The first thing I felt was something moving across my neck.
I quickly raised a hand and sat up, pulling in a breath. A pine needle was caught between my fingers.
There was no bug.
Just an itch that remained even after I rubbed the skin.
My left arm was numb.
I had slept on it, my face pressed against dark ground that smelled of rotten leaves. There was dirt in my mouth. I spat it out, wiped my lips on my sleeve, and stared at the trees in front of me.
I expected something to make sense.
The pine trees rose almost straight before spreading their branches. Between them, gray light filtered down from a sky I could barely see. A little farther ahead, roots pushed out of the ground along a slope before disappearing beneath the moss again.
Water dripped from somewhere, even though it did not seem to be raining.
I recognized nothing.
"Hello?"
My voice came out rough.
I swallowed and felt a scratch at the back of my throat.
I waited.
The wind moved through the treetops.
A short crack came from somewhere in the distance, and I turned my head so quickly that my neck hurt.
"Is anyone there?"
Nothing answered.
I got to my feet with one hand against a tree.
My legs were steady, but my knees were shaking.
I looked at my hands, my clothes, my arms. One side of my sleeve was wet. There was a small spot of blood on my wrist, close to a scratch I did not remember getting.
I was still me.
The same narrow hands.
The same bitten thumbnail.
I pressed a hand against my stomach as if I could somehow check that everything inside me was still where it belonged.
Fourteen years old.
My name was Varian.
I knew that much.
So why did I have no idea how I had gotten there?
I tried to remember what had happened before I woke up.
Fragments came to me without any order.
The glow of a screen in a room.
A chair creaking when I leaned forward.
My own hand searching for something on the desk.
Nothing showed me a forest.
Nothing explained the cold slipping through my clothes.
I checked my pockets.
Then checked them again, even though I had just done it.
No phone.
That thought scared me more than the pine trees.
I made a short circle around the place where I had woken up.
I pushed branches aside with my foot.
I looked behind the trunk, under the roots, between clumps of wet leaves.
Maybe I had fallen.
Maybe there was a backpack nearby.
Maybe there was a road just ahead.
Maybe someone was looking for me.
I found nothing that explained why I was there.
Then I realized something that made my stomach drop.
I could no longer point with certainty to the exact patch of ground where I had opened my eyes.
I stopped.
Air rushed into my lungs too quickly.
I tried to take another breath, but could not finish it.
The forest seemed to close in around me.
I leaned my back against a tree and slowly counted the fingers on my hand until I could breathe normally again.
I needed to think.
That was when I saw the square.
It was at the edge of my vision, small and pale, where there had been nothing but tree bark a moment before.
I moved my eyes.
The square stayed in the same place relative to me.
I turned my head.
It moved with me.
I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again.
It was still there.
"No."
I waved a hand in front of my face.
My fingers passed through empty air.
Behind the little shape, I could still see the pine trees. There was no screen, no light shining across my skin.
And yet, when I focused, I could make out the drawing of a bearded face beneath a hood.
I knew that face.
The resemblance was enough to make my stomach tighten before I even accepted what I was thinking.
Warcraft.
The word came to me immediately.
Beneath the picture was another word.
Peasant.
I let out a short laugh.
It sounded wrong, almost like a sob.
"This has to be some kind of joke."
I had clicked that portrait countless times.
I remembered exactly where it used to appear on the screen.
Peasant.
Gather wood. Build. Repair.
Send him somewhere and forget about him while you dealt with something else.
Except there was no screen.
I looked up through the branches, searching for something.
I did not even know what I was looking for.
A camera would have been better than this.
A speaker.
Anything I could find and break.
There was nothing but trees, wind, and the figure that remained even when I looked away.
A System.
The word came too easily.
I had read stories where things began this way.
I had never stopped to imagine how difficult it would be to see impossible letters floating in front of your eyes and still breathe normally.
If this really was Warcraft...
Azeroth.
I froze.
I looked at the pine trees again, this time trying to find something that could prove the idea.
A building.
A banner.
Anything.
Maybe the forest was supposed to look different.
Maybe I was trying to compare real trees to trees I had only ever seen from above on a screen.
I could not identify a country by the shape of a pine tree.
But the portrait was there.
I remembered the undead walking.
Burning villages.
Things far too large for one person to face.
I gripped the tree behind me until the bark hurt my fingers.
None of that was here.
There was also no one around to tell me I was wrong.
I turned my attention back to the bearded face.
The image became clearer.
I understood that I could choose it.
I did not know how I understood.
It felt like remembering a word that had been sitting just out of reach.
I tried touching it again.
Nothing happened.
"Summon?"
Nothing.
My heart was beating hard enough for me to feel it in my throat.
I looked at the ground between two trees.
There was a clear patch there, covered by leaves with a few stones showing through.
Maybe nothing would happen.
Maybe I had a fever.
Maybe I was lying somewhere else, unconscious, imagining that I was standing in a forest.
I wanted to hear another voice.
More than anything, I wanted another voice.
I focused on the portrait and made the choice.
The space between the trees changed.
There was no blinding flash.
Instead, the air seemed to tremble, like heat rising from a hot surface, even though I was still cold.
Something dark formed inside the trembling air.
Boots.
Heavy clothes.
A face.
I stepped backward and caught my foot on a root.
When I managed to steady myself, a man was standing in front of me.
He placed one hand against a tree, like someone stepping down from a height he had not expected.
A hand axe hung from his other hand.
The iron head touched a stone with a small, perfectly ordinary sound.
The man raised his eyes.
I knew the hood.
I knew the beard.
I knew the work clothes and the heavy belt.
I recognized everything before I could properly look at any of it.
It worked.
A Peasant.
I had a Peasant.
Out of habit, I looked for the green bar above his head.
There was no bar.
There was a branch behind his shoulder.
There was a thin line of saliva at the corner of his mouth, which he wiped away with the back of his hand while studying the trees.
His beard was brown and uneven around the chin.
One of his fingernails was darkened from an old injury.
He was breathing through his mouth.
"Are you hurt?"
It took me a moment to realize he was talking to me.
"What?"
The man looked at my hand.
I was still gripping the tree.
I let go.
A small piece of bark remained stuck in my palm.
"No. I don't think so."
He carefully rested the axe against the tree and looked around again.
"Are we alone?"
His voice was quieter than I expected.
It did not have the exaggerated cheerfulness of the responses I remembered from the game.
He sounded like someone trying to hear something beyond my voice.
"Yes."
I did not know if that was true.
"I mean... I didn't see anyone."
The man nodded.
He ran his tongue over his cracked lips.
"All right."
He looked at me, waiting for something.
I waited too.
The silence lasted until I remembered what I used to do with that unit.
"You can gather wood."
He looked at the axe.
Then at the trees.
"What for?"
I opened my mouth.
"To build."
"Build what?"
I thought about a farm.
The image appeared in my head in full.
The roof.
The fence.
A building I would order into existence and then leave behind while I did something else.
I looked at the man's hands.
Then at the axe leaning against the tree.
"A shelter," I said.
He looked up at the branches above us.
"This is not a good place."
His answer bothered me for a moment.
I had just given him an order.
Realizing that made me even more uncomfortable.
"Why?"
He pointed at a thick branch wedged between two others.
The wood was pale where it had broken.
"That is hanging loose. If the wind gets stronger, it could fall. And the water runs down that way."
I followed his finger and finally saw a strip of flattened leaves between the roots.
I had stepped right over it without noticing.
"It isn't raining."
"Not now."
He did not say it mockingly.
He picked up the axe again, but did not start cutting.
I felt heat in my face despite the cold.
"Then where should we go?"
"We need to look."
"You don't know?"
The man took a moment before answering.
"Not yet."
I stared at his hand around the axe handle.
It was broad, covered in calluses, with small cracks around the fingers.
It did not look like the hand of someone who knew everything.
It looked like the hand of someone who had worked very hard.
"What is your name?"
He frowned slightly.
"Tomas."
A name.
I did not know why that surprised me so much.
I had heard his voice.
Seen him breathe.
And yet some part of me had still expected to call him a peasant forever.
"I'm Varian."
"All right, Varian."
Tomas switched the axe to his other hand and rubbed his nose against his sleeve.
The tip was red from the cold.
I wondered what I had done to him.
The place had been empty.
I had selected a picture, and now a man was standing there feeling the cold.
"I was the one who brought you here."
He looked at me.
"You were?"
I nodded, even though saying it aloud made the whole thing feel less certain.
"I didn't know it would be like this."
The wind moved his hood.
Tomas caught the fabric before it slipped back.
"Like what?"
I looked at his boots, half-buried in wet leaves.
I could not answer.
How could I explain that I had expected something that simply obeyed?
Something that worked while I thought about other things?
That I might have sent this man into a dangerous forest without even remembering to ask his name?
"Do you know where we are?" I asked.
He looked between the trees.
"I don't know this place."
"Could this be Azeroth?"
Tomas turned his face toward me.
"What did you see that made you think that?"
I almost pointed at the portrait.
It was no longer in my field of vision.
When I thought about it, I felt that I could call it back, but I did not try.
"You. Your clothes. The axe."
He looked down at himself.
Then he stared at me long enough to make me wish I had given a better answer.
"I can't tell where we are just from that."
I nodded as if I agreed.
Inside, I was still holding on to the idea.
Warcraft had cold places.
It had forests.
It had men dressed like this.
I had no other explanation.
Tomas took a step toward me and stopped when he saw me tense.
"I won't hurt you."
I looked at the axe.
He moved his grip closer to the iron head, keeping the blade pointed down.
"We need to get out from under that branch," he said. "Can you walk?"
"Yes."
"Then come this way."
He did not move away until I stepped out from the tree.
We walked between the pines.
Tomas tested some spots with his boot before putting his weight on them.
I tried to step where he stepped, but his legs were longer than mine.
After a while, he slowed down without saying anything.
The ground sloped downward.
Solid earth gave way to dark patches between tufts of grass.
There was standing water beneath a layer of leaves, so still that I only noticed it when the sky appeared reflected in its surface.
A sound came from somewhere farther below.
At first I thought it was the wind.
Then it grew louder.
Faded.
Then came again.
"Water," I said.
Tomas stopped to listen.
We continued until we reached an opening between the pines.
Across an uneven slope, I saw a strip of stones and gray water.
Small waves broke against the shore.
Farther away, a point of land blocked whatever lay beyond it.
The air smelled different there.
Salty.
Sharp.
A pale bird skimmed the surface and disappeared behind the trees.
I saw no boats.
I searched for a house.
Smoke.
A post.
Anything made by human hands.
There were only rocks, water, and a wooded slope on the other side.
Tomas stood beside me, looking down the slope.
"You can't drink that water."
"I know."
I answered too quickly.
He did not argue.
My mouth was so dry that I had already considered going down, even though the smell of the sea was obvious.
I saw a path between two rocks and moved forward for a better look.
It seemed short.
All I had to do was cross a patch covered in grass.
"Wait," Tomas said.
My foot sank before I could stop.
The green layer gave way with a wet sound.
I tried to pull my leg free, lost my balance, and grabbed a handful of grass.
It came away in my hand.
Tomas grabbed my arm.
"Stop pulling like that."
I pulled again anyway.
The mud tightened around my boot, and the feeling of being trapped made my chest close up.
"Varian. Look at me."
I looked.
He was leaning forward, one foot planted on a rock, his jaw tight.
"Put your hand here. Slowly."
I touched his shoulder.
I could feel the thick fabric, warm underneath.
Tomas shifted his arm and helped me move my weight.
He waited until I found solid ground with my free leg.
My boot came loose with a wet sucking sound.
I stumbled into him.
He let out a breath through his teeth, pushed me away from the edge, and only then released my arm.
I stared at the mud around my ankle.
It had not been a monster.
It had not been a trap.
It was just a patch of ground I had failed to notice.
Tomas flexed the fingers of the hand he had used to pull me out.
"Did I hurt you?"
"Pulled a little."
"Sorry."
He gave a short nod.
"Next time, stop when I tell you to."
I wanted to explain that I had not known the ground would collapse.
The words reached my mouth and stopped there.
He already knew.
"Okay."
Water had gotten inside my boot.
My toes were beginning to freeze as we moved back toward the trees.
Tomas was breathing harder now.
He stopped beside a fallen trunk and studied the slope.
I waited for him to tell me what to do.
That realization bothered me too.
It was too easy.
"Are you thirsty?" I asked.
He looked at me.
"Yes."
I ran my tongue over the inside of my lip.
I had imagined wood appearing.
A building taking shape.
Maybe another unit afterward.
I had not thought about the dryness in his throat.
"Food?"
"We'll need some."
I sat on the least wet part of the fallen trunk.
I was tired, even though we had barely walked.
I wanted someone older to appear and tell me that they knew the way.
Tomas was older.
But he was seeing this forest for the first time too.
I had brought the only person who could help me into a place neither of us knew how to leave.
I covered my face with my hands.
My fingers smelled of earth.
For a moment, I remembered water coming from a faucet.
The sound it made against a sink.
Something I used to let run while I looked for a glass.
I lowered my hands before Tomas could see my eyes.
He was crouched a little farther ahead, touching a patch of dark earth.
He did not look like a man with an answer ready.
He brushed away some leaves, studied the direction of the slope, and stood again.
"We can look for water over there," he said, pointing into the trees. "The ground slopes down that way. There may be a stream between the rocks."
"May be?"
"I need to see."
I followed the direction of his arm.
The forest looked exactly like the rest of the forest.
"What if there isn't?"
Tomas ran a hand through his beard.
"Then we look somewhere else. But we don't go so far that we can't find our way back."
I looked at the gray water between the trees.
At least from here, we could see something other than trees.
"We can mark the way."
He nodded.
"We can."
I waited.
He remained where he was.
It took me a moment to understand that he was not waiting for another order.
I stood and searched the ground.
I picked up a long branch, but the wood broke apart when I tried to bend it.
I threw the pieces aside and chose another.
Tomas watched, then pointed toward a fallen forked branch beside a root.
"That one will be easier to see."
I dragged the branch toward the more open part of the slope.
It was heavier than it looked.
One end caught on a bush, and I had to turn back to free it.
Tomas took hold of the other end without a word.
Together, we leaned the forked branch against a tree in a position we would recognize when we came back.
I still believed we were in Azeroth.
I still wanted to know how I had gotten there and whether there was a way home.
Those questions were still so large that thinking about them made my chest tighten.
Tomas waited while I pressed the dry end of the branch into the ground.
There was no clean water.
No food.
No place to sleep.
My boot was soaked through.
The man beside me was cold and thirsty.
And I had no idea what would happen to him if I simply stopped trying.
"Let's look," I said.
He picked up the axe.
Before following him, I pulled on the forked branch one more time to make sure it would not fall.
A splinter pierced my palm.
I pulled it out with my thumbnail, pressed down on the small spot of blood, and went back to work until the branch was secure.
This time, when Tomas started walking, I followed him.
And I watched where I put my feet.