Young Writers Society

Tottan came to with a start, and his eyes opening wide to the sight of the great expanse of blue sky above him, along with a pungent, salty smell. As he got up, brushing himself off, he recognized the ocean as the source, but as he took in the rest of the scene, he was... jarred. Completely.

The buildings and the overall appearance of the city were not unusual. They resembled that of other planets he had visited in terms of technological advancement and their pristine appearance, but what disturbed him greatly was that he had no idea how he'd gotten there or where he was.

Had he been drugged? What was he doing last? Was this some vibrant hallucination? No... he knew the difference. This was real. With absolute certainty this was real.

It was then that he caught sight of two figures in the distance, and simultaneously realized that they were the only two people that seemed to be populating the city. Otherwise, it was eerily silent, and absent of life.

Brushing himself off, and pulling his sleeves over his wrists on all four arms, he began to walk over, towering over the two shorter beings.

"Hello, strangers," he called out, somewhat wary in his heart, but gentle and friendly with his smile and tone. "What is the name of this city?"

It had been nearly ten minutes, but they were still no closer to discovering why this city - if it could even be called that, with its strange tall buildings - was so deserted. They had wandered the streets in search of clues, but the streets were as empty and devoid of life as they had appeared when they had first arrived.

And they still didn't know where Geist had gone.

Sebastian let a long, held out sigh. "This is hopeless," he said, peering down the street. "We're not going to find anything out here. The streets are too clean, and we still haven't found a single person!"

Engel thought for a moment. "We could check out one of those buildings," he suggested, his voice reverberating from within his armor. He tugged gently on Sebastian's arm to nudge him in the direction he wanted to go. Sebastian silently followed the tall suit of armor into the nearest building. He had the sneaking suspicion that it would be another dead end.



Geist was a master of changing guises; if given the opportunity, he would shed one for another in a heartbeat. But those guises tended to be human guises. It was the nature of living in Amestris. The few spirits he had noticed during their travels mirrored that. They weren't a widely accepted race, and few even knew of their existence. Mass hysteria would break out if he so much as sprouted a pair of horns.

So, while he may have once been used to the sight that greeted him when he glanced down the street, he no longer was. Even the government of Amestris hadn't made a thing like that!

He let a sudden, startled cry, and promptly stumbled back from the approaching whatever-it-was. And it was as he fell to the ground that he realized how foolish he was being. He pushed himself up off of the ground so he was sitting up and really looked at the newcomer. To a mix of shock and horror, it looked exactly the same as it had before.

"What are you?" Geist managed to get out.

Tottan stared wide-eyed at the boy's horror-filled reaction, and his eyes lit up, highlighting the galaxy-like appearance of his irises. Somewhat startled in response, he flinched back.

It was possible that he was on an isolated planet that had yet to be discovered or develop the technology necessary for space-travel. How he got there was a whole different bundle of questions in itself, but that was the only way he could explain such a reaction. Most people were pretty polite when running into other alien races that appeared much different from their own. So it was either that this boy had never seen someone like him, or he was... very rude. He preferred to assume the former.

"I'm... a person. My kind are known as the Y'arkan," he explained calmly. "From the planet Lucia. I'm... sorry to have startled you."

The words barely registered as he got to his feet. He was still trying to take in the abnormal appearance of the newcomer, struggling to determine how such a being could exist in the first place. Was alchemy at fault? Or was something more akin to his own kind?

But then what the thing had said clicked, and Geist found himself staring at the alien once more. His mind had switched from investigating to accepting, though he still wondered how the alien had gotten there in the first place. Aliens weren't especially talked about in Amestris, but there were a few areas that seemed to have a strong belief in them.

He honestly shouldn't have been that surprised. His best friend was a suit of armor, he came from another dimension, and there people who couldn't die running around Amestris. An alien would fit perfectly among the chaos.

"It's fine," he said with a dismissive wave of the hand. "I've just never seen someone like you before. At least, not all the way through. Anyways, the name's Geist. No last name and no nicknames. Just Geist. Let's just say that I'm a human for now - a human from the country of Amestris."

Thanatos watches the exchange in silence, observing Geist's reaction and taking note of it, as well as quietly analyzing the newcomer. The boy is curious - his fear, the startled cry as he saw the four-armed individual. He was not used to non-humans, or, at least, a wide variety of them. As for the newcomer? He seemed to be open enough. He wasn't sure how either would react if or when they discovered what he was, but he wasn't terribly concerned; so long as they were alive, all would be well.

"I am Thanatos. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance," he says in that cool way of his.

“And I am Tottan,” he replied with a smile. “And it’s nice to meet you both. But I still wonder what planet we are on? You do know, yes?”

"I do not," Thanatos answers. "I am as oblivious to the location of this city as you, I think. But Geist is from this realm, yes?" he addresses the boy with the last part.

Geist raised an eyebrow as he looked over at Thanatos. How could the man not know that? Sebastian's dimension, if it could be called that, wasn't even his own, but he very well knew what world it was. "It's called Terra," he answered, turning back to Tottan.

Then the words hit him like a punch in the gut.

He spun around to face Thanatos. "H-How could you possibly be one of-you're not that powerful, are you? I should have seen something!" he sputtered, his words little more than incoherent rambling.

Geist, who appeared to be human, was very... curious. Tottan wasn't sure what to make of him. The Thanatos fellow, however, had an odd presence about him. He had a feeling he must've been a different alien race.

However, Terra, was an odd name for a planet. One he wasn't quite sure he'd heard of. Did he mean Earth? Was Terra an old name for it? He wasn't really up do date on such things.

And then there was Geist's following reaction of bafflement that again puzzled Tottan.

"I'm sorry, am I missing something?"

Thanatos cocks his head slightly, gazing at Geist. His expression still hasn't changed - it's the exact same bland, cool look as before. This boy was quite the curious one. He wonders what, exactly, the human thinks he is, and why he is so...excited.

"I do not know what you think I am, but, as I am not from this Terra it seems unlikely that I am what you think," he informs the boy, a little puzzled by his stammering. "To answer your question, I am powerful, but how powerful is difficult to say, seeing as I don't know your world or what you consider powerful."
'

Geist took a deep breath. "I shouldn't be so surprised," he muttered, mirroring the though he had only minutes before. And he really shouldn't have - someone being from another plane of existence wasn't exactly unheard of among his kin. The few conversations he had with them had involved slight mentions of it, and Engel was quite adamant that he had once been to another world.

"You must be something other than what I thought you were," Geist simply said; he didn't want to get into specifics. There was so many other things that he could be doing. Like exploring one of those old buildings, or ushering the two of them down the street so he could get a better idea of what this city was like.

"That's probable," he replies. "But I may be similar."

"If you're not human, then what kind of person are you?" Tottan asked curiously. Geist's curiosity must've been rubbing off on him.