Young Writers Society

When you open your eyes, you find yourself in an unfamiliar world.

This may not be the first time you've found yourself on a world that isn't your home, but it is the first time you've found one this strange. You're near a gurgling river. Even if you found yourself a short distance away from the water, you can still see the towering arches made of what appears to be mossy roots. You have no idea how such a feat could be performed - just as you have no idea what the floating shapes you see on the distant horizon above the tree line are. They're too far away for you to make any sense of them.

All around you is forest - save for what's up ahead.

Thankfully - and perhaps unsurprisingly - you're not the only one who has found themselves in this strange new world. If you want to figure out how to return to your home, you'll have to work together to explore this enchanting realm.

He was walking through the halls of the palace when he closed his eyes. It had just been to blink. But when he opened them once more, he found himself on the bank of a river instead of inside obsidian walls. Towering arches made of what appeared to be roots cast shadows down on the river below, and a forest stretched alongside it as far as he could see.

He glanced around.

This wasn't the first time he had ended up another world. It had happened twice before - at least, it had happened like this twice. There was a third time, but he knew it didn't count. He was still alive, and still as much himself as he ever was.

"Hello?" he asked. His voice was the strange mix of familiar and unfamiliar that he had grown used to. "Is anyone here?"

She was going to pick up her new gloves when it happened. One moment she's hurrying through the crowded streets with her hands buried in her pocket, the next she's... somewhere. She came to a sudden halt and stood there, processing, for a long moment.

"Hello?" she heard someone call from somewhere among the strange twisted arches that she supposed were supposed to be trees, "Is anyone here?"

She followed the sound, hopping over branches and rocks as she went, "Yes!" she called in return, "I'm here!" It wasn't until after she'd said it that she realized that the speaker might not be friendly. This could be a tactic to draw in unsuspecting victims or something.

She shrugged it off. If they were malicious she would deal with it, for now, she needed to know that she wasn't alone out here.

If the scenery hadn't made such a dramatic change, Dae might not have noticed he had been transported to a different place. As it were, Dae knew the difference between the forest he had called his home, and this new place, with it's seemingly impossible structures.

He wasn't frightened, however, nor was he concerned about danger in the slightest. He was mostly curious, so when he heard people calling to each other, he decided to head in that direction.

His body shimmered for a moment, shrinking until he had taken the form of a mud brown drake, no more than a foot tall, making it far easier to move along the forest floor as he headed towards where he had heard those calling.

Rayden had been having a good day. He'd picked three purses already, which lead to a grand total of thirteen copper nummus, and that meant he could sleep with a full stomach that night.

Until he bumped into a soldier out on Riverway street. He went down, and when he opened his eyes again, he was inside strange-o-topia, lying on a bed of moss.

Being an orphan alone on the streets, quite a lot of strange things had happened to Ray, but this was beyond weird.

The moss was soft, and quite easily the most comfortable surface Rayden had ever had the chance to lie upon. So strange or not, Rayden saw fit to lie among the green for a couple more hours, but just then he heard voices - a hello here, a yes there.

Immediately, Rayden's senses alerted. Ten years on the streets had taught him the hasrh rules of survival, and concrete or trees, he knew to tread carefully.

Quietly, he followed the voices down the river. His brown and black attire gave him good camouflage against the trees - wait, were those roots? Whatever, the variuos elements of weirdness could be mulled over later. First things first: find the owners of the voices.

Moving through the undergrowth was tough - and Rayden's self-confidence on being lithe and graceful quickly flickered down to emebrs. He almost didn't notice that he was fairly close to human life form - that is, mostly human.

He hid behind a moss root and watched them - a boy with light gray skin, a girl with floating hair, and among them, a - was that a tiny dragon?

Rayden shook his head. It was dream. It had to be. Maybe he'd hit his head too hard. Damn those soldiers and their heavy skulls.

Unfortunately, in his muddled up state, all ploys of stealth vanished as he tripped on a root-tendril and went crashing to the ground. His muffled oomph was inaudible over surprised shouts.

Rayden groaned and closed his eyes. Then opened them.

"Hi," he said to his spectators.

Kiran scanned the people around her. Two people, human in appearance, both looking as lost as she was and one of them on the ground.

“Hi,” she waved, electricity sparking in the wake of her hand, “Um, I’m Kiran and I’m....very lost. You guys would happen to know where we are, would you?”

She wished she had her gloves. If she had those, she could extend a hand in proper greeting. Without them, it was best if she refrained from touching anyone with her hands. Humans didn’t tend to take large amounts of electricity well, and she had no proof that these people were anything but human. Plus, electrocuting one of these people probably wasn’t a great first impression to make.

So she forwent proper manners in favor of awkwardly overthinking what to do with her hands before stuffing them in her pockets.

He wasn't sure what he had been expecting to see, but the group gathering near him wasn't it. He should have been more prepared after everything - he couldn't remember the last time his life had been normal. But he was still surprised by almost everyone, save for the person who had just fallen on the ground in front of him.

"Hi," Lex said. "I'm Lex."

He reached out a hand to help him up.

While he waited for him to grab on, he looked over at Kiran. "I'm lost, too," he admitted. "I was just going for a walk when I suddenly found myself here.c

Aegeas had lost count of the number of times that things like this happened to him. Opening a door, going to sleep, walking down a hallway - he was way too used to stumbling into some entirely new world at the most random moments.

This time, though, the world at least looked friendly enough. A lush forest spread out in front of and behind him, only broken by a long series of arches that stretched over a wide, shallow, gentle river. Whatever he was sitting on felt soft enough, but Aegeas didn't pay much attention to what it was (maybe moss?) - he was more preoccupied with whatever was floating in the air in the distance. Ugh, that didn't settle well with him at all. His nearsighted eyes couldn't even catch what they were. Mountains? Buildings? Who knew?

"Get off me."

Taking the hint, the otter jumped up, getting out of the way to let Kendrik pull himself up.

"You," Aegeas said, glaring at the hound.

The hound returned the glare. "Looks like we're stuck together 'gain," Kendrik said. "Great."

They would've kept the staring contest going, if it wasn't for the sound of voices somewhere by the river. The two quickly darted behind one of the arches, peering around it to spot a small group of people by the edge of the forest. Three humans (although not all of them smelled entirely human) and the smallest dragon that Aegeas had ever seen.

"Are we goin' to say hello?" Kendrik whispered.

"Do you want to?" Aegeas hissed back. "I don't recognize any of them."

"Then let's let 'em talk fer a minute," the hound whispered.

Silver dude - Lex - had his hand outstretched towards him, and Rayden had a quick debate inside his head.

He's just helping you up, he told himslef. But there was an urgent voice in his head that told him to run, run, run. Trust issues; he'd had them even when he was a kid, even when he had a home and parents.

He was just being paranoid. Wasn't he?

Take the bloody hand. Push down your ego. Make friends in a strange place.

But ten years of instinct won out. Rayden ignored the light gray hand and helped himself up. Lex blinked startling blue eyes at him, and Rayden dropped his gaze. "I'm Rayden," he said.

He looked around him, at the others - the gril called Kiran and the tiny dragon - who Rayden was becoming pretty sure was half-human. Because mini-dragon seemed to be understanding every word.

He opened his mouth to say something - not a very substantial something, he just needed to fill the awkward silence that had sneaked up on them - but a twig snapped in the woods behind them.

At the sound of a twig snapping in the woods, instincts kicked in - a sword made entirely of gold appeared in his hands. He felt heat rise to his cheeks when he realised he was probably overreacting. He had been sparring with Aleks more than usual lately. It was probably just an animal, or someone like them.

But he still kept the sword out, lowering it so the tip was pointed at the ground instead of towards the woods.

His hair pulsed.

"Hello?" he called out. "Is anyone there? If you are, we're not going to hurt you."

Kiran gave the sword a wary look and shifted away, having to wave her ponytail out of her face as she did.

She kept her hands in her pockets and stared into the woods. She could figure out exactly what manner of creature was there by shifting the winds around them, but she wasn’t exactly gentle with her powers. Gale force winds didn’t seem like much better a first impression than electrocution.

“Not exactly convincing,” she muttered to the sword-wielding whatever he was.

A girl who could control electricity, a guy who wielded a freaking golden sword and a mini-dragon who was also possibly something more. Not to mention strange shapes in the horizon and weird looking tree-roots.

Rayden thought it was a good reason to panic.

Strange-o-topia was quiet gain - maybe the twig snapping had been some kind of creature? The idea of unknown creatures made Rayden shudder inwardly, but it was much better than the idea that someone was spying on them.

He took a deep breath. "Okay, just checking, this is new for everyone right?"
Everyone turned to stare at him. "I mean, I just got zapped from Riverway Street, Zhakia to the middle of Strange-o-topia, Nowhere; and this isn't normal, right? I might as well be dreaming right?"

At this point, Rayden didn't even know what he was saying, but he was good at talking uselessly. Chattering non-stop was half the reason why random people seemed to be able to trust him so easily, and that made it so easy to loot them.

He looked around. "Well," he asked. "Weird for all of us, right?"

Whoop. Aegeas had never been too careful about where he walked, and webbed paws made it a little too easy for him to tread on something. The otter and hound froze behind the arch, watching as the others tried talking to them.

"'cause I haven't heard that 'we're not here ta hurt ya' crap a million times before," Kendrik muttered, rolling his eyes.

Aegeas didn't respond, instead staring at the gold sword in one human's hand. "Thytes mentioned somebody with a golden sword once," the otter whispered.

"So?" the hound whispered back. "Gold ain't great fer a sword - 's too heavy and bends too easily."

The otter stayed behind the arch, but cupped a paw over his mouth and said, "Do any of you recognize the name Télos?"

Kendrik pulled his head back, looking a little startled at Aegeas breaking their (admittedly flimsy) cover, but didn't say anything. He just glared at the otter instead.

Kiran shook her head, once again having her hair cloud around her face and once again waving it away with a flick of a sparking wrist.

“No,” she called back, then glanced at Rayden. He’d mentioned where he was from. She wasn’t the best when it came to geography, but that didn’t sound like anywhere she’d heard of.

She looked around at the group.

A revaluation dawned on her.

“I think...we’re all from different places....like, different worlds and everything.” She looked at each person in turn, her pupils slowly shifting between glowing yellow and silvery white.

Now that he had heard a voice in response, Lex was sure where the owner of the voice was coming from - he was standing behind one of the arches. Lex didn't try moving any closer; he knew that would only have flustered him if their situations were reversed.

"That would make sense," Lex agreed. "I've been in a situation like this before. There was only one other person from my world there."

Technically it was two, but it had been back before they separated - if one was going somewhere, the other had to come, too.

He turned his attention back to the arch.

"I know the name Télos," he said. He wasn't going to bring it up until later on, but it seemed like it would make the owner of the voice feel more comfortable with the group. "He's my god."