Cletus came to on a bed of pine needles with a mouthful of forest air so cold it tasted like iron. He groaned, rolled to his side, and realized he was lying under the chassis of an old Toyota. He blinked as he tried to remember what had happened. Sunlight filtered through leaves the size of dinner plates. The air smelled older than anything he had breathed in Arkansas, like rainwater that had been waiting a thousand years to fall.

  He crawled out from beneath the bumper and stood, brushing dirt from his jeans. The forest around him stretched in every direction, impossibly dense and impossibly quiet.

  “Where in the good Lord’s name…” he muttered.

  The truck’s engine creaked. It wasn’t the ticking warmth of cooling metal. It was deliberate. A sound like someone clearing their throat.

  “Cletus,” the truck said.

  He froze.

  “I am sorry about this,” the truck continued. Its voice sounded like a low rumble from deep inside the frame, a mix of vibration and speech. “It happens from time to time. Though I usually do not go along for the ride. We appear to be in another world.”

  Cletus stared at the headlights. They did not blink, but he felt watched all the same.

  “What do you mean it happens from time to time?” he asked. His voice climbed an octave without his permission. “What happens from time to time? Last thing I remember, I was talking to Yamiko and the damn jack slipped. Hold on… wait.”

  His breath hitched.“Am I dead?”

  The truck let out a long, groaning hum from somewhere in the engine block, the sort of sound it made when he tried to shift into reverse too fast.

  “No,” the truck said. “Your vital signs are normal.”

  “Normal?” Cletus stepped back as if the truck had grown fangs. “Since when do you know my vital signs? Why do you even have vital signs? You ain’t a doctor. You’re a carbureted four-cylinder with a busted passenger door.”

  The forest absorbed his voice, swallowing it before it could echo. The stillness pressed in on him. No birds. No wind. Just the towering trees and the gaze of a machine that shouldn’t have a mind.

  Cletus rubbed his face. “Alright, then. If I ain’t dead, tell me what the hell is going on.”

  The engine rumbled with something like thought. “Transportation. Displacement. A shift. The terminology varies. In your language, you might say we have crossed over.”

  “Crossed over where?”

  “I do not know yet,” the truck answered. “The pattern is unfamiliar. The terrain is unfamiliar. I felt the change when the jack failed, but this time my awareness traveled with the physical frame.”

  “That means nothing to me.” Cletus pointed a finger at the hood as if scolding a misbehaving dog. “And don’t say it like it’s normal. You’re a truck. You take me from A to B. You don’t up and take me from Earth to wherever this is.”

  The headlights seemed to glint, though the angle of the light had not changed.

  “Cletus,” the truck said, “you asked if you were dead. You are not. But you are correct to be concerned. We are somewhere new.”

  Cletus swallowed hard. “So you’re telling me this ain’t Arkansas.”

  “No,” the truck said. “This is not Arkansas. This is another world.”

  “Another world,” he repeated. “Like… Missouri?”

  “No. A different one.”

  Cletus rubbed his face with both hands. “Well, hell.”

  “Also incorrect.”

  He leaned back against the fender and took a long breath. The leaves above him shimmered with colors he had never seen on any tree back home. The forest hummed softly, as if listening.

  “Alright then,” he said. “If we are doing this, I reckon I ought to know your name. I can’t keep calling you ‘the truck.’”

  The engine vibrated once, low and steady, like a long-held breath.

  “I have a name,” it said.

  Cletus blinked. “Since when?”

  “Since long before you met me.” The headlights brightened in a slow pulse. “It was given by Yamiko’s grandfather. He spoke to me often. He believed that all enduring tools deserved respect and identity. He called me Kotetsu.”

  Cletus mouthed the word silently. “Ko… tett-soo.”

  “Yes. It refers to steel. Strength. Endurance.”

  “Well, it sure beats ‘Toyoter,’” Cletus muttered.

  Kotetsu hummed in acknowledgement.

  Cletus let the name settle in his mind. It fit in a strange way, like discovering a first name for someone he had called “buddy” for years. He glanced back up at the towering trees. Nothing in the forest moved. Nothing chirped. Nothing rustled.

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  “Kotetsu,” he said, testing it. “You got any notion how we get back home?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  “And you’re sure I ain’t dead.”

  “You are alive. Confused. Elevated heart rate. But alive.”

  “Well, that’s something.” Cletus let out a shaky breath. “Alright. Kotetsu. If we are stuck in… wherever this is, I reckon we better figure out where the road is. Every place has got to have a road.”

  Kotetsu’s engine clicked softly, as if amused. “Not every place.”

  Cletus looked around, scanning the shadows between the roots. The trees seemed to stretch forever.

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I was afraid of that.”

  Cletus took a slow lap around Kotetsu, peering into the trees like the forest might suddenly hand him a map. His boots sank into soft moss. Nothing moved.

  Then Kotetsu spoke again.

  “Cletus, would you like to know your current statistics?”

  He stopped mid-step. “My what?”

  “Your statistics.”

  “Like… baseball?”

  “No. Your personal parameters. Health levels. Attributes. Skill proficiencies. System metrics.”

  Cletus squinted at the truck as if it had started reciting taxes. “Kotetsu, I don’t know what in the blue hell you’re talkin’ about. I don’t have ‘stats.’ I’m a person. I got high blood pressure and a bad knee, but I ain’t a video game character.”

  Kotetsu’s headlights flickered with something like patience. “You are now in a world where such things are measurable. I can interface with the ambient structure. Your readings are available.”

  “My readin’s?” Cletus put his hands on his hips. “What, you got some kinda magic Fitbit now?”

  “If you prefer that term.”

  “I do not prefer that term.”

  Kotetsu’s voice vibrated slightly. “Would you like to hear your statistics?”

  Cletus hesitated. He wasn’t sure if he wanted the answer. Every physical he had ever taken ended with a doctor telling him to eat fewer things that came fried or in cans.

  “What happens if I say yes?” he asked.

  “I will recite your known attributes.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “I will not recite them.”

  Cletus sighed. “Well, when you put it that way… alright, fine. Tell me my damn stats.”

  Kotetsu paused. The forest seemed to lean in.

  “Very well,” Kotetsu said. “Cletus Hickenbottom. Current status: Alive. Health: Seventy-eight percent.”

  “Seventy-eight? What happened to the other twenty-two?”

  “You were struck by a falling truck.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Stamina: High. Strength: Above average. Intelligence: Variable.”

  “Now wait just a damn minute—”

  “Special skills detected. Would you like to hear them?”

  Cletus froze. “Special what now?”

  “Special skills.”

  “I swear, if you say ‘drinkin’ beer’ or ‘ruinin’ my day,’ I’m leavin’ you right here.”

  Kotetsu’s engine clicked. “’Ruining my day’ is not one of your skills.”

  Cletus narrowed his eyes. “That weren’t the one I was worried about.”

  Kotetsu did not answer.

  “Well… fair enough,” Cletus said.

  “Would you like to hear the list?”

  Cletus rubbed his neck, glanced at the impossible trees, then back at the truck that now apparently doubled as his personal fantasy-life accountant.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s hear it.”

  Kotetsu’s engine gave a thoughtful whir. “Listing special skills for Cletus Hickenbottom.”

  Cletus braced himself.

  “One: Improvised Tool Mastery.You possess a notable ability to repair, disassemble, or forcibly reconfigure mechanical objects using suboptimal tools, including but not limited to duct tape, pliers, and profanity.”

  Cletus blinked. “I mean… yeah, that tracks.”

  “Two: Rural Ingenuity.You routinely identify unconventional solutions to practical problems. Probability of success is high. Probability of property damage is also high.”

  “I ain’t apologizin’ for bein’ effective.”

  “Three: Wilderness Familiarity.You track animals, navigate forests, and identify edible plants with above-average accuracy. Your techniques are nonstandard but effective.”

  “Granddaddy taught me that. Not sure he meant for it to be a ‘skill,’ but alright.”

  “Four: Intimidation (Unintended).Your height, volume, and unpredictable decision-making unintentionally inspire fear in others. This is an innate passive ability.”

  Cletus frowned. “I ain’t intimidatin’.”

  “You are.”

  “…Fine.”

  Kotetsu paused again, then delivered the final entry with clinical calm.

  “Five: Drinking Beer (Master Rank).Your tolerance is exceptional. You gain temporary increases to resilience and confidence after consumption. Side effects include impaired judgment and interpersonal friction.”

  Cletus stared at the truck. “Now hold on—”

  “It is a skill.”

  “I don’t want that on my permanent record.”

  “It already is.”

  Kotetsu was about to clarify the “permanent record” remark when a shrill voice cut through the trees.

  “HELP! Somebody help me!”

  The screaming figure burst from the treeline, and Cletus’s stomach dropped for reasons that had nothing to do with danger.

  She was the most aggressively elf-girl-looking elf girl he had ever seen. Long golden hair streamed behind her as if someone were blowing it with a studio fan. Her full lips were the shade of a berry that clearly did not grow naturally. Her legs went on for so long that Cletus briefly wondered if elves had extra joints. Her tunic did not actually fit. It simply clung to an hourglass figure built to start bar fights. She was the complete elf girl starter pack Cletus remembered from the roleplaying games he dabbled in when puberty first hit.

  Her eyes were a sharp and icy blue. When they locked onto him, the desperate focus in them told Cletus everything he needed to know.

  This girl was trouble.The exact kind of trouble that had personally escorted him through three ill advised marriages and three world shattering divorces, each one louder than the last, before he turned thirty.

  "Oh no," Cletus muttered. "Not again."

  Before he could finish the thought, an orc burst out of the trees behind her.

  The orc barreled toward them, all tusks and bad decisions.

  Cletus reacted on instinct.

  “Karate Chop!” he yelled, charging forward with the confidence of a man who had absolutely never been trained in karate.

  He swung a wild sideways hand strike that connected with the orc’s neck in exactly the wrong way for the orc and exactly the right way for Cletus. The creature dropped like a sack of wet laundry, eyes rolling back.

  The elf girl skidded to a stop at his side, breathless. “Th… thank you! But there are MORE coming!”

  Cletus looked past her. His stomach dropped as a whole pack of orcs burst from the treeline, roaring and beating weapons together.

  “Well, hell.”

  Kotetsu’s headlights brightened in something that might have been alarm. “Cletus, this situation appears suboptimal.”

  “You don’t say!” he snapped, grabbing the elf girl’s arm and hauling her toward the truck. “Get in the truck! Go! Now!”

  The orcs thundered closer.

  Kotetsu revved like a warhorse preparing for battle.