David found his consciousness suddenly returning back to him. He tried opening his "eyes" only to realise he couldn't.
'Wait, didn't I get shot in the chest? How am I still alive?' A wave of sudden panic passed through him as he realised the result of failing to die.
'They shall not only capture me but shall make sure I become a puppet under them.'
He tried to calm himself down. But the constant thought of the several organisations after him scared him to no end. However as time passed by, he felt something wrong.
All around him was an overwhelming darkness. One that would have sent chills down his spine had he been able to feel his body.
[~Ding~]
'Was that a sound...or just a piece of my imagination?' David wasn't sure of it. To him, it felt like the usual notification sound he used in his smartphone.
[ The Forgotten Deity has used Her Ultimate. Attempt number: Error! ]
It was a bizzare sensation seeing words appear in the swallowing darkness. It was as if he was in a strange dream for only that could explain how he was seeing things without opening his eyes.
The words disappeared and time passed on. David could only wait through it all. But what he was waiting for, even he didn't know.
Then suddenly...
[Destination reached. Ejection underway...]
[Ejection successful.]
A blinding light seared his vision and emptied the darkness from his surroundings. Slowly the intensity of the light decreased as his eyesight started clearing up.
Alongwith it, he started to feel the control over his body return back. He opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was a crescent moon painted in shades of vibrant pink hanging low on the tapestry of the night sky.
'Wait why is the moon PINK?? And that too a half moon?!' David's face scrunched in sheer shock. From what he knew, the moon can never appear pinkish in colour. Even in the rarest cases, the moon can take on a light pinkish hue in the edges due to the large accumulation of dust particles in the air.
So what was this strange phenomenon?
But then another thought struck him. 'What am I doing under the night sky?'
He then pulled away from the strange moon and lowered his face to look around him. His eyes fell on a bare chested man with a crude, battered wooden spear with a metal head. His beard formed a messy stubble on his lower chin and his long hairs partially obscured his vision. Cuts - both fresh and dried - covered his chest and his eyes were intensely focused on David.
Realising he was staring at the wild man, he quickly averted his eyes as he took in the wilderness he was in. Long grasses covered most of the field and old, massive trees stood on the ground at different corners, their wide girth and their long branches forming an umbrella like structure.
"Oyy, nameless." The man shouted as he pointed at David, which he kind of expected given the way this man was glaring at him.
David slowly looked over at him awkwardly. Then pointing his index finger at himself, he asked. "Are you calling me?"
"Yes, you." The man affirmed as he asked in a sarcastic tone, "Why ask me that as if you named?"
David's eyebrows furrowed a little as he listened to the man's rough accent and broken English. But he got the gist of what he said, and so he answered back in a defensive manner, "What do you mean I don't have a name? I have had it from a long time just like you. In fact, everyone has a name."
The man before David looked at him as if he was seeing something so weird that he had to even make an ugly face. But a moment later, he boomed into a full on laughter spree as his entire body literally shook under the effect. At one point he even held on to his stomach, unable to continue laughing any longer. He leaned on his spear, taking mouthfuls of breath and calming himself down.
His red face stared past David as he once again burst into tears and laughter. Then finally stopping, he asked. "Shogun Bloodaxe, this nameless think he named. A null potential think he got name haha!" He pounded his chest as he addressed the question not at David, but to the man behind him.
Seeing that, David turned around. And at that moment, he realised they weren't alone. They had company.
A company of four more people, precisely.
A little away from David, a beast of a man sat on a round boulder. He was covered in a full body woollen attire and a sinister looking mace rested by his feet. His reddish beard covered half of his face and his gigantic figure towered almost at 7 feet.
Beside him on the ground, a man and a woman sat together. The woman appeared to be resting on the the man's lap. David tried squinting to see their obscured faces through the narrow gaps between the tall grasses.
But all he could see under the pinkish hue of the moon was the bulge on the woman's stomach and the man's rythmic caressing of the belly. And instantly it clicked in David's mind. 'The woman is pregnant.' He thought as he stared at the possible couple.
Suddenly the man raised his head above the grass and looked at him with narrowed eyes. Immediately David glanced sideways as he regretted his habit of staring at things or people out of unnatural curiousity.
The middle aged man sitting on the rock sighed as he beckoned the spear man with a wave of his hand.
"Thorgar..." David found himself perplexed as the man started speaking in a foreign tongue. He glanced behind at the man named Thorgar only to find him grinning like a crazy bastard.
"You not understand right?" He said to David in a mocking tone, as if it was a natural thing for others to know the language of the Shogun but not for him.
The man cradling the woman suddenly spoke up. "Thorgar, Shogun is calling for you. Why are you wasting your time fooling around in this time of crisis?"
At those words, Thorgar stopped grinning and walked briskly towards Shogun who started talking with him in the same foreign tone. It sounded unintelligible to David and often included words accompanied with clicking of tongue.
The man who spoke proper English continued but this time, his words were aimed at David. "And you, boy. In case you forgot about our already existing traditions, you don't get named until you achieve something of significant value. Watch Thorgar; he is a boy of your age and yet had previously slain a total of eleven invaders. All alone. Do something like that and you shall get the chance to name yourself as well."
The man talked to David in a polite but firm manner. His time was neither condescending like that of Thorgar nor dismissive like the Shogun's.
He was about to go attend to the woman again but as if on instinct, he paused.
Then turning his head, he said. "By the way, I am Draven. And this is Lysandra, my wife." He finished as he gestured towards the woman lying on his lap.
At that moment, the sound of rustling leaves echoed from the south attracting the attention of everyone present. Thorgar stepped forward as if about to leap on something. Draven stiffened as he embraced his wife, Lysandra tightly.
Meanwhile Shogun glanced behind him lazily. He then stood up and calmed everyone present as he spoke something in the foreign tongue.
David moved closer to them as he watched all this unfold.
Suddenly a slender girl burst through the wild grasses, her feet never stopping as she shouted at the top of her lungs.
"Run, run! Wolves on our way."
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A/N: The broken English is intentional and meant to create an atmosphere where the barbarians are still learning this language.