Capítulo 2: Chapter 1: The Awakening (part one)
When Mathis opened his eyes, he immediately knew something was wrong. The eyes were barely opened, when that feeling of oddity wrapped all his body from within. It felt like a cloud was forming in his stomach and it grew bigger and bigger, expanding within his body and the bigger it got the darker it became. Everything felt strange. Even the air felt strange, like it wasn't the same air he had breathed all his life. With no idea of why such feeling would spread in his heart, Mathis glued his eyes to the ceiling.
This in itself rose a lot of questions in his mind. So many of them, that it was quite difficult to handle all of them one by one. But as the confusion and the questions fogged his mind, the feeling in his heart only intensified. To begin with, why was he staring at a ceiling? And why was the said ceiling so close? Why does it took like it's made of wood? Where's the mint color pedant light that he hates so much?
Mathis blinked a few times. His body hadn't moved an inch, yet even in that position a lot of things didn't match up. First of all, he's laid down on a bed, which is extremely disturbing his heart filled with the strange emotion. Mathis Bauer has spent years and years locked up in his studio and knew every corner of it. He would recognize the wooden surface of his desk with just a simple touch. He would recognize the ashen ceiling as he has spent hours staring at it while thinking about the perfect way of wording the way a character walked through the room just so he could step out of the writer's block. That room was small and it only had a small couch set beside the wall in front of his desk, but he wasn't lying there. He was lying on a bed. And a big one at that. The silky sheets smelled like jasmine and the mattress beneath him was more comfortable than his bed could ever be.
So where am I? This question was the first thing that crossed his mind even before opening his eyes.
Mathis sat up on the bed and looked around. The place he was in was in total darkness, but that's not something he's not used to. Almost all his life was spent in dark rooms, so his eyes were quite used to it. Even though the darkness made it difficult to see, Mathis could make out everything in the room. Which was strange on its own, given the fact that he wasn't not wearing his glasses. The man is literally blind like a bat without those glasses plastered on his face all the time.
His index finger touched the bridge of his nose as to make sure he was wearing the glasses, but the hand froze in the air when it didn't find anything. Well this is weird, he thought. The hand fell on his side and touched the silky sheets. His eyes wandered around the room, weirding himself out even more when he felt so familiar with this strange place that he had never been in before.
The room was quite big, even bigger than the first floor of his two story house. And it also looked very classy and expensive. The silky sheets on the bed alone felt expensive enough to make one freeze in fear of ruining them. To call the bed he was currently sitting on, king-sized would be an understatement. It could easily fit five people on top of it and it would probably have enough room even for a sixth person if they were a bit scrawny and didn't move a lot during the night. The head of the bed was hidden behind at least ten fluffy pillows that most likely were filled with feathers. For some reason, Mathis was very sure of this fact, almost as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. The four corners of the bed were attached to four thick posts that seemed like tree trunks with vines slithering like snakes around them. The four posts were holding the ceiling he was staring at when he woke up, but it turned out it wasn't a ceiling to begin with, but a canopy. Some thick cloth hung from the edges of that "ceiling" and spilled on the floor like cloth waterfalls.
Mathis had never seen a canopy bed before. Of course he had seen them on internet. Actually he has seen numerous pictures of them, many designs and even did some research on them for his books yet he never saw one himself on person. He never lied down on one, yet now he just woke up from a sleep so deep it felt like it was more of a coma than sleep, lying down on a canopy bed that looked like it was made for kings. Excitement took over his body and wiped everything out of his mind, every weird feelings and worry. His right hand reached for the curtains at the side of the bed and touched them in awe. With his left hand Mathis rubbed his chin while fawning over the cloth, it was an old habit of his to do, every time he was deep in thoughts.
It feels like velvet, he thought while still rubbing his chin with a stupid grin on his face. But as his fingers were still touching his chin the hand froze once again. Who shaved my beard?!
For as long as he can remember, Mathis Bauer always had a beard, not because he thought he looked better that way, or because he liked beards. The only reason why he never shaved off his beard was simply because he was too lazy to do so. Such things as shaving his beard or cutting his hair took precious time from the time he could use to write. Even when he wasn't writing he was always doing something else not necessarily important, but that was relatively important to him because it was his free time. But now he had a clean face and the skin of his face felt so smooth he couldn't help but be impressed. Maybe it was because he couldn't remember the last time his face was clean that his skin feelt so smooth, but the more he felt his chin the more he felt like he never had a beard to begin with.
Still touching his face, his hands freeze for the third time. Slowly, almost as if he had touched something very dangerous or was holding a grenade in his hand, Mathis lowers his hands and stared at them as they started shaking. His mouth slowly opened into a silent scream he was trying very hard to keep it internal, but it was quite impossible so all that came out of his mouth was a squeak that sounded like a tea kettle whistling.
When Mathis Bauer was around nine or ten years old, while watching the kids of the orphanage play around with some old skateboard, he got pushed from behind and fell on the ground. Originally he was sitting on the stairs at the orphanage's front door, but as more kids rushed out from the door, some little boy around six years old accidentally bumped onto him and pushed him of the stairs. He was on the ground on all four when right at that moment, the kid on the skateboard came by. One of the skateboard's wheels ran over his pinky finger. The playground in front of the orphanage at that time wasn't in the best condition and the asphalt had quite a few holes here and there that always filled with water when it rained and grew grass in spring. However, unfortunately Mathis hand laid right above one of these small holes when he fell and when the wheel of the skateboard ran over it, it crushed the bone and cut of half of his pinky finger entirely. That might have been one of his more painful memories of his life. Even though as time passed he got used with his finger missing half of itself, there were times when he would get depressed over it even now that he was a grown ass man. However, right now, while staring at his shaky hands, his left hand was complete, no finger missing.
What the fuck?!! Mathis internally screamed while still squeaking that tea kettle whistle sound.
If the weird feelings and the strange room weren't enough to make him lose his mind, now he was panicking so much, Mathis was about to scream his lungs off and pull his hair off if it wasn't for the fact that he was still staring at the hands. Somehow, while he was still sleeping, he got carried into this place, someone shaved his beard, his eyesight got so good he didn't need his glasses anymore and if all these weren't enough, his pinky finger magically grew after twenty years or more. With all these, Mathis couldn't take it anymore and stood up from the bed, stepping backwards away from it as if it was the bed's fault for all these strange things that were happening. But as he was backing away from it, he failed to notice the three steps less than seven feet away from the bed and as a result fell down on the floor.
The shock of falling, instead of making him calm down a bit, only made his voice finally come out and now he wasn't only panicking, but was doing it while screaming and wailing. The fall also made him notice the strange clothes he was wearing and the utterly astonishing fact that his dark hair that almost reached his shoulders, now was so long it reached his ass.
Mathis stood up and started to pull his hair as if trying to get the wig off, because that's what it is right? A wig. How can his hair be so long? Still pulling his hair, even though it was obvious that it wasn't a wig as it actually hurt to pull at it, a passing thought made his body freeze in shock. What if I'm a girl? It was absolutely absurd as he knew very well he's a man, yet at those moments his brain had stopped working and before he could notice how much of a moron he was being, Mathis grabbed his chest in an attempt of finding his boobs. Even when he made sure he didn't have the boobs of a woman, he still wasn't convinced and touched down at his manhood. After he made sure that it was still there, a sigh left his lips and he finally calmed down.
Mathis still wasn't sure what was happening, where he was, or how he came to be the way he was, because the eyesight, the finger and the hair weren't things that could be fixed in just a day or even years for all that it matters. But there was no point in freaking out. He finally came to his senses and decided that it was better to figure out where he was first and don't panic for the time being.
Pushing himself off the ground, he brushed the nonexistent dust off his clothes. His hands rested on his hips as Mathis let out a heartfelt sigh. "Well, what the fuck is going on here?" He asked himself at loud, but his own voice startled him. He doesn't sound like himself at all. "What in the hell…" The more he spoke, the more confused and amused he got. This wasn't how he sounded at all. The best way to describe his voice would be if you compared it to one of those actors from the '70s movies. Blake, his best friend, who happens to be his only friend as well, used to tease him a lot, calling him Grumpy like the dwarf from the "Snow-White and the seven dwarves" movie because of his voice. But right now, the voice that came from him, didn't sound like that at all. The voice was deep and rich. It even sounded younger.
Things were only getting weirder and Mathis wasn't sure anymore if he could handle all this anymore.
His eyes fell on the clothes he was wearing. Normally one would freak out over the fact that someone had undressed them while sleeping in order to dress them with something else, but at this point that was one of the least worries Mathis Bauer had. Not only he wasn't wearing his clothes, an old gray hoodie and basketball shorts, but he was wearing things that didn't even look from his era. The clothes on his body looked like something out of his books and not something normal people wear. At some point, while he was sleeping, someone had decided to change his clothes into some cosplay. Mathis wasn't sure if that person were sick in the head or was just fooling with him, amusing themselves with all this, but Mathis himself wasn't finding any of this funny. The costume was pretty cool, but the situation still wasn't funny.
It was still dark so there wasn't much he could tell about what color his clothes were. He was wearing a tunic that reached his ankles. The cloth had two splits that started from the waist down where his thighs were. The tunic looked quite a lot like a shirt with three of its buttons unbuttoned, showing more of his chest that Mathis would ever dare to show. A leather lace zigzaged across the area that showed his chest, the two ends of a it hanging down lazily. Around his waist was a sash belt wrapped neatly around him a few times. Under the long tunic, he was wearing some harem pants, and two long narrow pieces of cloth wrapped around his lower part of the leg, starting from his shins to down the ankles, but he wasn't wearing any shoes.
For some reason, Mathis felt quite comfortable in this kind of clothes, almost as if he had worn them all his life, even though the closest he had been to this kind of clothes was when he had been researching and writing about them. Most of his characters wore clothes of this kind due to the timeline he had chosen for each book, but never in his life Mathis thought he would wear them.
Mathis stared at his bare feet thinking "Where can I find some shoes", when his hair fell on his face due to his head's position. He glared at the hair and blew it away, only for it to fall again on his face, tickling him. Why is the hair so long? How in the hell did it grow so much?
He ran his hand through his hair, brushing it away from his face and looked around the room. The place was way bigger than the first floor of his house, with the latter not being that big to begin with. Given the fact that this room was of this kind of size, Mathis wandered how big could the building be. The bed was right in the middle of the room, inside what looked like a tiny room inside the wall, big enough to fit only the bed. The floor inside that small space was a bit higher from the rest of the room's floor. There were three steps that connected the two levels of the floor and that's where Mathis fell from. Opposite the bed there was a big magnificent fireplace with two armchairs in front of it and a foot stool in between them. Around twenty or more feet away from the fireplace, was a door. On the wall on the right of the fireplace were two greatly tall windows around ten feet wide each with curtains that flowed down on each side of them. In the space between the windows was a long table and a chair behind it that looked rather comfortable. The area in front of the table was left empty while at each side of it on the walls were rafts with books, scraps, paint and other tools. There were also two wall mounted sword racks, each one of them held at least six swords. On the left of the fireplace was a big wardrobe and a high folding screen beside it. In the middle of the wall was another door.
This must be a castle. Mathis thought to himself. Judging by the size of the room, of the windows and how expensive everything looked, there was no other explanation. But why would he be in such place… in these clothes… and what about the hair and his appearance? Everything about this place and situation felt so strange and alien yet, just like with the clothes he was wearing, Mathis felt like he had been living like this his whole life.
Mathis walked around the room for a while, until the first rays of sunshine entered the room. He looked outside the windows once, but there wasn't much too look at, just a wide surface of forest that ended halfway up the side of a mountain. Even though he had been waiting for the sun to rise so he could look around more carefully, Mathis still glared at the sunrays that fell on the floor from the windows. It's not like he hated the sun… he just didn't like it. It hurt his eyes and it gave him headache most of the time. Besides, the darkness felt more comforting and peaceful.
As the room was finally well lit, Mathis noticed that his clothes were all black, except the sash on his waist and the cloth around the lower part of his legs, which were crimson red. Now that he could see more clearly, he walked around the room once more, looking at the details on the curtains, walls and ceiling. He even found a pair of black boots underneath the bed. In the beginning when he woke up, it occurred to Mathis that maybe he got kidnapped. It's not like that anyone would want to do such a thing, but he had a lot of money because of his books so it wasn't something that couldn't possibly happen. But whoever brought him to this place, clearly wasn't in need of money, so being kidnapped was out of question. Since he couldn't find anything that could explain any of these, Mathis sat at the end of the bed and waited. He didn't dare open any of the doors nor snoop around. Instead he decided to wait for someone to check up on him and hope that maybe they would have some kind of explanation.
It felt like hours passed and at some point Mathis even fell asleep again on the bed. He realized such thing happened only when a knock on the door startled him awake. A silvery voice of a woman spoke from behind the door that was a few feet away from the fireplace. "May I come in?"
Mathis nodded once then remembered that the woman couldn't see him. He fixed himself on the bed, his posture straight and serious, almost as if he was a soldier in front of his general. Mathis spoke, his voice loud and clear. "Yes."
The door opened and a tall woman with long white hair walked in, her skin the color of chestnut, making the hair look like silver strands brushing against her face and bare shoulders. She was wearing a pine green dress that wiped the floor as she walked. Just like his clothes, her dress didn't look from this era, but like a dress from his books. She was holding a silver tray on her right hand with a pair of crimson red bracers made of leather and a dagger. On her left arm hung a piece of black cloth that looked like a cloak. Mathis had never seen her in his life, but as his eyes caught sight of her hair, his body stiffened. The woman's hair were let loose, and two slim braids fell on her right shoulder. What made his body stiffen in such way, were the emerald hair rings with metallic leaves that hung on her braids, because he recognized those hair rings, and now he recognized this woman as well.
"The Second Son wants to discuss something with you, so you will be eating breakfast with him today." The woman said as she walked towards him.
Mathis remained silent, his eyes glued at the girl dumbstruck and in awe at the same time.
"The bladesmith fixed your sword, so it will be given to you after you're done with your breakfast. The dagger needed more fixing, so another one was given to you as a substitute." She extended the hand that held the tray to Mathis but he was still not moving and just staring at her like he couldn't believe his eyes, as if the woman in front of him was Jesus himself. "My lord?"
Mathis. "…"
"My lord?" The woman was starting to feel quite uncomfortable under Mathis' gaze, thinking that the man was sick or had hit his head.
"…"
She waited for him to respond, but the man just stared at her much like a deer caught in the headlights, making her more and more uncomfortable until she couldn't handle it anymore. "Yue Zian!" The woman called.
Mathis finally snapped out of it upon hearing his name and hummed a soft response, but not even two seconds passed by and he spoke with a shocked face. "Wait, what?"
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