"Katharine WACH AUSFF!"

Oh crappppp no nope I do not want to open my eyes nope nope that is a very bad move. Come on voice can't you see I am still dreaminggggg. To further reinforce the narrative, I casually scrunch my head into a tiny ball. Now even if I wasn't dreaming, how could I possibly hear her voice. And to be fair, convenient excuse to brain aside, as far as I am concerned I might as well be dreaming and the voice in front of me a by-product of my recently developed tinnitus or something...

"Katharineeee Bitte öffne deine Augen." The voice says, softer this time but much more pressingly

Hey there whoever the heck you are you should know you gotta do a lot more than that to get me to open my eyes you know. I mean not me me, but you know the me in this world which is also me wait what the heck, arghhhh I can't take this anymore.

"Please miss just leave me alone," I beg "I..I need some alone time, I am having a very bad headache" Hopefully my speech, along with the sight of me clutching my head would do the trick. But I had the feeling that if this was an isekai, this probably won't be the case.

And sadly I was right. A long pause follows before I hear the soft rustling of her skirt as it scraped the grass beneath. Inching herself closer, she whispers into my ear, her warm breath tingling the edges of my inner ear. "Entschuldigung, Katharine, das wird dir nicht gefallen"

wait wait wait what do you mean I am not gonna like this...

piak. The sound of a strong set of hands making contact with my skin registers in my brain first before seconds later the pain of my face being slapped finally reaches it. And damn do those hands really do a lot of damages cause the entire left side of my face felt like it was on FIRE.

Immediately I hit the grass rolling, trying my hardest to put out the flames of my pain. It was in this haze of my agony that my eye muscles, having presumably rerouted all it's remaining energy to comabt my pain, subconsciously relaxed, flipping my eyes wide open to the sight of the most out-of-the-world scenery I've seen in my life and I mean it.

In front of me lay an endless field of grass stretching as far as the eyes could see with the only exceptions being one huge ass dome over the horizon and the sparse few booths dotting the grass sides. But that was not all, over the horizon, I could vaguely make out to spot what appears to be a blimp floating leisurely in the distance. Displayed proudly on it were the words ( in german of course) "World expo 1988, the Jewel of the East" flashing intermittently from time to time. Being the genius I am, I realised that this was probably the reason for this whole spectacle and I must say it doesn't disappoint. Within the confines of the grass field lay all manners of oddly antique contraptions and my eyes oh my eyes just could not get enough of it. My eyes constantly darted from one contraption to another, each contraption eliciting a bigger surprise than the last.

To give you an example, just above my head was a rocket gracefully gliding through the sky. And well I am pretty damn sure that a rocket can't possibly go that low. I mean aren't rockets like dangerous? Nuclear rocket anyonee? But nope apparently in this world everyone has collectively agreed that the sight of imminent doom should be met with gush and awe, though then again, if I ever managed to see a rocket doing such acrobatics, I probably would have the same reaction.....

But convention-defying objects aside, the other things that surprised me was the sheer variety of people here. and no I don't just mean the variety in terms of skin colour but pure VariETy. Just in front of me sat a bunch of ladies dressed just exactly like my mother having what I assumed was a picnic while their maid watched silently by, waiting on their masters every request. Look just a little to the left however and the whole image changes. Gone are the fancy hats and frilly dresses instead replaced with singlets and baggy pants as these workers, probably straight out of work, have also come to enjoy the fair. Same ground, yet it holds such radically different people.

This whole fanfare, ie the school trip that I vaguely remeber them mentioning in between my scolding, however still didn't help to solve any pressing questions I had. On the contrary, it added to the ever-growing list of highly pertinent questions like why is a huge sect of the population all of a sudden into victorian cosplay or why is there so many white people or when cAN I GET BACK?! ARGHHHH

"Sie gaffen nicht Katharine? Wir müssen den Rest der Klasse einholen?" the girl inquisitively asks as she aligns her head parallel to my line of sight, no doubt rather curious as to why I was staring so intensely at the surrounding contraptions.

"Ummm sorry was just enjoying the scenery haha."

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH

I turn toward her totally expecting her to smile absolutely convinced at my shoddy speech only to be unfortunately greeted with a very confused look.

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"Bist du sicher, dass es dir gut geht? Katharine, du klingst komisch..."

Ok shut up brain she's calling me weird so play it cool mouth

"Haha Jacobin you clearly are imagining things I always speak like that..."

Crap crap crap, I have 100% called her wrongly. There is no way in hell Jacobin is a female name or that he is in this world could somehow have become a pretty white girl, brown hair and all when I transformed into a weirdly British-looking Asian. Whatever screw that, action now question later, body, implement evasive manoeuvers, shy, confused body language type A1. Wait wait I didn't mean just to flush I mean she sorta cute and all but nope nope I mean close your eyes and roll into a ball come on do it do it...

"Es ist übrigens Jacobine, und Sie haben in letzter Zeit auch falsch gesprochen" Jacobine says before taking one huge stride into my personal space "Bist du sicher, dass es dir gut geht?"

Well, personal space violation aside at least I got to know her name, Jacobine. Nice. At least I wasn't too off...

"Yes, of course, I am fine Jacobine" I say making sure to overemphasizes her name like any normal non-body swapping person would do, "very fine indeed"

Jacobine clearly rather impressed/intimidated by my words took two steps back, far out from what would consider personal space before replying "Nun, das ist großartig, Katharine. Möchtest du dich jetzt wieder dem Rest der Klasse anschließen?"

Well I did just spend all my time just staring in awe at my surroundings guess it's time to finally time to find out what in the blazes I have unwittingly gotten myself into (again)

"With pleasure Jacobine with pleasure," I say, gritting my teeth as the pain in my skull shot up yet again.

Jacobine, still giving me weird looks probably decided not to questions my drastic change in attitude and slowly made her way towards the dome with I myself trailing a safe distance behind her.

As we strolled through the endless field wordlessly, I primed my brain to take in any additional information of the world around like how everyone spoke how they looked, how they acted etcetera to see if there was anything anything at all that could allow me to escape this world. After all for I know I might have accidentally signed myself up for the matrix-esque thing and there could be clues scattered all around that would enable me to get out of here. Right?

Then it struck me, an idea. An idea so simple that I am surprised it took me this long to think of it. I could just ask Jacobine. It'll be the perfect plan! She would naturally know all about the lore of the place and since we are not even halfway there I have plenty of time to grill her. Plus if I know my isekai novels right, she's probably be designed to spew useless exposition about this world anyways. Like why else would I spawn next to her?? My mind was blown.

I pause momentarily to raise my hands upwards before gently stroke them against my temples. In my mind, I thought about what I wanted to do step by step, the plan in essence. Then I ran, roughly shoving my way past a group of marching grey shirt men. They of course shouted back calling me all sorts of demeaning names but I didn't care. For the first time since I got here, I felt a sense of joy, of hope. Finally, all my answers shall be answered.

"Hey wait up Jacobine," I say cheerfully as I skipped straight into her field of vision, totally ignoring the fact I had acted completely opposite to this just minutes before, "I like to ask you some questions...."

My glorious speech was however rudely interrupted by a flash from beyond the horizon as bright as a thousand suns followed by heat worthy of that description filling the air and scorching anything right of my left eye. Then before I could even process what was going on, a thunderous roar sounded followed shortly by 100mph winds smashing right into me. Feeling the strength of the wind hitting me, I, in a panic, tried desperately to fight it, frantically searching around me for something, anything to grab onto. However my thoughts, just like my body, were swiftly blown away by the wind as it picked me up and violently threw me back down onto the ground like a doll. Then it, just as quickly as it came, disappeared, leaving poor poor me spread-eagled on the field and with absolutely no idea what the heck just happened.

Thankfully the god, clearly aware of how much chaos they have wrought on my life, took pity on me and had miraculously left me broken bone-free, at least on surface inspection. Save for a minor bruise here and there, I was actually in pretty good condition considering what just happened. Others however weren't so lucky. From afar, I could hear the piercing cries for help of the unlucky few unable to escape the blast zone. Their cries lodging themselves deeply in my brain. Hearing it, I couldn't help but scrounge my ears up, hoping my heartbeat was able to drown the noises of help. Thankfully the wails of sirens did that job for me, increasing exponentially in the wake of the 6-mile high mushroom cloud now looming over the ruined dome.

Feeling more reassured now, I tenderly push myself hoping to take stock of the situation and oh god was it a horrible sight. The dome once shiny and round was reduced to a melted, carved in mess of silver and grey glass metal combination. One which hadn't fully solidified and continues to drip from the metal mess, indiscriminately fusing with anything that was unlucky to be below. Seeing this, I averted my gaze, unable to stand such a sight. That could be taken care of by the rescue workers, right now my priority was finding Jacobine.

Looking around, I strained my hardest to find even a whiff of her brown hair, but alas this was nowhere to be seen, she was nowhere to be seen. I tried to stand up thinking I would continue the search that way but the very audible cracks coming from my lower thigh quickly deterred me from any further action. So like a damsel in distress, I just sat there waiting, waiting for my saviour to whisk me out of my misery. Despite this external inaction, internally, my thoughts were running rampant.

Oh my gosh, did the building just explode? What the heck happened? Was it an accident? terrorism? Also, where is Jacobine? A dark thought flashed through my mind. No no no she can't be gone she was just 5 feet in front of me no way it could have affected her much right? I was worried, confused but above all crushed. I had thought that maybe she was the one that could help me. The one who could finally shine a light as to what was going on. Instead, my hopes were now blown away literally and figuratively by the blast. I was back to square one essentially, my questions still left unanswered, my disappointment immeasurable.