Investigate

Cyrus made up his mind. Sitting on his ass wasn't going to do anything. He needed to investigate and heading towards the sound of the flute and the horse and carriage seemed like the best course of action. Problem was he couldn't hear it anymore. Did it come from that direction or was he misremembering? No. It definitely came from that direction. Doubting himself could possibly make him move further away from other people. He did not want to starve to out here. Other people likely meant food. There was a chance they would just offer him food, recognizing him for a lost traveler, or maybe he could bargain for some.

He stopped for a moment. What did he have to bargain with? He was wearing the jeans from yesterday and an ordinary t-shirt. Quickly rummaging through his pocket, he found... a gum wrapper, his swiss army pocket knife, and a pencil. Why did he go to bed with his knife and a pencil in his pocket? Regardless of the absurdity of the him of last night, he was glad to have the knife for sure. That could come in handy. He patted himself down to make sure he wasn't missing anything else. If he had to bargain he had no idea what they would want from him.

Best to double-check everything in case he missed something. As he did so, he realized his wallet was in one of his back pockets. He pulled it out and opened it. Three dollar bills, plus two quarters and a penny. Yeah... it was obvious he wasn't going to be bartering with money. An American Express credit card, but with only 20 dollars left until it was maxed out. Plus, what were the odds they'd accept American Express in whatever country he was in? Half the local vendors in his city didn't.

He was about to close his wallet when he noticed something shiny: the credit card-sized lock pick set he'd bought when he was so sure he was going to become a great lock picker! He didn't want to resort to stealing but you never knew.

Finally, it was time to head out. It was 9:30 now. He looked at the silver watch he'd gotten as a birthday present from his rich, if overly-touchy aunt Velma, before realizing he could trade that in a pinch. As he walked toward the direction of where he heard the flute and the horse and carriage he slowly realized that the trees and grass looked different that any he'd seen before. When the light hit the grass, the blades showed a slight violet hue. That was not normal. Not anywhere he'd been to. And the trees... they were large but that wasn't the weird part. They contorted all the way up to the top and when the light hit the leaves they had the same violet hue as the grass. In fact they contorted so much, he couldn't see a straight stretch on any of the trees. And the trunks were a deep grey - almost black. He was definitely starting to wonder if this was really his world. Those people might not be Amish, but instead just natives of this world.

After about 15 minutes, he found the path where the the carriage must have come through. There were so many wheel ruts and horse prints in the path. This must be some sort of road. As he stood on the path, he slowly realized the direction of the freshest horse prints told him which way the mysterious carriage people were going. He looked back towards where these people must have come from and could see why they were going away. Where they had come from, the trees got even larger and more imposing as well as more dense, whereas he could see small areas off the path with little meadows, like the one he had woken up in, when he looked to their destination .