A great disoriented feeling was the first thing he experienced when he came to, the kind you feel when you wake up in the middle of the night covered in sweat and are desperately reaching out for a glass of stale, lukewarm water you poured the night before.
'Where am I'.
'How did i end up here'.
Many such thoughts rushed through his head at a great speed, but the most pressing thought, one that kept repeating itself over and over, was a very disconcerting question - 'who am I'.
After several minutes of this excruciating delirium he finally regained some semblance of normality. His memories locked back into place as though a dense fog had lifted from his head, though some important details seemed to be missing that he just couldn't quite place his finger on.
"Ah, this is definitely not where I went to bed last night" He Muttered. Around him lay a grand meadow filled with lush grasses and flowers bursting with colours ranging the whole spectrum, when sitting still he could hear the faint trickling of streams and the light flapping of birds in the distance.
"Well I've certainly slept in worse places so i guess i can't complain" He mused to himself.
This man's name was Cyrus, a perfectly ordinary sort of man. He woke up every day, went to work, came home, cooked his dinner and went to bed, like most do. He worked a painfully ordinary job and lived a painfully ordinary life, though he suspected that this was about to change.
Cyrus stood up, wiping away some stray blades of grass and bits of soil that had stuck themselves to him. Taking a closer look at his surroundings revealed that he was at the summit of a small hill, and this hill was located in the middle of a vast grassland. All that lay for as far as the eye could see was gently trickling streams, a myriad of hypnotically coloured flowers and the occasional stray tree.
'Well i'm no expert but i don't believe that any of these plants are ones i have seen or heard of before' Cyrus thought to himself.
In the distance a winged creature that could almost be mistaken for a bird was resting under the shade of a wide verdant tree.
'Yeah that's not a species that exists on earth, wait is that a griffin?' A slight hint of panic flashed across his face as he began to realise the severity of the situation he had found himself in.
Upon his discovery of the griffin like beast he began to slowly back away, making as little noise as he could manage.
After a while, when the beast was no longer visible, Cyrus wiped a layer of sweat from his brow - unsure whether it was formed because of fear or due to the constant heat radiating from the midday sun in a cloudless sky. He chuckled and breathed a sigh of relief.
"So I am either hallucinating or I've somehow found myself in some sort of other world" He spoke to himself with resignation but also an unmistakable hint of excitement.
"And going by the griffin i'm willing to bet that all of the common sense i have based on my home world is going to be of little value here" He surmised.
The sound of hooves clopping across the meadow interrupted his reflection, Cyrus looked up at the source of the noise to see a group of people riding horses straight towards his location.
'Judging by their attire i can safely assume that they are a group of hunters' He thought to himself, based on the thick rustic leather armour they were wearing along with the old fashioned spears and bows they held aloft.
Suppressing the nervousness of being approached by a well equipped and combat ready group, Cyrus made a show of holding his hands wide and open, to indicate his lack of hostility, and he silently prayed that they returned this same intent towards him.
Luckily for him, it seemed that fortune was in his favour. As the group of hunters approached they moved their spears down and kept their bows at ease. When they had finally reached within earshot, a woman with dirty red hair and a sharp scowl dismounted off of her horse. The red haired woman began to speak to Cyrus but it seemed that his so far excellent luck had just run out as all he could hear was a garbled string of nonsense which could only vaguely be recognised as a language of sorts.
'God how naive of me, I shouldn't really have expected anything different. Why would they speak English in another world' He inwardly berated himself and wished that he could have some sort of inter-dimensional google translate app on his phone.
Just as he was about to attempt what would definitely have been an embarrassing attempt at gesture communication Cyrus heard the red haired woman's words echoing in his head and following a sharp pain in his ears, he felt a strange cool sensation flowing between his ears and the inside of his skull.
Suddenly it felt as though his ears had been blocked for his whole life and only just now could he hear for the first time. Just for a brief moment he could hear the rustling of every blade of grass, the mutterings of the hunters in front of him, the displacement of the earth as insects burrowed and especially the sounds of his own heart beat and intestines which pounded in his head with great ferocity. Just as he was becoming very uncomfortable, these sounds faded, but left in their wake was a profound clarity as if he had just woken from an award winning sleep.
The memory of the huntresses words came back to him and bizarrely he found that he could actually understand them, he realised that she was asking - well more like interrogating - him about who he was and why he was here.
'I wish I knew myself miss' He grumbled in his head.
'That was very odd though why can i suddenly understand her and what was that cool feeling? Ah well it was hardly the most odd thing to happen to me today and who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth.'.
He opened his mouth to respond, hoping by some miracle that she would be able to understand him, but oddly his tongue didn't seem to follow his desires. As he spoke what came from his mouth was identical to the language that the Hunters seem to speak, and he spoke it with the fluency and practice of a native speaker!
"Apologies miss, I seem to have lost my way. Would you mind giving me directions to the nearest settlement?" Cyrus asked.
"Hmm your clothing is odd and it's rare to see someone on their own out in the middle of the plains like this, what are you doing out here?" The huntress responded.
"I was just travelling with a group to reach a town, we got split up when a flying beast attacked us" Cyrus lied, desperately hoping that his clumsily made up story would hold some weight.
"Hm? You've been attacked by a griffin? That's odd they usually keep to themselves unless someone goes near their nest" The huntress spoke with a hint of confusion on her face.
'Damn my gamble failed, I hoped that they were aggressive but it seems that I didn't need to be so cautious earlier'.
"Haha, perhaps one of my travelling companions wandered too close to it's nest whilst we weren't paying attention" Cyrus lied once again, this time it was a safer bet. He remembers using such tactics before, when in doubt just blame someone else.
"I suppose that's possible. Well you had best follow us then you don't want to be stuck out here for much longer, even if the sun doesn't get you, the beasts that prowl at night are best avoided." She nodded and moved to mount her horse.
"Well come on up you can sit behind me." She gestured to Cyrus with an outstretched hand.
She shouted to her teammates - "WELL COME ON LETS GO, we've got enough prey to last us a week or so let's head back".
after being helped up onto the huntresses' horse, Cyrus looked closer at the horses and saw a few dozen absurdly large rabbit like creatures strung up along the hunters' horses. 'Well at least I have somewhere to go for now, I just hope I will get to somewhere safe and quiet so i can adjust to all of this nonsense' He sighed and the group turned around on their horses and began to ride gently across the meadow.