"Shah," I gasped for air as she pulled my head out of the water and began dragging me towards the shore."You need to lose some weight, you know," Anna said to me as she grunted with effort to drag to shore."Stop body shaming me, 'cough, cough', you just need to work out more," I retorted to her as I finally stood on my own, only to fall right back down on my ass as I grasped my leg with pain. "Is it broken?" she asked, kneeling beside me to examine my leg."I don't think so; I think it's just dislocated from all that pulling you did," I answered her as I began positioning myself for her to put it back into place. " What do you think you're doing?" She asked while staring me in the eyes with what I could only imagine to be nausea. "I'm getting ready for you to fix my leg. What do you think I'm doing, asking for a foot massage, although I wouldn't refuse the extra service if you're feeling up to it?" I responded with only a bit of amusement in my voice, definitely not a load of it." Listed, it's easy. You just grab my leg, straighten it out, and then, ow!" I grunted in pain as she suddenly pushed it back into place." There, massage your own foot, now get up," she all but growled at me as she started walking around to check our surroundings.
We were in what once might've been a beautiful forest but was now a sad shadow of itself. The ground was charred and cracked apart as if it was burned directly, the trees all but a few fallen and shriveled up into what seemed to be charcoal logs, the few trees that were standing looked like a match that were burned all the way through and needed only a light push to turn it to a heap of ash.'Sniff, sniff. "Do you smell jet fuel?" I asked her as I began examining the place; some portions of the ground looked more burned than the rest as if that was where the fire had started, but there were so many patches on the ground that it must have been started with multiple firebombs like someone was trying to light the forest on fire.
"Over here" Anna called to me and directed my attention towards the ruins of a village. I walked towards it only to find a massacre. A pile of bodies was all melted together as if they had been herded over here and put to the torch. The smell was like that of burnt meat and rotten flesh, and it would've made me puke, weren't it not for the fact that my stomach felt empty already. It seemed my sister wasn't so lucky, as she was now puking over what might've been a wagon. "Are you you alright?" I asked her as I began rubbing her back and holding her hair to help her with her nausea." No! I'm not alright. Just look at this place!" She yelled at me as she stepped away from me."Where the hell are we, Michael?! Cause I sure as shit don't remember the burned village on the other side of the river from fucking Chickdonalds!" She now roared at me as tears began threatening to fall from her eyes. She then began poking me in the chest as she asked me where we were. I wanted to answer her but couldn't because I didn't know where we were. This place looked reminiscent of a wildfire like the one that had nearly hit our city a few years back, but I knew that it wasn't an accident like that one, but a man-made one meant to destroy this place. They had herded everyone they could find into what must have been the village square and set them on fire. Then they started a fire in the forest to make it seem as if this was all just a terrible accident. What didn't make sense was the buckets all scattered around and the corpses by them, along with that smell of jet fuel that made me feel lightheaded. But what made sense was that we needed to escape from here. I quickly wrapped my arms around my sister in a hug in order to calm her down and then tried to pick her up in a princess carry to get her out of this place, only to be met with a slap to the face. "Are you an idiot or something? I can walk just fine, and your leg isn't exactly in tip-top shape now, is it?" she scolded me for my attempt to play the knight in shining armor, resulting in a dejected look on my face." Now, don't be a big baby and let's get a move on, I finished up my little freak out session okay, I'm a big girl remember" she said with that mischievous look in her eyes now once again." Hah, there goes my moment to be a cool older brother," I sighed with 'obvious' sadness, definitely not amusement, okay.
***
We then made our way back to the river to see if we could salvage anything from her car, only to find a small pond. "Okay, this is getting weirder; where the hell is the river?" She asked me with frustration now in her voice. 'I'm going to get the whole rainbow of emotions before the day is over, aren't I?'. I squatted down to examine the little pond to see if it had any magical properties to explain all the bullshit that's happened to us in the last couple of hours, only to find just a regular fucking pond.'Okay, now I'm getting frustrated' "Let's just follow the little stream over there, it probably leads to the river, and this is probably just some runoff from the river," I convinced myself and hopefully Anna so we didn't lose it." No, this is definitely where the river should be; I marked the trees over there for this exact reason," she told me as she pointed at the trees she marked with her lipstick. " Well… fuck" I muttered to myself as I stood up and began my own freak-out session." If this is an isekai, then this is some bullshit. Where the fuck is the hot priestess/princess to fucking welcome us and say,' Thank you for coming, great hero, we are sorry about this great inconvenience, but we need you to defeat the demon king. We will provide you with whatever you need to complete this difficult task' where the fuck is that bitch". I yelled at the top of my lungs as I started throwing rocks at the pond."Where's my system, where's my cheats, where the fuck is the sexy heroine?!" I now roared at the top of my lungs as I cursed this poor excuse for an isekai. Now it was my sister's turn to hug me and console me." There there, are you done with your tantrum now?" She asked me in what she must have believed to be a calming, motherly tone but came off as chiding. 'Hah,' I sighed to myself as I answered her with a quote, "'Let's get a move on. I finished up my little freak out session, okay, I'm a big boy, remember'".
***
Now we both were following this little stream to god knows where. We were both hungry, thirsty, and bitchy. " I wished they ran us off the road after we got a bite to eat," she moaned out loud as we trudged along the little stream with gravel crunching beneath our feet, waiting for the opportunity to become the next pebble in my shoe. "Please don't start talking about food; I'm already hungry as is. Talk about something else like, I don't know, books?" I begged her so I wouldn't fantasize about the burger that was now beyond my grasp. "What, you want me to talk about all the isekai light novels we've read so we can compare our situation to theirs and bitch about why they get to be lucky and have cheats while we don't? No, thank you, I want to remember them in a good way; thank you very much," she fired back at me, now getting me to start to wonder about our situation. " Okay, how about we talk about what exciting magical things must be waiting for us out there? Based on the village, I'm getting some medieval/Middle Earth vibes from this place. Do you think there are any dwarves or elves out there?" I asked her, hoping to have something to kill the unbearable silence.
"I'm less interested in what other races there might be and more interested in whether or not we can use magic. I want to throw a fireball at someone's face," she responded, now interested in the topic of what might be out there and no longer thinking of things to say that would make me hungry. "You're immediate thought about what you would use magic for is throwing a fireball at someone's face; why?" I asked her, a little concerned about whether or not my sister might be a murderous pyromaniac." Not just anyone's face, a goblin or a bandit's face, you know, a bad guy's face. " We don't even know if there are goblins here, and who knows, they might be really nice and civilized," I told her, hoping to prevent her murder spree of goblins. " What books are you reading? Everyone knows that goblins are safe to kill because everyone knows that they're usually uncivilized little rapists," she retorted, now determined to justify her eventual slaughter of goblins. Now, I knew she would force me to become her accomplice in the murder of every goblin we came across if I didn't convince her to give goblins a chance.
Just as I was about to give the best argument of my life in order to save the lives of every goblin out there, I was stabbed in the shoulder. "Aaagh!" I yelled in pain as I grabbed my attacker from my back and hurled him at the tree in front of me along with the knife he used to stab me. He was short, like an eight-year-old child dressed in rags tied all around his body in a desperate attempt to mimic clothing but failing to do so. The knife he carried seemed to be made out of a large fang with bark wrapped around it to act as the handle. The tip of the fang was dripping with my blood. As I wiped the pain away from my eyes, I finally noticed the biggest thing about my attacker: his skin was green. I turned to my sister and said to her, "Okay, fuck goblins."