"Do not march or precipitate your attack. The Saracens are like a torrent which is dangerous to stem … Be patient till they have loaded themselves with the encumbrances of wealth." - Charles Martel

  The First Day

  "This is your captain speaking, we will soon be landing in Tours, France." A speaker said in the airplane, as our descent began.

  My life as an exchange student would begin today, I had told myself. I never would have expected what would actually happen.

  A loud banging sound came from the back of the plane as I whipped my head to look towards where it came from. A light flashed through my eyes as if I had been flash banged in a game, but real life

  What is this?..

  My red stained hands forced me up from my seat as I looked at the person lying dead in the chair next to me. I gagged as I walked away from the dead people lying in the chairs. My throat burned from the acid as I threw up from seeing another dead passenger with a large metal scrap piercing their body.

  “What happened?” I asked myself as I picked at the small glass shards stuck in my skin.

  What does it mean, tutorial? The only times you see those words is when you play a game. This is real life. I rubbed my eyes thinking the board would disappear, but it didn’t. I tapped continue going along with what I think is my hallucinations.

  What a fun dream, I want to tell myself, but I can't. If it was a dream my knee wouldn't sting from the small cuts in my skin.

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  "Menu." I said to myself as I watched a board similar to the tutorial boards show up.

  Hoh… This seems similar to rpg games I've played… but where are the quests?

  What? What does it mean the required death count?

  I tapped continue, still processing everything that was happening.

  Then I'll only find French artifacts here? Well, better than being in America…

  Nox cupped his hands together as he dipped them into the water and drank from his cupped hands. He looked at the star-less sky, and the moon as he laid on his back in the grass, beside the river he just drank from. The grass quivered from the blowing of the wind as Nox's stomach rumbled.

  "I may have been in the boy scouts, but I wish I had been in the girl scouts for a year to learn how to make those cookies." He said to himself.

  Nox stood up as he went back over to the river once again to get a drink of water. With cupped hands they fell to the bottom of the river as he drank from the water that tasted different. Nox spat it out as he looked at his cut finger, before shining and raising it up towards the Moonlight.

  "How did I cut my hand?" He asked himself as he slowly and carefully felt around the river where he cut his hand.

  The blade touched against his, finger as he dug into the soil with his hands and carefully pulled up the sword with his pointer finger and thumb. Five stars on the blade shone in the moonlight as Nox pulled out the sword.

  "What?" Nox said to himself.

  "All battles are first won or lost, in the mind." - Joan of Arc