Lazarus: The fog of the lush wastes

Deep within the trees, far away into the woods were barely any light reached… a blue doorway appears, its light giving the surrounding plants a gentle glow.

Out of it wobbled and stumbled a man. He was in poor shape. He sounded out of breath, he was sweating suggesting he has a fever or ran for miles, and to top it off he was holding his stomach indicating he was hurt or sick.

“To hell with their Motorjaws!” He spat between his gritted teeth. “To hell with everything…”

This man was Buddy, these day he used his middle name Lazarus more often than his first name however. He promised himself to only use Buddy again once he found his way back home or to a place that felt like home. After visiting thousands of world, his hopes had drastically dwindled.

Lazarus leaned on a tree to catch his breath for a bit. He looked around in the darkness and listened, no signs of threatening wildlife just yet. He then raised his gaze upward. The trees were so dense, he couldn’t tell if it was night or day.

“Fuck… I couldn’t land somewhere close to civilization? Or at least in view of it?! No! It had to be in the middle of the darkest and densest woods!”

Lazzy kept complaining as he slowly stepped through the greens. While he had no idea where he landed at the very least he was human this time around so there was that to be happy about… Well, as close as he could be to happy. The constant running between dimensions looking for his original mother or any alternate versions of her while also frequently navigating hostile worlds wore him down quite a bit.

As he staggered through the branches he stepped on something that felt different, something much harder than dirt. Before he even had the time to think or look down a sharp jolt of pain ran through his body.

Lazzy screamed, using the last bit of voice he had left in him. As if being injuried wasn’t enough, fate decided to add icing to his misery cake.

He laid on the ground sobbing for a while. This was bad. Very bad. He was already so weak... Could I free myself from the metal jaws? He though to himself. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t survive long in his state. Bleeding out, starving and getting dehydrated all at once didn’t sound like a fun way to go. It would be a slow and painful death.

He gave it his all for at least 15 minutes, trying his darndest to pry open the darn thing but his arms felt like wet cotton and his head like a beehive. He could tell he was close to passing out at this point. It was hopeless wasn’t it? As he thought that he slowly drifted off into unconsciousness. Maybe after a quick nap he’d get enough energy to get himself out..right?

There he would sleep undisturbed for close to an hour. The woods remained silent as he laid there, not even a bug buzzed by. Come to think of it the woods were far to silent when he arrived.

“Well ain't that a catch” Said a much older voice. 

The old man the voice belonged to crouched down to take a closer look.

“I'm out here huntin for dinner and what do I get? Another mouth to feed!” He added as he poked the unconscious man causing him to wake up. Suddenly filled with adrenaline, Lazarus jumped back.

“STAY AWAY FROM ME!”

“Relax! Relax…The name’s Otto. I'm gonna get out outta here ‘aight?”

“I don’t need your help!” Laz barked back.

Otto laughed. “Oh really? Then go ahead! Show m-”

Before he could finish a loud horn could be heard from the distance

“Fuck!”

“W-what is that?” Asked the black man

“What do you mean ‘What’s that’?! Thats the fog alarm! Have you been living under a rock?! No time to play kid. The fog is comin’. If you really don’t know, you don’t want to be caught in it!”

Lazarus asked for more clarifications but the old guy was focused on hastily undoing the bear trap to free Lazzy’s leg. Without consulting him he grabbed him and threw him over his shoulder. Laz very much wanted to protest but for a brief moment he was too disoriented. What was happening? What was that fog he spoke off? A poison cloud of sort? Only after the two were out of the woods and under the moonlight did Otto decide to speak again.

“Twice a month or so we get this fog. Deadly thing, kills any animals… Only plants and bugs seems cool with it. Breathing it for just five minute will get you done!”

The old man dropped Lazarus down only to carry him once more, this time having him properly seated on his back. Being carried like this was much less painful on his damaged stomach, he wanted to thank him but decided to let Otto continue with what he was talking about.

“It stays low to the ground so as long as we get high up we’ll be safe. My home’s close by, it’s a lil cabin on stilt.” He paused “I knew it was gonna come soon but I thought I had more time… Good thing I did try to go huntin’ anyway. Otherwise you’d have been a goner!... Well we’re not fully out danger just yet so we still might be goners…  I should probably shut it and keep runnin’ before we both get canned, am I right? Talkin’ while runnin’ waste precious oxygen that should go to my muscles!”

Lazarus didn’t answer, he didn’t really need to anyway. Only a couple minutes after their last exchange -that is to say Otto’s monologue- Laz fell back asleep. The adrenalin rush had wore off and his weak state won over once more.

When he gained back his senses he was in a brightly lit wood cabin. Looking at the windows, the sun was rising. He must have slept for a good while. He felt a bit rested but far from full of energy. As much as he wished he could, he couldn’t sleep-away his injuries.

“Yer very lucky you know?”

“Uh?”

“My trap was old and rusty, had it been new your calf would have been broken if not shattered! Lucky for you, you only got out with a couple bruise from what I can tell… maybe your bones are a tinsy by cracked but I’d need an x-ray machine to tell!”

Lazarus looked down, his right foot was wrapped in bandages. He inspected it with the tip of his fingers. Otto watched him, he stared at Laz beast-like digits. He had noticed the black man’s peculiar feature earlier as he mended his wounds. Both his hand and feet had fingers featuring sharp claws and subtle padding.

“Are you human?” the old man bluntly asked “Your hands, they’re kinda..”

“I am” he interjected “and I know”

Laz extended his hand, allowing Otto to study it.

“It’s.. It’s complicated. They weren’t always like this… They used to be just like yours…”

“Oh? Tell me what happened. I love long stories”

The black man pondered for a moment. He had told his story many times, usually he didn’t really care since he usually left within a day of entering a new world so consequences weren’t his concern. However with his being sick and his leg hurt he knew he’d need to stay put for at least a week. But then again, this man was taking care of him, wouldn’t he owe him at least a bit of explanations. Show him some level of trust?.

“I'm not gonna for ya okay? If you don’t wanna talk about it that’s fine.”

“.. Maybe later…” He replied quietly. “Could I have something to eat? I'm-”

“OF COURSE”

Without hesitation the elder jumped up and moved toward the small portion of the cabin he used as a kitchen. While the old guy was busy preparing his somethin, Lazarus took a moment to survey the house some more. From what he could tell he was in a ‘modern’ type of world, maybe a ‘post-apocalyptic’ one with the fog situation. If that thing rolled world-wide for the first time with no warning it probably whipped a good chunk of the population.

“Can I ask more about the fog?”

“Sure. But eat first.” Otto handed him a wooden tray. On it was a piece of bread, a bowl of creamy mushroom soup and a a couple slices of dried ham. “S’rude to talk with your mouth full”

“It’s really weird you don’t know about the fog.. I can think of only a couple places that doesn’t get affected by it, and nobody would leave those places and risk it out here…. Where are you from even? Actually don’t answer that yet. Finish your food” After grabbing some ham and bread from himself, Otto sat cross legged in front of his rescue. “You see, a fuck ton of years ago, like idk, 120 ish? The fog came down for the first time. It only affected low areas like coast and stuff. Killed a buncha people world wide. There was panic. Then the next month it happened again, creeping up deeper in the lands. Basically it kept getting higher each times and the whole globe’s affected. Everyone got tower houses or live very high up in the mountains.”

The old man stopped to eat a bite or two. Meanwhile Laz was gulping down his soup, he had already slurped up the ham and kept the bread on the side to clean the bowl later. To Otto it looked like the younger guy hadn’t eaten in days.

“Soooo… yeah the fog’s pretty bad.” He started back up. “At least we got the alarm. There’s a bunch of siren towers hooked up to sensors placed at keep location that activates once the fog is in a certain range. Works pretty good.”

Otto was about to get up when Lazarus spoke.

“I come from a completely different world… Interdimensional travel..” Before the grandpa could call out any bluff, Laz created a small hand-sized portal in front of Otto’s face. “Peek inside. I can create portal to different world and travel through them.”

“Ill.. Ill take your word for it. I'm fine not sticking my head into mystery interdimensional doorways…”

“Fair enough…” He raised his hand. “To many travel and you’ll end up getting corrupted over time”

“Ah… so that’s why you’re like that…”

“Yeah. I'm human, but sometimes depending on the world I drop in I might end up taking a different shape, become a different specie.”

“Like a dog? Or an alien”

“Pretty much… From personally experience the majority of the world do have humans as my default shape, but a surprisingly high amount have me as a feline.. Usually cats… I wonder why there are so many cat-centered universes…”

“Why did you decide to come here?”

“I didn’t.. I cannot chose were I go.. I wish I did…”

“Somewhere you’re trying to be?”

“Yeah.. back home… Left it 12 years ago…”

“12 years? How old are you?! You must have been a baby back then! And you survived on your own?”

“Well, it’s a bit more complex, I…” Lazarus laid down and looked at the ceiling. Regardless of how many time he told that story, the word still had trouble leaving his mouth. “I was 8 when I jumped through one of my portal for the first time. I was a kind in a brand new world, in an alien body. I was having a blast. A real dream of adventure in a fantasy land come true… Then I made a new portal to go back and ended in yet another foreign world. I realized real fast I had no control and was lost across dimensions…” Otto hung on every word he said. “But I got lucky! I somehow ended back in a world very similar to my home. I even found ‘my mom’ there. Except she wasn’t my mom. She just was this world’s version of her, and she gave birth to her version of me… Sadly this ‘me’ had past away and seeing this living me at her door… It must have been a lot for her… Thankfully she didn’t question it much. She took me in and raised me for 10 years...”

“T-then what?”

“Then I decided to be stupid and step through a portal again… For some reason I though finding my ‘real’ mom was a good idea despite knowing I had not control over my destination… I don't know which I regret the most.. Stepping through the first portal as a clueless kid, or stepping though that one as a knowledgeable adult…”

Both stayed silent for quite a bit. There wasn’t much for Otto to say and Lazarus had no idea what to add in order to make the situation less awkward. He’s pretty much poured his heart out with his life story.