The first thing I felt was something moving across my neck.
I brushed at it quickly and sat up, sucking in a breath. A pine needle was caught between my fingers. There was no bug. Just an itch that lingered even after I rubbed at my skin.
My left arm was numb.
I had slept on it, my face pressed against dark ground that smelled of rotting leaves. There was dirt in my mouth. I spat it out, wiped my lips on my sleeve, and stared at the tree trunks ahead of me.
I waited for something to make sense.
The pines rose almost straight before spreading into branches. Between them, the light was gray and diffuse beneath a sky I could barely see. A little farther ahead, roots pushed up from the earth along a slope before disappearing beneath the moss again. Water dripped somewhere nearby, even though it didn't seem to be raining.
I recognized nothing.
"Hello?"
My voice came out hoarse. I swallowed, feeling a scrape deep in my throat.
I waited.
The wind moved through the treetops. A short crack sounded somewhere in the distance, and I turned my head so quickly that my neck hurt.
"Is someone there?"
Nothing answered.
I pushed myself upright against a tree. My legs were steady, but my knees trembled. I examined my hands, my clothes, my arms. One side of my sleeve was damp. There was a small smear of blood on my wrist, near a scratch I didn't remember getting.
I was still me. The same narrow hands, the same bitten-down thumbnail. I pressed a hand against my stomach as though I could somehow check that everything inside was still where it belonged.
Fourteen years old. My name was Varian. I knew that much.
So why didn't I know how I'd gotten there?
I tried to remember the last thing that had happened before I woke up. Fragments came back without order: the glow of a screen in a room, a chair creaking when I leaned forward, my own hand reaching for something on the desk. Nothing showed me a forest. Nothing explained the cold seeping through my clothes.
I searched my pockets. Then searched them again, even though I'd just checked them.
No phone.
That thought frightened me more than the pine trees.
I made a short circuit around the place where I'd woken up. I pushed branches aside with my foot. Looked behind the tree, beneath a root, between leaves stuck together with moisture. Maybe I'd dropped it. Maybe there was a backpack nearby, a road just ahead, someone looking for me.
I found nothing that explained why I was there.
Before I realized it, I could no longer point to the exact patch of ground where I'd first opened my eyes.
I stopped.
My breathing quickened. I tried to draw in another breath, but couldn't finish it. The forest seemed to close in around me.
I pressed my back against a tree and counted my fingers slowly until I could breathe without that crushing tightness in my chest.
I needed to think.
That's when I saw the square.
It hovered at the edge of my vision, small and pale, where there had been nothing but tree bark a moment before. I shifted my eyes. The square remained in the same place relative to me.
I turned my head.
It moved with me.
I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them again.
Still there.
"No."
I waved a hand in front of my face. My fingers passed through empty space.
Through that little shape, I could still see the pine trees behind it. There was no screen, no light being projected onto my skin. And yet, when I focused, I could make out the image of a bearded face beneath a hood.
I knew that face.
The resemblance was enough to make my stomach clench before I even accepted what I was thinking.
Warcraft.
Beneath the figure was a word.
Peasant.
I let out a short laugh. It came out wrong, almost like a sob.
"This has to be a joke."
I'd selected that portrait so many times that I remembered exactly where it used to appear on the screen. Peasant. Gather wood, build, repair. Send him somewhere and forget about him while I dealt with something else.
Except there was no screen.
I looked up, searching between the branches for something. I didn't know what. A camera would have been better than this. A speaker. Anything I could find and smash.
There were only trees, the wind, and the figure that remained even when I looked away.
A System.
The word came too easily. I'd read stories where things began this way. I'd never stopped to imagine how difficult it would be to stare at impossible letters and keep breathing normally.
If this really was Warcraft...
Azeroth.
I stood perfectly still.
I looked at the pines again, now expecting to find something that would prove the idea. A building. A banner. Maybe the forest was supposed to look different. Maybe I was trying to compare real trees to trees I'd seen from above on a screen.
I wouldn't have known how to identify a country by the shape of a pine tree.
But the portrait was there.
I remembered the dead walking, villages burning, things far too large for one person to face. I gripped the trunk behind me until the bark dug into my fingers.
There was none of that in sight.
There was also no one around to tell me I was wrong.
I turned my attention back to the bearded face. The image sharpened, and I realized I could select it. I couldn't have explained how I knew. It was the same feeling as remembering a word that had been sitting just out of reach on the tip of my tongue.
Two numbers appeared when I focused on it: five hundred beside a gold icon, and one hundred and fifty beside wood. Beneath the portrait, the cost was seventy-five gold.
The same cost as in the game.
I remembered that number.
I reached into my pocket again. Empty. There were no coins at my feet, no pile of lumber between the trees. Whatever this was, it had to be some kind of resource pool, but I had no idea where it was stored or how to get more.
Seventy-five out of five hundred.
I did the math twice.
That left four hundred and twenty-five.
I tried touching the image again.
Nothing happened.
"Summon?"
Nothing.
My heart was beating hard enough for me to feel it in my throat. I looked at the patch of ground between two trees. There was room there, covered in leaves and scattered stones.
Maybe nothing would happen. Maybe I had a fever and was lying somewhere, dreaming that I was standing.
I wanted desperately to hear another voice.
I fixed my attention on the portrait and made the choice.
The space between the trees shifted.
There was no flash bright enough to force me to close my eyes. Instead, I saw something like hot air trembling above a heated surface, even though I could still feel the cold. A shape darkened inside the distortion.
Boots.
Heavy clothing.
A face.
I stumbled backward and caught my foot on a root.
When I managed to steady myself, there was a man standing before me.
He placed one hand against a tree, like someone stepping down from a ledge higher than expected. An axe hung from his other hand. The iron head tapped against a stone with a small, perfectly ordinary sound.
The man raised his eyes.
I knew the hood. I knew the beard, the work clothes, the heavy belt. I recognized everything before I could properly look at any of it.
It worked.
A Peasant.
I had a Peasant.
The number beside the gold dropped to four hundred and twenty-five. The wood remained at one hundred and fifty.
It hadn't been a free demonstration.
I tried to focus on the resource count, but the man moved and my eyes returned to him.
Out of habit, I looked for the green health bar above his head.
There was no health bar.
There was a branch behind his shoulder. A thin thread of saliva clung to the corner of his mouth, which he wiped away with the back of his hand as he studied the trees. His beard was brown, uneven around the chin. One of his fingernails was darkened by an old injury.
He breathed through his mouth.
"Are you hurt?"
It took me a moment to realize he was speaking 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 rested the axe carefully against the tree and looked around once more.
"Are we alone?"
His voice was quieter than I'd expected. There was none of the exaggerated cheerfulness from the responses I remembered in the game. He sounded like someone trying to hear something beyond me.
"We are."
I didn't know if that was true.
"I mean... I haven't seen 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.
"For what?"
I opened my mouth.
"To build."
"Build what?"
I thought of a farm. The image came whole into my mind, roof and fence and all. A building I could order into existence and leave to be completed while I dealt with something else.
I looked at the man's hands.
Then at the axe resting against the tree.
"A shelter," I answered.
He lifted his face toward the canopy above us.
"This isn't a good place."
The answer bothered me for a moment.
I'd just given him an order.
Realizing that thought bothered me even more.
"Why?"
He pointed toward a thick branch wedged between two others. The wood was pale where it had broken.
"That thing is hanging loose. If the wind picks up, it could fall. And water runs down that way."
Following his finger, I noticed a strip of flattened leaves between the roots. I'd stepped on it without even realizing.
"It's not raining."
"Not right now."
He didn't say it mockingly. He picked up the axe again, but didn't start cutting.
I felt heat in my face despite the cold.
"Then where?"
"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, calloused, with small cracks around the fingers. It didn't look like the hand of someone who knew everything.
It looked like the hand of someone who had worked hard.
"What's your name?"
He frowned slightly.
"Thomas."
A name.
I didn't know why that surprised me so much. I'd heard his voice. Seen him breathe. Even so, until that moment, some part of me had expected to be able to call him Peasant forever.
"I'm Varian."
"All right, Varian."
Thomas shifted the axe to his other hand and rubbed his nose against his sleeve. The tip was red from the cold.
I wondered what I'd done to him.
The place had been empty.
I'd chosen a figure, and now a man was standing there, feeling the cold.
"I was the one who brought you here."
He watched me.
"You were?"
I nodded, though saying it aloud had somehow made everything less certain.
"I didn't know it would be like this."
The wind tugged at the hood over his forehead. Thomas caught the fabric before it slipped back.
"Like what?"
I looked down at his boots, half-buried in the damp leaves.
I couldn't answer.
How could I explain that I'd expected something that 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 trunks.
"I don't know this place."
"Could it be Azeroth?"
Thomas turned toward me.
"What did you see that made you think that?"
I almost pointed toward the portrait. It was no longer in my field of vision. When I thought about it, I could still feel that I could search for it again, but I didn't try.
"You. Your clothes. The axe."
He lowered his eyes to himself. Then he looked at me long enough to make me wish I'd given him a better answer.
"I can't tell where we are from that alone."
I nodded as though I agreed, but inside, I was still clinging to the idea.
Warcraft had cold places.
It had forests.
It had men dressed like that.
I had no other explanation for him.
Thomas took a step toward me and stopped when he saw me tense.
"I'm not going to hurt you."
I looked at the axe.
He held it closer to the iron head, the blade pointed downward.
"We need to get out from under that branch," he said. "Can you walk?"
"I can."
"Then come this way."
He didn't move away until I had stepped clear of the tree.
We made our way between the trees. Thomas tested certain patches of ground with his boot before putting his weight on them. I tried to step where he did, but his legs were longer, and after a while he slowed his pace without saying anything.
The ground sloped downward. Firm earth gave way to dark patches between tufts of grass. Water stood beneath a film of leaves, so still that I didn't notice it until the sky appeared reflected in it.
A sound came from somewhere below.
At first I thought it was wind.
Then it grew louder, faded, and grew again.
"Water," I said.
Thomas stopped to listen.
We continued until we reached an opening among the pines. Across an uneven slope, I saw a strip of stone and gray water. Small waves broke against the shore. Farther away, a tongue of land concealed whatever lay beyond it.
The air smelled different there—salty and sharp. A pale bird skimmed the surface and vanished behind the trees.
I saw no boats.
I searched for a house, smoke, a post, anything built by human hands.
There was only stone, water, and a tree-covered slope on the other side.
Thomas stood beside me, looking down the slope.
"Not drinking water," he said.
"I know."
I answered too quickly.
He didn't press the matter.
My mouth was so dry that I'd already considered going down there, despite the smell of the sea.
I spotted a path between two rocks and moved forward to get a better look. It seemed short. All I had to do was cross a patch covered in grass.
"Wait," Thomas said.
My foot sank before I could stop.
The green surface gave way with a wet sucking sound. I tried to pull my leg free, lost my balance, and grabbed a fistful of grass that came away in my hand.
Thomas caught me by the arm.
"Stop pulling like that."
I pulled again.
The mud tightened around my boot, and the sensation of being trapped made my chest seize.
"Varian. Look at me."
I did.
He was leaning toward me, one foot planted on a stone, his jaw clenched.
"Put your hand here. Slowly."
I placed my hand on his shoulder. I could feel the thick fabric, warm underneath. Thomas shifted his grip, helped me transfer my weight, and waited until I found solid ground with my free leg.
My boot came free with a wet sucking noise.
I staggered into him.
The man exhaled sharply through his teeth, pushed me away from the edge, and only then released my arm.
I stared at the mud around my ankle.
It hadn't been a monster.
Or a trap.
Just a patch of ground I hadn't known how to read.
Thomas flexed the fingers of the hand he'd used to pull me free.
"Did I hurt you?"
"Pulled a little."
"Sorry."
He gave a short shake of his head.
"Next time, stop when I tell you to."
I wanted to explain that I hadn't known I would sink.
The words reached my mouth and stayed there.
He already knew.
"Okay."
Water had seeped into my boot. My toes began to grow cold as we made our way back toward the trees.
Thomas 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 was too easy, too.
"Are you thirsty?" I asked.
He looked at me.
"I am."
I ran my tongue along the inside of my lip. I'd imagined wood being gathered somewhere, a structure taking shape, perhaps another unit afterward.
I hadn't thought about his throat.
"And food?"
"We'll need that."
I sat on the driest part of the fallen trunk. I was tired, even though we'd barely walked. I wanted someone older to appear and tell me they knew the way.
Thomas was older.
But he was looking at this forest for the first time too.
I'd brought the only person who could help me into a place neither of us knew how to escape.
I covered my face with my hands.
My fingers smelled of earth.
For a moment, I remembered water running from a faucet, the sound it made as it struck the sink. Something I used to let run while I looked for a glass.
I lowered my hands before Thomas could notice my eyes.
He was crouched a short distance away, touching a strip of dark soil. He didn't look like he had an answer waiting. He brushed aside some leaves, studied the direction of the slope, and stood again.
"We can look for water over there," he said, pointing deeper into the trees. "The ground slopes downward on that side. There might be a spring between the rocks."
"Might?"
"I need to see."
I followed the direction of his arm.
The forest looked exactly like every other part of the forest.
"And if there isn't any?"
Thomas 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 toward the gray water between the trees. At least from there, we could see something other than trees.
"We can mark the path."
He nodded.
"We can."
I waited.
He remained still.
It took me a moment to realize I didn't need to give another order.
I stood and searched the ground. I picked up a long branch, but the wood crumbled when I tried to bend it. I threw the pieces aside and chose another.
Thomas watched, then pointed toward a fallen fork of wood lying beside a root.
"That one will be easier to spot."
I dragged the branch to the place where we'd leave the more open part of the slope. It was heavier than it looked. One end caught on a bush, and I had to go back to free it.
Thomas took hold of the other end without a word.
Together, we leaned the forked branch against a tree, positioning it so we'd recognize it on the way back.
I still believed we were in Azeroth.
I still wanted to know how I'd gotten there and whether there was a way home.
The questions remained so enormous that I could barely think about them without feeling the tightness return to my chest.
Thomas waited while I secured the base of the branch with my dry foot.
There was no drinking 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 tugged the forked branch one more time to make sure it wouldn't fall.
A splinter pierced my palm.
I pulled it free with my fingernail, pressed down on the tiny spot of blood, and returned to the task until the branch was firmly in place.
This time, when Thomas started walking, I followed, watching where I put my feet.