Lost. I was utterly lost. So many little things which I’d been deliberately not examining too closely were suddenly clicking into place one after another. This “island” which was way too damn big to be an island. Its location, which was impossible to be where it was. The never before seen fish and fruit. Purple bamboo. The girls with the completely unknown language, place of birth, and customs. Rivers running west to east. Impossible weather patterns. Heck, even Shadow’s sudden growth spurt after being a fully grown adult dog, and my drastic body changes -- such as the regrowth of my hair, the change to my body mass and energy levels. Even the change to my old man’s libido was impossible to explain!
And then there’s Laulaia’s sudden use of magic, as if it was the most common thing in the world! All things which are blatantly impossible on Earth.
Yet, since I’m witnessing all these things myself, all it can mean, of course, is I’m not on Earth anymore.
Where this is, I have absolutely no clue, but beyond a doubt, I’m no longer on Earth itself. The sun looks the same. The sky looks the same, and the moon. I don’t know enough about stars to know if the constellations are correct, or not – I’m assuming not, just because… Mainly because I wouldn’t know what the hell it’d mean if they were the same. If the constellations are the same, wouldn’t that mean I was still on Earth? Just some sort of parallel Earth? A different dimension?
Screw that!
Being lost on a different planet is as far as I’m allowing my thoughts to go! I’m not on Earth 256, which is still Earth, just in a different dimension. I’m not allowing myself to be that damn lost.
Except…
What’s the chances of us randomly traveling to another planet almost exactly the same as Earth? The gravity doesn’t feel different. The air composition is the same. The food and water are suitable for consumption, and even if the plants and fish are a little strange, they still seem to follow the same laws of biology that we’re used to. There’s still only one moon, and it looks the same as Earth’s moon.
How can all these things be the same, if this isn’t Earth?
But if it is Earth, whose Earth is it? It’s obviously not my Earth. Is it the girl’s Earth? Or are they just as displaced and out of dimension as I am?
“Lau… Laulaia,” I stuttered, trying to get my shock down and under control. “Does any of this look familiar to either you or Alaina? I’m happy and excited you got your Heart’s Fire back, but we still need to focus on survival.” Desperately, I tried to keep my voice calm and unchanging. I sure as hell didn’t want the two girls to see exactly how much I was panicking inside. I may be a lost man, but that doesn’t mean I’ve lost my pride.
“Nothing,” Alaina confirmed. “I don’t recognize any place that should look like this on the maps I’ve seen.”
“Me either.” Frowning, Laulaia slowly released her tight grip around my waist. Studying our surroundings, she slowly shook her head from side to side. “Father made certain I studied and learned all the various trade routes our companies use. None of them describe a landscape like the beach, waterfall, or plains before us. This land shouldn’t exist here, according to where we were when Alaina and I were washed overboard during the storm.”
“You were washed overboard,” Alaina corrected. “I jumped in to rescue you.”
“True.” Blushing slightly, Laulaia seemed almost embarrassed that she needed saving.
As the girls gently talked amongst themselves, the cogs in my brain were working overtime. Apparently I was on a different Earth. Apparently the two girls were from a different Earth, which also wasn’t this Earth. As far as I can tell, this Earth is a completely new, and unknown, Earth for all of us. Who knows if the people are friendly, what their customs are, or if they welcome travelers — if there’s even people living on this Earth at all!
Thinking about the future and all its uncertainties simply makes my head sort. There’s just too many complete unknowns to speculate about anything. “For now,” I told the girls, “I don’t guess it matters where we are. We’re still too dependent on just basic survival, to worry about all the future things we don’t know. For now, we need to find some sort of shelter before the sun comes up, or a storm arrives this afternoon. We don’t have any readymade supplies for us to draw from, and the natural habitat doesn’t seem as helpful.”
Lots of grasses, flowers, and small bushes abound as far as the eyes can see, but the trees are few and scattered. Building a shelter like we’d been doing seems almost impossible, and if the wind whips the hail up here, like it does along the shore below, it’ll almost skin us.
“Can your Heart’s Fire help us?” Knowing nothing of the possibilities of magic, all I could do is cross my fingers and hope Laulaia had an easy solution.
“I’m sorry,” Laulaia apologized, shaking her head from side to side. “I mainly know the cultured forms. I’ve never studied the crafter’s or commoner’s forms. I don’t think anything I know will be that useful to providing shelter, or aiding basic survival. But,” she added proudly, “I can hunt now, just as good as Alaina can.”
“And you?” Turning my attention to Alaina, I put all my hope in a positive answer from her.
“I don’t have the gift,” Alaina shrugged. “I’ve never learned any of the forms.”
Great! We now have magic, but it’s all worthless, pampered little rich girl, magic. Nothing of actual use for us!
“I don’t have the gift, as you call it, either.” Grumbling at how poor my luck was, I started walking westward, following the edge of the river. All we can hope is moving inland will weaken the storms, and we might find something suitable to either use, or turn into shelter, before they hit us.
Sitting Shadow out of her pack, Alaina was the first to follow along. Barking and yipping excitedly, Shadow ran wild circles in all directions, happy to be back on the ground and enjoying his freedom. If only I could live with the same levels of worry as him, I think I’d be much happier.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
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The next several hours, we walked in relative silence, except for Shadow’s excessive barking and growling at every new plant, bush, or flower as we passed. The sun was just beginning to break over the eastern horizon, when my inner, girly, conscience warned me, “You don’t want to go this way.”
“Huh?” Confused by my own inner thought, I stopped and stared all around.
“Blisterberries are harmful for your skin,” the soft, feminine voice in my head told me.
“These?” I felt like an idiot talking to myself, while staring at a large outcropping of bright violet flowers with soft pink berries dangling enticingly from their stems. Both of the girls looked at me like I was actually as crazy as I felt I must be, and Laulaia used the opportunity to sit and rest. Her stamina level is much lower than mine and Alaina’s, so any opportunity she has to take it easy, she takes.
”Awooooo!” Yelping, Shadow suddenly jumped back and ran behind by leg. Half whimpering, half growling, he slowly licked at his side.
“What the heck happened?” Bending down and checking on the poor guy, a small deep spot of fur was singed and burnt, with a small watery blister forming beneath.
“One of those flower seeds popped and sprayed him with sap,” Alaina informed us. “I saw the whole thing.”
“I guess it’s a good thing you stopped here when you did,” Laulaia said. Staring out at the large field of flowers, she quivered slightly, imagining herself in the middle of them when the seed-like berries suddenly started popping. “That… would’ve been bad,’ she barely whispered.
“They’re blisterberries,” I told them. “We need to avoid getting to close to them, if we don’t want to end up all looking like Shadow.” Trying not to let my imagination envision the same scene as Laulaia’s, I used the moment to bend down and drink deeply from the edge of the river. Cool, crisp, and with a freshness unmarred by human pollution, the taste of the river was pure bliss.
“You know them?” Laulaia asked, staring in wonder at the small field of plants before us.
“Not really,” I admitted, shrugging my shoulders. How the hell am I supposed to explain that some girly little inner voice told me to stop and avoid them? That it named them for me? And what the hell is that voice anyway? My inner conscience? My dead wife haunting me from the grave? It doesn’t sound like her.
The longer I’m in this land, the harder it becomes to understand what the hell is going on here!
“We can turn and go south, and work our way around the edge of the berries,” I told the girls, trying to change the subject and not focus on my own self-doubts, “or we can hop into the edge of the river and hug it until we pass them. What do you girls want to do?”
“South. Go south,” said the ghostly little sexy lady in my head.
“It doesn’t seem to be a large field,” Laulaia offered. “We can just walk the edge of the river to pass them.”
“The river sounds fine,” Alaina said, agreeing with her lady in this matter, like she does in all others. “It’s cooler here than it was at the beach, but not such that the water would be uncomfortable or anything. A nice walk in it would just help wash the sweat away from the climb and morning’s hike.”
“South. Go south,” the little sexy ghost girl repeated, in my head.
Frowning, I thought for a moment, before turning and walking south along the flowers. I didn’t bother to explain to the girls why I was ignoring their recommendations, but how the hell can I tell them that my conscience, a ghost, or a damn secret split personality was urging me to go that way? Even if I can’t explain what it is, it’s the reason why we didn’t end up wandering in to that patch of flowers. I just can’t ignore it in good conscience.
For now, I guess I’ll put a little trust in the ghost whispering in my ear – but I’ll definitely have to be cautious. I really can’t be certain if it’s friendly, or if it’s just leading me into a trap somewhere so it can eat us later.
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Casper, as I’m going to start calling my friendly inner ghost, never spoke again as we worked our way almost a mile south from the river, following the edge of the blisterberry patch. Turning back roughly westward, Laulaia spoke up after several minutes. “What about there?”
Looking where she was pointing a little southwest from our current position, several twisted and gnarled trees grew in a small patch together. “It’s not that great,” I griped, “but it’s the best place we’ve seen so far. Let’s see if we can at least toss something together for shelter, before the storms come this afternoon.”
“We might need a fire too,” Laulaia offered. “It’s quite a bit cooler up here.”
“It should be about the middle of Autumn now, but it’s not bad yet.” Seemingly unbothered by the temperature, Alaina shrugged off the issue, even though she was still running around basically naked. Laulaia, in her own way, was actually fairly well covered at the moment. Wearing my shirt, with her thigh-high boots and shoulder-length gloves, she was probably the one most protected from the elements, with the exception of Shadow.
Dressed in my pants and boots, with my chest bare to the world, I had to agree with Alaina – it really wasn’t what I’d call uncomfortable up top here on the plains yet, either. In fact, I’d consider it a lot more comfortable than dealing with the blistering heat and humidity of the beach below! Maybe Laulaia just needs a little more weight to carry, to help her work up a sweat a little better.
“I’m not saying it’s cold now,” Laulaia snorted, dispelling that notion almost as if she’d read my mind. “But if it starts to hail later, the temperature sure does drop then, and you might be happy I mentioned a fire at that time.”
“True, true.” I agreed with her, trying to prevent any argument from breaking out while we’re all tired and moody. Examining the small grove of trees – if one could call an outcropping of a dozen twisted trees bunched close together a “grove” – I wasn’t very impressed. Leaves were only about half the size of my palm, and the trees’ limbs weren’t very thick or dense. I honestly doubt they’ll do much to prevent the rain, or hail, from reaching the ground. Still, this is the best area we’ve seen after several hours of walking so far.
“We’re not going to be able to build a very comfortable shelter like we’ve been staying in,” I warned the girls. “In fact, we’re going to have a hard time building any sort of reasonable shelter here.”
“Do you want to keep moving then?” Sitting down, Laulaia looked like she dreaded the idea, even as she said it.
“I don’t think so,” I assured her, shaking my head from side to side. “This isn’t much, but we need a break soon, and we’re not guaranteed to find anything better.”
“So what’s the plan, my lord-husband?” As energetic as ever, Alaina seemed as if she was ready to jump right to work.
“A lean-to bivouac,” I told her, unable to think of anything better.
“Bivouac?” Laulaia asked, not recognizing the unusual term.
“We’ll stretch a vine from this tree to that one,” I explained, pointing at about waist height. “Then we’ll cut limbs from these other trees and angle them across that vine, giving us a sloped shelter. We’ll cut as much tall grass and such as we can, and layer it over the limbs, hoping it’ll protect reasonably from the rain and hail. It’ll have three sides opened to the elements,” I warned, “but we can minimize exposure by snuggling tightly in the center. One of you girls is going to have it rough though, as you’ll be the one most outside”, I told them, grimacing at the thought.
“I’ll sleep on the outside,” Alaina volunteered, while Laulaia asked, “Why?”
“Because you guys can wear the most protection,” I told her, thinking it was a cope-out myself. A man should protect women, not hide between them. Unfortunately, they can wear my pants and shirt, but I can’t wear their boots or gloves. The high quality leather is much better than my poor man-skin, at resisting the scouring hail.
Nodding her understanding, Laulaia began stripping while Alaina and I started on the heavy construction.