The next week went smoothly.
I kept my distance from my housemates though, they kept asking questions about who I was on Earth. I didn't feel like answering.
In the time I spent getting away from all these questions, I spent my time getting to know some things about this world and its people, and how to keep a low profile (they weren't always as friendly to outsiders…).
I also bought myself a cloak. It was a thick brown one with a hood, and it came all the way down to my heels. It looked pretty cool if I ran against the wind (I imagine).
The following day I went on a trip to do some hunting. I did not know how to track animals, so after 5 hours, my feet began to hurt and I went home.
A day after, when Andrea asked why I didn't want to talk about before I came here, I simply stated it was because it wasn't important. She kept begging, however, and only when I became slightly irritated she got the hint and stopped asking. She asked if she could show me something, and I obliged.
We went on a little walk, to what she said was her favorite place on this island. On our way there, we came by a big mansion. "this is Blights-Mansion" she said to me. "it's where Amy used to live. Now it's just her mom, dad, brother, and sister". "why doesn't she live there anymore?" I asked. She said: "it's because her mom is controlling, and Amy didn't want to live the life her mom had planned for her, so she walked away". "that's rough," I said. "Yeah, she can still be a bit salty about the subject sometimes"
When we walked by the mansion (it was purple. What was it with this world and purple?), I saw a purple (Again!) blob creature doing something in the yard. I think it was doing some heavy lifting or something? Couldn't quite tell, as it moved quite weirdly and we were far away. "what is that?" I asked. Andrea answered: "that's a golem. The Blights specialize in making them, have built their entire empire from them". Right at that moment someone came running out of the house to what seemed like harass the golem. "that's Emilla, the sister. I think the golem just crushed her flowers" I took a better look: it was a tall girl, Definitively family of Amy. same ears, same skin, but a different face: it was more grown-up. She was about my age too, I think. In contrary to Amy, who kept her short, purple hair hanging across the sides, this girl had green hair, braided in two long tails, almost longer than her torso.
We walked on.
When we got to the spot, it was a beautiful cliff overlooking a waterfall. It was surrounded by a thick forest. "don't jump off here will you!" Andrea joked. I did need to promise I wouldn't though. as we sat down to take in the scenery, I couldn't take my mind off of what I saw at the mansion. The girl kept dancing through my head. I knew it was just my teenage brain playing with me, but I couldn't help it.
The next week I had gotten into a fight. Nothing special about it, except that I got my ass kicked. I decided that I would not take that anymore and started working out. First I jogged a few rounds around the shack, then I started doing push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups. I did this thrice a week for a few weeks, then I made a dummy: It was made off hay and string, kept upright by a wooden tripod. I started boxing with the dummy, which I think was funny to the girls, as they started watching whenever I fought the dummy.
I kept doing this for a good week and a half. Instead of doing laps around the house, I decided to go on hunting trips in the woods. I would take the time to shoot at the dummy and learn to see the basic signs of animal presence.
So I went hunting the next day
A week went by, and I had no luck in the hunting department, but on one of these trips I had picked up the smell of rotting corpses. Usually, it's eaten by something before it has the time to smell like this, but this was excruciating. So I went and checked. It was a good few minutes walking, but I wish I hadn't gone.
Because what I found was not an animal. No, a few kilometers away from where I had come into this world, something else had also come through: a car.
A car-wreck to be exact, and a familiar one at that, because what I found next to it would turn my stomach inside out. Corpses. Human corpses. My family. Dead. I fell to my knees onto the sandy ground.
When the world stopped spinning, and I stopped feeling. Anything. I lost all emotions in this moment as if there were just too much and it got blocked. I slowly walked over to the body of my little brother and saw something I thought I had dreamt: his torso had three bullet wounds. I walked to my mother: same. four this time. My father was different: he had six in his torso, but also one in his head. As if he somehow survived the first six and then threatened the shooter. Would be something for him to do. Nothing could keep him down. Ok, maybe that bullet hole in his head. But the thought that he might have scared the shooter so much, that he had resorted to shooting him in the head briefly brought a smile to my face, but that was gone just as fast as it came. I walked to the car, as images of black-clothed men in the middle of the night ran through my mind: first the collision, then us getting out of the car, then them being shot by the men, suddenly it was in the bright of day, and black again. Then I woke up.
As I inspected the wreckage, I found my archery bag. I opened it to see if my bow was broken, and luckily it wasn't.
As I walked home I grew increasingly angry. Angry at the men dressed in black, angry at myself. I was heartbroken and needed to vent some rage, so when I got home, I started sparring with the dummy again, but this time I intended to break it. The girls had heard me scream as I punched and threw the dummy and came running out to see what that was all about. Eventually, after a few minutes of not realy hurting the dummy, I broke down into tears, and the girls brought me inside and comforted me.
The next day I didn't talk to the girls, I just began quietly working out again, this time also training with my bow on the dummy.
As the day rolled by I went to bed again.
The next day I was a little more talkative. Not much, and certainly not about what happened two days ago, but it was a start. Amy and Andrea still had to go to school apparently, but the headmaster was nice enough not to give them to the authorities, even though they were wanted. They said it was for working against the Emperor because he was not good for his people.
When they got home, they had some bruises on their face. Not only that, but they smelled like garbage. "what happened?" I asked. "nothing, just a stupid bully. Nothing we can't handle". I decided I was going with them tomorrow
The next day I indeed went with them, I made the excuse I that needed to get out of the house again, which wasn't a lie, but I wasn't the full truth either.
When we got to the school, which was housed in a giant Harry Potter-style castle, a girl and two boys approached us. They were roughly the same age as Amy and Andrea, with the girl obvious as the popular girl, and the two boys were probably her bodyguards. "well, you cleaned that off pretty quick" the girl said in a voice that made clear to me that she was, in fact, a bitch. I had something to say about all this: "are you the absolute bitch that assaulted them yesterday?" pointing at Amy and Andrea. "yes," she said. "what about it?" "oh, nothing" I said nonchalantly, then I punched her in the face. She fell, and the two boys were now coming after me. It broke out in a full fight: I dodged most of their hits and got a few in myself, but eventually, I was pinned down. And just as fast as he pinned me down, I threw him off of me and slammed his head against a tree. He collapsed, probably unconscious. I focused on the other, he started to have his doubts. I lunged forward and pinned him against the floor. I started beating, not only because of this fight but also of what happened three days ago. I was consumed by bloodlust. In a blind rage, I banged repeatedly in on his head, now red from all the blood. I kept hitting, and hitting, and hitting. I yelled all sorts of insults at him. When I stopped I realized: he was not breathing anymore.
Everyone looked at me with shock. I said nothing, stood up, and went home to wash my blood-soaked clothes.