The Language of Survival

For two days, Kael haunted the grimy streets of Ashvale, a ghost in strange synthetic clothes. He drifted through the crowds, senses on high alert, a man both invisible and painfully conspicuous. He quickly learned that in this new world, survival was a universal language, and his hollow, aching stomach spoke it fluently.

He learned by watching, his cynical mind sifting through the torrent of alien information for anything that could help him last another hour.

On the first day, the lesson was currency. He watched a woman buy a skewer of sizzling, unfamiliar meat from a vendor. The smell was a physical torment. She handed over a few dull, brown coins. Later, a man traded a single, larger silver coin for a sack of flour. From the market chatter, he picked up the name: ‘cirens’. Bronze, silver, and, he presumed, gold for the kind of wealth he couldn’t even imagine.

A simple, tiered system. Not unlike the one I knew he thought, the hunger twisting his insides into a knot.

Too bad I have zero. Less than zero, actually. My old bank account is a universe away, and it was in the red anyway. 

He was more than broke; he was a non-entity, a man with no value in a world that measured it in small metal discs.

On the second day, the lesson was magic. He watched, his jaw slack, as a portly merchant lit his pipe with a casual snap of his fingers, a tiny flicker of flame dancing to life on his thumb. Later, a young mother flicked her wrist, sending a focused gust of wind to dry her laundry. They called it ‘mana,’ an energy that seemed as common here as the air they breathed.

The sight left him feeling profoundly inadequate. So I'm not just poor and lost, he realized.

I’m fundamentally disabled, lacking a sense that everyone else possesses.

His modern clothes made him stick out. The synthetic fabric of his jacket, the machine-perfect stitching of his jeans—they were subtly, jarringly wrong. People gave him sideways glances; children pointed. In a world of swords and axes, being a curiosity felt dangerous.

Opportunity came in the form of a shrewd-looking textiles merchant whose calculating gaze lingered on Kael’s jacket. "Unusual fabric, traveler," the merchant said, rubbing the sleeve between his fingers. "It repels the rain, doesn't it?"

"Mostly," Kael rasped.

"A novelty like this could fetch a fine price. I'll give you ten bronze cirens and a simple tunic and trousers for it," the merchant offered.

Kael’s first instinct was to haggle, but the hunger clawed at him, overriding everything else. Ten bronze coins sounded like a king's ransom. He nodded, shrugging off the last physical piece of his former life without ceremony. The small, surprisingly heavy coins felt solid in his hand, proof that he could still interact with this world.

The transaction bought him a loaf of dense, hard bread and a wedge of salty cheese. He retreated to an alley to eat, tearing into the food with a desperation that bordered on savagery. It was, without exaggeration, the single best meal he had ever tasted in his life.

His nights were spent in the fire-gutted shell of a stable, the scent of old hay and damp earth a meager comfort against the biting cold in his new, thin tunic. During the day, he observed, piecing together the structure of this new society: guards, merchants, beggars, and another group entirely—the adventurers. Men and women clad in mismatched armor who carried weapons for use, not decoration. They walked with a dangerous confidence that separated them from the civilians, and they all seemed to congregate at a large, noisy building with a sign in the shape of a crossed sword and staff: The Gilded Gryphon.

A violent meritocracy, Kael thought with a grim smirk. For a man with no connections, no history, and no skills, it was the only path forward he could see.

On his third day, as he sat chewing the last of his bread, the world stopped.

A shadow fell over the street, vast and unnaturally swift, plunging the morning into twilight. Conversations died. A collective gasp of pure shock and fear swept through the crowd as every face turned to the sky.

Kael followed their gaze, his heart beginning to pound. High above, soaring against the backdrop of the twin moons, was a dragon.

This wasn't some clumsy fairy-tale beast. This was an apex predator of breathtaking power. Its scales were polished obsidian, catching the pale light in a million sharp, black glints. Its vast, leathery wings beat the air with a force he could feel in his bones—a deep, resonant WHUMP-WHUMP that echoed off the buildings. A thin trail of emerald-green smoke trickled from its flared nostrils.

Kael's breath caught in his throat. The cynic, the observer, the broken man from another world—all of it fell away, replaced by pure, primal awe. His mind, which had been desperately trying to rationalize everything, simply gave up.

This isn't a hallucination. This isn't a coma-dream. It’s real.

A monster from myth was a living, breathing part of this world's ecosystem.

The dragon paid the city no mind, banking gracefully before disappearing behind the distant mountains. For Kael, it was the final, irrefutable proof. His old life wasn't just gone; it was utterly, laughably irrelevant. Crushing debt, a broken heart, a soulless job—what were those pathetic, grey anxieties compared to a sky that held dragons?

The sight didn't give him hope. Hope was a luxury he couldn't afford yet. But it gave him something far more valuable: clarity. Fear was a distraction. Despair was a dead end. Survival was the only game in town.

He stood up, his jaw set with a resolve he hadn't felt in years. His path was no longer a question mark; it was a grim, unavoidable reality. He squared his shoulders and began walking, his steps firm and deliberate, aimed directly at the boisterous, intimidating doors of the Gilded Gryphon.