Chapter Text
Chapter 1: A Rude Awakening
I was definitely not expecting to wake up that morning in the middle of a gigantic, steaming, tropical jungle. Ordinarily, I wake up in my bedroom on the second floor of my mother's four bedroom house in Manchester, Connecticut, usually sometime between 8 and 10 in the morning, depending on my plans for the day. Sometimes I wake up at dad's house in Wethersfield. Other times, I'll wake up in the home of my good friend, Brendan Anderson. And every so often, I'll wake up in a hotel room, having spent the night out of town for one reason or another. But the one place I've never woken up, or expected to be woken up in, was In the middle of a gigantic, steaming, tropical jungle.
It's hard to describe the overwhelming sense of numbness that gripped my mind in those first few moments. There could be any number of questions that jump to the front of your mind if you were to find yourself in such a situation. "How?" "Where?" "Why?" "What?" All of these, and more, certainly came to mine; all at once and with not a single clue how to answer any of them. It was every bit as confusing a predicament as would be expected, if not more so.
Very thankfully, whatever agent had deposited me into the middle of this forest had at least seen fit to dress me. I had gone to bed in nothing but a pair of blue boxer shorts, but when I woke up, I was wearing a pair of comfortable blue jeans (the comfort is worth noting, as I am quite overweight, and most of my pants feel a bit tight to be perfectly honest) and a T-shirt; my favorite T-shirt in fact. It was dark teal, and with a custom design that I myself had created. It showed the image of a fully feathered dinosaur called Utahraptor, and words that spelled out, "They had feathers, get over it," in the safari style font often associated with the Jurassic Park films. I was even fortunate enough to wake up with my android and wallet in my pocket, though as you can probably guess, I wasn't getting any signal.
Was I dreaming? That was easily testable. Not by pinching, but by virtue of the fact that I've had plenty of lucid dreams in the past. So I knew it couldn't have been a dream when I tried to activate god-mode, and found that I couldn't fly or shoot lasers out of my bellybutton. Was I hallucinating? That was a bit harder to answer, because – at least, to the best of my knowledge – I've never hallucinated before, certainly not in any way like this. But it didn't seem very likely given my mind was more or less clear (all things considered) and I had no motor- control or coordination issues. The initial shock had sent me jumping up to my feet, but I knelt back down, shuffling away the layers of dead leaves, and placing the palms of my hands into the cool, damp earth. I dug my fingers into the dirt, feeling the wet, clumpy particles rubbing against my skin. It felt real enough.
If I could rule out things like dreams and hallucinations, then that left me with the simplest explanation – that everything around me was real. Having tentatively accepted that scenario, this forced me to consider its implications – namely, that I could potentially be in real danger. That was when the dam burst. Though paralyzed at first by shock and confusion, the realization that I could very well be in real, mortal danger allowed a torrent of fear and anxiety to sweep over me. I began breathing heavily, twisting my head pointlessly from one corner to the next, as if in search of help I knew wasn't there. Stumbling, I fell against a large tree, resting my forehead against its green, moss-covered bark. So overcome with fear and frustration, my eyes began to water and I cried with the voice of an infant, who cries not for any specific purpose, but only because they have no other way to handle their agitation. Not the most…dignified response, I admit…
But I let the moment pass, 'crying myself out' if you will. With the feeling of confused terror having washed over me, I stood back up to my full height and looked around. I resolved that it made little sense to stay put. Though my frantic imagination conjured everything from hungry tigers to bands of murderous anarchic death squads, I knew full well that if I had any hope of figuring out where I was, or how I was to get back home, I'd have to journey into the forest. It seemed logical to me that if I kept going for long enough, I was bound to bump into someone sooner or later. I would just have to hope that the 'someone' in question was friendly (or at least, tolerant enough not to kill me). So, taking a deep breath, I took my first step away from the spot where I woke, and into the depths of the trees.
Having overcome that initial bought of fear, I was able to observe my forested surroundings properly for the first time. I assumed I had to be in some place equatorial – the Congo, India, Southeast Asia, or Central or South America. But as I walked, observing the jungle more carefully and closely, it didn't feel like any of those places. Now, I've never actually been to those places, so that statement may be entirely meaningless, but I'd seen plenty of BBC nature shows to get at least a vague idea of what they look like, and this one just seemed…somehow different to all of them.
I felt something in that jungle that I had never felt before when outdoors. It was as if there was a presence held in the air between the trees. The closest thing i can compare it to is when the air becomes electrically charged building up to a lightning storm, but it was stronger. If this presence had a name, then it might have been Nature. Not the abstract, nebulous force worshiped by druids and hippies, and used by unscrupulous food industries to jack up the price on gluten-free cookies. In that forest, Nature was real, and it was alive.
The trees grew in layers that started with humble saplings that barely reached my ankle, and ended with gigantic redwoods and kapoks that stretched as high as Lady Liberty's torch. The mid layers in between were made of a diverse collection of impressive specimens: shoreas, banana trees, wild cashews, birches, firs, cedars, pines, palms, and many more. Each of these were in turn covered with strangling figs and leafy epiphytes, with mosses and lichens clinging to their bark. Below the understory were dense groves of smaller plants: leafy shrubs, tender ferns, and ancient cycads. The only break in color from the omnipresent green were the vivid wild flowers that blossomed at every turn: striking red laceleaves, deep violet morning-glories, Arabian jasmine white as snow. These are just a sample of the amazing botanical splendor that radiated for miles around me.
All of those flowers created a sweet aroma that wound through the trees and mixed with the scent of decay rising from the leaf litter. The overall effect was pungent, though not altogether unpleasant. The forest was also a noisy place: whether it was the soft crumple of supple leaves under unseen feet, the light trickle of a stream gently flowing between the trees, or the symphony of voices echoing from every corner of the jungle. There were insects, birds, and frogs, whose chirping and singing I could recognize instantly...and there were other calls too. There were throbbing hoots, erratic chatterings, mournful howls, and high shrieks. I could only guess at what kinds of creatures made sounds like those.
The more I moved through the forest, the more my emotions shifted from frustrated puzzlement to wide-eyed wonder. I strained my neck to look straight up toward the canopy, squinting to try and make out the highest branches. There was a quiet humility to standing in the shadow of something so utterly gargantuan. As my eyes moved down the trunks toward the crisscrossing limbs of the mid layers, to the tangled thicket of the underbrush, I noticed the tiniest, subtlest hints of an interconnected community of organisms so vast and complex as to be entirely beyond human comprehension. I saw ants crawling along an acacia tree, finding shelter in its thorns and drinking sweet juice from its vines. The ants would chase away any other insects who tried to feed on the tree's leaves, only to become food themselves for wandering spiders, frogs, or other predators. It was a treat to see the mechanisms of nature working at full throttle, enough to put a smile on my face and a warm sense of loving contentment in my heart.
I wandered for hours. I grew hungry, and my thirst became so desperate that I gulped down mouthfuls of spring water, despite whatever intestinal parasites might be living there. Hopefully, cryptosporidium wouldn't be as bad as dehydration. I didn't know what time it was when I woke up, so I can't know for sure how long I had been exploring the jungle that first day. But the hours passed, and the little light there was on the forest floor began to grow dimmer. Darkness came to the woods at least a couple hours before night settled on the sky above. There was a gradual, nearly-imperceptible shift in the calls of the forest creatures. The diurnal gave way to the nocturnal. I admit, I felt just the slightest tinge of fear as night fell. When you grow up in the suburbs, you never really know what true darkness is - not until you find yourself lost in the wild in the shadow of trees the size of Big Ben. No starlight. No moonlight. Just the dark.
I can't remember if I saw it or smelled it first. Smoke drifted through the trees and touched my nose gently with that strong odor that almost stings. Pale orange light flickered in between the tree trunks. It was a camp, though I couldn't tell how big it was from that distance. I strained my ears, and caught the sound of human voices - soft, and conversing casually amongst themselves. Did I dare approach? They might have food or clean water. They might also kill me. In the end though, the choice wasn't mine to make.
I heard one of the voices shush the others. Silence fell at once, though it only lasted for a few seconds. A voice called out from the camp; a deep, gravelly voice. "Who's out there?" Was he speaking to me? He couldn't have...I had been as quiet as I possibly could, standing perfectly still in the midst of the jungle foliage. Nobody else answered, and the voice called out again, "I know you're out there. I can hear and smell you." When I heard the voice a second time, something clicked in my brain. I knew that voice, but...it couldn't be. Waking up in the middle of a tropical jungle is unlikely, but...that voice? That was just downright impossible. Except it wasn't, because it called out again. "It's okay, you don't need to be afraid. Just want to talk." Totally unsure of what awaited me around that campfire, I parted the wide magnolia leaves in front of me, and made my way over the uneven terrain toward the flickering flames.
There were three people sitting around the fire, two women and a man. The man was just slightly taller than me at over 6 feet. The light of the fire gave everything it touched a hue of orange, but I could tell his skin was stark white, with long hair loosely tied back to match. He was dressed in dark red leather armor covered with metallic studs, and there were two long swords sheathed in scabbards tied to his back. Several scars were visible on his face, with an especially nasty one streaking across his left eye. Speaking of his eyes - they were his most remarkable feature of all. They were yellow, with black slits for pupils like a cat. He looked to be in his late forties.
One of the women resembled him in that she was also very fair skinned, and had ashen hair turned pale orange by the campfire. However, her eyes were perfectly human: dark green, and highlighted by heavy eye shadow. She wore a white blouse over a tight corset, and dark brown trousers that led down to lighter colored, knee-high boots. Like the man, she had a wicked scar over her left eye, and carried a sword on her back. She was much younger than him though, and looked about my age, perhaps a bit younger.
The final person looked somewhere in between the man and the first woman in age. She was tall, light skinned, and dressed in a gold tunic with light blue overcoat covering just her shoulders and half of her arms. Red sleeves covered the rest of her arms, and she had black tights ending in high-heeled, flat bottomed shoes. Her hair was a magnificent scarlet, and tied into two buns at the back.
All three of them just stared at me, and I stared back at them; first to the man, than the younger woman, and then the redhead. They seemed to examine me from top to bottom, while I just stared stupidly at them, my mouth hanging half open.
Finally, the younger woman broke the silence. "Hello," she said in a friendly voice. "What's your name?"
I blinked a few times, returning from my sudden stupor to the moment at hand. "P-Patrick...Murphy," I said in a voice that cracked so sharply it was as if puberty had returned with a vengeance. That's what happens when you go the whole day without saying anything.
"And what are you doing out here in the jungle, Patrick Murphy?" she asked, again in a friendly tone.
I swallowed. "I...I don't know...I mean...I…" I struggled to find the right words, having not gotten over the shock of seeing these particular three people. "Sorry, I...I don't know...how I got here...I just woke up here several hours ago...but I don't, I...I mean, I don't live here. I live somewhere else, and then-"
"You woke up here, with no idea as to how you got here?" the red-haired woman said.
I nodded.
"So did we," the younger one said. "I'm Ciri, and these are my friends, Geralt-" she said, gesturing to the man, "-and Triss," she gestured to the redhead.
Do you recognize those names? I did, as I recognized their faces, their clothing, their voices...everything about them. I recognized them because I've played the video game, The Witcher III: Wild Hunt (well...I've not so much played it so much as avidly and obsessively consumed everything about it until it was embedded into my very essence… I've also read the novels and short stories upon which the game is based, and these were three of its primary characters. Were they being serious? Maybe they were exceptionally talented cosplayers? No...their faces were perfect flesh renderings of the characters, and their voices matched exquisitely. Given how I had come to be in this forest in the first place, I had to be open to the possibility that Cirila Fiona Elen Riannon, Triss Marigold of Maribor, and Geralt of Rivia were sitting before me, in the flesh.
"Are you alright?" Ciri asked, no doubt prompted by the dull, stupid glaze that must have been in my eyes.
"N-no, no, no sorry, I...it's just…"
"It's a lot to take in," Triss said, "we understand."
There was a pause before Ciri asked, "I don't suppose you know where we are?" I shook my head. "Figures," she said, rolling her eyes. "Where do you come from, Patrick?"
I had no idea how to answer that question. It's not as if they'd recognize any of the place names I gave them. In the end, I decided to answer honestly, as I would anyone else, and deal with any subsequent questions as they came my way. "I'm from Manchester."
Triss asked, "Is that near Sodden?"
I shook my head. "No, it's in Connecticut, just outside Hartford."
They all exchanged confused looks. Geralt said, "Is...that anywhere in the Northern realms?'
Again, I shook my head. "United States of America."
"Wait, wait," Ciri said, holding up her hands, "I think I know what's going on here," then she turned to look at the other two, "I think he's from a different world."
"Oooohhh, of course," Triss said in dawning realization. Geralt said nothing, but his eyes grew even more intense. I was relieved to hear her say that. Parallel worlds were a fixture of the Witcher series, and it provided a handy, in-universe explanation for the discrepancies in our respective realities.
"It would also explain his clothes," Triss said, looking at my shirt and pants. "Never seen fabrics like those before. Can I feel?" I moved closer to her, allowing her to reach and grasp a bit of my shirt between her thumb and index finger. "Very soft. What is it?"
"Cotton," I said.
"I wouldn't mind having a few pieces made of this," Triss said.
"Not sure I understand the shirt," Geralt said.
I suddenly remembered the words on my shirt, and smiled for the first time since meeting them. I waved him off and said, "Just a stupid joke from...my world…" the words felt very odd to say in earnest, "don't worry about it."
"Have you ever traveled between worlds, Patrick?" Ciri asked me.
I shook my head, "No...never."
"It can be a lot the first time," she said comfortingly, "but you get used to it. Why don't you take a seat?"
I looked behind myself awkwardly to make sure I didn't sit on a sharp stick or angry scorpion. I planted my backside in the leaf litter and sat with my knees pointing outwards. "So...do you know what world this is?"
Ciri shook her head. "No, it's not one I've ever seen or heard of before. I've been to many worlds...but nothing quite like this...we weren't sure at first that we'd traveled to another world at all. Geralt thought we might be in Zerrikania."
"It was a good guess," he said, looking at her.
I nodded slowly, "Right...right…"
"Why don't you tell us more about your world," Ciri said.
"Oh...okay, uh...anything you'd like to know?"
"What does it look like?" she asked.
I took a moment to think. After all, our earth could be described in any number of ways. I decided to start with where I live and move outwards. "Well...where I live, people live in houses arranged on intersecting streets. Other places have huge cities with gigantic skyscrapers thousands of feet tall. There are forests and fields in some places...deserts and ice caps in others. There are four oceans and seven continents, with over 200 countries in total."
"Interesting," Geralt said. "Does everyone have their own flying machine?" he asked, looking at Ciri with a smirk, which she returned.
I laughed because I remembered the moment from the game which he was referencing. "No, not everyone. There are flying machines, but people only use them for long distance travel...and the tickets are expensive."
Ciri had a look of vindication on her face as she looked at Geralt. Then she turned back to me and asked, "Is there any magic in your world?"
"No," I said, "Just in stories."
"Where we come from, magic is real," Triss said. "I'm a sorceress - a woman who can use magic." It felt odd...and just a little tedious…to be told these things, which I knew only too well. I nodded politely. "Geralt can use magic too, though only a few simple spells."
"Signs," Geralt said, his arms crossed. "Can do basic things like conjure fire or cast a shield."
"Geralt is a witcher," Ciri said, "a man mutated to fight monsters for a living."
"That would certainly explain all the scars," I said nervously. Triss and Ciri laughed, but Geralt stayed quiet. He was still eyeing me closely.
"What about you? What do you do?" Ciri asked.
I was beginning to realize that all the questions were coming from them. Of course, the real reason for that was because I already knew all three of them, so there was little point in asking questions for the sake of gaining new knowledge. But I also realized that it might look strange or even rude if I didn't display some level of curiosity about them. Still, I had her question to answer first. "Oh, I uh...I work as an educator at a museum."
"What kind of museum?" Triss asked.
"Well...do you have dinosaurs in your world?" I was actually genuinely curious to know that. I knew from reading the Lady of the Lake that Ciri had caught a brief glimpse of dinosaurs fighting when traveling through the void between worlds. In addition, Geralt once referred to a rare order of animals called 'ornithoreptiles' which looked vaguely like avialan dinosaurs based on the description, but what these had to do with dinosaurs as we know them I'm wasn't sure.
Triss said, "Hmm...not that I'm aware of. Geralt?"
"Never heard of them. Ciri?"
"Me neither. What are they?"
"They're animals that lived...a long time ago, before the first people. There were once millions of them all over the world, with thousands of different kinds in every shape and size imaginable, but now there is only one group left….birds."
"Birds?" Triss asked.
"Yes...where I come from, at least...birds are dinosaurs: the only dinosaurs still alive. Not all dinosaurs looked like birds, but many of them did, and all of the features that people associate with birds - like feathers - first came from dinosaurs."
"Wait, wait," Geralt said, putting up a hand, "is that what your shirt is about?"
I laughed. "Oh, yeah actually, it is. See, since all of the dinosaurs that aren't birds are gone, there's been a lot of uncertainty about what they looked like. Somewhat recently...and by recently, I mean in the last 25 years...we've discovered that many types of dinosaurs had feathers. We used to think that all dinosaurs were scaly skinned like lizards or crocodiles, but that's not true. Some people refuse to believe that, or would rather believe that dinosaurs were scaly because they prefer the older ideas."
"Not sure I understand," Geralt said. "If dinosaurs include birds, why would people think they were scaly like reptiles?"
"Ah, excellent question," I said, shifting into the same mindset I have while working, "You see, dinosaurs are reptiles. And birds are dinosaurs. Ergo, birds are reptiles, at least according to the system of classification used in my world, which is called phylogenetics. And we do know that many types of dinosaurs were scaly-skinned, and we learned about those kinds first, before we discovered the feathery ones. It's kind of like trying to figure out the characters and sequence of events of a story: we only have certain pieces of information to go off on, so we'll make guesses, and as we find more pieces to the story, some of the guesses will turn out to be wrong, and then we have to change our ideas."
"Kind of like detective work," Geralt said.
"Exactly!" I said, grinning widely. "It's a bit too much to get into the complicated relationships between the distribution and evolution of filamentous integumentary structures across ornithodira, but...well, yeah, to answer your question, Ciri, that is what I do."
"Sounds like it's a good fit!" she said, smiling. I felt a wonderful warmth deep within.
"Wait, wait!" Triss said, sitting up all of a sudden. "I just remembered! Geralt, those tracks we found in the forest, a few hours ago?"
"Oh yeah," Geralt said, "The ones that looked like giant bird tracks?"
I shot to attention at the sound of that, my eyes going wide. "'Giant bird tracks?'" I asked.
"Yeah, found them heading eastward several hours back. Pretty big too," Geralt said.
I looked frantically around me, running my hands through the dead leaves. When I was finally able to find a stick, I began digging into the dirt. "Did they look like this?" I said, tracing the outline of a footprint with the end of the stick. The footprint that I drew had three long toes, each one tipped with a sharp claw. The middle toe was the longest, and there was a slight notch at the back of the heel.
"Yeah," Geralt said, "Except these were a lot bigger."
"How big?"
"Had to be three feet from the longest toe to the heel."
I gripped my fingers in clenched fists. My eyes were now so wide that the smoke from the fire made them tear up. I was breathing rapidly, as if straining for air. All in all, I suppose I looked...well, constipated to the three of them.
"Are you alright?" Ciri asked me again.
I didn't even really know how to answer that. 'Alright' is how you feel when lounging by the pool with a cold drink in hand. Alright is how you feel when out for dinner with good friends. What I was feeling was something far more extreme. I began to speak aloud, more to myself than to them. "Large theropod, somewhere between 30 and 40 feet long, probably anywhere between 3 - 12 tons. Could be a large allosauroid like Saurophaganax, or the larger specimens of Allosaurus if the two aren't synonymous. Or, if it's a carcharodontosaurid, then it could be Mapusaurus, Carcharodontosaurus, Giganotosaurus...or, if a megalosaurid, then something like Torvosaurus if the larger estimates are correct, or maybe some kind of huge spinosaurid...though probably not Spinosaurus itself. Of course, we can't rule out tyrannosauridae either, so it could be Tarbosaurus, Zuchengtyrannus...maybe even T. rex!"
The three of them just looked at each other. "I take it those could have been dinosaur footprints then?" Triss said with an awkward laugh.
"Oh, yes, right, sorry...got a bit carried away there for a second," I said, nervously rubbing the back of my head. "But, yes, if that's what the footprints looked like...then it is entirely possible they were left by a dinosaur…" I said, still reeling from the sheer incredulity of the words. "Dear god...there are dinosaurs here!"
"Hmm," Geralt said, slouching slightly, "How long ago did these creatures live?"
I was hesitant to answer because I wasn't sure how comfortable they would be with the concept of geologic time. Evolution is a known concept of the Witcher world, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the idea of a world billions of years old is as well (that's true of of our world as well - Darwin's and Wallace's theory came long before radiometric dating). But honesty is always the best policy, so I answered, "The first dinosaurs appeared about 235 million years ago. Except for birds, they all died out 66 million years ago."
"Good gods!" Triss proclaimed, "I had heard of geomancers divining certain rock groups to be millions of years old, but...that is extraordinary!"
"Wait," Ciri interjected, "If they're so old, and they lived before the first humans, then how does anyone know about them?"
"What? Oh, we find their fossilized remains in sedimentary rocks all over the world," I said with a lazy wave of my hand. I was still mesmerized by the possibility that there were living dinosaurs somewhere in the wide world around me.
"Now, what I'm wondering," Geralt continued, picking up from his earlier thought, "Is how strange it is for them to be here."
"What do you mean?" Triss asked. "We three are here, from our world. Patrick is here from his. These dinosaurs are also here, from Patrick's world, though from long in his past."
Ciri put her hand on her chin. "Hmm...that does seem rather remarkable...really makes you wonder what else might be out there."
"Or what could possibly bring all of these things together in the same place," Geralt mused aloud, "Or why."
"There's no doubt about that," I said nodding, "Impossible things happening all over the place around here."
"If they're impossible, then why are they happening?" Triss asked.
"That may be the single most important question of all," I said pointing to her.
Just then, I heard a sound. The others heard it too. It rose up high into the night air from someplace far away. At first, it sounded like a loon - high, mournful, and somewhere in between a howl and a cackle. But then it broke off into a hideous, maniacal chortle. This sound was uncanny; something profoundly inhuman was trying to imitate something as fundamentally human as laughter. The effect was off putting to say the least. I recoiled back from the direction the sound came from, while Triss, Ciri, and Geralt all looked at it fiercely with eyes as sharp as a blade.
Behind me, within the dark of the jungle, a thick branch snapped, the sound carrying through the camp. My head spun around to peer into the blackness between the trees, in a vain search for the source of the noise. Nothing appeared, though another sound crept into our ears: a deep, low growl. I could actually feel the rumbling call pass through my body like a phantom. Both Geralt and Ciri reached for their swords, and Triss held out her right hand. A ball of orange flame burst from her palm and she held it as easily as a child holds a baseball. Leaves rustled as a huge, hulking mass moved unseen through the understory. Despite its enormous size, its footsteps were quiet, and made no sound other than the soft crumple of tender plants under its feet.
We watched as it moved through the forest, never coming close to the camp. Finally, as the sound died away and the only noise that remained was the ambiance of the night, we breathed a sigh of collective relief. Geralt and Ciri put their hands down, and the flame in Triss' fingers was extinguished.
"You reckon that was a dinosaur?" Ciri asked in a voice just louder than a whisper.
I shook my head. "No one knows what dinosaurs sounded like."
I don't like making claims I can't back up with evidence, but somewhere inside, I knew. Call it heart, instinct, intuition, what have you; but that was no dinosaur. Neither of those sounds came from any animal that's ever walked upon the earth. And given the endless possibilities presented by this world, there was no guessing what it might have been.
"It's getting late," Geralt said. "There'll be plenty of time for conjecture in the morning. For now, we should rest."
"Agreed," Triss said
"I don't know if I'll be able to sleep knowing something like that's lurking out there," I said grimly.
"Don't worry," Geralt said, "Witcher's are light sleepers. If anything as big as a grasshopper tries to sneak up on us, I'll have it's head faster than you can say, 'wake up.'"
In my fear, I had almost forgotten who I was staying with. "Oh right, yes, good point." I gently lay myself down on the cold, damp earth, gathering a pile of dead leaves that, along with my arm, would have to serve as a pillow. Geralt flicked his right hand, and the flames disappeared without so much as a puff of smoke. Utter black filled my vision, and it almost felt like there was more light with my eyes closed than open. I did my best to ignore the sounds of the bush and push out all the anxious thoughts that swarm in my head like a hive of angry hornets. I let myself be overtaken by the exhaustion of the day's events, and even though these were far from ideal sleeping conditions, I was out completely after just a few minutes