Much like Blake, Eliana had found herself in the dark void before being drawn towards that strange doorway and thrown into this world. Unlike Blake she was sober when she was brought here. She had been in the process of cooking dinner for her daughter when she found herself in the void. This meant she had been much quicker to accept the reality of this realm. She glanced at the tree behind the man and noticed the bullet mark. I nearly killed him! She knelt down next to him and pulled out the first aid kit she had found in the rucksack she had picked up earlier.

Eliana stopped and looked up at Blake. He silently nodded his consent once more. She then began to unwrap his makeshift bandages and inspect the wounds.

Eliana winced as she checked Blake over.

“It’s deep! How did you manage to fight them off?”

“I almost didn’t… Luckily there was a knife inside the bag I found. I somehow managed to reach it before that creature killed me, but not before it did this.” He said motioning to the wounds.

“You were lucky then. I’ve come across others that didn’t fare as well in the woods.”

“You found bodies as well?”

Eliana slowly nodded.

“Yes…” She grimaced at the thought. “I’m glad I found you alive! I was starting to think that everyone else here was already dead…”

“I almost was too.” Blake laughed awkwardly.

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, you did the right thing. The thing I came across, I mistook it for a person at first, it nearly cost me my life.”

“But I could’ve hit you!”

“Luckily, you didn’t.” He smiled a warm smile at her.

She wasn’t quite sure how to take it and turned away, focusing on cleaning and dressing his wounds. I hope he isn’t like that. She made quick work of washing out the deep cuts and covering them with fresh bandages from her kit.

“You’re really good at that, are you a nurse or something?” He asked.

“No, nothing like that, I just know a little first aid.”

Few, he doesn’t seem to know who I am. It was a relief. Eliana was fairly famous where she came from as a model. She did a lot of work that was fairly risqué, some of it in the nude. This gave a lot of men she met online or in real life the misunderstanding that she was going to let them do whatever they liked to her. This meant that they tried to take liberties with her. Some of the messages she received on social media were utterly disgusting. It had started to erode her trust in men. Especially ones she had just met. At least he doesn’t seem to be one of them. He seems nice enough, but I shouldn’t let my guard down, not here. It wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong. She glanced at the gun for a split second, then let out her breath, relieved it was still safely attached to the holster on her hip.

“Um, thank you for doing that. Leaving it as it was, I’d have probably got an infection in no time.” He said as she finished dressing his wounds.

“Don’t worry about it. Think of it as an apology for shooting at you out of the blue.”

“Well, thanks… Oh, I’m Blake by the way.” He said, offering her his hand.

“Nice to meet you, Blake. I’m Eliana.” She said, shaking his hand. “Shame we couldn’t meet under better circumstances!”

She had told him her real name without thinking about it. She normally used the name she worked under with everyone that wasn’t a close friend. It was the strange situation that had thrown her for a moment, that and the fact she had almost killed him a few minutes ago. No, perhaps it’s better that way. He might be the only other person here and if he doesn’t think of me like that, maybe that’s better. He was the first living person she had come across and despite her caution, she was genuinely happy to have found another living person here.

“Yeah, if only! So…” Blake looked around. “What is this place anyway?”

“I have no idea… I found myself in a dark place, then there was a door and then I ended up here on the grass a few miles that way.” She said pointing into the distance.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“So that happened to you too. I still wasn’t entirely sure that any of that was real, but if it happened to you then…”

“It seemed real enough to me, I’d prefer it wasn’t though. I’ve been wandering around this place for at least a week…”

Blake sat bolt upright. “You've been here a whole week??”

“Yes, at least I think it’s been that long.” Her shoulders dropped as she tried to work out the time once again. “It’s hard to keep track of the days here. I’ve just been living off the supplies in those silver cubes all this time.”

“I can’t believe you’ve been here that long!”

Eliana’s face dropped. “You mean you haven’t?”

Blake shook his head. “No. At least as far as I can tell, I’ve only been here since this morning.”

Eliana held the side of her head. So maybe I was alone before. It doesn’t seem like people are brought here at the same time. But what does that mean? Despite being here for a week, she still had no idea why she was brought here or for what purpose. The only clues she had to go on was that strange message at the doorway and that she could find supplies in the silver cubes. At least now she knew that she wasn’t alone here.

Realising she had been zoning out Eliana looked at Blake. “Did you see that strange message at the doorway before you came here?” She asked, hoping for confirmation it wasn’t just her.

“You mean that floating writing. Something like, uh, confirmed potential. Restrictions lifted. Pathway open. Survival reliant on actualisation of all available possibilities?”

“Yes, that! That’s it! So, you saw the same thing as me.” She sighed in relief at knowing it wasn’t just her. “I still don’t understand what it means or if it even has anything to do with why we were brought here.”

“It doesn’t make any sense to me.” Blake shrugged. “To be honest to begin with, I didn’t even think that was real.”

“But it is real! Both of us are here now and we were brought here.”

“Yeah… It does seem that way, and now I’ve met you here I’m pretty certain of that, but it makes no sense. How could something like that bring us here, and why?”

“That’s what I’d like to know. Well, it seems like we’re the only ones here. What do you say to helping me explore and…” She paused, the impulse to work out what was going on here had overridden her cautiousness. I was going to find out more about him before I said anything like that, but I can’t just say that and not finish now. “Try to work out why we’re here?”

“I’m happy to do that with you, but I don’t think we’re alone here.”

Is he messing with me? “What do you mean? I’ve been walking through these woods for an entire week and you’re the first person I’ve come across that’s still alive!”

The inner confusion was starting to show on her face.

Blake wasn’t adept enough to pick it up, he just felt he had to show why he had that guess. He turned and reached down into his bag and pulled out the glass looking object. “Well, it’s just a guess for now, but have a look at this.” He said while passing the object over to her.

It lit up as she took it in her hands. “You’ve got an electronic map?”

“Yeah… At least that’s what I think it is. I only just worked out that though.”

Eliana spent a little while looking over the device.

“These green dots, you think they’re other people?” She asked.

“I think so. You were represented like that before we came across each other. What do you think, want to try meeting up with one of those groups?”

She was in two minds about Blake’s idea. “Hmm… I suppose there is a chance we will find someone that knows something about this place… But what if they attack us, like I did to you?”

“Hopefully they won’t, there’s no ruling that out. Anyone here is bound to be on edge at the very least. We don’t have to walk straight in there, we can check them out first from a distance and see if it looks safe.”

“We probably should. I suppose we need to move on from here, even if it’s just looking for those silver cubes, we’re going to run out of food eventually, and we need to find a way out. We can look for the other people, if that is what those dots represent while we do that.”

Blake nodded in agreement. “Okay.”

Eliana still wasn’t sold on the idea of heading towards other people.

She studied the map on the device. There were multiple green dots on the map, spread right across it. Guessing by the scale against the areas she had already walked the closest dots were at least a couple of hours away. Just looking at them on the map, there was no way of telling if they would be safe to approach. Despite their earlier encounter, Blake seemed willing to risk trying to make contact with them. She couldn’t risk getting injured though, she had to make it out of here alive.

Blake gestured towards the glass object. “Which dots do you want to try? They all look pretty far away.”.

“I think we should try the group over here.” She said pointing at the far corner of the map.

“But they must be the furthest away from us.”

“I know, but we can hope that as a group they might be less likely to attack without warning out of fear. At the very least, they seem to have joined up with others without killing each other.”

“True, the dead bodies don’t seem to show up on the map.” He said realising that the area he had come across the corpse earlier didn’t have a green dot. “Okay, let’s go with your suggestion. Hopefully, we will come across more supplies as we walk.”

“Let’s hope so. Are you okay to walk?”

“Oh, these.” He said pointing to his wounds. “Yeah, they barely hurt now, and thanks to you they’re properly treated. I’ll be fine.”

“Good, I’m glad. Do you want to lead the way?” She asked while handing back the device to Blake.

“Sure.”

He picked up his rucksack and slung it over his shoulder and started to walk in the direction of the large group, then turning back he stooped to wait for Eliana. She grabbed her gear and followed behind. He seems nice enough. Still, I’ve no idea what this place is or why we’re here, better to stay cautious. She automatically touched the gun on her hip for reassurance and followed Blake, ensuring to always keep a couple of steps behind.