Darell forced a smile as he excused himself, mumbling apologies as he bumped into people along the way. He headed toward the basement exit, eager to escape the hot mass of limbs flinging themselves about to the beat of the drums. Dancing was something he knew he would never understand, much less enjoy. Still, he couldn’t afford to miss the event entirely; that would no doubt just lead to further headaches down the road.

Normally, he would stay for around ten minutes, ensuring that enough people noticed his presence before disappearing. Right now, his frustration was straining his willingness to endure another second. As he exited the basement and mercifully put closed doors between himself and the loudspeakers, Darell’s steps became lighter and he let out a breath that he hadn’t known he was holding. Hell is other people indeed.

Tonight was a once-in-a-lifetime event. All eight planets in the Solar System would be aligning themselves in the sky for the first time in recorded history, and the school celebrated by getting drunk in the basement. It was madness. Still, it meant that there had been no issues with reserving the school’s telescope for himself. There were advantages to having a disposition apart from the masses. Sometimes.

As he pushed through the last trapdoor, Darell was met with the sight of the telescope standing on the roof where he had set it up during his lunch break. He began making the final adjustments on the telescope, mainly checking that everything was lined up correctly. The telescope was an older model that was difficult to adjust and it would change positions from a solid gust of wind or the hinges failing, but luckily everything was in place and ready. All that remained now was to wait, so Darell sat by the edge of the roof, enjoying the cool bliss of the night sky.

~~~~//—\\~~~~

Ethan caught a glimpse of Darell leaving the celebration and, after a moment's hesitation, began making his way toward the door. Unfortunately, his larger bulk made moving through the crowds more difficult than it had been for Darell. Moreover, he had to stop to return greetings now and then and reassure his classmates that he would be right back. As a result, he was facing an empty corridor when he finally arrived at the exit, offering no clue as to where Darell had gone.

There was the possibility that Darell had left for home, but that was unlikely. Darell’s parents would definitely demand an explanation if he arrived early and would become even more committed to forcing him out of his room to socialize. Still, it didn’t hurt to check.

Looking through a window, Ethan confirmed his suspicions as he spotted Darell’s bicycle still untouched in the stands. It seemed a safe bet to assume that he was still at school. The question was, where? He went from room to room, checking the most likely spots. The library, classrooms and courtyard were all empty. Could Darell have left after all? But, no, hadn’t he been doing something on the roof during lunch?

Ethan headed for the roof, perfecting his plan of attack. If he was to have any chance at success, he would first need to lower Darell’s guard; something that had proven increasingly difficult as of late.

He pushed open the trapdoor leading to the roof and was rewarded with the sight of Darell sitting on the edge with a large telescope set up next to him. Darell turned around to stare at him, his usual frown plastered across his face.

“Hey ‘Ell, took me a while to track you down. At this rate I’ll have to get myself a bloodhound soon”, Ethan chuckled, then stopped abruptly as Darell just continued to stare at him coldly.

He tried a different approach.

“I see that you’ve been busy,” he said, indicating the telescope, “mind if I take a closer look?” He didn't wait for a response before starting toward the telescope.

“Wait,” Darell’s voice was quiet but firm. The first hurdle had been overcome. The rest should follow easily, right? Darell continued as Ethan stopped “it took me the better part of an hour to set it up, and it shifts easily. Don’t touch anything”.

“I won’t touch,” Ethan promised, before approaching and pretending to examine the telescope.

Several long moments of silence followed. Finally, Darell spoke up.

“What do you want, Ethan,” he grumbled, sounding defeated.

“Do you remember the sleepovers we had up until ninth grade? You would come to my house and we would stay up late in the evening playing video games and talking. You would make some scathing remark about my naive outlook on the world and I would tease you about your crush on Aurora.”

Darell, who had been listening impassively up until this point, deepened his frown at the last part. The fish was well caught on the hook now.

“I did not have a crush on Aurora. We barely even interacted save for a couple of exchanged greetings,” Darell said as he stood up from his place along the edge, moving a bit closer.

“You did too,” Ethan smirked, “you would always blush and become very quiet whenever she was around. Plus, you admitted you liked her personality.”

“I said that I respected her work ethic and admired her bravery in putting herself out there. It is not the same thing. Just because she is of the opposite sex doesn’t mean that I can’t hold her in high esteem from a purely platonic point of view,” Darell huffed loudly, growing redder around his cheeks.

“Sure,” Ethan rolled his eyes even as he grinned broadly “Whatever you say. You know I’m right.”

He paused, taking a deep breath before continuing in a more reserved tone “what happened to us? We used to be like two peas in a pod. We did everything together. Now, this is the longest conversation that we have had for months.”

Darell deflated at that, turning away from Ethan. When he spoke again, his tone was flat.

“Look, Ethan. We’re different people, alright? When we were younger, things were simpler. We had fun together, and I treasure those memories. But, things are more complicated now. You have your sports activities and parties, and I have my books and telescopes. It is better this way,” his voice grew quieter as he spoke and Ethan had to strain to hear the last part.

“That’s bullshit,” Ethan said roughly before composing himself, “Look, the boys and I are planning to go camping over the weekend. You should come with us. For old times' sake if nothing else. You don’t need to worry about sleeping bags or tents. I got you covered.”

Darell opened his mouth to respond, but Ethan interrupted him, “no need to decide whether you’re going now, just think about it, ok? I’ll come by your house before we leave and you can make your decision then. It’d be fun to have you along.”

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With that, Ethan turned to go.

The temperature suddenly plummeted. Ethan’s breathing turned ragged as icy daggers formed in his lungs and a bone-chilling wind rushed past from above, forcing him to stumble backwards. Thrusting his gaze upwards, Ethan saw through squinting eyes what looked like cracks forming in the sky, no more than thirty meters away. They blistered outwards as he watched, and soon revealed an opening wide enough to glimpse a dark reality beyond, illuminated only by a woman who stood shining on the other side. She was drawing back a bow that pulled in the air around it and held an arrow covered in vibrant, ever-shifting colours that made the world look much bleaker around it.

Noticing that the woman was aiming for the rooftop, Ethan panicked and turned around. He saw Darell staggering against the wind still bursting from the cracks. He did not appear to have realised the danger of the incoming arrow yet. Ethan tried to shout at Darell to throw himself to the ground through his fiercely chattering teeth, but the wind drowned out his words. As he heard the twang of a bowstring being released, Ethan threw himself at Darell with a primal roar, knocking them both down in a heap. In the next moment, he felt an intense pain erupting from his chest and drifted into unconsciousness. He hoped Darell was alright.

~~~~//—\\~~~~

Darell opened his eyes, his head feeling a bit fuzzy and reverberating with the occasional spike of pain. He appeared to be lying on the floor in a white room, but it was difficult to make out the walls. On a second look, he wasn’t sure if there were any walls. It all blurred together. Standing up and looking around he saw a person sprawled across the floor to his right in white clothing. Ethan? His chest was moving up and down so he was alive, but still unconscious.

Bringing a hand to his still aching head, he tried to remember how he had gotten here. Hadn’t he been on the roof with the telescope? That’s right. He had been preparing to see the planetary alignment when Ethan had intruded. Then the sky had broken open and a lady had aimed her bow through the hole at Ethan, who had proceeded to throw himself at Darell. It might have been a trick of the light, but he was fairly convinced he had seen the arrow swerve through the air toward Ethan, hitting mid-leap before going straight through and striking him as well. As far as he was concerned, that made Ethan somehow responsible for his current predicament.

Speaking of, where was he? Shouldn’t he be dying at the moment? Perhaps this was at a hospital? His chest was fine despite having been pierced not long ago. There was no gaping hole. As he put a hand to his chest, he felt that something was awry.

Looking down at his hands, They felt off, but everything was in the correct place and he had a full range of motion as far as he could tell. It took him a few moments to realise what was bothering him. Darell had been born with a shorter than average middle finger on his left hand. Not enough to matter overly much, but enough to notice. His middle finger should have been about as long as his index finger, but it was at least half a centimetre longer than that. Bringing his hands together, they matched up perfectly.

Observing his hands closer, he noticed that his middle finger growing a bit longer was not the only change. There was no burn mark from when he had touched a hot pan at the age of five. The nails were perfectly trimmed and his birthmark had disappeared. Darell narrowed his eyes as he glared at his hands. They were connected to him and moved when he willed them to, but they felt almost like they had been grafted to his body.

He was getting stuck up on details. Perhaps just a bit more important than his new makeover was the fact that a hole had opened in the sky and he had been shot by an arrow. Yet, here he was. Alone with an unconscious Ethan in a white room.

Darell took a moment to organise his thoughts and try to sift through what had just happened. What he had just seen did not fit with the world he knew. Could he be in a simulation of some kind? If so, someone must have been hiding that technology in some secret government bunker somewhere. But that sounded too much like a conspiracy theory.

What was the alternative exactly? He looked down at his fingers again. They were still jarringly symmetrical. No blemishes or discolourations of any kind. Even so, they seemed so real. Foreign, even unnatural, but real.

Darell tried pinching his skin and received a jolt of pain for his troubles. It had been a far shot anyway.

Another alternative, a bit more morbid, was that he was already dead. Maybe, upon death one is transported to a white room with no discernable walls together with whoever died nearby and put in white clothing with a new body. That didn’t match any religious beliefs he was familiar with, but was not invalid. What it did not explain, however, was what he had seen just before his ‘death’.

Could it be aliens? A God that decided his time was up? Maybe magic was real? That last one might not be too bad.

Often the simplest solution was the best one, and needing two impossible theories to explain what he had just seen was more convoluted than one. As such, it was probable that the circumstance he was currently in was in some way related to the hole in the sky. But how they fit together was beyond him at the moment.

With a sigh, he turned to look over at his sleeping classmate. The arrow that had struck them both had been aimed at Ethan. Perhaps he could explain more about what happened. He started bending over to wake Ethan up when he was interrupted by a deep voice booming from behind him.

“You are not supposed to be here.”

Darell turned around to see a tall man looming a few meters away. He could have sworn that the man had not been there a few seconds ago. He towered over Darell, being at least three meters tall and bare-chested, showing off an impressive muscular physique. He wore a toga around his waist and metal bracers around his shins and upper arms. What drew Darell’s eyes, however, was his face which had an ageless quality to it. It appeared perfectly sculpted, with no creases or wrinkles, but at the same time, Darell could not see it as the face of a young man, though the why of that eluded him. The man’s eyes glowed, emitting a brilliant yellow light that was painful to look at and he wore a grim visage.

Darell opened his mouth to respond, not sure what he would say when another man appeared beside the first, this one dressed in resplendent white clothes and adopting a posture of subservience toward the taller man. A pair of large wings fanned out behind the new arrival. This time Darell was certain that the man had not been there a moment before.

“There has been a mistake, Great One,” the new arrival remarked, his rather high-pitched voice contrasting greatly to that of the ‘Great One’, “this one was brought here accidentally as the arrow of providence hit two targets, binding their fates together. By your leave, I will take the extra and dispose of him.”

Darell felt a chill go through his body. What did it mean that this man would ‘dispose’ of him? Would they kill him? Fear raced through his veins. He had to do something, but what could he do? He knew nothing of these people or what they wanted from him. He willed his limbs to move, perhaps to run. They would not listen. He stood petrified as the tall man spoke again.

“Nay, you are too quick to discard useful tools Ashmael. The cost spent on remaking him is already gone. True, this one does not have the talent or disposition to serve us as a champion, but perhaps he can still be of some use. Release him into the dungeon. If he survives, he may yet serve.”

The smaller man - presumably Ashmael - smiled slyly at that. He did not offer further comment, however, but rather stood up straight and turned toward Darell. In the next moment, the man was right next to him and placed a hand on his neck. The world shifted as colours and shapes flew by too quick to make out. Finally, the world stabilised around them and they were standing in darkness. Darell stumbled as Ashmael let go of his neck and disappeared.

As his eyes adjusted, Darell noticed that he was in a large cavern. The walls were covered in veins of a glowing blue crystal that softly illuminated the area as they pulsated with light. Rather than air, the cavern was filled with a thick mist that made everything look hazy and each breath effortful.

Darell took a few moments to compose himself. He finally stopped quivering and rubbed the sides of his forehead as he tried to think. Looking at the solid walls around him, he forced himself to take his new situation seriously. This was not a dream. Whatever it was, and wherever he was, he needed to accept that this is his reality, at least for the moment. He felt cold and afraid. He was still, on some level, expecting to wake up at any second. But the world did not shift again. He closed his eyes hard and opened them again. His clothes were still white. He was still in a cavern. His middle finger was still longer than his index finger. And he was alone.

~~~~//—\\~~~~