Clay Schwarz opened his eyes. The bright sunlight had just forced them close when he looked the wrong way at a parked car reflecting the sun across the street. He had just started his walk to his first class. He had been accepted, finally, off of the waiting list for the his state university, the land grant one. He wanted to be an engineer, so that he wouldn't have to think too fast or too hard, he wanted a simple life where his parents could be proud of him finally.

Well, his parents were already estatic that he had even got into the state college. They happily shelled out the thousands of dollars for him to attend. They had good, well-paying jobs and weren't completely hopeless with their money. His dad was a store manager for a big retail chain, and his mom was an advertising designer for a multinational snackfood corporation.

In high school, he was a solid C student. He never managed to get a B, the closest he ever got was ruined by his abyssmal performance on his last exam, but he also never got a D, so he counted it as a good point for his consistency. He would never let people down once he felt their expectations were low enough.

He didn't have many friends. The few people he talked to everyday had long since abandoned him as they went after careers or the local community college. Only he had managed to get into a university away from his home town. His closest friend was rejected from the same school, and, as usual for his nature, took out his frustrations directly on Clay. He called him out on his lack of intelligence and decried the unfairness of the college. He never answered Clay again after that.

Clay never once minded the abusive relationship. It didn't truly matter, none of this did. He kept plopping one foot after the other in front of him, watching the empty street next to him. It was odd for a large town like this to have an empty street. It wasn't a very large town, but it wasn't a quaint rustic place either. He hadn't quite gotten over to the University's portion of the town, so it looked like a normal suburbia to him.

The rows of faded brown, cream white, and dirty red houses all just seemed to blend together, the only real notabilities was the one right next to him, darker than all the others. The lawn was entirely unkempt and truly overgrown. Weren't there supposed to be neighborhood associations to prevent this kind of property devaluation? The only reason he was truly concerned was because of the large wispy bush that was overtaking the sidewalk. He would have to step out into the road.

He did just that while inspecting the eerily silent streets. It wasn't just the streets, he couldn't hear any birds or see any people inside the homes. It was discomforting. It felt like something would rush out from behind that bush he had passed, and simply strike him down after a single moment of fear. He quickened his pace.

His mind eventually wandered away from the fear. Why would he run away from it? That was stupid. If something was going to run out and kill him it would be the height of stupidity to do something so small as run. If that could have solved the issue, he would have had nothing to fear in the first place. Is a true predator going to go easy and just let him get away like that? He was now more concerned that someone had seen him half jog away from a mere bush.

He didn't need to fear death. He told himself the same words constantly, 'the only reason to keep living, is because I'm already alive'. True words of wisdom to his ears, it was what he thought about after his parents consoled him, telling him they would still love him even if he didn't get into college. He knew they wanted him to feel better, but he couldn't shake off his own insecurities. He didn't want to be the stupid guy that honestly didn't deserve to take his friend's place at the fancy out of town college. He wanted to be someone better, and that one saying was what he convinced himself was the only thing keeping him in this world. It would be a waste of all his own effort, and the effort of a hundred billion years of the universe if he ended it on a whim.

It was at this moment that he didn't notice he was crossing unusually close to the street, and fell over in front of a speeding semi.

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'What?'

It was a strange voice in his head, over and over. The voice was clear, bell-like, sharp, and feminine. It sounded like a digital assistant speaking directly into his head. The darkness in his vision was closing in around him, he could feel it. It pushed him down, pinning down his arms and his legs, forcing its way onto his face. Clay Schwarz opened his eyes to see a forest around him. His head was throbbing. He was still in one piece, not even the long sleeved shirt he was wearing was torn as he had just seen it. He looked around to get his bearings.

There was a strange creature staring back at him. It was tall, too tall for it's figure, a bit larger than a horse, or how tall Clay imagined a horse to be, he had never seen one in real life. He preferred his life of comfort behind a computer. It's neck was as long as expected. It's muscled legs as sturdy and powerful as expected.

It's head was strange. The pointed ears flopped backwards at the tip. It's head shape was like a upside down teardrop, with a pink tendril coming out of it's snout. It was a thick, shapely tendril, with a cross-section like a 'v', as far as he could tell. It kept its tongue out, slithering it back and forth, before finally retracting it back to where it came.

The animal suddenly moved and started to... was it standing? It was trying to grab onto a tree it looked like. No, it was grabbing onto the tree, very effectively. It's front two feet had sets of gigantic talons curving together just for this purpose.

He watched half in horror, and half in awe as its tongue snaked out of it's face and laced itself around a branch, and then pulled all the leaves into the tiny opening that he could only assume was there. Then came it's chewing motion, almost down into its neck. He could only try to comprehend the bone structure and anatomy of such a thing. It's back feet were hooved, the only saving grace so that he didn't run from it on the spot.

"What? Who as that?"

He spun around rapidly, looking for any reasonable source of the voice. There was nothing, just more of these trees, shaved of their lower branches by evolution. It was a forest of brown tree trunks.

It was the same voice he had heard earlier. He turned towards the only other living thing in the area. No. Surely it couldn't have been this thing speaking to him. How would it speak? It clearly should be incapable of such an action.

Clay's eyes began to burn, as though he had stared at the sun for too long. He had to force them open to see the strange horse and anteater hybrid staring at him, menacingly. His ears started to ache, a burning came from his sinuses, his tongue went numb, and soon all of his skin began to tingle. Just as he was about to roll around on the ground and scratching fervently at every inch of his body, the pain vanished, gone as soon as it came.The creature was still staring at him, it's eyes like giant black marbles sticking off the sides of its head.

He heard it now. There was shouting in the distance. It was faint, and slowly getting louder. People? Was he in the forest of some South American country, stranded in the games of an alien hunter? He could only hope not. He didn't have any weapons, nor skills to survive that.

He sat there, analyzing the direction that the yelling came from. Perhaps they could tell him about this powerful psychic horse thing. Wait, they stopped yelling. It was now silent. He tried to stand up to investigate, when an arrow flew out from between the trees, catching him in the shoulder. He fell back to the ground, shock enveloping his mind.

Several people came out from every direction. They had somehow surrounded him without him noticing. They were all dressed in pieces of leather armor, with only one lady who was walking towards him in a full set. The dirty white of the rags beneath the leathers would have been unsettling if he wasn't currently seizing up on the ground, clutching at his shoulder.

Unable to hold it in, he let out a groan through clenched teeth, loudly.

"Why did you shoot me?! Urggh! Why would you just -hrrrk- shoot someone?"

Every few words was broken up by a new groan as he cycled through various noises. The woman shouted something, he couldn't tell what. He didn't recognize any of it, except for her constant laughing. It was hearty laughing, almost like a villainous laugh, but as though she had no plan. She was a muscle-head.

A bald man with a substantial ring of facial hair approached him cautiously and snapped off the head of the arrow before pulling it out of his shoulder. No longer holding it in from the shock, the pain seared through his muscles as rough wood dragged against his flesh. He didn't like pain usually, and this was the top of his list. It wasn't just pain, it was a weird sensation in addition to it as well.

"Oww. Why'd you shoot me?"

Tears had been running down his face for a long while now. His sorry face was looking up as he tried his best to give a confused and innocent look. The lady in full armor squat down next to him. She said a few things, with a few words having a certain emphasis, and then pointed off into the forest, about forty degrees from where the weird animal was standing. It was unpeturbed, still chowing down on its leaves.

"Can you understand me?"

No, obviously she could not. She just stared at him with an expectant expression. He slowly squandered to his feet, much to her disapproval, as shown on her face.

She said what seemed to be something similar, a few words were changed it seemed like, and pointed violently near the same direction, fifteen degrees further this time. Why was she getting angry? He could only surmise that she was telling him to go somewhere, as the others had started moving in behind her, all of them with spears drawn. A few in the back drew their bows. She stood up and drew her sword, pointing it at him. She repeated the same thing again, motioning with her sword out into the forest in a wide sweeping area now.

He turned around to leave, and then found he couldn't move. He tried, but nothing responded, his arms didn't jerk, and his legs didn't move. He couldn't breath. He glanced downwards to the edge of his vision as everything became engulfed in more pain. There was a sword bursting through his chest, small lines of red covering the silver blade. He fell down as the woman was jumping to the ground next to him, putting a finger to his neck. Someone else was touching his left hand, vigorously moving his sleeve down and holding it an awkward angle. He blacked out after that.

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Clay Schwarz opened his eyes. He was in a forest. There was a strange creature like a horse, but more like a tall anteater staring at him. There was a sword sticking out of his chest.

It had stopped hurting for some reason. Eager not to be impaled, he went to work on removing it the only way he could think of how. He pushed it slowly and gently by the blade into his stomach, the hilt moving it's way away from his back as a strange feeling of things sliding against his flesh escalated. He could hardly stand it.

The sword soon lost it's snug balance, and started to dip downwards as it came out of his back, it rested snugly between his ribs, and only managed to scrape a bigger cut on it's final moments leaving his body. It now hurt like hell. He could only grunt and groan in response, too tired for cursing at the blade.

He fell down against one of the nearby trees and considered his options. He was drained physically. Perhaps it was the shortage of blood, perhaps it was whatever the hell had happened to him today, or perhaps it was this weird horse thing doing it to him. He had no energy to walk upright.

The yelling had come from that way, and it was obviously the territory of whoever those people were. If they shoot and stab strangers on sight, he didn't want any part to do with them. If the one woman didn't want him to walk off whichever way she was pointing, then maybe she was asking him something? Like, 'Hey did you come from that village over ther? Answer me worm!' The wording didn't match her laugh or tone, but it made sense at least somewhat. If he walked away while being asked if he was just some dude or not, wouldn't that be a provocation? He felt he was overthinking it. He just needed to get out of the forest. Maybe find a hospital, if one even exists.

He staggered over to the tall anteater, who stood there watching him as he did so. It stood, waiting. He figured that if it wasn't fleeing now, it didn't have the intelligence to do so at all. He could use it to carry his sorry state back to a town, or find a road. He tried to grab onto it's back with a burst of speed, but it stepped out of the way and trotted off at slightly below a walking pace, stopping a few yards away from him.

He finally realized. It was like a horse. It hadn't been staring at him in the first place. He was merely the safest place to be leaving it's almost blind spot. He was a nonthreat. It was just a rude as hell horse, there's no way it was some psychic being leading him on.

Then where the hell was he? He remembered walking down the street, tripping, and getting hit by a truck. It was painful. Yet now he's in mostly whole again, or rather a donut now, but that is besides the point.

"Status!"

Nothing. Was he air dropped into some unexplored part of the world? Maybe this is the secret the Australian government has been hiding for years. Maybe the voice was an implant inside his head so that people could run a social experiment with him that even the tall anteater was a part of. No, that was less likely than it being a secret part of Australia.

He focused all of his mind onto his eyes. There had to be some sort of display if there was a voice, otherwise it would all be way too tedious. The ground around him was turning red now, and he finally remembered that every one of the bandits had their left arms covered, maybe it wasn't some unifying thing and was just to hide their identities? He looked down at his left wrist that they had been interested in even as he was dying at their feet. Sure enough, it was there.

He stared rather blankly at it. STATUS, as it spelled out. Would it be a proper noun? Probably. More importantly, he was trash. Like literal human garbage. He didn't know the scale of any of these things, but a 2 as the highest score? Really? Who did he piss off to deserve this. His VIT was 0. Vitality? His HP was also 0. He was already listed as 'Deceased', and wait, he was supposed to be a Hero with these stats. That was preposterous. It even insulted him, calling him a 'No Life'. It called him THE 'No Life'.

No brain, no life. From one life of suffering to the next. He didn't even reincarnate or anything, they just plopped him here and said good luck. What cruel higher power would do this? He decided not to die here, just to spite the title that was already given to him. He grabbed the sword that had fallen to the ground, and propped himself up on it like an old man crouched over his cane. It stabbed into the ground a little, but luckily the ground wasn't soft enough for the blade to just sink into it.

Thinking about being a no life would only slow him down more, and he already lost a lot of blood. He trudged onwards without looking back. His mind started leaving him once more, just as it had been as he walked down the street in eerie silence. This time he was too focused to get distracted by a mere bush. Not that there were many here to run from. Eventually he hit a road, and followed it for what seemed like hours. The same sound of the sword smacking the dirt, and the same feeling of his weight about to unbalance at any moment were the only two sensations that he had for the time being.

Eventually, he hit a wall, not an emotional wall but a physical one. It had a gate, with guards stationed all around it. The last thing he saw as fell over to the ground was a guard, clearly too young to be effective, running towards him in baggy chainmail with a bullet shaped helmet.