The newly found helper and the trio were making their way through the woods. Nick looked to be about fifty years or more, he was wearing a red shirt and a green trucker hat. The most distinguishable thing about his face was the fact that he had huge eyebrows, and a pretty big scar that went from his forehead to one of his big eyebrows. Mike was in the front talking with him, while Emma and Dan were staying further behind.
"Ehi Dan, do you think that maybe we were a little too quick to trust this random guy?" Emma asked
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, we're here in a forest, in the middle of nowhere and then this guy appears, this good samaritan that 'wants to help us'. Like, it's odd, what was he even doing here?I just don't have a good feeling about this."
"Emma, there aren't many options: it's this or dying in the forest."
"Ehi guys, what's up?" Mike had arrived
" Done chattin' with the stranger?" Emma said
Mike looked at her and then looked at Mike
"Emma thinks that we shouldn't trust Nick."
"But he's such a nice dude! That doesn't make any sense!"
"Yeah, that's what I've been tellin' Em-"
"I mean his title is literally 'The Ernest one'!" Mike interrupted him
The other two looked on the words floating above Nick's head
Nick - "THE EARNEST ONE" (Lv 63)
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"Y-yeah, right." Emma said
"Those things still creep me out," Dan said "I mean, what are they?"
"What?" Mike the idiot asked
"Those texts Mike, I'm referring to the WEIRD TEXTS that FLOAT over each and every one of us!"
"I mean, does it really change anything though? It's just texts that are there, I've already accepted them as part of this world."
"This world?" Emma asked
"Mike you still think that this place is a different planet?"
"Yes, very much so, it just makes the most amount of sense." Mike
"No, it doesn't, I think it's more likely that this is a virtual reality." Dan said
"Well' i think that this time I'm in the right, Dan."
"Well, I think th-"
"Okay kids we're out of the woods now!" Nick said interrupting Dan
"Oh fu**ing finnally." Emma said
"Yeah, it feels like we spent a month trying to get out of that forest." Mike said
" Well, it was actually just a few minutes." Nick said
"Ah, didn't feel like it." Dan said
"Ehi Nick is that the truck you were talking about earlier?" Mike asked while pointing at a huge pickup truck.
"Yes Mike."
It was parked right outside of the forest. It was grey and looked very old. On the back it had many barrels and you could see another three occupying the backseat.
"Coooooool."
"I was thinking of going to the nearest town, and ya kids should come with, can't leave ya alone here by yerselves. We'll be a lil' cramped inside, but we're gonna make it work out, ain't we kids?"
"Yeah!" Mike responded, the other two stayed silent
"Ehi, uhm, Nick?" Emma asked
"Yes."
"What exactly were you doing outside of a forest with a truck full of barrels?"
"That's a good question. I'll explain ya on the way to town."
They got near the truck. Nick imediately went to the driver's seat, while the trio had to manage what they had: the front seat and what little space was left on the backseat, space, that was just barely enough for one person. Emma got on the front, while Dan and Mike got behind, so cramped and close to one another that it seemed like they were fusing together.
"Alright kids, I'll tell ya my backstory. Why, this is a story, if I've ever had one to tell, that is much strange... AND LONG!" Nick said and waited for the trio to comment on it.
".. okay." Mike said
"But I shall spare ya the details and get to da point. Ya see, I was at my house, filing my wife's divorce papers."
"..."
" She said that I was distant and not loving, and never home, and that I didn't care about the family, but as I said I'll spare ya da details."
"Thank you for that." Emma said
"So I'm there filing da papers, when my PEN GIVES OUT!" He said it like it was a plot twist "So I say to my wife that I have to get anotha pen, and she tells me that I'm trynna postpone this, and I tell her that I'm okay with her leavin' me and trynna take the kids, and she starts tellin' me that I always act like this, and that i'm spineless and I respond-"
"NICK YOU SAID THAT YOU WOULD GET TO THE POINT!!!" Dan said
"Did I? Well, it was surely a lie then!"
"No wonder his wife left him." Emma said quietly to Dan and Mike
"Anyway where was I? Ah! Yes, da pen. Point is, I go to my room to get anotha pen, come back and the papers are on the ground and my wife is gone! I was very confused, and still am! I try to look for her outside of da house when suddenly I get teleported to s-"
"Y-you got teleported?" Dan interrupted Nick
"Yes, It might sound hard to believe, but it's the truth, and I believe my wife was also teleported, since before I was she was nowhere to be seen."
The trio was silent for a second
"W-wild." Mike said to himself
"So we werent the only ones to be teleported..." Emma said quietly
"You kids okay?"
"Y-yeah, yeah we're fine. We... we were also teleported." Dan said
"I thought so, I could tell that ya kids were tired from the looks on yer faces. The situation is not the best, but I'm sure that, by the end of this, we'll find ourselves laughing without a care in the world." Nick said with a giant smile on his face, as the trio's accumulated tension started to disappear.
"So, where was I... oh, right! So I was teleported to this cube, when-"
"A cube?" Mike asked
"Yeah."
"Are you sure it was a cube and not, like, a parallelepiped?"Emma asked
"Ya mean a rectangle? No, girly, I'm very sure it was a cube. Spent a lotta time there, counted the feet on each side many times, t'was always ten feet. Height was the same too."
"Huh. That's interesting." Emma said
"Indeed it is, girly. After a while inside the cube i got teleported again and then I found myself in Stonehenge, some miles from here, and-"
"Wait y-you were in Stonehenge?" Dan said while getting nearer to Nick so that he could hear better
"Uhm, yes."
"A-are you sure that it was Stonehenge?" Emma asked
"T'was Stonehenge."
Emma and Dan looked at Mike
"M-maybe it was another Stonehenge? O-or just a similar place?" Mike said in a rather pathetic way
Emma and Dan looked at Mike again
"I can assure you, t'was the one and only Stonehenge, I can take ya there if ya don't believe me, shouldn't take more than fourty minutes." Nick reassured
Emma and Dan were still staring at Mike
"Ok, I was wrong." Mike said completely defeated, the other two had a happy grin on their faces
"Why are you smiling? That deconfirms your idea too, that this is a virtual reality."
"Oh no, my friend, my theory is still going strong, the fact that this is Earth doesn't change anything, while your theory, because of this detail crumbles to dust and blows away."
"What are ya kids talikng about?"
"Nothing, continue your story."
"Okay, so I'm there and, now that I think about it, there were a lot of objects on the ground there, there were probably some tourists that got teleported and are now god knows where. Anyhow, I'm there, very confused, first thing I try to do is call the emergency number. I wasn't sure what I woulda said to the police, but at that moment I needed help.
Unluckily no one answered the phone, which was very weird. I tried calling many, many, many times, but no one ever answered. thinking about it, it wasn't that smart an idea, shoulda tried saving the phone's battery instead of wasting it like that."
"But why did no one answer?" Emma asked
"Probably 'cause of the teleportation. I called every number I could, no ever answered. I'm startin' to think that every person on Earth has gotten the same treatment as us from the universe."
Silence
"Oh god, I don't even want to imagine what happened in places with high traffic." Dan said
"Me neither, kid, me neither."
"After a lot of time, I decided that I couldn't just stand there doin' nothin', so I started lookin' around, that's when I found this beauty right here." He said, while patting the steering wheel
"I found the car keys on the ground near the truck and so my jorney in search of a town began. Along the way I noticed that one of the tires was down, so I parked the truck near the forest, changed said tire, and that's when I heard ya kids screamin'. And that is my very long story."
"..."
"..."
"So you stole it." Dan said
"I prefer the term 'borrowed'."
"..."
"..."
"Doesn't everyone?" Mike asked
"Yes mickey, yes."