The Witcher: Origins - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Many stories, at least those like mine start with an end, someone dying and waking up in a strange place with even stranger power, and things along those lines, heh... lucky ones, my story? Well, it didn’t have an end, I was simply ripped from my life without any explanation.

And here is how my story begins, not a great start I will grant you that, but I like to think I managed.

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I woke up to the sound of birds merrily singing their way to annoy my weekend, and with the hot scorching sun shining bright on my face. For an unknown reason I felt extremely tired, which was weird. I didn’t recall exerting myself yesterday, so I decided to keep my eyes closed for now, it was the weekend anyway. But as some time passed, and my mind slowly started to join my body in the world of the waking, I started to notice several things that were off.

Firstly, I live in a basement, so any wildlife sound is a hard… or rather impossible thing to happen. Secondly, I could feel the sun on my face, which was pretty much impossible once again for the same reason, I lived in a basement, meaning there was no way for the sun to reach me.

So I opened my eyes, and saw a very unfamiliar environment around me. Instead of my sweet memory foam bed, I was laying on the grass, instead of my room… well, go back to the grass bit.

So I did what any reasonable man would do in my situation, I went into a full blown panic mode. With questions bouncing in my head, like where was I? How did I get here?

“Move away rat,” Someone said with clear disgust on their voice, kicking me out of the way and snapping me out of me panic attack, it took me a few seconds to register who had kicked me, it was a massive man, with an average build… no, he wasn’t massive, his proportions seemed normal…. was I smaller? “I don’t want to see you around here again little shit, if I do, I will gut you,” the man laughed in delight, and with that I ran, not from him, but from something I had yet to comprehend.

I don’t know for how long I ran, but the more people I saw, the more believable my theory of them being normal sized and me being smaller was becoming, which only accentuated my panic even more, was this a nightmare, if so when was I going to wake up?

I ran and ran, stopping in front of a small lake, where I saw my reflection, my body, my frame, everything… everything was clear now, I wasn’t simply smaller, I was a kid, a freaking useless kid. This had to be a nightmare, why else would I wake up as a kid, in what seemed to be a medieval world, so perhaps pain would wake me up. With that idea, I punched myself in the face, over and over again, but no matter how much pain I felt or how much blood I got with my punches, I was still here, and I couldn’t help but fear this fact, the awful possibility of this being real.

No matter how much I wanted to deny it, or believe otherwise, a part of me was screaming... this is your life now, your world.

I felt my eyes starting to burn, as tears started to stream down my bloodied face. I thought about my family, my friends and all the people I probably would never get to see again. All these little things, they all just started piling up in my mind, as realisation after realisation started to hit me until a mighty scream of pain escaped my throat, “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!” I screamed until my lungs were empty of air and my body was almost dry of tears, with a little bit of me still believing this had to be a dream, there was no other logical explanation.

I stood in that same place for a few hours, silently crying, all while hopelessly waiting for the moment my alarm clock would wake me up, saving me from this nightmare, but as time passed, that bit of hope I had, vanished.

“Where am I?” I asked myself, my voice barely making a sound, so many questions, where was I? How did I get here? Why was I a kid? And most importantly… Why me?

I took a few extra minutes to gather my literal shit, and decided to gather information, if this was real, crying would solve nothing, so I walked around, back to where I had seen the people while I was running, and noticed that while I could definitely understand them while they were talking to each other, I couldn’t read anything around the small town, the letters were so foreign to me.

And no matter how many people I approached, I got nothing… they would simply glare at me or insult me until I went away, like I was the devil. Seriously what did I do to those people.

“Great,” I muttered, deciding to find something to eat, there was no point in trying to talk to them anymore.

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It took me around two hours to find something to eat, all while still wondering where was I? By the looks it felt like I was somewhere in Europe, maybe France.

As I ate the apple I had found on a empty farm, I asked myself why was everything so quiet during the day, it was still noon, before I could ponder about that a shriek that pierced my ears with fear made me jump out of my sitting spot, and in shock I turned around to see something straight out of my worst nightmares, quite ironic considering my situation was already one of my worst nightmares.

A second was all it took me to realize I had seen this creature, but in a different way, from a different glass or rather a different point of view, in a game, it was a Noonwraith, this fact answered my earlier question, as to where I was… I was in the world of the Witcher.

It all made sense now, why the farmers left their farm, and why was everything close down at noon, they left for her.

The monster turned to me, and with an equally terrifying shriek ran or rather floated towards me, “Kid get down!”

I didn’t even ask why, I simply did as I was told, and soon as I did that, a man jumped over me, pushing the monster a few meters back with a wide smile, “Don’t worry kid, Reinhard will take care of it,” the man was tall, muscular and had brown hair, on his back he had a massive battle axe and a bow, but what got me the most was the collar he was wearing, a Witcher medallion of the bear school.

So… this was really the world I was in now… fuck.

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I said I managed didn’t I? Yes I cried, and yes I almost died, but can any of you tell me… you would’ve done better?