A silhouette waved down at Celeste and the rest of the group from a far-off ridge. Thick reeds of grass brushed at the figure's waist, the details of his features made imperceptible by the way the sun fell on him from behind. Celeste shielded her eyes with her forearm, staring at the sky, careful not to look too close. Suns, she thought. There are two stars in the sky.

The figure on the ridge wasn't alone. More shapes sprung into view as they came over the hill. Two, three, four - four more stood off in the distance, making five total. Celeste heard the waving shadow yell, his voice carrying over the sea of grass.

"Hey! Stay there, we're coming to you! We're friends!"

His statement of friendship seemed tacked on to Celeste. Something about the way he said it made her think that the fact that he wasn't intending harm shouldn't be taken for granted. It made her tense. Celeste heard sighs of relief and grateful murmurs from the others. Red-hair was shouting back, throwing her arms into the air, but blonde-hair stayed quiet. So did Celeste.

The hilltop group began making their way through the grass down to Celeste and the others, and while they drew closer, nervous chatter broke out amongst the crowd. People discussing their names, their memories - or rather, their absence of memory. No one so far had an explanation for where they were, where they had came from, what they had been doing before, anything. There was a complete and total void of time - Celeste couldn't even remember her age, but judging by the others, they were mostly around their twenties or a little younger. A scant few looked even younger than that. They were drifting into small groups of four or five or six, murmuring among their circles.

Lost in thought, Celeste jumped when red-hair was suddenly in front of her, flanked by blonde boy. Without the chaos of their landing, Celeste saw that neither of them had taken any serious hits during the crash. A bruise here, a scratch there, splotches of ash or grease or something black, maybe some sort of fluid from the craft.

"You're pretty brave, being the first one out the gate and all," red-hair remarked, a wide grin over her lips. She had seemed so tall in the ship, straining to push the door open, but out in the open, she was about the same height as Celeste - short. Blonde boy was a head taller than either of them. He was lanky, and where red-hair's bodysuit struggled to contain her muscle, blonde boy's suit clung to him wherever it could find purchase on his near-skeletal frame.

"Yeah," he started with a small smile.

"I don't know if I could have taken that first step."

Celeste felt her face heat up as she became the center of their focus. She shunted her gaze to the ground and buried it in the reeds.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"It's nothing special," she answered. "Something just pulled me out here."

"Whatever it was, I think we'd still be in there if not for you," blonde boy said.

"Ha! Speak for yourself, tiny," red-hair barked even as she stared up at blondie.

"I'd have rushed out if I wasn't busy ripping the door off its hinges!"

She laughed, a sound so rough and loud it struck a dissonant chord against the soft rustle of the grass. Still, blonde boy joined in, and Celeste felt a smile tug at her face.

"I'm Celeste," she said.

"Cyrus," he replied.

"Charlotte," red-hair added, then, after a moment, "but I think people called me Lottie."

She fell into thought, but voiced those thoughts aloud.

"Who called me Lottie?"

Cyrus opened his mouth to say something, but a shout from another group cut him off. Celeste, Cyrus, and Lottie looked to the source.

"They're almost here!" yelled a boy from another group.

The group from the hill was coming into focus. They were dressed strangely, clad in rag-tag sets of protective gear that looked like they were taken from wherever they could be found. They had weapons, too, and like their clothes, it was an eclectic mix of bladed weapons, blunt implements, what looked like some kind of bow or a crossbow, and an oddly-shaped handgun with a long barrel and a six-chambered cylinder holstered on some of their hips. The weapons stood out to Celeste. They were all uniformly white, made from some kind of glossy material that stood in stark contrast to the practical metal of their handles and leather grips. There was some sort of indent running the length of every blade and imprinted onto the surface of every hammer and mace, too, and Celeste could only guess what it was for. Their faces held scars, bruises, bandages, some old, some recent.

Lottie took a step forward to go out and meet them, but Cyrus stopped her, grabbing onto her wrist.

"What gives, tiny?" she growled.

"Something's wrong," Cyrus whispered. "Look. The grass."

Cyrus pointed and Celeste and Lottie followed his finger. Swathes of the grass surrounding the hilltop group were shaking, pushed back and forth. The movement traced a pattern, heading straight towards the group. It was too violent, too fast, too directed, to be the wind.

"Hey-- hey!" Lottie shouted, trying to point the rapidly rustling stretch of grass.

"Watch out!"

The hilltop group halted, suddenly alert. Their hands went to their weapons, but they were too slow.

A metallic screech broke the soft song of wind in the grass. A horrific creature burst out from its cover in the brush, jumping straight for one of the people coming from the hill. It was small, small enough to be obscured in the foliage, maybe half the height of Celeste, but it used all four of its elongated arms to heft a massive, rusted blade twice its size over its head. Before anyone could react, it brought the blade down, slamming it into one of the hilltop group's head. That is-- was-- the person that had been waving, Celeste thought. It didn't cut him so much as it smashed his head to bits. He slumped over and crumpled, falling to the ground, vanishing in the grass.

The creature let out another screech as it fell back to the ground. This time, its cry was answered. More of them shrieked in return, hidden in the reeds but letting loose their own battle cries. All around them, the reeds shuddered with movement, metallic baying drowning out the wind.