A scorching light shined the sand, tips of brittle and purple crystals of the barren land below, enveloping the ground into a spectacle of dancing sparkles. For a mere second, until a blob made out of blue liquid smashed like a falling meteorite.
Instead of a crater, a puddle stretched over a large distance and small droplets bounced into the sky poured softly back, gently waking up the figure that stood in the middle of the crash. The disheveled girl groaned, feeling her body like it was trying to wrap her bones into a compact package. She spent her first few seconds awake trying to remember how to breathe, and the next minutes how joints bend. Her thin legs could barely hold her up straight, and her knees were shaking, almost ready to give out, while her head was pounding from a headache, and to make matters worse, the land was rude to her, spinning around like a wild tumbleweed.
It took a while, but slowly and surely, her body recovered bit by bit, lowering the internal shaking from an earthquake to an old locomotive. After several attempts, she found a stable standing position, stretching her scratched hands to balance herself. Even her eyes stopped whirling frantically, and the girl could finally fixate her gaze on something. Unfortunately for her, the land had only a selection of only dunes, cracked lands, crystal constructs and the puddle she was in.
A single attempt to step forward was enough to make her lose her minuscule tie with balance; enough to make her topple forward and just as she was about to plant face-first into the murky soil, the water moved on its own and caught her with a pair of gelatinous hands. It jiggled and waved frantically while trying to hold the girl steady. Soon after, the semblance of body started to form from the puddle, slowly building a shape.
Liquid tendrils spiraled around in strings of helices, joining each other at points; after the construct had a design, the water became stiffer, going through a solidification process. It took only a few seconds, but it swiftly towered over the girl’s height, being almost twice as big as her. After it formed what seemed like a gray skeleton made out of clay, the water started to replicate more parts of the body.
From the bottom, clay and liquid wrapped around the skeleton, with two short, stubby legs materializing first, followed by a broad torso and chest. Two people side by side could almost cover the wide body of the creature. As soon as the hands started to form, its back hunched and the limbs didn’t stop growing until they touched the ground. The creature could stay only arch forward from the base of the neck as if dragged down by the oversized arms, which grew larger and broader as it got to the palms.
After it achieved its transformation, the creature took a few steps backward, trying to put some distance between itself and the girl, while hiding where its head should be with the right hand. All the remaining water gathered and traveled up to piece together the last part of the being: a neckless, hairless head, with elongated bumps to each side, and a yellow eye, shaped like a diamond, covering half of the face.
The girl froze on the spot at the sight of the being, unable to comprehend what it was or what was happening. Before her mind could understand the situation, her body reacted without input, and she broke the tension with a harmless question.
Redhead girl- “Og…Ogda?”
The creature she called Ogda continued to stare at her, without blinking, moving or making any noise from its mouthless head; a firm statue made out of clay and water. A nagging thought worm made her doubt her memory for a moment, and suspicion about the being. “I…what did I say? A name? It’s name?”, thought the young woman, whose mind was racing through scenario after scenario, food for a growing sentiment of uneasiness.
Her self-inflicted panic paralysis was dispelled when a red, transparent, outline of her body separated from Lian. A hallucination, more than likely, but one that also seemed to know this “Ogda”, as it gently petted his arm. The red outline disappeared after she scrubbed her eyes, but it left a lingering feeling inside her. “Ogda…the name is familiar but also...incomplete…”
Whatever it was, the girl knew its name, but not what it was, only that they possibly had a common history. Thoughts and facts in order, she gathered that Ogda was a being made of water, but somehow limited now. Once Lian came back from her trance, her ears perked up and finally managed to capture the muffled sounds coming to his head.
“Is he saying something?”, thought the girl, now trying to calm down Ogda, who started to panic and flail his arms around in very slow swings. That, combined with his lack of balance in his body, made his foreshadowed tumble a reality.
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While dropping, his rigid hands swiped both a rock and purple crystal, shattering both of them without a hinge; that didn’t wake him from his statuesque condition, a clear sign that the creature wasn’t in full control of his body. “At least not at this stage in his lifespan”, came to mind as a smaller version of Ogda blinked in her head
Redhead girl - “You’ve lost control of your rigidification, Ogda. Remember? Just blink if you understand what I’m saying.”
Ogda could only hear from the left side, but his partner's voice brought him an immediate sense of nostalgia and discipline, which moved his attention back to her. He didn’t know or need to know why, but his gut feeling was telling him that whatever she said, he was to follow, as the young woman was always right.
“ Good, good”, she repeated in a mild succession, trying to praise him and bring him to a calm disposition. “Now, stop squirming and try to liquefy your body. Can you focus on just one part?”
He blinked once in agreement.
Redhead girl- “Focus on your head then, part by part, try to reverse the solidified parts a few steps backward, ok? Think of a wave, of how it hits the shore, then it slowly drags itself back into the ocean”. The metaphor hit close to home for Ogda, whose image of a tide mellowed his nerves and stiff head.
Just as she asked, he started to change his body structure, from the top coursing down, slowly, until he sensed the tip of his hove-like legs. Now that he could use his gaze without panicked fear, Ogda’s mind sprung into action and do what felt natural: sweep the surrounding area, checking for any kind of danger that might hurt the girl. It felt strange but to him, the main drive of his being was to keep her safe and sound, a command he felt throughout his entire body.
Ogda- “Lian…you are not hurt, are you?”, he asked, even though a mouth was still missing. As soon as both of them heard the question, bits and pieces of the answer came flooding into their minds, as if prepared when a trigger word or sentence was uttered. Three pieces of things were made clear to both.
-They’ve known each other for years now.
-The question came from a being much larger than Ogda’s, so it might that his appearance has changed somehow from how he was before they got here.
-This was not their world.
“There were others. I remember shapes, hands, fingers”, added Lian with a dazed look on her face. “ I don’t know if they were humans or beings like you.”
“Human? So you are a human?... Right”, Ogda acknowledged, as if trying to sort it out for himself. A few seconds of silence later, he asks, just to clear his mind of it: “ And I am not a human, correct?”
Lian- “I…don’t think so. Humans aren’t made out of water”, she added before realizing her mistake and swiftly snapped a correction,” Just out of water!... Let’s leave it at I’m the human and you’re still a mystery, ok? And I do remember something else, though, you being bigger.”
At which Ogda pondered for a bit, pointed towards Lian, and brought up how he already was bigger than her.
Lian- “Well, bigger than the current you”.
The creature stretched his head to take a closer look at his body, feeling more inquisitive about it than what happened to them. Until a familiar snap of the fingers brought his attention back to the girl. While his memories lay dormant, his attachment and loyalty to his companion appeared as if they were imprinted into his being.
-”Correct”, replied Ogda in a hurry.“ So…what do we do now?”
None of them had any clue about the barren wasteland they seemed to have appeared into. The mystery about the land was even weirder, as both had recollections about a world they lived in, but it was so much different from the one they found themselves in.
“Everything is not just different, but feels wrong”, remarked Lian. She scoured the horizon and investigated the cloudy, blue sky and it just gave her shivers down her spine. It was alien, everything about the place felt out of place.
…
The first hypothesis was that they either appeared out of nowhere or fell from the sky. From where exactly, neither could tell nor why even they dropped from such a height. Lian proposed that maybe Ogda could fly; maybe he was capable of turning into vapors, perhaps some cloud form? But the creature wasn’t thrilled to test out the theory- ” Truth be told, I’m still having trouble keeping this form. I didn’t want to say, but I lost a leg a minute ago… It got too solid and cracked from my body…I’m still trying to connect it back…”
The second hypothesis was that something forced them to leave their world to this one, “or an explosion thrust us here!” The girl was racking her head with countless scenarios, trying to remember anything about the last few hours, days or even months at least. But nothing; ” I mean, look at it”, Lian cried in fury, “the sky isn’t even right. It’s blue, and it has flying things, clouds, and three moons.”
-” Actually it’s two moons and a submoon”, interjected Ogda.
Lian -” Submoon…what are you talking about?”
He used his second, middle finger to properly point towards his observation-” Yes, if you look closely, it has two big moons and the little one is the submoon of the right one. It’s also called a moonmoon.”
Lian’s irritation gradually lowered, and she managed to calm down a bit-” Oh…a moonmoon”, she remarked quietly. “That's kinda cute. I remember our world having something similar, right?”
Ogda was unsure about that and asked her if she was sure about it. Lian, a bit disappointed that there was a bit of discrepancy between their memories, decided to shrug the issue away for the time being.
Their surveying of the sky brought their attention towards two birds flying very low past a dune nearby. “Maybe towards a drinking source?”. So, for now, the two decided to pick that direction and move towards it.