Ryan woke to the sound of a boyish voice. It must've been daytime because a harsh light shone through his closed eyelids. He had always been a persistent sleeper, so although his recent death and meeting with the spider god should've been fresh in his mind, he resisted the call to wake.
"Hey, are ya okay?" the voice was accompanied by a shake. Someone was trying to rouse him to conciseness.
Ryan reluctantly opened his eyes and rolled himself into a sitting position. The grass that surrounded him was soft, albeit a bit moist with morning due, and it provided him with a well enough resting place. Crouched down to eye level with him was an adolescent boy with well-tanned skin. He was clothed in a worn brown shirt and pants several sizes too big for his thin frame, with a rope tied around his waist as a makeshift belt. A frayed straw, wide-brimmed farmers hat was the only accessory the boy seemed to possess.
"Thought I saw ya breathing. I'm glad yer awake," the tanned boy said. Rising from his crouched position, Ryan was able to see the boy's height in comparison to his own.
Phew, it looks like I'm a bit taller than he is, Ryan thought to himself. He often dismayed when confronted by someone who towered over him. At 5'10, Ryan was just shy of the six feet he aspired to, though the kid in front of him didn't look to be very far into adolescence. No facial hair meant that the boy likely had lots of growing left to do.
"Do ya have a name?" the boy asked.
"Ryan. And yours?"
"Luke Werner. Nice to meet you, Ryan,"
The boy seemed to have a friendly personality, but that only made Ryan more insecure. He never knew how to deal with extroverts.
"So where is this?" Ryan asked peering into the distance. He saw rows of corn behind Luke and a forest further back, but bereft of those two details, they appeared to be in a field in the middle of nowhere. Considering that there was a farm near them, he hoped to see a tractor, but he was denied the comfort of such technology.
"This land doesn't really have a name. Closest town would be Stahl, that's where I live with my brothers and mom." Luke pointed behind Ryan, supposedly at his town, but saw nothing in that direction except more grassland.
"Okay, do know if anyone in your town has a phone?" Ryan asked. "I get the feeling that I'm pretty far from my home and I'd like to call someone."
"Huh, don't know if I've ever heard of a phone before, but if you're looking to talk to someone far away, you'd probably want to send a letter, right?"
Ryan reminisced on the spider-god's words. He had said something about a new world, though Ryan wasn't yet fully convinced. Though he had never traveled to a third world country before, he thought that people from there might not use much technology. However, assuming that he had been transported to another world, there was a foolproof method to find out.
"Luke, do you know anything about magic?" asked Ryan.
"Of course!" Luke extended his right hand towards the cornfield, and with some effort was able to levitate an ear of corn towards himself that fell into his waiting left hand. "That's the most I can do now, but with a little practice I'm sure I could so much more."
Ryan brought a hand to his face, sighing with resignation. That settled it. The vengeful spider god had transported Ryan to a fantasy world. It was most likely a world with little technology that heavily relied on magic. Ryan was lucky enough to speak the same language as the otherworlders but stopped counting his blessings there.
He had been brought to this world in the same state that he'd died, though his wounds had been healed. Unfortunately, the same wasn't true for his clothes. His blue work shirt was littered with tears from his broken windshield with patterns of blood staining the battered cloth. The black pants he wore seemed slightly better off, although small holes appeared irregularly down their length. Next were his personal effects. Wallet: useless in a world that doesn't accept credit cards. Oh, and his belt. That was everything that Ryan had at his disposal in this new world. He wondered if he'd even be able to use magic.
"Luke, would you be willing to show me back to your village?" said Ryan.
"Sure!" a blazing smile formed on the boy's face. He reminded Ryan of an overenthusiastic golden retriever. Under normal circumstances he would've kept a distance from an abnormally happy person, but survival drove him to do the unthinkable.
"Thank you," mirroring the boy's enthusiasm, Ryan donned his customer service smile. On earth, he had reserved it for his job. He rarely smiled at those outside his family. It was likely the cause for his lack of friends and other lasting social relationships, but he hadn't minded. Solitude was sustainable on earth. Ryan wasn't sure what the god had meant by 'torment' but he doubted that this new world would be forgiving.
"We'll harvest some corn, and then head back towards my village. Sound good?" said Luke.
"I'd love to help," said Ryan. Under the threat of a deity, he found it hard to be as carefree as Luke. However, he had been given a second chance at life. The spider god had mocked him, telling him not to die, and Ryan intended to do just that.