The rest of the day went past like a breeze. After Victoria’s Spanish class, there was lunchtime, and she used it wisely; refilling on energy with edible delights. Afterwards, she went to more classes, highly alike to the last few she had. She introduced herself, she met a few new people, however, to her, they were not as interesting as the few she had met in her first few classes. She had deep thoughts swirling around her cerebrum, about James, about Audrey, and mostly importantly of all, Lucas.

She had already been displeased with him since the beginning of their relationship; even before his blooming interest in honeydew, as she wasn’t the biggest fan of watermelon, either. She had actually preferred strawberries, though from his passionate speeches, Lucas hated them with every fiber of his being, even if strawberries were rich in fibers. Lucas also wasn’t the nicest person to be around due to his outbursts, often expelling hateful language around anyone he didn’t like. Then there was the biggest red flag of it all; he was cheating on her with another person! After interrogating him, he confessed that he was dating another girl while they started their relationship, which completely shattered Victoria’s boundaries. Finally, she also didn’t particularly like how his misshapen face looked. I hope he gets what he deserves.

As her final class, Health, ended, she got prepared to leave, carrying all her baggage out of the chamber. Health was located in yet another building, being the PE Building, which was a small facility which appeared to host a large underground network, considering the large quantities of stairwells, elevators, and even ladders, which seemed downright medieval in this point of time. She traveled across dark, glassy bridges and walked past pots filled with indescribable foliage and crossed and crossed a patterned path into the Academic Building. She went downstairs, along with hordes of people, dressed in various fashions, as they all rushed to leave this cramped school. Once Victoria fled through an exit, she was met with the blinding radiation of The Sun, with a crisp smell of fallen leaves and simmering flames. She quickly moved past children with their parents and workers leaving from their occupations towards the old, littered train station she had left from. A ubiquitous state for most stations like this.

Victoria got on the train, brimming with people, and luckily found a seat amongst the growing numbers of disheveled, tired people, who she related to greatly. Tired and without a mobile device, Victoria found it hard to keep awake, but the social lives of those who surrounded her were enough company to stave off a quick nap. However, as her wits were lowering due to the comfortable surroundings, and soon she, too, would be dozing off like the others around her. Keep awake! There’s only one more trip before we leave. But the warmth . . . It feels so nice. Wouldn’t it be a good time to just take one short nap? As Victoria yawned loudly, she could feel herself weaker than ever, and resisting the urge to sleep was going against her primal instincts. Thus, after an easy fight, her will sinisterly defeated her in an empowered state, and she slept soundly, aboard the modern train, flying above tracks using their magnetic powers. Goodnight, me . . .

After what seemed like a few hours, Victoria woke up in a panicked state, fearing she might have missed her stop. Fortunately for her, however, the station that was coming up was the one she had chosen to get off at, and it had only been a few minutes between her initial nap. As she began looking out the windows, she saw something that seemed to be very illogical from her mental map of her city grounds. It seemed to be a forested landscape, with tiny hay huts, stationed in a circular pattern. She smelled the air; it was smokey and oily, as though it was a fresh oil painting from the Classical Era. She could even taste the air, and the mixture was almost certainly not of a pleasing taste, but instead of that of lead and another metallic substance she couldn’t make out. She shuffled uncomfortably around the other people boarding the train, who had a shadowy, yet symmetrical appearance, with their hair flickering and clashing with the empty space around them. She then noticed how smooth and slick the chair was, now a painted mosaic, like porcelain with an oriental origin. Then the train began to screech to a halt, as it went into a dark tunnel, which was quickly replaced by a rudimentary, primeval area, badly lit with orange candles and oil lamps. She then started hearing chatters and whispers, pounding on her eardrums, and the door of the train had slowly crooked open.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Then, she began to run. She sped past seats made of painted terracotta and flimsy, skinny railings, and as she did, she noticed something odd. While a dirty train station was nothing out of the ordinary for her life, this appeared to have been destroyed, considering the broken walls, cracked as though it was left under The Sun for an extended period of time. There were white tents made of a wooly material, and people huddled around for warmth underneath large, knitted blankets. She saw two exits, though only one had an opening that suited her needs. The adequate tunnel for her was a simple escalator up to an unknown light, not too unlike the normal station she would’ve got off from. The other exit was far smaller, and was made of a screen, connected to multiple futuristic cables. She decided to leave through the one possessing an escalator, though it, too, was extremely claustrophobic, and felt entrapping. She couldn’t run past it, due to the constrained space, so decided to go against her preconceived notions, by touching the surfaces of the escalator. It seemed abrasive and blunted before touch, but afterwards, was as fine as a fresh silk. Its surfaces were emblazoned with yet more decorative pieces, chalk full of repeated symbols, but not unlike the rest of the area, it was also dilapidated and felt underfunded.

As Victoria found her way to the surface, the air was somehow more polluted than before, and she struggled to breathe underneath the heavy, yellow atmosphere. She looked around her and spotted scaling skyscrapers, slowly crumbling away with its abandoned appearance and the foliage grew over it weakly, as the plants seemed unhealthy, as well. On blocks without the towering structures, laid a crumbled pile of molding material, no doubt once a majestic tower, just like the ones it was nearby. In one area however, were more tents, and she saw more life there than the barren landscape that surrounds it. She glimpsed upon some dark silhouettes, their being of a supernatural quality and their features seemingly sculpted. Faraway, she saw a large skyline in the distance, well lit, and clearly unlike the area she had found herself trapped in. In pure awe at the sight of this seemingly ideal world, another thought crept into Victoria’s mind. Where am I? What is this place?

As she began to walk towards the site of socialization, her lungs were stricken by a sharp pain that spread throughout her body, vibrating through each bone inside her. She tried to continue to walk normally, but fell onto the gritty ground below, covering her in more dust and smoke. She felt as though she was being smothered, and couldn’t breathe. The haze surrounded her eyes, and she felt the ground becoming runny, as she realized the clay-like substance underneath transformed into an oleaginous terrain, and soon, puddles of pigments and liquid arose from either the ground, or from Victoria, herself. As she fell unconscious, she felt footsteps near her, pitter-pattering faster and louder, as they approached. Finally, she fell into an unconscientious sleep, and saw the face of a brunette man, with bright bay leaves stuck atop his cranium.

“W-who, are you?”