Ergo is an adventurer, ergo, an adventure must happen

“Go on then Ergo, have fun.” a woman said to her son through the open car doors. She had just driven him to his new school. They moved to the area recently and this was the boy’s first day.

“I will, bye mom,” Ergo replied, shutting the door. As much as he disliked the thought of being the ‘new kid’, it was inevitable, so he made his way towards the school doors, trying not to stand out too much. He was the ordinary kid you could see at any school; average height, brown eyes, and hair. He was wearing short jeans and a black t-shirt. It was a warm spring morning, but the extra warmth absorbed by the dark colour was very welcome.

He was never shy or a coward, on the contrary, he was always getting himself in trouble because he couldn’t suppress his adventuring spirit, but being in completely alien territory, he was bound to be a bit nervous and not make a scene right away.

It wasn’t his first time being the new kid, as his family moved quite a bit because of his mother’s job, so the first day was not something he dreaded anymore. He just disliked meeting all these new people since, most likely, he’ll transfer soon enough.

After spending a couple of brief minutes looking at the fire escape map on the wall, he set off to find his new class. Knowing that his classmates (for the near future), would look upon him more favourably if he ran late a bit, he waited for five more minutes after the bell rang. He entered, introduced himself, something he could probably do in his sleep by now, and sat down at a table in the back. Instead of the teacher starting the lesson right away, her eyes rested on him for a while with a weird look in them but didn’t say anything. The rest of the class, on the other hand, erupted into whispering, which died down only when the teacher shouted for attention. Even then, some of his classmates kept on giving him strange looks.

One would probably think something was going on, but Ergo was used to this. While it didn’t usually happen at such a scale, some kind of a response from the class about the new kid was inevitable. From his experiences, however, the first days usually went by without anything happening.

For the first period, he simply observed the class and kind of classified the people in it into different categories. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem as if there was anyone who he might connect with. But you could never really be certain about something like that, Ergo learned that you had to give people a chance.

Abruptly the door opened, and a hulking giant stepped into the classroom. With long hair that was a complete mess, along with whatever they were wearing as clothes, the person stood still for a second and then started moving. Instantly, a heavy air descended on the room. Everyone stopped talking and even the teacher just looked at him and then hurriedly moved her gaze back to the other kids. The tension in the air did not dissipate, but rather kept on increasing with the students exchanging brief, but anxious looks, as the goliath made his way towards Ergo.

The seated boy looked up when the newcomer stopped right beside him, looking at him with cold blue eyes through his tangled red hair. A weird smell hit Ergo’s nostrils, originating from the boy above him, something known, but not quite placeable. The tension in the room was at its highest as the giant spoke quietly with a deep voice, almost unfitting to his age: “You are in my spot.”

Looking around him and seeing other available tables, Ergo couldn’t help but respond with: “Umm, there are other tables here you know.”

If the tension was high before, it became practically tangible now, the other students on the edge of their seats with the teacher having a foot in the direction of the door.

Blinking slowly, the redhead repeated, “You are in my spot,” this time quite a bit louder.

Observing and reading the atmosphere in the room, Ergo looked at the desk he was seating at and then the one to the right, besides it. “Alright, alright, no need to get so worked up about it.” He stood up and started moving his things.

The tension remained in the air but gradually lessened as the class progressed. But Ergo’s adventuristic spirit had been intrigued and he was determined to find out what the hell just happened. With a smile on his face, he left the classroom during the break and found the classmate who he classified as the class clown.

“Hi, I’m Ergo, you are?” he spoke and held out his hand.

After a second of looking at it, the other boy accepted it and introduced himself as well, “I’m Neyko, nice meeting you.” Then he shook his head, “Dude, a warning, don’t mess with Angela, it’s just not smart.”

“Who’s Angela?” Ergo gave a puzzled look.

“The girl in whose place you sat. We usually tell the new kids about her before she comes to class, but today she was early, so we weren’t able to.”

For a second, Ergo just looked at Neyko, his mouth opened a bit. When his brain grasped the meaning of Neyko’s words, he started waving his hands in front of him, seemingly denying it, “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait… You’re saying that the redheaded Hulk in there was a girl!? That’s impossible!”

“Yes, she is. I get why you’re confused, but it’s the truth,” Neyko said with a slight smirk, “She’s creepy as hell and nobody hangs out with her, so we don’t know much about her. We only know that she walks to school every day from god knows where and apparently never showers, as we have never seen her in better shape than today really.”

Mouth agape, Ergo stared at Neyko for a couple of more seconds, completely at loss for words. How was that thing in there a female of the human race? An orc, sure, but not human! Soon after, though, Neyko’s face sneered and started laughing. Laughing hard.

“Hahaha come on now, enough of being retarded, of course, he isn’t a girl hahaha,” he held his stomach as his body was being shaken by the tremors caused by his laughter.

“You should’ve seen the look on your face! Priceless hahaha, never gets old!” His joke was so funny to him that he bent over and even started wheezing. Ergo could only look at him, not knowing what to think, even worse, he couldn’t believe that he fell for such an obvious lie at all.

Before Neyko calmed down the bell rang again, and the teacher walked past them into class. The students followed and Ergo turned to enter as well, but Neyko turned to him, his innocent victim, and said, “He is a man, but everything else I told you is true. He’s also a few years older, he’s failed like two years. And again, I advise you to stay the hell away from him, he has a quite short temper and not even the teachers dare to do much regarding him. Creepy as hell man.”

Ergo only groaned in response, still not quite over the fact he was so gullible. This time, he sat an extra seat away from this… ‘Wait, is his name still Angela or is it something else? Well, whatever, he sure doesn’t seem like the best person to be around,’ He thought. But deep inside him, he could feel it. His adventure senses were tingling.

The rest of the day went by and Ergo stole short glances to his left, where ‘Angela’ sat. The human titan didn’t do much during the classes and didn’t leave the room during breaks, not even for lunch. He just sat in his chair, eyes either forward or into the desk, with that weird smell emanating around him. The end of the school day came soon enough.

Walking outside, with the sun in its setting stage, Ergo enjoyed the gentle wind for a second. Then, like a hawk, he fixed his eyes on the towering back of the big bad bear, who was walking away on the sidewalk. His mom would only drive him to school, he would be responsible to get home from it and as it was his first day, he probably had a couple of hours in which she wouldn’t worry about him. He could pass it off as meeting new friends and such.

Waiting for a couple more minutes, he stepped on the trail of his prey and set off following him. The game was on.

*

‘Okay, what the heck, we’re going outside of the town. Where does this guy live?!’ Ergo stopped behind a sign so he wouldn’t be seen, not even by a random look over the shoulder. His (genuine) stalking would become much more difficult with no buildings, signs and, hell, people to hide behind. But he wasn’t going to quit now, there was no way the guy lived far out of town. Was there?

He was following the boy/man(?) for the past half an hour, feeling the adrenaline pump his veins more than any workout. This was what made him feel most alive out of everything he had done in his life before.

Again, he waited for ‘Angela’ to move further away from him before he picked up the trail again. While it was easier for the giant to spot him now that he didn’t have the cover of the urban area, the detriment was also of convenience, with him being able to follow his mark more easily.

Soon after leaving the town, the two made a sharp turn into the forest, walking down what seemed more like a wild animal track through the bushes. Now, Ergo had to give his best not to lose his target while also not giving himself away. The thrill got a sharp boost right away when they entered the shades of the trees, with it going even higher up by the second.

Luckily, it wasn’t hard to keep sight of a lumbering fellow like ‘Angela’ and he managed to follow him from far enough. Good thing he didn’t wear anything like a white shirt, or even worse, a colourful one.

Then, a muddy road came into view on the left and in the front, a wooden building. It seemed very old, more a shack than a house, with a water well on the left side of it. Slowly approaching, Ergo made sure he was unseen as he took in the scene in front of him.

With the road coming from god knows where the forest opened up into a clearing with two buildings on it. One was the wooden cabin and the other, on the right side of the shack was what looked like some kind of a farm building, quite a bit bigger than the shack. The little path ‘Angela’ and he took to get here joined with the road just on the edge of the open space, with two old, rusty cars right next to it. Those two were not in driving state anymore, their tires were gone, windows busted and one of them had the hood up with its engine missing.

For some reason, the whole place looked much darker than it should have. Considering it was a glade with no trees, it made it feel even more ominous.

Ergo checked around and when he didn't see anyone, he dashed towards the cars, where he hid and peeked out of one of the broken windows.

Calming his heart down, he calmly observed everything once again. This was it, this was the goal, now all he had to do was wait for ‘Angela’ to come out of the cabin in which he went in. While the whole scene looked sketchy as hell, Ergo was not scared. Whatever secret was being hidden here; he would uncover it.

His few minutes of waiting were over when ‘Angela’ came out, not looking very different from before; same ripped clothes and shoes. The only difference was that he was wearing a cap in which he put his long hair. He walked in a straight line towards the barn-looking building with a step of a determined man. Gripping the handle of the doors, which were big even compared to him, he pulled with his whole body and it still took him a second before the thing moved and opened with a loud noise. Inside was just darkness.

‘Angela’ looked like a damn gorilla and had trouble moving the big panel. While it looked to be made of wood, it clearly wasn’t.

‘What the hell are those doors made of? I’d probably just rip my arms off trying to open them up.’ Ergo had a shocked face. But the noise didn’t give away the material, it just sounded heavy. Maybe like a heavy stone?

Opening the door, ‘Angela’ disappeared inside. Again, the clearing quieted down and nothing moved. Now that Ergo thought about it, birds were staying quiet and even the trees seemed to stand still as if waiting for something. Or frozen in time.

Just when Ergo was starting to feel uncomfortable and tried to maybe move a bit, ‘Angela’ stepped out into the light again with a cat in his left hand, his long fingers around its throat. It almost looked like a toy in his enormous hands. If a toy was trying its best to escape its captors’ clutches and let out quiet meows, that is.

‘Angela’ lifted and held the cat so it could only stare into his eyes and put his other hand behind his back. The next second, he pulled out a knife and stabbed the poor creature right in the neck, its blood spraying onto his face and clothes. The animal’s flailing only got worse, trying to scratch the brute’s arm but could not succeed.

‘Angela’ then proceeded to lay the dead animal on the ground and chopped the head off, the blood now flowing like a small stream.

Of course, Ergo dropped down from the window right after the first scene, covering his mouth and tried not to make a sound. He almost puked but knew he couldn’t do that, as it would probably give his position away. He now recognized the smell that drifted from ‘Angela’. It was the smell of blood, the iron-ish smell everyone who got hurt more than once recognized.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, I should’ve listened to Neyko and not messed with this shit. Uh, uh, uh what am I supposed to do now?!’ Ergo’s mind was racing, but at the same time stood still. His body similarly was shivering heavily, but also stood completely still.

‘Why did he do that?! Will he eat it or something…?’

Holding his hand over his mouth, he breathed deep breaths through his nose, doing it as quietly as he could. Then he heard a sudden bark and right after he saw a dog escape the clearing right by his hideout. Big steps followed after it but stopped soon. Right next to the car Ergo was in.

Before, it was the thrill of the hunter. Now, it was the dread of a mouse cornered by a cat. Very carefully, very slowly, he lifted himself a bit and looked outside the window again.

But he couldn’t see much, as something was in the way. Looking up, he saw the indifferent blue eyes of his classmate, staring directly at him.

Ergo’s breath got stuck in his throat, not able to leave. Without saying a word, ‘Angela’ extended his arm and opened the rusty car doors with a loud squeak. Then he grabbed the motionless Ergo, who couldn’t do anything from the shock and held him up, so their eyes were on the same level.

“You are in my spot,” spoke ‘Angela’ in his deep, emotionless voice.

In the next moment, Ergo felt a force impact his temple and his vision swam before it turned dark.

*

Waking up with a scream, Ergo leapt from his bed. Wait. His bed. His bedroom, in his house.

‘What? Was it all just a dream?’, he paused.

“Ergo, what’s going on!” his mother rushed into his room without knocking (of course), worry clear on her face.

The boy scratched the back of his head, “Umm, it seems like I just had a nightmare mom, sorry.”

“Well, take a moment to wake up and get ready for school, you can’t be late on your first day.” She gave him one last look before turning around and walking out.

‘Heh, so it was just a nightmare. Today is my first day at the new school. Damn.’

His thoughts were still absorbed in his dreams when his mother stopped by the school. Ergo looked at it, ‘Funny, it looks exactly as in my dream.’

“Go on then Ergo, have fun.” Said his mom and drove off. With nothing else to do, Ergo went into the school and checked the fire escape plan to orientate himself. After a moment of looking at it, he took a step back. ‘Damn, even this map is the same, how is that even possible?’

Making his way to the classroom, his mind was, even more, of a mess than when he woke up. Once again waiting for a while after the bell rang, he entered the room and introduced himself.

‘Hah, it almost is as if I’m sleeping right now.’, he thought as he made his way to the back of the classroom. As he got the ‘spot’, he took a long look at it, before sitting in the corner, away from it. Some whispers went up as he sat, but nothing too crazy.

Then he saw the guy who pranked him, Neyko. What in the world was going on, how could the dreams have been so realistic?!

But he couldn’t ponder on it too long as the door opened, and everyone fell silent. A hulking giant stepped into the classroom. With messy long red hair and frayed clothes, he made his way to the ‘spot’. Ergo couldn’t breathe as he saw ‘Angela’ again, how could he?

But when he did a quick look in the giant’s direction, he caught his eyes firmly settled on him. And as he made eye contact, those blue eyes narrowed and Ergo saw a single sentence.

“You remember.”

What the hell was going on?