. Today-Ash was calling it quits for the day. The young man collapsed onto the welcoming warmth of his plush bed – his perhaps most expensive possession and worth every penny he’d spent on it – and allowed it to whisk him away into the realm of the dreamers. 

◆◆◆◆◆ 

Ash awoke to a pervasive sense of wrongness. His eyes snapped open; his mind made instantly alert by the wind whistling over his ears. 

He shot up to a seated position and it became immediately obvious that something was terribly, terribly wrong. 

‘Where’s my bed? My apartment?’ He paused as his eyes fell onto himself. ‘My clothes?’ 

He was naked and lying upon a blanket of knee-height yellow grass that rose to form a small wall around him. Above, a ceiling of stars partly obscured by clouds spread out towards the horizon. 

‘What the hell is going on?’ he thought as panic bubbled in his gut, though he quashed the feeling before it got any worse. Whatever was happening, he’d dealt with enough threatening situations in his life to know that panic would get him nowhere. 

He needed to maintain a clear and open mind, though that was easier said than done. 

Ash steeled himself and ignored the pounding in his chest and the cold sweat that worked its way down his temple as he cautiously observed his environment. 

The yellow grass was a blanket stretched across the surface of the land and it spread for as far as he could see before the dark of night swallowed it in pitch blackness. He thought he could make out the beginnings of a forest in the far distance though it was hard to be sure. The moonlight was scant, and only just enough to provide some sense of awareness of his immediate surroundings. 

Ash cautiously rose to his feet. He neither sensed nor saw any movement around him, but that didn’t mean he was alone. He idly wondered whether he should call out. There could be people around him, after all, but that thought lasted barely a second before it was snuffed out by the cold touch of common sense. 

He was in what looked like open wilderness – a savannah most likely. He had no idea what beasts lurked hidden in the grass and definitely had no desire to find out. 

Besides, even if there were people around him, he had no idea whether or not they were involved in whatever had led to the insanity that was his situation. ‘Kidnapping, is that what this is?’ he questioned with a tinge of fear painting his thoughts. ‘But why? My bank account is a joke and I have nothing else worth taking. Human trafficking then?’ 

He was both healthy and fit. No diseases. No missing bits. His organs would likely sell well, no doubt. 

And that was perhaps the quicker ending. He pictured himself being sold into slavery and worse and felt ice crawl through his veins at the thought. 

But why would they leave him alone in the middle of nowhere? 

Had something gone wrong?  

Whatever the case, he decided that it didn’t really matter at the moment. What mattered was remaining free, and then finding clothes, shelter, and food. He figured that he also needed to get somewhere safe and find some way to call the police or his family. Until then, Ash decided to stay low and play it safe. 

And yet, life so rarely went the way he’d prefer it did. 

Ash had a scant second to prepare before a whistle of wind caught his ear. He turned just as an arrow skimmed past his head, drew a thin red line across his arm and slammed into the earth. Ash cried out as pain shot across his skin even as he jumped away in surprise. He landed in a tumble but managed to right himself and eye the direction the arrow had come from. 

And there, stood in the grass that rose up to their waists, were six things. 

Not humans. Not animals. 

Monsters. 

Ash laughed with disbelief. 

He knew what they were. Anyone with even a modicum of exposure to the average fantasy film or cartoon would know. 

Goblins. 

Their skin was a leafy green and their hair a mane of darker forest green. Their disproportionate figures were adorned in tribal rags and their beady brown eyes betrayed their obvious malice and displeasure at the missed shot, though by the way their bow-man was taking aim again, they obviously intended to rectify that mistake soon enough. Ash paled and dived out of the way of the second arrow that whizzed through where his chest had been mere seconds ago before he righted himself and took off in a dead-sprint. 

The grass swept by him as he ran and he was deadly aware of the sound of whistling wind that followed before a streak of certain death occasionally slammed into the earth perilously close to him. It was for that reason why he ran in a zig-zag pattern. It was tiring and he didn’t know how long he could keep it up but Ash much rather preferred the burning in his legs to an arrow in his back. 

And so it went, a game of cat and mouse as Ash desperately struggled to put distance between himself and his monstrous pursuers. He had held out hope in the first few minutes that he’d be able to outdistance them owing to his much larger size and longer legs. The creatures only came up to his waist and so he had hoped that they wouldn’t be able to match his frantic pace, but that was a hope that was quickly quashed when he saw the things streaking through the grass at a speed that he felt was utterly impossible. 

They would catch up to him in no time! He glanced forward. The forest he’d spied earlier loomed in the distance, his only real hope of surviving his pursuers if he could somehow manage to reach it. 

He swore loud and clear and funnelled his all into maintaining his pace, adrenaline mixed with a desperate desire to survive fuelling his sprint long after the point where he should have collapsed. 

But ultimately, Ash was no Olympian, and despite his efforts he was eventually forced to stumble onto his knees ragged and out of breath. 

He twisted to eye the creatures as they slowed to a sedate walk mere meters away from him, murderous desire evident in their gazes. The lead goblin grinned wickedly as he stepped ahead of the group, a crude dagger in one hand that he twirled with an almost languid ease. Ash shivered at the sight and struggled to muster the energy to run again but found his body lacking. 

He was on fumes. “Shit! Fuck!” he swore, the words leaving his mouth in a strange jumble that he didn’t quite notice. He slammed a fist into the ground with fear and frustration before an upwelling of desperate anger brought new life to his legs. The goblins paused as they eyed him, surprise on their eyes. Ash grit his teeth and wearily rose to his feet to face the damnable monsters. He couldn’t outrun them, he knew. Nor would he likely be able to hide. 

So, if he had to go down, he’d go down fighting. The thought brought a shiver crawling up his spine but fuck if Ash Pale would give up in silence. 

“Come on then, you creepy fucks! Let’s see how many of you I can take with me!”  

And yet the goblins did not approach. Their eyes still betrayed their shock. Ash narrowed his gaze, alert for any trickery on their part. And yet none came. The goblins simply stood stock-still for a few seconds that may as well have been hours to Ash before the leader finally did something unexpected. 

It spoke. 

“You speak our lang-” 

Or it tried to. 

The spear of earth that gutted it through the chest put an end to that conversation swiftly enough. Ash flinched away; his horror worn plainly on his face as gore and viscera erupted from the creature like some macabre pinata. The young man stumbled back from the carnage in a blind panic only to trip and flop onto his back like a puppet with its strings cut. His head smacked against the earth and his consciousness rang. The darkness took him soon after. 

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