Young Writers Society

Alaska thought for a moment.
''Why don't we say...'' she tried to think of something snappy that one could say to total strangers but failed. ''I don't know. I guess we just introduce ourselves and say hello? I mean what else could we say? That we're stuck in some foreign woods looking for a way out? Would they even buy that?''

Wren bit her lip.

"...We could blame a villain?" she hesitantly suggested, fiddling with her glasses again. She was herself right now, but something like that could still be a good explanation. Civilians got caught in the crossfire all the time, both in real life and in the comics. A power gone awry could be responsible, couldn't it? "We could say that a villain brought us here, and that we need help getting back to our homes?"

Amy nodded in response to Wren's comment about Windows on the World, and her family's restaurant. She'd seen pictures of the view, but she wanted to experience it herself. Apparently you could see as far as all five boroughs from the top. But she didn't want to think about it now.

"A villain brought us here?" Amy laughed. "What is this, Magic Treehouse?"

She realized the comment sounded a lot more rude then she'd intended to after it left her mouth.

Winter tilted her head, "I would not advise lying, but Summer is not here to tell me enough truth to avoid it. Though putting the blame on the blameless is morally corrupt no matter the person chosen as target. An accident, perhaps, would be better? Something with no blame to give until we know who is truly responsible."

She wondered what kinds of things she would see here. It was a beautiful place, despite being so cold. Perhaps it was not as violent as the places she was used to. That would be pleasant, to put away her sword for good, to only have to worry about the heat she drew from others and not the intense heat and flame she could create in battle. It would be nice to live her life without ever having to again draw all of the heat from a person's body so they shatter like ice when she stuck them.

Wren's face went red at Amy and Winter's reactions.

"Sometimes you have to lie," she quietly said. She made the scars disappear from underneath her gloves, instead giving herself a mole on the back of her right hand. "And I don't think an accident can explain how we're in a forest without knowing where the forest is..."

She hesitantly glanced back up to look at Amy, only to stare back down at the ground.

The snow crunched underneath her boots.

"And it wouldn't be weird for a villain to bring us here," Wren muttered. "It-It happens a lot in the city. Not the transportation, but the villains doing things to civilians..."

Winter looked her over, seeming again to be looking right through her. "If you are so devoted to that excuse than we can use it. I was only saying that lying is not something I wish to be caught doing. I apologize if I have offended you."

Hablex looked past the trees to the nearby area. She actually had experience in having to come up with a story as to why her hair was matted and blood covered her. Shivering, she wished for the memories to fade.

“I can attest to Wren’s point. Besides, the truth sounds nothing more than a witch eating a cat. Disbelief, suspicion. We need something fairly concrete.”

Saying that probably didn’t make her seem any more normal, but eh. She would deal with the consequences later.

"I don't know if I can say that with a straight face," Amy said. "We don't live inside of a comic book."

She supposed she was older than most of the people here, or maybe it was just her teacher's instinct kicking in. "What if we're in town for the skiing and we were out at a bar and then decided we wanted to go outside and make snow angels? That's at least more believable. Not like I'm speaking from personal experience or anything."

No one replied.

"Wait, are you guys even all 21? Can you be at a bar?"

"I'm only seventeen," Wren shyly said. She finally mustered the courage to look back up at Amy - an idea coming to her that she hadn't really thought of before. If her life had really become like a comic book, didn't that mean that alternate realities existed? "Um...have you heard of The Actor?"

"No," Amy replied. "What's The Actor?"

Maybe he was a stand-up act in New York she hadn't heard of. Amy realized she'd never been to a stand-up show, even was interested in that whole world because of Jerry Seinfeld.

Wren took a deep breath.

"He's, um..." She faltered. "He's a superhero. The first superhero. And I know it sounds like I'm lying, but..."

Her gaze returned to the ground as they walked.

She took another deep breath, but it didn't really help. "He's real. He hasn't been around for long. And when he first showed up, everyone kept comparing him to comics. So, um...if comics are real, then alternate realities have to be, too, so maybe we're from different realities..."

"Uhh...." Amy said. "You're joking right?"

How far away was it to town? She'd have to ditch these people as soon as she found a bus, a train, or if she really desperate, a nice person to hitchhike with. She knew her mom went on and on to her about how dangerous hitchhiking was, and how Amy ought to never do it, because that was how she'd met her father.

Still, she needed to figure out where she was and get back to Seattle. She couldn't have ended up too far away. And besides, what were the odds that something like what had happened to her mom would happen again.

She thought about how Jadon, one of her students that was really sweet but also really disruptive, would love this girl and this adventure. He could picture him once she got back to class. "Miss Fox, Miss Fox, Miss Fox! Where were you, Miss Fox?"

Amy sighed.

''Are you kidding me!'' Alaska exclaimed incredulous ''An alternate reality? Your seriously suggesting we go over to whoever lives inside that house and use that as our uh...'' she glanced at Winter. ''False story? They'll think we've lost our marbles!''
Even as she spoke, Alaska had the chilling feeling that Wren spoke the truth.

Her blush deepened.

"I'm telling the truth," she whispered. She slipped her glasses off and started cleaning them. She had no way of proving that it was the truth; the only way she could think of was revealing her secret.

But that secret was a secret for a reason, and if anyone was actually from her reality...

Her hands shook as she moved the cloth against the glass. She didn't even realize she was starting to cry until she saw a teardrop hit the little blue cloth.

She had never been called a liar before, but she was used to being ignored and abandoned by people she should have been friends with in other circumstances. Her classmates were just the same as the group she was with now. But instead of being innocent, this situation was all her fault.

"The Actor does exist," she quietly insisted, voice shaking as she spoke. "And-And they wouldn't think it was crazy if they're from my reality..."

Hablex turned to Wren, her heart squeezing in her chest at the sight of the girl crying. She squeezed her hands together, wanting to figure out what she could to do help who she viewed as an innocent, good-natured person, but being intimidated at the idea of speaking up in front of strangers.

Instead, she pulled out her whiteboard and wipes away the half-drawn forest in place of writing a few simple words: I believe you. Hablex walked closer to Wren, wavering between leaving the poor girl alone or trying to give her a semblance of comfort.

She decided on holding her board out and clearing her throat so that the other person would hopefully notice.