Young Writers Society

Carter started to wander the halls. Soliders continued to turn their attention to him, and ask him if he needed anything. He turned them away. Maybe it was the mind-numbing boredom of the long ride over, and maybe it was the mind-numbing boredom of this menial task, but he wasn't interested in entertaining soldiers beneath him or being waited on. He just wanted to take a look around and make sure things seemed to be running smoothly. Sometimes that was easier to tell when he didn't talk to people who fought so hard to impress him all the time. He just wanted to watch.

He passed the mess hall and some of the living quarters before he slowed. A doctor walked out of a room, shaking their head before turning down the corner of a hall. They didn't see Carter, as they went the opposite direction.

Carter remembered the overheard conversation of the soldiers earlier. Someone had been "out for a week." Was it an accident of negligence or inexperience, or did they happen upon a stranger around their outpost in need of saving?

Curiosity drew him to the door that had been left open in the doctor's wake.

It took trial and error, but I had finally found the way to the right room. All it took was a little bit of eavesdropping, and I was finally doing something other than wandering aimlessly through the building. I was heading towards the door - thinking about how badly I just wanted to see Natty boy and Asmira again - when I suddenly bumped into something solid.

There was a clunk.

I looked in front of me.

I had just bumped into Carter.

Carter had only gotten a glimpse of the body on the bed when a soldier bumped into him. He took a step back, mildly miffed as he looked down at the woman who didn't look where she was going.

"Excuse you."

He waited for her to apologize.

"Excuse you," I shot back, trying to slip by him. The soldier I was possessing would have to deal with my attitude towards her commander later, but I was not going to treat Carter with respect.

All I had to do was get over to my body. I could see a glimpse of it now - it was so close.

Carter stared, eyes boring into the back of her skull as she pushed past him into the room. He was about to scold her for her response but his eyes caught on the man lying in the bed in the corner of the room, and he realized it wasn't just anyone. He recognized him.

It was Skull. The idiot, insolent delinquent Skull was in his world.

How on earth had he found his way here?

"When did this man arrive?" he asked the soldier, his voice stern.

I didn't give a response. One part of me just outright didn't want to, while the other part was more focused on getting back into my body. Their medics must have done a good job taking care of it; I couldn't see any obvious problems with it.

I went over to my side.

One tap on my arm later, and I was sitting up with a start - with the soldier I had been possessing falling, unconscious, to the ground beside me. I looked down at my clothes, still consciously ignoring Carter. It looked like they had changed them since I was out. It was probably for the best; I needed to blend in if I was going to be looking for a way to get back to my world.

But the one thing I wasn't going to leave behind was my leather jacket. I had gotten Momo to make it the last time I ended up in Nikko's world, and I had no idea when I'd be able to replace it.

I glanced around.

Now, where was it...?

Carter had been seconds away from scolding the soldier, but then she collapsed onto the floor, unconscious, and Skull popped up, wide awake. A wave of deep anger stirred within him. He didn't want whatever trouble Skull had brought to his world, and he didn't want him on Nye.

He hurried to the side of the fallen soldier and started to lift her up, looking over at Skull with a piercing glare.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed. "How did you even get here?"

"It's nice to see you, too," I said.

I slipped out of the bed, stretching a little as I continued to look around the room for my leather jacket. It had to be somewhere-

There. It was folded up on the seat of a chair with the rest of my clothes. I left those behind, but grabbed the leather jacket and slipped it over the shirt they had put me in while I was off possessing Reed. That felt right.

Now that I had grabbed my jacket, I looked back at Carter.

"Well," I said, my tone nonchalant, "I heard you were coming here, so I just had to stop by for a visit."

Carter lifted the woman and laid her on the bed before turning to look over at Skull with a deep-set frown.

"I know that's a lie," he said quietly, walking to the door and shutting it. "You're not supposed to be here. What happened?"

I shrugged.

"I have absolutely no idea," I said. "Sometimes I just end up in other people's worlds without any warning or explanation, and your world is apparently one of those."

Carter narrowed his eyes at him, hand still on the door, holding it shut. He knew Skull didn't like him and had no logical reason to voluntarily hop over to his world. Skull was petty and spiteful, but not that petty and spiteful.

He believed Skull. He just didn't like it.

"Do you know how to go back?"

I shook my head.

"Not a clue," I said, adding in a shrug for good measure. "It usually takes some time before I can figure out how to get back to my world - and usually involves getting some kind of help from someone from the world I'm on."

Carter resisted the urge to groan. If Skull had ended up here of all places, and Skull and he already knew each other, he had a dreadful feeling that the person who was supposed to help Skull was him. But he didn't have time for this. And how on earth was he supposed to explain any of it to the soldiers who'd found Skull?

He let out a slow sigh and closed his eyes before looking back at Skull.

"Fine," he said. "You do what you need to do to get back, but one word of this to anyone else and things will blow up in both of our faces, so zip it. You were found unconscious and have been here for a while - that's all I know. If anyone asks, you don't know me and I don't know you."

He glanced over to the unconscious soldier.

"And what did you do to her?"

I made a note of what Carter said - the last thing I wanted to do was get into trouble for having magic. Carter had no idea that I was as powerful as I was. For once in my life, I didn't have any plans of flaunting my power - even though I could easily overpower Carter right now, he had an entire base at his disposal.

Plus, I really didn't want to bring up what I had actually been doing the past week - that would involve explaining the numerous crimes I had committed (tying Reed to a tree, using magic, letting a wanted man go) and mentioning Tiberius. The least I could do for him was avoid bringing him up.

"I possessed her," I said. "I can only do it within a certain distance, but I took control of her body for a little bit so I could see what was going on around me. I can basically do it to right out the doorway, but that's as far as my powers work. And no, I haven't been using them for however long I've been here. I just used them when I woke up a few minutes ago to check out where I was."

Carter watched Skull, observing him carefully. He could remember Skull mentioning he had abilities or some kind of magic, but it sounded like the magic Skull had was foreign to his world. Possession and taking over other people's bodies was not something anyone on Nye had or knew to even be possible. He didn't want to think about what else Skull might've had up his sleeve, but he knew it would be better not to find out and not to ask. He just needed Skull off his hands and somewhere out there looking for a way home.

"Well can you wake her? The less of a mess I have to explain, the less-" he stopped when he heard a commotion down the hallway. It wasn't quite shouting, but a man's voice carried down the hall, mixed with the chatter of different soldiers.

"Oh, what now?" he voiced in exasperation, opening the door and turning around to Skull.

"Don't leave just yet," he said in a hushed whisper. "They'll want to know what happened to you. It could cause more problems if you just disappeared."

And then he hurried down the hall, making his way to a group of people nearer to an entrance on the side of the building. Leaning on one of the soldier's shoulders was a disheveled man from the isles. His hair was long and a mess - hanging down in his face and greasy with sweat. Carter could smell the nature on him from afar.

One of the soldiers looked up to see Carter. His simple presence demanded an explanation.

"We found him at the edge of the perimeter, sir," she explained. "He looked like he was left for dead, tied to a tree."

Carter raised his brows and turned his eyes in suspicion on the filthy man in question.

"And you are?" he asked.

"I'm a victim!" he spouted, his voice filled with the sort of desperate panic of someone who had been traumatized. "I don't know - I don't know what happened. S-some kind of dark mage - magic - overtook me. It was like someone was speaking in my mind. I couldn't control myself. I - I -"

Carter looked to the soldier holding him, then back to the madman.

"Your name, not your story, sir."

The man blinked under the shade of his dark hair. "Reed Shuman," he said slowly.

Carter looked back to woman who'd addressed him at first.

"Figure out who this man is. If he's a criminal-"

"I'm not!" Reed interjected. Carter's eyes widened and he shot Reed a warning glare.

"Do not interrupt-"

"I was trying to catch a criminal! I'm not a criminal myself!" Reed pleaded. Carter took in a deep breath, reigning in his impatience.

"Who?"

"A man called Tiberius Hemming."

Carter's heart stopped.

Anger ignited - once like a slowly dying flame, suddenly blazing and crackling with life once again.