..m.....rry.....elios...t...as....i.ev..a.b...
A ray of sunlight hit the man's eyes — an odd occurrence, considering there was no window in his apartment positioned to let sunlight in so directly.
Opening his eyes he was greeted with an unown scenery. He was seemingly in a forest, a dense one at that. Him being in the only place where sunlight could reach.
An obvious question errupted in his mind, the question of where he was. But an even greater question came to him a moment later.
"Who am I?"
So shocked by his sudden revelation he accidentally said that question out loud. Realising his mistake he quickly covered his mouth. It wasn't a great mistake per say, but him being a child of the city wasn't all too familiar with how one should act inside a forest, he wasn't sure if him suddenly making noise would alert the predators of the forest, or actually scare them away. Still, in the end he chose to stay quiet.
'Do I have amnesia? Did I go on a drunken rampage last night and somehow end up in the middle of a forest? No, that doesn't sound right either, I was never much of a drinker even worse I don't even have any friends I could drink with.'
Though confused with his current state there was something that still wasn't entirely right to him about the whole situation.
'I've heard of people having amnesia, but why is mine so specific? Why don't I remember who I am, yet I can recall what I did just fine? Now that I think about it I also can't recall other things like the name of my home country, no I can't recall the name of any countries at all. Wait, even the names of my parents and brothers I can't remember.'
Something was clearly wrong, whether the problem was with him or with something else he couldn't be quite certain of.
Unsure of what to do next he did the only reasonable thing he could, he started walking and he did so at hurried pace.
After a few steps though, a sudden thought occured to him. 'Wouldn't going further into the forest just make me even more lost? Right, if I was just drunk and hangover I would certainly have been with someone else, right?'
Though comforted by the thought of being rescued, he had to get his mind back even if for a second. 'No, I am in the middle of a forest even if help arrived it would be days from now, and from what I've heard the forest gets dangerous at night, and though I haven't heard of any accidents from the nearby forest I can't be sure that I am anywhere close to where I was the day before. I have to get out of the forest before nightfall.'
With a sudden rush of determination, he made up his mind to leave before the night came.
But much to his surprise, after walking for just about 5 minutes, he could already see a clearing from the distance. From what he could discern it would take him another 3-4 minutes to get out of this forest and hopefully never return.
'I really made myself worried for no reason, I guess that's what happens when you overthink everything.' Seemingly forgetting the problem with his memories he found himself relieved that he could finally say goodbye to the forest.
Arriving at the clearing he took a final look back before finally returned to the warm embrace of the sun once again.
Upon exiting the "great" forest, he was met with a vast valley, a small village nestled at its base, and towering mountains rising behind it.
Now he was certain that wherever he was was nowhere near his home. No mountains of that size could be seen not just in his home town, but even in his home country.
While he wanted to be shocked, he couldn't even be. Fragmented memories, and waking up in the middle of a forest, were all signs screaming at him that this situation wasn't as simple as he had hoped for.
Not knowing what to do he chose the safest route which was to collect information, and for that the best place to go was the village at the bottom of the valley. That being said from what he could tell, the village was still quite the way off, and on foot it would take him roughly an hour or two to make it there. Still, it being his only beacon of hope in this hopeless predicament made him choose to head to the village.
There was a road nearby leading to it, but the road was quite curvy, he knew it could almost double the lenght of his trip. While he could have taken the most direct route to it, he knew that wasn't the right call, so instead he chose to go by the side of the road for two reasons.
First of taking the road he could potentially hope to encounter people along the way, a car or a vehicle of some sorts could greatly shorten his journey to the village.
Secondly was the more obvious of the two the unbeaten path was overgrown, I mean really overgrown the grass there went up to his chest, there was no world in which he would take that path. So the road it was.
After walking for an hour and a half or so he came to sudden realisation. The sun hasn't moved at all. While it wasn't a hobby of his to gaze at the sun or anything, having nothing to for hours he had to do something and while walking he occasionally glanced up a the sky noting the forms of the clouds and the the position of the sun. And altough he couldn't be certain he felt as if the sun hasn't moved at all. He would have expected it to go down a little by now, hit him from a different angle but nothing it just stood there.
Suddenly a sound came from behind him taking him out of his thinking, he turned his head and looked behing him.
What he saw was nothing he could have expected, no, maybe he did expect it but it certainly wasn't first or even second place on his list of expected encounters. What he saw was a carriage drawn by horses of some sort.
This was quite the shock to him, but getting used to the shocking occurences he quickly recovered and enthusiastically waved at the passing vehicle.
Once it arrived next to him he could finally take a better look at both the carriage and the person on it. It was a type of carriage that wouldn't be used for the transportation of people if he had to guess he would say that this was a type of merchant carriage that he had seen if media covering the middle ages or ones with fantasy settings, but even though it very much aligned with the image of those types of carriages there was still something different about it. Some parts had weird coloring, while others just straight up gave off an other worldly vibe.
The one sitting at the front of the carriage was a man if he had to roughly 30-35 years old. He was on the chubbier side, his shirt a size too small was trying its harderst to keep the man's belly bellow it protection. His face was rounded, with puffed up cheeks clearly mimicing his lover body in that regard. His hair extended to his upper neck a bit longer than what men would usually have, but still not where one could just call it long. His face also housed a short unkept beard clearly not kept there by chose just simply because there wasn't an occasion to properly cut it. His eyes were a boring shade of brown the most average one could see around, similarly his hair and beard followed also being brown much to no one's surprise.
Slowly stopping next to him he looked down at him and started speaking
"Can I help you?"
Seemingly a bit surprised his voice seemed to carry a feeling of shock as if who he was talking to was some other worldly being or pervert of some sort
But that wasn't the only thing that jumped out to him. No! Being looked at strangely was the least of his concerns right now, something far more terrifying was happening to him. The words being said by the driver were of a language he should have no knowledge of yet he understood every word of what was said.
Suddenly panicked he tried his hardest to remember even a single word in his mother tongue, but there was nothing, void, it disappeared just like all his other memories, like they had never existed.
Trying to hide his panicked state, he looked at the driver and slowly said:
"I want to go to that village" he pointed in the village's direction
"Oh you want to go to Alt Village, well you are in luck because that just where I am going" said the driver
"I don't have any money on me will that be a problem" he asked sheepishly
"No worries, no worries, it's not far from here anyways just think of it as a friendly gesture. But first..... don't you need some clothes?"
His face suddenly froze although he has been walking around for multiple hours, even noticing the sun's anomaly, the biggest thing of all him not wearing any clothes went unnoticed.
"As I've said I don't have any money, so..."
"Just take from the back, it hurts looking at you just pay me back once you have the money." said the driver.
Slowly climbing into the back of the carriage, he took a cheap looking set of clothes and quickly put them on.
"By the way my name is Joshua Abrams remember my name since you owe me. And kid what's your name?" shouted the driver to the back of the carriage where he was changing.
Stopping in the midst of changing he stopped for a moment and thought about it. While this question would be simple to anwer for most for him it was of highest difficulty. His shattered memories made it impossible for him to give his name, and thanks to his not to recent discovery of an entirely new language he somehow knew, one thing came to his mind.
He got transmigrated to different world like he had seen in many of the anime and webnovel he had seen/read in his past life. So he should choose his name carefully considering that it would potentially follow him for the rest of his adventure, but before he could think about it he had already opened his mouth.
"You can just call me Helios"