7 in 3

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Instead of a pain in my head, I’m woken up by a different, but similar, pain radiating from my ribs. Groaning, I slowly force my eyes open. Once my mind catches up to what I’m seeing, I freeze in place.

There are corpses piled in the center of the clearing I’m in. All of the bodies are well built men. All their clothes are filthy and home-made, the stitching poor and obvious. Most of the bodies have horrific wounds, frozen, burned, cut apart. I quickly get my fill of the gore and decide to figure out what’s going on.

 I glance around to check for anyone living and quickly spot the creepy twins from earlier. The boy is laying down, visibly injured, but his chest is still moving, so most likely alive. The girl hovers over him, her face wracked with worry.

I drag myself to my feet and begin to make my way over to the duo. The sister notices me and gives me a sad look before looking back at her twin. Man, these kids are really attached to each other. I crouch down and am immediately punished by my injured side. The massive dose of pain makes me fall over. Laying on my back, I look up at the girl and see that her eyes are red and puffy. 

“Hey! You okay?” I ask, delicately.

The girl glances down at me. “No.” Her flat tone gives away none of the emotions that are showing on her face. 

“Is he okay?” I ask, glancing at the boy.

“He’s fine, just unconscious, no obvious serious injuries." While she checks over the boy, she never looks away from his face. Are they like… no, no way.

I spend some time looking up at the ash grey clouds overhead, waiting for her to calm down. Eventually my impatience wins out though and forces me to interact again. 

“Why are you so upset if it isn’t serious? Seems to me you were able to beat four huge bandits on your own. I’d call a minor concussion a fair deal." Silence is the answer she gives my question. With a sigh, I give up and start looking for any fun shapes in the clouds. Oh, cool, that one looks like a nondescript gray blob. 

“It’s because I’ve never been awake with only one." Her voice cuts through the silent campsite.

Her response just raises more questions for me. “Only one what?” Wracking my brain for an answer, I can’t come up with anything that makes sense.

“Only one body, I’ve never been awake with only one body."

My mind snaps, the explanation I’ve been given makes less sense than none at all. Only one body, what the hell does that mean? Is she nuts, am I stuck with a nutso girl? “Ha ha heh, what do you mean? About only one body, I mean," I stutter, my nerves quickly rising.

She looks down at me, clearly unimpressed by my calm. “Me and this boy, our bodies are one person. I control both at once, and I’ve never only been awake with one." Tears start to well up in her eyes. “I’ve always gone to sleep with both, so I’ve never experienced this horrible feeling." 

Doubting her insane answer, I start thinking things over from the beginning. I wake up in a forest, okay, pretty weird. Not only that, but I wake up with no memories. On top of that, the creepy twins also claim they woke up in the same way, in the same place. So if I’m to assume they’re not lying, that means three people with no memories woke up in the forest at the same time. 

This situation sets off alarms in the back of my mind. Trying to calm myself a bit, I carefully pull myself into a sitting position. I take a look around and see nothing but pine trees. Looking at the pile of corpses again, I notice their weapons are all crude clubs and swords. Something is off about that. The alarms in the back of my head get louder. My eyes drift back to the girl sitting by the boy, and I think about my blackouts. Very gradually, I start to believe her. If all these other insane things have happened, why not one person in two bodies? 

“Hey, girl! What’s your name?” I give her a weak smile.

“I’m Zenith, what is your name?” Her reply holds no warmth or curiosity, sounding automatic. 

“Oh… uh. Huh, I should probably know that." How could I forget my name? Pulling a random name out of my mental void, I answer, “How about Coil?”

】〓〓〓〓【

Coil

】〓〓〓〓【

After several hours of climbing, we make it to the mountain’s peak. I look out over the nearby land, gasping for air as I do. Zenith is close behind me, helping themself up a high ledge. From the peak, a pine forest spreads down the mountainside, eventually blurring into a deciduous one. Leafy green trees dominate the land for quite a while after that point, but they eventually peter out into a grassland. Where the forest and the grassland meet, a small road winds its way out of the woods. Distantly I can see a strange obelisk, it must be massive to be able to see it from this far. The woodbound road meanders in the general direction of the obelisk.

“Hey, there’s a road." I start to look for an easy path down to the road. 

“Be careful, Coil, the ground is unstable near there." Zenith warns.

Okay, Mom, I’m a grown man! As soon as that thought passes through my brain, the ground gives way beneath me. Air rushes past me as I fall off the cliff. The freefall stabs the certainty of death deep into my soul, and I start to accept it. I’ve been falling long enough to think this much out, so it has to be— I slam into the stony soil at the base of the cliff, my body shuddering from the impact. Instead of the expected crunching and snapping of bones, my body makes the sound of a bag of flour being hit with a stick. It explodes out into thousands of small motes of darkness, scattering like a kicked mushroom. As the particles of darkness start to near the ground, they all veer so that they land on the shadow of something. 

So… I’m alive? At some point my view shifted so that I’m looking at the spot I hit the ground, instead of from my eyes. Is this death? For some reason I doubt it. After a few seconds I realize I can still feel my body, and try and move it. As I do, I notice the shadow of a nearby log start to ripple. I focus harder, and the moving shadow rises up into a vague humanoid shape. After a few seconds it begins to become more defined. 

And just like that my vision snaps back into my own head. I look down and see the murky shadows coalesce into my hands. Well that’s neat… if not horribly disconcerting. I’m not going to complain though.  

Sitting on a boulder, in a bit of shock, I soon hear a loud crashing sound coming from where I fell. When I look over I see Zenith sliding down the almost vertical hill, skating down on top of a large boulder. The stone-surfing girl grinds to a stop nearby and jumps down from the stone. She puts down her male self, who stands up on his own. 

“Hey!” I wave to them as I stand. “Over here, double trouble!” 

The two of them run over to me, seemingly relieved. “I’m glad you’re okay,” He gives me a hug and lets out a sigh. “I warned you about the unstable ground!” 

Looking down at the boy scolding me, I laugh. “It was a bit late by then." I turn and point towards the treeline. “The road shouldn’t be far now, let's try to find it by dark." 

They nod at me, heading towards the trees. I hang back slightly and look at their shadows. Two dark serpentine shades break off of my own and quickly move into theirs. Grinning, I follow the duo into the woods.

【〓〓〓〓】

The woods are much thinner here than where I woke up. The trees are farther apart, large spaces in the canopy allowing rays of light to shine through. Thanks to the spacious gaps between trunks, we easily spot the road. We follow a small path leading up to it, moving quickly in our excitement. 

When we reach the road, the first thing I notice is the condition of it. Unlike what I would have imagined, the road is wide with rough soil in the center and with two deep channels on either side. On the outermost edge, two smaller paths more like what I expected to see run along the pits. I jog up to the divet and look in. The gash in the earth is at least a few feet deep. I see small bones at the bottom. 

Zenith is the first to ask the question. “What is this?” A subtle rumbling answers their voices. I turn to see a large shape moving towards us down the road, causing the ground to shake as it moves. The hulking mass approaches at a shocking pace and then slows to a stop in front of us. 

The creature looks like a massive grub with its legs burrowed into the two channels in the road. The front of the beast has a bovine face and large horns adorning its head. Giving us a strange look, the creature stares at us. When I compose myself, I notice a strange carriage behind the animal, its four wheels reaching out past the divots created by the monster. 

The door on the side of the vehicle swings open and a large man leans out from the opening. “Who the hell are you folks? Don’t tell me you came out here to commit suicide." His mustached face contorts into a grim scowl. 

“Suicide? No, we have no plans on suicide, we’re just travelers who got lost." White lies trickle out of my mouth before I can think. 

The man grunts, unconvinced. “Where the hell is your traveling beast?” 

“We didn’t bring one," I reply quickly. “We thought we’d be okay on foot." 

“I thought you said you weren’t out here committing suicide. Where the hell are you from that you think you can make it through here on foot?” His opinion of our sanity is clear in his gaze. “Either you’re telling me grubshit, or you’re more lost than you realize." After a quick look around, the man beckons us over. “Get the hell in here before one of them beasties show up, I’ll give you a lift to the next town." 

Spurred by the threat of mystery monsters, Zenith and I quickly scramble up into the carriage.