Young Writers Society

"What's wrong with my eye!?" Kivvien protested.

"Nothing's wrong with your eye, Kiv," Vanya assured him, "And what do you mean 'magic exists'? Was that in question?" She couldn't imagine that it was. Alchemy was a form of magic, and one of them claimed to be an alchemist. Then again, Vanya had once met a soldier who fought a war he didn't believe was happening, she she supposed it wasn't out of the realm of possibility for one to practice magic without believing in it.

"Wait, you guys don't believe in magic? Do you not believe in water either?" Kivvien said, unhelpful laughter in his voice, "Is air a fantasy to you? How about sand? Do you believe in sand?"

"Kivvien," Vanya warned.

James watched the arguments unfold quietly until there was space to speak.

“I’m sure we all come from different places and backgrounds. While some things may be beyond our current comprehension, it is helpful not to rule anything out simply because it does not match our understanding of own own homes. It may not be your own world’s magic that brought us here. It could be something else entirely. But I doubt we’ll be able to find answers just standing here and talking about it. It would probably be best for us to investigate this town and see if we can find clues or answers. It’s either that, or venture into the vast expanse of the dry desert.”

Sebastian wanted to shoot back a reply, but he wasn't one of the more immature members of the military serving under Colonel Mustang. He took a deep breath, pushing aside his indignation so he could focus on the more important task at hand.

"We should go inside one of the buildings first," he suggested. Quentin gave a nod in agreement from beside him; Adam didn't even move. Sebastian ignored his frustration and scanned the streets for a suitable building.

There was one across the street that caught his eye. The sign outside was faded. He couldn't read the name, if it had ever been there. But he did recognize the symbol underneath what had once potentially been writing - it was a radio station.

"We should go there," he suggested. "A radio station would have some kind of notes on what to report on. If we can figure out why everyone left, we might find out why we were brought here."

"Good idea," Vanya said, grateful that he was able to keep his head under Kiv's taunting. The last thing she needed right now was Kivvien starting another unnecessary fight.

She turned and began to walk toward the station. A moment later, she heard Kivvien's footsteps and muttered complaints behind her.

James only nodded in agreement and followed the others in silence, staying back a few steps with his - well, the horse. Even though he was pretending it was his, it wasn't.

The radio station was as quiet as Sebastian had expected it would be. And, like the rest of town, it looked like its occupants had just suddenly gotten up and left. The main hallway bordered between messy and neat, but the messiness was a natural kind - not someone tearing through a building in a hurry.

Adam lingered behind the group. After a moment of hesitation, Quentin joined them. Sebastian tried to pretend that he didn't mind - he knew Quentin was trying to play mediator. But it was frustrating being the one person here who kept insisting that this wasn't magic, and frustrating knowing that Adam would always get Quentin's support because they were the same kind of person.

James realized once he stood outside of the radio station with the horse that he couldn't take the steed inside with him. As the others walked in the building ahead of him he stopped and looked at the creature he'd named Shadowheart.

"Shadow," he said softly, only for the horse to hear. "You're not a flighty horse, are you? If I step inside for a moment, you'll stay here?"

As he asked the question, he found a post with a light at the top just outside the building to tie Shadow to. He did feel a little nervous leaving her alone in a strange, empty town, but he didn't know what the others would find... and didn't really want to be left out either. The sooner they could figure this out, the better.

He gave Shadow a tender pat on the side before walking back to the radio station and walking inside, looking at the rather average, office-like environment.

It looked like whatever residents lived in the town had all been instantaneously transported somewhere else. Not much different from how they got here, honestly, regardless of the specific cause or methods.

"If it's a radio station, they probably have records of recordings they've made somewhere that we can listen to," he offered. "That might be useful, if only to at least inform us of what kind of people were here before they disappeared."

Sebastian nodded in agreement. He was already digging through the shelves on the opposite side of the recording room, looking for tapes or anything else that would have been used to record the broadcasts. Quentin quickly joined him. Only Adam refrained from joining their search - he made a beeline for the desk with the microphone at it, resting his legs on the desk as he leaned back in the chair.

Kivvien dashed for the recording equipment as soon and he and Vanya were in the room. His hands skimmed all the knobs and buttons in fascination, his eyes wide as he examined every detail in the same way Vanya had seen him handle some ancient amulets and wands.

Vanya, meanwhile, went in search of some kind of storage. Tapes, or maybe a hard drive. A central computer or something where they would keep the records.

Kivvien appeared at Adam's side, the color of his eye swirling like ink dripped in water as he twirled one of his partially-crushed bottles of strange liquid in one hand and looked over the microphone. "You wanna see if we can broadcast something?" he asked suddenly, grinning.

Adam straightened in his chair.

"Of course," he said, giving a grin of his own - much to Sebastian's chagrin a few feet away.

James only sort of knew what everything was. He understood this kind of technology in theory, but he was far from familiar with it in person. He stood in the middle of the room as the others searched it for whatever they thought would be useful.

"...What does broadcast mean?"

Kivvien's grin grew as he leaned over, fiddling with some knobs and buttons as he explained, "It means to send something out across the radio waves, or whatever. It's hard to explain. Do they have radio's where you're from?"

He didn't look up as he spoke, his eyes focused instead on checking the right wires and flipping the right switches. Finally, he found the 'on' switch. The board of buttons and switches came to life with a neatly arranged galaxy of little red, green, and yellow lights. The edges or his grin nearly reached his ears.

He turned another knob and flicked another switch or two, then turned to the man in the chair, "We are live in three-" he held up his fingers and counted down, mouthing 'two...one' before pointing at him and flipping one last switch.

Sebastian gave him a questioning look.

"You don't know what a broadcast is?" he asked. That was...strange. He was pretty sure everywhere had it. Maybe a country like Xing didn't have radios, but James didn't look Xingese.

A short distance away, Adam leaned in towards the microphone.

"Hello, hello," he said, his voice suave and somewhat deep - the last part was clearly an exaggeration on his part. It was hard to tell if the microphone was actually working; there wasn't a radio that they could easily check, and he didn't even know the station.