Michael slowly clawed his way from the dark abyss of his slumber. He first became aware of the sounds of the outside world. The sounds were dim and muffled, like trying to listen to something happening by the side of a swimming pool while he was submerged under the water. It quickly cleared up, however. He could hear the carriage’s wheels rolling over the loose stones on the dirt road, and could feel it hopping along. He could hear the rhythmic tap of the horse’s heels, and the humming of the driver. He also became aware of the sunlight shining on his face, it bathed him in a slight glow of heat, and a soft red glow was also visible through his closed eyelids. He kept his eyes closed for a few dozen seconds so they could adjust to the sunlight before slowly opening them.

He felt completely rested. His body was completely relaxed. He didn’t feel the slight stiffness in his limbs or the slight unwillingness of his mind to start working that he had become so accustomed to over the last couple of years. For the first time in who knew how long, he felt truly rested, truly relaxed, and ready for the day.

“Awake are we?” the driver asked, “you have quite the timing, we’re just outside the village.”

Michael sat up and poked his head over the side of the carriage. They were indeed just outside of a village. The small collection of houses crowded around a hill irregularly. Thatched roofs and wooden walls lined the couple of dirt roads that curled naturally between them. There was probably no more than forty buildings, both commercial and otherwise in the village. The biggest building in this collection crowned the hilltop. It looked out over the village and the other hills beyond.

On the horizon beyond the village stood the forest. The trees ran from horizon to horizon, un interrupted save for a small footpath that lead from the village to it and broke its way into the forest. A single cart could be seen heading to the forest on it. It was pulled by two oxen and had about five people on it and one driver.

Michael was momentarily startled and held his breath. The carriage was a good four kilometres from him, and yet he could make out the individual figures on it. He couldn’t tell anything beyond the fact that they were separate figures form one another, but this was still several times better than he would have been able to do normally. His eyesight wasn’t exceptionally good back in the real world, but he doubted even the most well-sighted person would be able to see this well this far.

Michael turned his gaze back to the village as they passed the first outlying building. The houses seemed old, weathered, but well taken care of. The fields were green with growing crops. They also frequently passed groups of people and the occasional cart heading out to work on the fields. The people wore smiles on their sun-baked faces and chatted merrily as they moved along. They wore plain clothes, but the clothes weren’t worn, indicating that, whilst they weren’t well off, they certainly weren’t struggling.

“So, did you rest well?” the driver tried once more to start up a conversation.

“I did, yes,” Michael answered courteously.

“I thought so. You were breathing so slowly I had to check on you several times to make sure you hadn’t left this world,” he laughed.

Michael only smiled and didn’t continue to the conversation.

“Well, here we are,” the driver said as he brought the carriage to a halt in the small market square of the village.

“You should stop here and stock up before heading out into the forest.”

“Thanks for the advice, but I’m already well-prepared,” Michael answered, pointing at the bags beside him.”

“Indeed, well, good luck. I’ll be heading off then!”

The driver urged his horses on when Michael had disembarked and trotted on through the village, heading further east.

Michael watched him leave for several seconds before shifting his attention to the market square and the people around him. Everyone was indeed merry as they busied themselves with their morning chores and heading out for the day’s work. No one payed him much attention.

‘It must be rather common to have hunters and adventurers coming this way, heading for the forest. It is the closest one to the city, after all.’

He didn’t waste his time and immediately set out for the forest. He followed the same footpath out of the village he had spotted when they were arriving. It curved around a few raises in the landscape before reaching the forest. The forest itself hid beneath its canopy more rolling hills, which slowly grew larger and larger the deeper into the forest one went, eventually leading up into a mountain range.

These mountains were only barely visible from the edge of the forest, breaking through the blue haze of the atmosphere and cutting into the sky like giant teeth. The mountain peaks ran from north to south, marking the edge of the world. Michael didn’t know what lie beyond, whether it was more land, and ocean, or a desert.

He spent the first couple of hours moving along the edges of the forest.

‘I shouldn’t go in too deep too quickly. I don’t have a minimap anymore, so if I get lost I might not easily find my way back out again.’

As the sun reached its zenith, marking high noon, he took a break.

‘I’ve set several traps and managed to catch two small animals. I should stop for lunch.’

He found a spot where the canopy thinned at the top of a hill, and sat down beside a large tree. He took out some of the dried meat he had bought back in the city and chewed on them.

His eyes lit up the moment the meat landed on his tongue. Michael was part of a culture that loved meat. One of its staple dishes was various dried meats. As such Michael knew the taste of dried meat all too well. If he was confident enough to call himself a connoisseur of only one food in the world, then this was it.

Yet despite this, this taste was completely foreign to him. It wasn’t that the meat itself tasted differently, but that the number of tastes was completely different. The dried meat he had known all his life was spiced in such a way that all the various tastes melded into one and became a single, unified sense of enjoyment. Michael could pick up a similar technique in the meat, though slightly cruder than what he was used to, but still very well done. Despite this, he could taste everything in the meat. He could taste the meat itself, the taste of which was also further divided into the different kinds of muscle fibres that constituted the meat, the fat, the sinews, etc. He could also taste each and every spice separately. He couldn’t name each, but he was very aware of them.

This was an experience unlike anything he had had before. It was very unlike tasting actual food, and more like recalling the memories of the various tastes he had tasted in the past. Yet he was very clear he wasn’t remembering previous tastes, as the majority of the tastes were completely foreign to him.

It was an incredible sensation.

He took another bite, and again he could taste the various ingredients and spices. It was a most peculiar sensation. The first moment of taste it was one constituted flavour, then it broke down over a few moments into the various separate tastes. If he had to explain it visually, it was like the branching of a tree. The tastes first split into large groups that were similar, and then each large group split into smaller groups, and then into yet smaller groups, and so on until each individual taste was clear and distinguishable from every other.

It was a most incredible sensation indeed.

A rare smile of pure enjoyment and excitement creeped onto Michael’s face. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the unique sensation for several moments. Only once the tastes faded a minute after he took the bite did he take another.

Michael enjoyed it so much that he was actually saddened when he swallowed the last bite. He was of a mind to take out another part, but restrained himself. He had enough food to last him the entire trip, but since he was currently broke, he had to stick to his rations and couldn’t afford to be indulgent. He sighed and stood up.

He spent the rest of the day setting up traps and hunting small game when he came across it.

When the sun was about three quarters along its way to the western horizons, and the needles piercing through the canopy grew long and few, Michael returned to the tree. He cleared a patch under it of stones and stich and pitched his tent. He laid down the ground sheet and used to dried sticks he found in the area to prop up the small one man sleeper. He also cleared up a small half-a-metre diameter patch of ground of the foliage covering it, lined it with stones, and once he was certain that there was nothing flammable nearby, and the sky directly above it was clear of low-hanging branches, he set off to find firewood.

He returned shortly before sunset with two armfuls of wood of various thickness. After lighting a small fire he set about skinning and clearing his catches for the day.

Michael thought back to several videos he had once watched on hunting and skinning game. He also remembered the time he had once been on a hunting farm and had watched the workers skin an antelope the owner had hunted.

He took the first of his game and set to work. He hung the small rabbit-like animal upside down from one of the lower branches of the tree by its ankles. First he slit its throat and cut open its stomach. He let the intestines fall to the ground and the blood from the animal drain from its slit throat. He repeated this with his four other catches.

After this was done he returned to the rabbit and began to skin it. He worked from the stomach outwards. He would pull the skin away from the flesh, then insert his knife and make short, quick cuts. Each cut would separate about a centimetre of skin from the flesh.

He spent about two hours working on the five small animals before he was finally finished. He wasn’t practiced in skinning animals at all, so it took him far longer than those he had seen doing it in the videos, but his exceptional hand-eye coordination, and good control over his muscles meant that though he was slower than the well-practiced, the skin was still cleanly removed without any damage to the pelt.

He stopped every now and again to feed the small fire as he worked, stopping only when he was also done with the skinning.

By the time he put his knife down it was completely dark. It was a new moon night, so the forest was pitch black, only the fire illuminated the small patch of the world around him. The light and shadows it cast on the forest around him danced hypnotically. If not for his heightened senses, he had no doubt he would have imagined animals or ghosts in the shadows.

He cleaned his hands with a small cloth and had dinner, which was another piece of dried meat, after which he climbed into the small sleeper. Around him the forest teemed with nightlife. He could hear the howling of what was probably this world’s equivalent to wolves, the scampering of various nocturnal insects, the occasional rustle of the bushes as other small animals moved through the underbrush, and the soft crackle of the slowly dying fire just outside the tent. If he concentrated really hard, Michael could even imagine that he could hear the stars singing away.

Oh shooting star

oh nightly guard

watch over me tonight.

Watch my children sleep

and my husband rest.

Oh shooting star

oh nightly guard

hold me close

in your embrace

and guide me back

on the morrow.

Michael hummed as he drifted away.