Uncharted

I

Location: The Badlands
Time is not recorded here.

Beyond the River, far into the depths of the Shining Forest, sits an old man, who holds an eagle feather in his lazily outstretched hand. He was drawing. A little while ago, the Man had left his small abode, which is a humble cave in the side of a craggy precipice, to journey to the Lake before Darkness.
There, at the base of the Lake, grew thin sprouts of papyrus. It was along that water bank that he could retrieve the material he needed in order to write.

Luckily, he got back as Sol set, which we would call the sun, and was able to close the hatch to his "rabbit hole" before Darkness.
Now I'd like to refer to the Darkness as night time, but the two concepts are completely different. But don't worry; we'll get there! I'll explain later.

Anyway, the man sat, next to the old waxen candle, which was the only light in the room.
Outside his refuge, the Darkness was busy ripping the clear logic out of the surrounding plant life.

A note from your (all-seeing) narrator: Yes, I said it was ripping out the clear logic!

Luckily, the Man had found an area to call his own when he first started his pilgrimage into the Badlands. He had family and friends, which he left behind to their utter disappointment.
"Son, people may have great dreams, as tall as mountains... and faith big enough to move them. But we know there is no life where you are going. You are going into uncharted waters!"
This was his father's last cry, his last words to his son. The Man never saw a single person since that pivotal moment.
In fact, he turned around and said to his father, in a sarcastic tone as if he was trying to remind himself of his teenage years, "I'll bring back some souvenirs. Maybe space cheese or a cyclop's eye. You never know what you could stumble upon."
That was the last time he saw his father.

Now, looking back on that day, he condemned his youthful view on life and wished he had a better reason to leave.
Even though it was five... [wait, did you say hundred? Five...? ....Huh? ....Yeah? ...Yeah I'm still here!]...
Five hundred years ago (excuse me), he still remembered that fateful day.
After what felt like years of walking through wastelands, he found something.

Another note: Yes. It is recorded that he spent years wandering, though he says he did not eat nor drink.

The thing he found was beyond all imagination... And I'm about to describe it to you. After I do that, you're gonna have to wait for the next chapter.

Before him, was a mountain. Yeah, fun. But when he climbed over the mountain, he saw a forest. The most dense, fruitful forest lay in front of him. Suddenly, he had perfect eye vision. Not 20/20 eyesight, by perfect vision. From where he was standing, he could see everything, down to the grains of seeds on the forest floor and the ants that were carrying them away. His senses were replenished, and all of his scars from the Badlands immediately gone. He stood on a ridge between two mountains when he saw this and then realised that the forest was a perfect circle in area, surrounded by a ring of mountains like the one he stood adjacent to. And the forest was golden. Literally gold.
He was standing on the ring, with both feet just a tiny bit to the left, when he felt all the hairs stand up on the back of his neck for no reason. And then an evil force pushed him over. He fell down the ridge unconsciously, smacking rocks, crunching most of his bones and nearly bleeding out before hitting the bottom of the Golden Forest.

Gruesomeness may be appalling to you...

When he woke up though, in the same position that he had landed thanks to the forces of inertia, he did not ache at all. He was not scratched at all. The area around him was covered in his own blood from the fall, but it was stained and dyed out.
Because whenever you sleep in the Forest, time sweeps past, like a black hole that flies over your unconscious body.
As a result of this, he spent fifty years asleep. So although to him, three days may have passed, it had actually been 57 years.

Back at home, his parents were long dead, and sadly, so was his younger brother, who was born two years after he left.

Yet if he had fallen down the other side of the ridge, into the Badlands, it would have been another story.
But let's continue this story for now, and not start another one! We can get into the science of the Badlands later.
It's a real time-waster (see what I did there?)