Young Writers Society

Oliver and Lucy took the cue; with everyone else in the middle of their own discussions, it was the perfect time for a private little chat between the two of them. They walked a short distance away from the others and began to talk in hushed voices. Oliver wasn't quite sure how much things could be compromised if this group of people learned of their identities, but it was better to stray into the realm of carefulness.

"So," Lucy muttered, glancing down at Oliver's hands, "how is your...condition?"

He followed her gaze. They had yet to show past the band-aids he had applied earlier, but the mere presence of the fracturing was worrisome. "As bad as it gets when I have stay late for track. Whoever brought us here must have done it quickly. How are you feeling?"

"A little sleepy," she cautiously answered. She glanced back at the other three. "But it'll get bad if I can't find a place to rest."

He took a deep breath. "Could be worse."

"Certainly," she agreed.

They stood in an uncomfortable silence. They rarely had to talk about the more hidden sides to themselves in public places, and now struggled to figure out how to keep their secrets concealed when directing addressing them.

Well, they'd underestimated his hearing.

Oliver and Lucy were a fair distance away, and they were whispering, but Aegeas caught a few words. Namely "condition" and "could be worse." That caught his attention. He briefly thought about what he'd do next. If he tried to hide his awareness of the conversation, he'd probably say something stupid eventually. Might as well be more open about it.

Letting go the railing, Aegeas walked to where the two stood away from the rest of the group. "What were you talking about?" he said in what he hoped was an innocent, non-suspicious voice.

People were starting to disperse, but they were all still together in the same general vicinity. Bo decided to keep his attentions on Lola, since she'd given him her attention.

"I guess you woke up here out of the blue too?" He asked, drawing a little closer, so he didn't have to talk as loud. "That seems to be everyone's story so far. Waking up. Not remembering how we got here. That, and we all seem to be from very different realms or worlds or whatever you want to call it. So it's feeling pretty trippy right now, huh?"

Oliver nearly jumped at the sound of his voice, and Lucy spun around to face Aegeas. Then the words struck him with a cold, harsh terror - he had heard them! They had been standing so far away from the others; he hadn't even thought of someone having better hearing than the average person. At the very least, he should have suspected that Aegeas would have different senses than most humans. But he had been stupid, too focused on talking with Lucy to even think of being that extra bit cautious.

He glanced at Lucy.

Lucy glanced at him.

"We were talking about a condition of mine," he said. Keep things simple and as close to the truth as possible. If he slipped up, it wouldn't be as bad. "It's a pretty rare one, and it doesn't have a scientific name as a result. Lucy and I call it fracturing. The skin on my hands breaks easily, and it gets worse over the course of the day. Sleeping gives it a chance to heal up a bit, but my hands are always a mess. I also have an ointment at home that I use, but I leave it there so I don't lose it at school."

He held them up to support what he said, displaying the many band-aids littering his fingers.

Lucy took a step towards Aegeas. "It kind of freaks people out," she helpfully added, "which is why we didn't want to speak too loudly about it. Oliver's quite self conscious about them, and he's been asked to show it off in the past by some of our more annoying classmates."

That was a surprisingly satisfying explanation, Aegeas thought. He still didn't really trust Oliver, but the bandages were convincing. Even if he wasn't familiar with the condition, he knew that they came from a different world and therefore could have different problems. Besides, he didn't want to stand so close to either of them - the metal smell he despised seemed to get worse around Lucy.

"Sorry about that," he said, taking a few steps back. "I'll leave you two to talk." He walked back to the balcony.

Lola blinked at Bo.

"Different realms?" she said. "Oh. That would explain the..." she paused, struggling to find the words, "Everything."

"But I woke up here, too. I don't really remember how I got here. Or why I'm here. Or where we are," she clasped her hands together anxiously, "So yeah. It's, ah. Pretty trippy." She laughed nervously.

Bo smiled - for a moment, forgetting his own worries as he tried to ease Lola’s, by appearing as calm as possible.

“Well, at least we’re not alone here, and we all generally seem willing to work together to figure this out. Speaking of which-“ he cleared throat loudly, hopefully drawing everyone’s attention.

“Hey guys, if ya’ll will gather close for a minute, some of us were talking about trying to find records or answers here, which would require us exploring around a bit. Hopefully if we find something we’ll get some answers. But I’m thinking in general, since we have no way of communicating each other, since-“ he pulled out his phone, which had no service. “Well, my cell is dead - but yeah since we don’t have ways to really keep tabs on each other and this place is huge, I suggest we stay together at least for now, since we all could probably use all the help we can get, and that way, if any of us do find something, we’ll all wanna be in the loop.”

Raiden watched curiously as Aegeas spoke to Lucy and Oliver. He shuffled a little closer towards the three of them casually and silently.
"...condition...rare...scientific name...fracturing..." reached Raiden's ears.
"The scientific name of his condition is fracturing? That doesn't sound very...scientific-y," Raiden thought to himself as he stood alone while everyone interacted with everyone else.
"...skin on my hands...easily...gets worse...sleeping..."
"Huh? Okay, that's one hecking weird condition if you hand skin gets worse with sleeping."
"...chance to heal up...always a mess...ointment at home...lose it at school..." Raiden heard, and Oliver lifted his hands. They were bandaged, which made sense to Raiden who's information bank on this "condition" was quite limited and also questionable. Aegeas walked off, and Raiden watched him go.

Bo started speaking. Bo was right behind Raiden. Raiden jerked away from Bo, holding his chest where his heart was. Bo had a loud voice when he wanted to have one.
"Okay, but now, which way do we go?" Raiden asked, once Bo had finished talking. It was well and all that they knew what they had to do, but where was it that they had to go so they could do the thing?

Bo hummed in thought for a moment. "Well... since no one's seen a map of this place yet, my best bet is to go inward. And I'm not just saying that because I'd like to be far from the edge of the water. But uh, maybe up? If it's a computer or something it might be kept in a tower? Honestly, I'm really only pulling on knowledge of scifi movies and stuff. I don't know how a place like this would be laid out. But if any of ya'll have better info or hunches, lay 'em on me."

Aegeas was half paying attention to the conversation. The other half spotted a balcony above him, jutting out of the building about the same distance as the one he stood on. A random idea entered his mind, propelled by Bo's comment about going up. It was risky, but if he made it to a higher floor, perhaps he'd find whatever records the group was looking for. Anything to figure out where he was and how he was supposed to get back home was fine with him.

He pulled himself onto the railing, scrabbling for a foothold on the glass panels edged with steel. Succeeding in lifting himself up, he stood precariously on the railing's edge. It held him just fine, though his balance threatened to throw him into the ocean. Aegeas tried not to look down.

First, he reached for the balcony above. He cursed his short arms, which were unable to stretch any less than a foot away from the upper balcony's edge. His next decision was a bit riskier. If he failed, well, he wasn't quite sure what would happen. That depended on how he'd gotten here in the first place. For all he knew, he was already dead. Maybe he'd find himself right back where he'd disappeared. All he knew was that reaching the upper balcony was worth a shot.

He jumped up.

And immediately fell back down. He'd leaped out too far. Aegeas couldn't grab onto the balcony of the floor he'd been on, but did catch the railing of the balcony beneath. Something in his shoulder popped, but he still managed to pull his feet over to the small space between the railing and the balcony's edge. It was pretty easy to pull himself over the railing and collapse on the balcony.

So much for that plan, he thought as he rubbed his shoulder and winced. Now he was on the floor beneath the others, and he didn't have a clue how to get back up safely.

Lola's heart stopped in her chest as she saw Aegeas' fall to the floor below. She lunged to the balcony.

"Aegeas!" she cried, leaning over the side. She sagged in relief at the sight of him standing on the balcony below. "Oh my gosh..." she covered her face with her hands, her heart pounding. "I thought you were gonna die. We can't risk things like that. I don't even know how you're going to get back up."

Bo had rushed to the railing once he'd noticed Aegeas jumping up, but he was too late. It wasn't until he was leaning over, looking down at Aegeas that he felt the crippling fear of the ocean come back to him as the salty smell met his nose again. He swallowed.

"A place like this has to have stairs or an elevator. There's a way for us to meet back up, I'm sure. But hey uh, maybe don't go jumping off the railing and let's try our safer alternatives first. Just you know, giving the situation the benefit of the doubt."

In hindsight, he had acted a little rashly. Aegeas felt embarrassed, but knew there was nothing to do about it now; it had happened. He stepped back to the railing and waved to Bo and Lola, calling out, "I'll go on ahead and see if I can get back up! Stay there!" They both looked mildly panicked, though, given the way Bo kept glancing at the sea, for different reasons.

Aegeas walked into the corridor leading away from the balcony, rotating his arm to see if his shoulder would pop again. No such luck. At least it was more likely sprained than knocked out of place.

It was only after Aegeas had done his death defying feat that Oliver suddenly remembered where he had woken up; no one had likely mentioned it because he had been the only one to ever enter the room. "I think I know where we should go after we meet up with Aegeas," he suddenly said. "I woke up in what looked like a control room - I saw some displays there that might give us some information if we can get into this place's system."

In retrospect, Aegeas hadn't quite factored in how big the building was. The corridor that stretched from the balcony split into three separate paths almost immediately. He took the right one and followed it until he could see a flight of stairs to his left. When he reached the top of that, he tried to go to where he believed he'd find the corridor leading back to the others. A dead end. Over the next few minutes - or longer, he couldn't tell - he wandered through the network of hallways, sliding open metallic doors and peeking around corners in intersections.

When his legs started to hurt, Aegeas stopped at a strange room. Unlike the others, it was brighter, both due to more lights and to the panels lining the walls. Everything looked more mechanical, with tiny blinking lights and switches. He sat on the stairs between the upper and lower segments and called out, "Hello?"

He hoped the others could hear him. He wasn't sure what he'd do otherwise.