"Jason, you are finally awake! I have been calling you for a while now."
I woke up to a person repeatedly yelling my name. Who could it be so early in the morning?
"What is it? What time is it?"
I slowly sat up and scooted my way to the closest wall, or whatever I was leaning up against.
It should have been the tree that I was sleeping under, but to my horror, what my hands were resting on was not grass, but instead it was a hard wooden surface.
Another thing I realized was that the ground was moving, or was it swaying back and forth? If my suspicions were correct, I was not in the slums, but instead, I was on a ship.
A ship? Why would I be on a ship?
The best explanation I could come up with was that this wasn't reality, but a dream.
But again, what dream would be this vivid? Plus, the only real evidence that I could even come up with that this was a dream was the fact that I couldn't find a clock. Admittedly, not finding a clock wasn't actually that strange, assuming that my theory was correct and that I was, in fact, on a ship.
"Dude, the sun is out. I don't even know how you were still asleep, or how you were able to catch sleep on the deck." A young man with dirty blond hair sighed
The man who spoke to me, if I had to guess, was somewhere in his late teens to early twenties. He had a more upright posture than I did. Looking at his arms, there were numerous scars. I could only imagine where they came from. His clothes had definitely seen better days, even though there were very few visible tears; they were tattered. We must've been at sea for a while now.
"You didn't answer my second question."
"You know I can't answer that. time doesn't exist here, I don't even know why you would ask that."
That was the only thing I messed up; I could still salvage this situation.
"I might have hit my head because I don't understand where I am."
I had to hope for the best that worked.
"Is that so? Well, it sounds like your brain still works, so I hope you can understand what 'watch the deck' means."
He didn't seem convinced, but it would have to do now.
"Fine. What am I watching out for?"
He only yawned without looking back.
"Just give it up, dude. I am too tired for this. I just did a night shift, let a man sleep."
Even though I still had a lot of questions, I wouldn't get anything out of him at this point, so I decided to do what was asked of me. As far as I could tell, there was nothing out at sea.
After a few minutes of straining my eyes, I decided to walk back to the main cabin of the ship
In the main cabin, I observed a total of seven makeshift mattresses that I couldn't imagine were very comfortable, but they were certainly better than the hardwood floor of the ship. Since five of the seven beds were occupied with 2 boys and 3 girls, this meant that someone else was also up, which was slightly unnerving.
Finding nothing else out of the ordinary, I decided to walk back to the deck.
As I walked, wood continued to creak. I mentally mapped out our relatively small vessel according to my observations. The boat was around 60 feet long and 15 feet wide. After all of this, there was no sign of this mysterious crew member.
"You can come out now. I know you can hear me."
The next moment, I heard footsteps coming from behind me. The figure that seemed feminine was quickly fully revealed after the removal of their hood.
I turned around, the first thing I noticed was, much like the young man from earlier, her clothes were rugged but less dusty, she must have tried to keep her appearance clean. She wore a silver dress with light protective gear that ended just below her knees. Long, wavy red hair that went all the way down to the center of her back partially obscured my view of the sun. She walked with grace, and when she planted her last step before stopping, she landed her hand on the pommel of her sword. Seeing her sword, my eyes went instinctively towards her shadows to see even the slightest movement from her body.
Seeing my slight hesitation, she spoke.
"Your mind seems unusually chaotic. This is how you were before the prologue."
She was spot on. Could she read my mind?
"I can only read your outer thoughts. nothing more than a party trick."
"If so, you should know I don't buy that." I retorted
I slowly started to back up.
She frowned slightly. Before I knew it, she was behind me. I had no time to react, and before I could take another breath, my vision went dark.
"You will remember this, Jason..."
Would I? I haven't remembered any of my dreams since I was 10 years old, not that I forgot them, it was more like nothing happened as I slept.