Section: 1

     Silence haunted the forest Steve stalked through, the gentle wind calling his name, tugging at his wild hairs. Other than that, there wasn't a single sound to distract from the desolate scene. Mist rising from the grass and oozing into the forest brought shape to the dark trees which blocked out most of the light. It was so dark, the human couldn't even define the time being night or day. A shiver ran through Steve, taken back to the cold, dark cell he had just escaped from... What if they found him -- caught him?.. Fingers twitching, the man began scanning the forest for any fallen twig he might use as a weapon if that time came.

SNAP!

     The sound of something solid as a bone cracking in two echoed through the forest. Steve couldn't even tell where the noise had originated. Freezing solid, eyes snapping from one side of the forest to the other, the human suddenly wished for a way out of this. After finally regaining control of his stiff body, Steve spun in a slow circle, looking for anything other than fog, darkness, and trees.

     He did find something, and his blood ran cold.

     Before him, stood a man taller than him; same shade of dark brown hair, but shorter; a bit longer of a face than his own; only a little fuzz on his chin, but other than that it held very similar features. And for clothing, his outfit was very much the same color and style, besides a few small changes to the shirt which made it closer to a v-neck t-shirt than what Steve had. But, above all those small things, the biggest which insured Steve this wasn't just a reflection of himself, were the glowing white eyes. They seemed one with the glowing mist, even expelling that same glowing white fog onto the floor to collect with the rest.

     The human rubbed his eyes before squinting at this being. He couldn't help but feel as if he recognized the person, but at the same time had absolutely NO memory of him. The being's name was so close to memory, though, he could almost taste the memories on the tip of his tongue.

     As he squinted, Steve realized that this being looked a lot more closely related to the fog than he first anticipated. Both the glowing-eyed man's clothing, skin, and hair were all see-through, slowly phasing further in and out of existence, wavering like the glow of enchanted items. This fog really seemed to like whoever this was, for it swirled around him so slowly Steve didn't even realize it until the being's foot had shifted, bring his attention down to the floor.

     The human wished he had the courage to speak -- to do anything, but, his body just wouldn't give in to any desire of his! He would have asked so many things "Who are you?" "What is going on with your body?" "Are you human like me, or, do you at least know anything about them?" He had so many more on his mind as well, however, his situation didn't turn to favor this.

     The glowing eyes, never losing their gaze on Steve, eventually blinked, showing a brief, barely visible, a moment of humanity in their blank expression. Then, the being lifted one of his hands and pointed directly at Steve, not intentionally, but still sending shivers down the human's already shaky spine.

     "Wake up." The being's mouth did not open as he said that, instead, the forest spoke for him. Steve double-checked, and sure enough, there was no one else hiding in the branches. "Wake up." Steve spun back to the being, curious about the one still standing in the same position as before. "Wake up." The forest echoed yet again.

     Wait, if this was only a dream, then- 

     "Steve, wake up!" The man's eyes were opened instantly, memories flooding in to numb those remaining from the dream. Harsh clashing was heard to the side of him, a hot fire near his right arm, and the sound of Billy growling as he charged something. Then, the clanking of bones, screeching of spiders, and moaning of zombies came to his attention. Steve was up in an instant, immediately checking his pockets for anything useful. Nothing but some pocket lint, some knotted string, and Lumpy remained in his inventory, and there was nothing useful he could make from any of those.

     Hero, a little off in the distance, had somehow managed to pull a nearly broken sword from one of the zombies and was trying to stab the undead in the chest with its own weapon, to no avail since the zombie was much stronger than it looked.

     Billy was getting swarmed by skeletons. Already about a dozen arrows poked out from his thick stone-like skin.

     And who was Steve going to help? Well, he had to save himself first. As the man was desperately digging through his pockets for anything else, a spider, easily the size of a wolf (heh, brings a whole new meaning to the "Wolf Spider") tackled the human to the ground. Not surprisingly, this had happened to Steve many times before, so he knew the first thing to do in this situation was always to grab the big bug's fangs to keep it from biting him. As he did this with one hand, the other one dug deep into his pockets again, this time pulling out the string. He didn't have any time to tie a good knot, but an amateur one would do the trick. Within seconds the spider's mouth was shut enough so Steve could push the massive arachnid off of him and rethink his plan. As the spider clawed at the string around its fangs, Steve pulled out Lumpy the coal, gave it a quick apology, before slamming the piece of black earth into the spider's head. After a few swats, the big bug's legs curled in towards its chest, barely twitching, signifying that it was dead. With a sigh of relief, Steve wiped his lump of coal off on the grass, apologizing to it again under his breath, "Sorry, I'll have you cleaned off when we get back home." In response, the piece of coal said nothing.

     "Aaa!" Hero finally dropped the sword when it successfully impaled the zombie, squeaking when the ghoul treated the massive blade in its chest as merely a splinter. Hero ran up to the monster, grabbed the hilt of the nearly gone sword with a flaky handle, and yanked it diagonally through the monster. This motion was all it took to make the zombie realize it couldn't stay undead forever, and it fell to the floor with a (thump). Behind him, Steve heard Billy finish off the last of the skeletons. Finally, after quite the early morning battle, Steve sighed in relief. "I- I'm sorry I couldn't wake you up earlier, Steve! B-but there were just so many of them!.." Hero quickly apologized, nervously grasping one of his arms with the other, looking down at his own shoes.

     Steve shook his head as he walked up to the younger, a little smile unable to stay invisible. "Oh, Hero, it isn't your fault." He reached his hand out to place it on Hero's shoulder, but had second thoughts and pulled it away. "Besides, as I always say, there's nothin' like waking up to a good fight in the morning." The human announced as he studied the sky while also stretching his tight back. Hero smiled a little, then looked at the moon with Steve. The elder studied the distance between the moon and the horizon for a brief moment, before deciding, "Welp! It's a good a-time as ever to start moving again. The sun will be up soon, and the sooner we return, the better." The man set up a plan, which Billy and Hero both agreed to without protest.

     "Man, has it really been that long? Feels like only a couple hours passed while you guys were asleep." Hero commented, rubbing the faint dark spots under his eyes briefly before crouching down to pick up the things he had gathered so far: just a couple of sticks and every flower they passed. Hero had been promised to take up only the first shift of watch-out, however, he must have forgotten that you are supposed to wake up the next person, not wait for them to wake themselves up. 

Section: 2

     The long walk was, indeed, a long one. Steve lead the way, especially after he started recognizing landmarks. Billy offered the two a ride again, but Steve didn't feel like it and Hero decided to refuse as well because Steve had refused. After nearly another full day of walking, the human grinned widely when he finally sighted the watch-tower he had built a while back. Billy, perhaps even more excited to catch the first glimpse of his home, quickly, without thinking, bolted forwards. Steve turned to the other human, worried. However, Hero didn't reciprocate those same thoughts of concern.

     "Wait!!" Steve bolted after the ravenger. "Hold up!!"

     Before Steve even made it out of the forest, a rampant bell ringing without end, followed by many panicked villagers, sounded from over the tree-tops. When the human reached the entrance facing the river, which had a little bridge to it, he saw the front gates had already been trampled, and that Billy was already inside.

     "Oh no.. oh, no no no! Billy!!" Steve rushed in. Once inside, all he had to do was follow the sound of chaos. There were many villager screams and locked doors with shivering innocents behind them. His route was far from straight, as if his goal was to grab attentions more than anything, which as a ravenger was quite the easy fiet. Finally, Steve turned a corner just in time to get a small glimpse of Billy dashing for the schoolhouse. Following the trail of large footprints also helped Steve when the village suddenly became very quiet. Finally, the panting human scurried to a halt when he caught up with Billy. Billy was also panting, in a bit of a panic too. In front of him was a small villager holding a sword to the massive beast, limbs and all shaking uncontrollably. Tim? The young villager finally tilted his head a little, and gave a soft 'hurr.' Billy managed a mangled 'hurr' back. Then, Steve was quite surprised to see the small villager suddenly drop his sword and run up to the ravenger, giving the beast as good a hug as his little arms could. Finally, the two noticed the human was there watching them.

     Steve just politely waved, not wanting to insert himself into anything important. Tim squinted, though, but not at him. His eyes were instead fixed on something further behind him, something Steve could hear wheezing as he ran up to them.

     "Hey guys...." Hero bent over with his hands on his knees, struggling a lot more than Steve   expected to catch his breath. "...man, you guys....are so fast..." He finally looked up to meet Timmy directly in the eyes, who took the liberty to jump a little at the sight of the newcomer. "Oh... is, that a.... villager?" Hero asked.

     "Yes." Was Steve's plain answer.

     "Ah.... yeah... they look a lot less scary..." Hero began to regain his breath finally. "So small too..."

     "Well, that is also because this one is a child. The adults are about my height." The human informed.

     "Oh..well that's handy. So children are smaller than villagers, then? I thought you said this /was/ a villager?"

     "No no, children aren't a different creature. They are just younger versions of them." Steve nearly face-palmed, shaking his head with disappointed eyes closed to the ground his head faced.

     "Ah, I figured you meant something like that... Just wanted to be sure." Hero awkwardly tried smiling the stupid question away, nervously rubbing the back of his neck.

     "Hurrr?" Tim turned to the ravenger in the village, likely asking him something about what happened..or something.

     "Oh, I'm Hero. I am not entirely sure how, but I think I am this guy's 'clone' or something?" Hero responded just as nervously as before, but this time directly to Tim... the villager... who doesn't speak English. Everyone was immediately intrigued. Tim looked confused as to what Hero had just said, but surprised the taller Human had appeared to understand him somehow. "Oh, sorry, can you not understand me? Ahem..." He quickly cleared his throat. "Hurrr?" The young villager and vindicator both nearly fell over. Steve's brows contorted on his face.

     Pretty soon, the three were in a full-fledged conversation, each taking turns making incomprehensible 'hurr' noises. Eventually, Steve just had to pull Hero away, too anxious to understand for himself what really was going on here.

     "Alright, what the heck are you doing? Do you really think you can understand them?" The human pulled the new one to the side, snatching the other's full attention. Hero blinked down at him in confusion.

     "Don't you understand what they are saying?.. It really isn't that hard. You just have to-"

     "-No, I can't understand what they are saying. No human can understand what they are saying! Haven't you read any of the books?! They are two completely different languages! -and I have tried paying attention to their vocal patterns and everything-but nothing works! They aren't actually speaking; just making weird noises! Are you listening?!" The younger one was quite shaken up by the stern attitude the human brought with this, wanting to back away but also frozen in place.

     "W-w-w-well! I- I- I- guess I am just d-different then!" Hero squawked in defense. "B-because I can understand them- and i-i-it's pretty easy, too!" This didn't help Steve at all.

     "Oh I bet that's all just in your head.." Steve grumbled, huffing as he looked for something further away to distract his eyes. The peaceful bees gliding through the meadow would have to do. There was silence for quite some time, but neither Steve nor Hero left the other. Eventually, Tim called over to Hero, and the newer one was glad to have a reason to slip out of the darker atmosphere Steve was expelling all about him. The human... pretended not to even notice. Instead, he was satisfied with merely watching the three talking, as well as the new, curious villagers slowly sneak out from their homes to witness the scene. To cheer himself up inside, all Steve had to do was remember that this was his home. He was finally back, safe, in the village... His village.