“Gaia?” August murmured.

August approached the cliff face and peered over the edge; his stomach dropped out from under him as he saw how far up he really was. It was a cliff; hundreds of meters below were rocky crags spearing out of the water.

To his right—West, according to his compass—the land continued upwards; the bamboo followed the cliff before eventually turning into grassland. He could see at least three different tiers of elevation before he couldn’t see any further from his position.

Looking over the cliff showed that the ocean continued unimpeded to the West as far as he could see. To the left—East—the landmass declined, sloping downwards for miles quickly before there was another cliff and more ocean beyond.

The ocean surrounded the East and South sides, and as far as he could see, the West may well be the same. Was the North also more ocean? Was he on an island or the point of a coastline? He turned his gaze upwards once more, eyes almost magnetically attracted to the strangeness above: three moons, the sizes completely at odds with one another and wholly unexpected.

Naked, alone, stranded on what might have been an island—populated by strange monsters—in the middle of the ocean on a planet that wasn’t earth.

“I’m so fucked,” August said, the sound of his own voice loud in his ears.

August felt like he should be doing something, but he didn’t know what. His heart was thudding inside his chest, rising up despite the lack of physical cause. His breaths came out in pants, and he curled forward, dropping to his knees. Pressure in his ears and a feeling of being submerged overcame him, and August fought to get air into his lungs.

The world blurred for a moment, and he felt lightheaded, his fingers dug into the matted grass, and he pressed his forehead into the ground. He struggled to breathe in through his nose, trying to keep it even, and then slowly let it out. August lay on the ground for what felt like hours, fighting to breathe and feeling like he was dying.

At some point, sound returned, and he drew in a shaky breath, feeling like he’d broken through the constriction in his chest. He gripped his shoulder and felt his thumb graze the cut on his arm, the raised ridge left behind by the bamboo drawing his attention.

“Breathe…” August told himself, chest filling more easily now. “Just breathe…”

The sun was warm on his back, and the sounds of the ocean crashing against the rocks far below matched all too well. The breeze carried all kinds of smells with it, ocean and woodland alike, and his hair rustled against his ears. The sensations pulled his attention further away from his breathing, and it came more easily until he was breathing properly once more, head still pressed into the grass.

It had been years since he’d last had one, and he’d almost forgotten just how terrifying it was. August managed to raise his head, turning enough that he could see the bamboo, and slowly sat up again, focused almost entirely on keeping his breathing level. He doubted the extra seconds of warning would help him much, but at least he’d see something coming.

August opened his menu on a whim, seeking out another distraction to pull his mind further away from the steady rise of his chest.

Role

Faction

Inventory

Map

Progression

Settings

August opened the [Inventory] and was greeted with a grey, grid-like box. Ten squares across, and five down, for a total of fifty spaces—all of which were empty.

August searched the ground for a moment, finding a rock amongst the grass and picking it up. He tapped it against the box, and the rock vanished from his hand, appearing as a small grey oval inside the first inventory slot.

He stared down at where the rock had sat in his hand a moment before; It was unmistakably something impossible. It was like witnessing magic or some kind of unbelievable technology at work; the rock had just vanished from its place in the world.

“Cool,” August murmured.

He’d never seen something so magical, yet so mundane, and he added a second rock once he’d found one just to see how it handled duplicates. The answer was that it stacked similar items in a single space, as a tiny little [2] appeared on the rock icon. There wasn’t much more he could get from it, though, and as amazing as it was to see something vanish from the world, he had to move on.

Population – 0

Assigned – 0

Unassigned – 0

Settlements

None

The [Faction] menu was more verbose yet somehow less helpful than the other menus. It looked like something he would have seen in a strategy game.

The population count was at zero and clearly didn’t count August as one of its members. If that counter only referred to non-humans, then that might have been more evidence towards summons being monsters? The assigned and unassigned counters he recognized from RTS games, specifically when the units weren’t properly set to perform tasks.

Settlements, however, could have meant anything, was he supposed to make a settlement one? Capture an existing one? His quest tracker said he was supposed to make a shelter; would that be the beginning of a settlement?

Furthermore, a settlement had other people—was he alone here after all? Would [Summon] really bring a monster forth? Or would it bring another human? Even if it did summon a human, wasn’t he just dooming them to die on this island with him? If this was supposed to be a tutorial, August couldn’t have been less impressed if he’d tried.

August returned to the previous menu and opened [Progression], watching as it bloomed into four more options.

Blueprints

Objectives

Roles

Skills

[Blueprints] held even more menus, but the names of each struck him.

Tools

Weapons

Clothing

Structures

Runes

Misc

The [Tools] menu had a singular entry inside.

Flint Tools – A series of sharp rocks shaped for a variety of purposes.

Hand Drill – A stick and a base, useful for generating friction.

A feeling of dissonance washed over him as he considered what he knew about the subject. There had never been a time in his entire life that he had learned anything about Flint or how to turn it into a tool.

So how was it that when he turned his mind to the task, he knew exactly how Flintknapping worked?

How did he know what Flint looked like? How did he know to strike the stones together at a specific angle to cause a break? How did he know how to shape them into razor-sharp shards for different purposes?

For a moment, he felt sick, the knowledge spinning in his mind, as he tried to associate it to some kind of memory of actually learning how to do it, but there was nothing. Knowledge without memory, not a single event in his life that could explain where the information had come from, it was just inexplicably there.

He stopped trying to find the link; instead, he began focusing on his breathing again; he wasn’t so far away from the panic attack that he felt comfortable flirting with another. When he was settled once more, he continued.

This wasn’t some pair of high-tech contact lenses anymore; it was confirmation that whoever was responsible for this had outright messed with his mind—as if he needed anything else on top of being on an unknown planet.

August eyed the [Weapon] menu and tried to predict what was inside without looking. He thought of swords, the most basic weapon he could think of, and was surprised that nothing came to mind—he thought of knives, and another set of false memories bloomed.

He opened the menu to check.

Rock Knife – A sharp rock with a blunted grip.

Wooden Club – A piece of wood with a weighted tip.

A flint knife with a vine-wrapped handle and a piece of wood, shaped with Flint until all of its weight rested on one end. Further investigation showed that he had matching memories for each of the other menus [Clothing].

Leafy Shirt – A torso piece made from large leaves and several vines.

Leafy Pants – A leg piece made from large leaves and several vines.

More than a single type could be made, depending on the leaves available, and August shook his head for a moment. Clothing made from leaves? It was absurd, and yet he had the blueprint in his mind, clear as day.

[Structures].

Basic Campfire – Rocks, kindling, and wood.

Lean-to – Sticks, branches, vines, and logs.

August had made a fire before, on several occasions—for beach parties and weekend camping trips with friends, but he’d never had this kind of in-depth understanding before. Instead of making him feel better about being stranded in the middle of nowhere, it made him feel worse.

This whole scenario was designed with the expectation that he would live here, in an area filled with monsters; Monsters that hadn’t even existed yesterday, and he wasn’t even on earth. How would anybody even know how to find him?

The answer was they wouldn’t, because places like this didn’t exist.

“Survive, huh?” August mumbled, thinking about the floating words.

That was a monumental task—with nothing on his person, no clothing, no weapons, no food, no water. He would have to start completely from nothing, and surviving for even a single week would require so much work.