The weight of his body was driving her head down under water, but she could not push him away. His robes must have been far more voluminous than they looked because the excessive fabric was getting tangled around her as she tried to figure out which way was up. Her feet touched what felt like the bottom of a lake. She braced herself and kicked upward, dragging the unmoving form that was still tangled with her up as well. Her head broke the surface, and she gasped, drawing fresh air into her lungs.
She had just enough time to look around and see the shoreline only six or seven meters away before the strange man started struggling and pulled her back under. An elbow drove into her face, and she swallowed water. Panic filled her mind as she pushed him away long enough to get the fabric unwrapped from her arms and kick back to the surface. Seeing she was a little farther away from the shore than before, she grabbed a handful of the robe and started kicking as hard as she could toward the promise of dry land.
It took longer than it should have, but eventually she felt sand when her hand reached the farthest part of her stroke, and she let her feet drop down to rest on the beach under the shallow water. An exhausted tug pulled the figure floating behind her up onto the somewhat dry surface with her, and she let go of the hand full of fabric. She dropped her head onto her hands as she coughed up some of the brackish water. A high-pitched cough sounded somewhere to her left, but she did not have the energy to turn her head, so she didn't.
"What the hell did you do?" She asked wearily, her forehead nestled on her fists. "Why am I suddenly on a beach?"
"Look what you did to me!"A voice that could only belong to a young child sounded out, and she forced her head to the side. "Why did you force yourself along?"
Zaria watched as a small head of cyan colored hair poked out of the mess of robes. A little boy, maybe ten years of age, scowled at her as soon as his head was free. She blinked at him and sat up with a groan. "Where did that crazy man go?"
"Crazy man? You are the one who is crazy. Why didn't you just walk away? Were you trying to get me killed?" Silver eyes glared at her, and she couldn't help the laugh that burst out. "What are you laughing at?"
"Are you...are you him? But you are so little!" She exclaimed, covering her mouth to hide the smile that peaked out.
"Stop laughing at me! This is your fault! You interrupted the spell by being in the way and making me trip over you, and it pulled you in with me! Now, almost all of my energy is gone, and my body had to revert to this to recover." His lower lip poked out petulantly.
She stared at him for another moment before bursting into laughter. "I had no idea my imagination was this good!" She fell forward into the sand with a whump. Grumbling was heard in the silent air, but she could not make out what was being said, nor did she care. As her laughter began to twist toward hysteria, she felt warmth surround her, and the water trickling off of her close curls stopped with a hiss. She swallowed her sounds and sat up, her clothes completely dry once more. Where the little boy was there now stood an even smaller child dressed in a much smaller but better fitting set of robes.
"What is wrong with you?Why are you eating my magic?" He dusted his clothing off and glared at her.
"What are you talking about?" She asked as she stood up as well. "You are the one who keeps trying to use it on me, and why are you even smaller now?"
The little boy was now about five or six, his large silver eyes shimmering as he looked around them. "You idiot, I said you were sucking up my magic. Every time it touches you, you suck it in like a greedy little black hole. I should have just left you soaked. But you saved this one's weak body from drowning, so I repaid you. We are even now. Have a nice life." With that, he turned and started to walk away from the water line and out into a large, barren field.
Zaria scrambled after him as she dusted herself off. "You wait just a second, you rude little chibi. You brought me here, and you are not leaving me alone here."
The boy said nothing, walking along as though she were not there. His round toed little boots crunched along the dry dirt, stepping across what were once carefully tilled rows of some kind of crop. She walked behind him, her pace matching his so that he could neither run away or be overtaken. In the distance, there was the charred remains of an old homestead, blackened timbers standing stark against the grey sky.
"What happened here," she asked him in a hushed voice.
"Super volcano, somewhere in the middle of the continent. Maybe... a hundred years ago. The heat it emitted burned everything from one ocean to the next, or at least the things that were not destroyed in the initial explosion."
"But why does it still look like this if it has been a hundred years," she inquired. The boy already seemed to have forgotten that he wasn't going to talk to her, so she figured that she might as well ask some questions before he remembered.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
"Idiot. The ash thrown into the atmosphere chilled everything. The lands were abandoned because nothing would grow. Most of the people died from inhaling all the poisonous vapors, so there was no point in reclaiming the land. The rest of the world considers this continent a wasteland. They have their own problems to deal with. It was a seemingly endless winter for years, and everyone's crops died." He stepped out of the field and continued on toward the burnt out building in the distance.
Zaria wandered after him, carefully watching where she placed each step. The boy seemed to know where he was going. She couldn't help asking, "Have you been here before?"
"I pass through this universe to rest often. Nobody lives for thousands of miles around this spot. I don't have to worry about nosy girls asking questions." He snorted and drew his robes tighter around his small form.
"Universe? What do you mean you pass through this universe? Where are we?" There were no more answers, and Zaria fought the urge to smack the annoying little kid across his head. She assumed that he would not try to use his magic on her since it caused him trouble, but claiming to know what a complete stranger was going to do seemed like a dumb idea. She tucked her chin to her chest and followed in his footsteps.
Twice along the way, his little feet caught on a root or rock sticking up from the ground, but he pretended nothing happened, so she did as well. Thick clouds covered the sky, so she had no idea how much time had actually passed, but she would bet it had been at least a couple of hours.
The skeleton of the house was well behind them. It had seemed to be the destination, but he merely paused, lining himself up with a corner of the barn and looking around before changing his direction a bit more away from the lake behind them and continuing on.
There were no birds or small animals wandering around. There was no food, unless it was insects somewhere below the surface, and very little shelter. Occasionally, in the distance, she could see scraggly lines poking out into the air, the corpses of trees that had not yet broken apart and fallen to the ground.
The sky was much darker by the time they stopped at a small stone house. Cracked ceramic roofing tiles covered the front half. Upon entering, she could see that the support beams holding up the back half had given way,broken chunks of tile covering the floor. The boy stepped across them and crouched down to pull something out from a hole in the floor.
"What's that," she asked curiously. The boy jerked backward and landed on his butt. He looked up at her with a surprised expression. "Oh my - you forgot I was here,didn't you?"
He shrugged and continued to tug at a handle sticking up out of the floor. "Why would I waste my time thinking about something insignificant like you?"
"Because, you little jerk," she pushed him out of the way and grabbed the handle, hauling a massive trunk out of the hole, "Your bitty boy arms can't lift your big old box and I can."
He crawled across the floor to the trunk and smacked her hands away in order to undo the clasps and buckles. "It's your fault I am this size anyway."
"And how do you figure that? You are the one that dragged me here, accident or not. You are the one who dried my clothes, after I saved your little butt I will remind you. I didn't ask you to do those things. So how is it my fault exactly?" Zaria crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes.
The boy did not respond. The lid to the trunk swung upward, and he reached inside of it. Grabbing two small packages, he threw one at her. She reached out and caught it, turning it over in her hands. "What is this?"
"Food. You take it from its wrapper and eat it." He proceeded to show her by tearing his open and shoving the whole bar of food into his mouth. She rolled her eyes but did not reply.
Zaria carefully sat down on top of a pile of ceiling tiles and opened the wrapper. Inside was a light brown rectangle that looked like a cross between a granola bar and beef jerky. "Thank you ," she said before taking a small bite off of the corner. It was bitter, like sucking on green tea leaves, and she swallowed it quickly instead of spitting it out. She had not eaten since lunch. Who knew when she would eat next?
"This universe is a good one to stop in when I need to hide away for a bit. Even before the eruption, nobody came to this area often except during harvest or planting times. A little 'don't look here' magic, and I will always have somewhere to sleep. It's dirtier now,though." He spoke around his mouthful of food, chewing loudly.
Ignoring the spittle flying out, she decided to try and ask a few questions. "What do you mean by this universe?"
The little food bar was swallowed, mostly intact, and he leaned back against a wall. "There are an infinite number of universes, all piled up on each other. No,not piled up. More like jumbled, a bunch of balls in a cosmic sack. Most of these universe balls have thick coatings that keep them separate from each other, but some have holes that allow you to move freely. Or, they allow things to pass through. Your universe, for instance, is riddled with teeny tiny openings. A person can't just walk through , but thoughts and sounds can sometimes. You called them muses, I think. Lately, there have been a lot more of these holes opening thanks to the dark creatures. They are looking for something, so I am looking for them to figure out what."
"Wait, so I am in another universe? How did I get here if the holes are so teeny tiny?" Without realizing, Zaria was leaning forward as she listened.
"I use glyphs that are fed by my own energy to open windows, which then shut behind me to keep things from spilling over. You should not have been able to get through one, but the dark one hit me at just the right second and your ... whatever it is that you do that sucks up energy...pulled you along with me at the cost of almost all of my energy." He kicked the trunk closed with his foot and closed his silvery eyes.
"Thank you for answering me." She said politely. "I'm sorry it happened to you, but how do I get back?"
There was no answer. Zaria watched as his chest moved up and down for a moment, unsure if he was asleep or just pretending. She moved back against the wall opposite him and wrapped her hands around her knees as she watched him. She was scared to close her eyes in case he disappeared, and she watched him for hours. In the end, her eyes shut by themselves and she slept.