From Homework to Hooves(part1)

Alex Okoye’s fingers rattled across his laptop keyboard like an old typist hammering a broken machine-gun. The glow from three browser tabs painted his glasses: one with a walkthrough for a complicated fantasy RPG, another with a debate thread titled “Why Heroes Are Idiots”, and the third with a list of scholarships he would never apply for.

The scholarship page mocked him. “Be a leader. Save your community. Inspire others.” Alex snorted. “Yeah. Be a hero. Get stabbed in the back. No thanks.”

His room was small and hot, Lagos dusk pressing against the window like molten glass. A fan wheezed in the corner, barely keeping the air moving. The only things he’d splurged on were his laptop and a shelf stacked with fantasy novels—elves, magic, reincarnation, antiheroes who outsmarted kings. That was the life he wanted. Not noble, not self-sacrificing—clever.

He clicked back to the debate thread and typed: If you really got sent to a fantasy world, playing the hero is suicide. Use your brain. Make deals. Control the board.

He grinned at his own words and pushed his glasses up his nose. “Ten ways to outwit elves,” he muttered. “I should turn this into a book.”

His mother’s voice floated from the kitchen. “Alex, come and eat.”

“In a minute!” he called back. He hit save and leaned back in his chair. The screen flickered. For a moment he thought NEPA had struck again, but the light outside was still on.

Then came the screech. Tyres on asphalt. A thud like a door slamming. He barely had time to twist in his seat before something white and heavy crashed through his window.

Pain bloomed. Not the sharp kind from cutting yourself on a tin, but a spreading, crushing pressure that drowned out thought. His chair tipped. Glass and metal screamed.

Figures, he thought dimly. Die in a random accident. No hero’s death. Not even a decent story.

Darkness swallowed him.

He opened his eyes to wind. Sweet wind, cool and fresh, carrying scents he had never known: wildflowers, wet earth, the faint musk of animals. He inhaled greedily.

“Hospital?” he croaked. But the word came out wrong, high-pitched, like a squeaky toy.

His body felt… off. Heavy in some places, light in others. He tried to sit up and toppled forward onto four legs. Hooves clacked against stone. His head was low, his vision wider. Wool brushed his face.

“What the—” he tried again.

“Baa,” said his mouth.

He froze. Slowly he lifted one foreleg. Hoof. Black, shiny, split. He stared at it, then at the tuft of cream-coloured wool spilling into his peripheral vision.

“No,” he whispered internally. “This is not happening.”

The landscape was impossibly vivid. Rolling green hills under a sky the colour of lapis. Trees with silver leaves whispered in a breeze that carried a hum of power. Magic. He could feel it buzzing like static across his skin—no, his fleece.

A sound drifted from somewhere beyond a stand of trees. Musical, sharp, half-whispered words in a language he had memorised from game wikis. Elvish.

He ducked automatically, heart hammering. The voices grew clearer.

“…the marked beast…” one said. “The oracle was right.”

Marked beast? Alex glanced down at himself. Beneath the wool on his chest a faint blue glow pulsed, like a tattoo carved in light.

His mouth tried to form a curse; only a low bleat came out. But inside, something else stirred—an edge of excitement.

Elves. Magic. Prophecy. And me, a lamb.

He crouched lower in the grass, forcing his breathing to slow. Time to stop playing hero.

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