I awoke in the ruined building where I had summoned the pocket dimension. The space was dark and musty, and a small patch of moonlight filtered in through a high window. As I sat up, I surveyed my surroundings. The room was almost empty, with only a few pieces of broken furniture scattered about. I couldn't recall leaving our little refuge, but somehow I had ended up outside.
"Mama, are you awake?" I asked, slapping my cheeks to rouse myself. It had taken hours to finally pull off that spell, but I did it! I still felt groggy. I had never been a morning person, but after 30 seconds without a reply from Mama, the reality that I was alone in a post-apocalyptic, monster-infested nightmare set in.
"Fuck."
As I stood up and made my way towards the door, I felt a growing sense of panic creeping over me like an unrelenting wave. The handle was just within reach when a faint noise behind me caused me to spin around. Emerging from the darkness was a shadowy figure that sent a scream caught in my throat. Instinctively, I grasped at my mana like a drowning man reaching for air. But as quickly as the creature appeared, it vanished into nothingness, leaving behind only silence and an echoing emptiness.
"Curse the sun, I'm losing my marbles here," I muttered, my heart pounding in my chest. But my magic was depleted, and without an incantation to follow, the pitiful amount of mana I had accumulated fizzled out completely. I crumpled to my knees, desperate and alone, unsure of what to do next.
"Hehehe! Heehooriii!" a cheerful, bell-like voice suddenly shattered the silence. I spun around, scanning the darkness for the source of the sound. It seemed to be coming from behind me, but I couldn't discern anything in the pitch-black void.
"Who's there?" I called out, my voice trembling with fear.
"Hehehe! Lya-lya nai!" the voice chortled.
Then, a small, luminescent orb, about the size of a basketball, materialized a few feet away from me. As it drew closer, I could make out its shape more clearly.
"Who are you?" I asked, still cautious of the strange entity.
"Filka zya, firla rytalika laya!" it replied, still giggling, its voice hallow and echoing as if it were speaking though . "Maha! Firla blukia, toroka firla? Furla kara na?"
"Is this thing a sprite?" I muttered, not expecting an answer. Sprites were generally mindless mana-blobs that wandered aimlessly. But this one seemed to be different. It could talk!
"You're trying to lure me into a trap, aren't you?" I accused, my suspicion mounting.
The orb simply chuckled mischievously in response, its luminosity pulsing in the dark.
I stepped closer to get a better view of the creature, activating my mana sight and placing a hand on my chin.
Hidden beneath the glow, it, or rather she, was actually a 30-centimeter tall little imp-like creature. She had two delicate horns piercing through flowing orange strands of hair, with skin as grey as the soot-covered rubble of the city. Her glowing eyes had bright sclera, and her grin revealed an array of sharp teeth. She had the vague outline of a female body, but no sexual characteristics to speak of.
"Miiii?" The creature grumbled. "Firla kara naylayla? Kekeke!"
"I see. . ." I hummed approaching her till I was up close and personal. "I need to find a way to communicate."
I put on a full smile and stuck out a finger as if I were reaching out to shake her hand. Unfortunately, my gesture seemed to alarm the creature, her face turning timid for a brief moment as she backed away.
"Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean to startle you," I said gently while making a placating motion with my hands, but her look of fear instantly shifted back into a smug grin and she gestured for me to follow.
"So, what is your name?" I asked in futility. But realizing we needed to start somewhere, I pointed to myself in an exaggerated motion and said, "Lyn. My name is Lyn," pointing at her and intoning a question I asked, "Your name?"
The creature's bell-like giggle filled the air as it pointed at me and exclaimed, "Lyn-tya," before gesturing to herself and saying, "Frisa, Frisa! Furla Lyn-tya, Lyn-tya!"
Nope.
I sighed in frustration, feeling like asking for directions to my mother was a lost cause. Despite having learned multiple languages throughout my life, some of which did not even exist on Earth, there was no way I could communicate with this "Frisa". But then, she grabbed my index finger with her tiny hand, and we exchanged a handshake. "Nice to meet you, Frisa," I said, resigned to the fact that we wouldn't be able to understand each other.
But then, she spoke again, in her strange and echoing language. Strangely, though, I had a vague sense of what she was saying. "Kulka, firla Lyn-tya! Zalta humana zeera, Kulka! Kora taylia lyalya!" she said, gesturing animatedly. My mind struggled to keep up with the foreign words, yet somehow, I understood her. Frisa had called me Lyn, the human girl, and had said that we needed to go somewhere––urgently.
The realization hit me hard, and I felt a wave of exhaustion and a headache overtake me. And then, as if triggered by the realization, mana started to come out of my core, and I felt a familiar surge of warmth flow through me. Could it be possible? Did I just use a translation ability?
"Huh?"
Before I could process what was happening, glowing orange projectile zoomed towards us like a bullet. Reacting instinctively, I snatched Frisa out of the air and leapt out of the way, narrowly avoiding the projectile's impact. The projectile landed on a decrepit sofa with a thud splattering neon orange goo on the fabric. The acidic substance evaporated the sofa in moments, disintegrating it into a gooey mass and continuing through the floor as if it were made of chalk.
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Frisa looked up to me in a mix of surprise and horror, "Grimm! Fly away!" She said in a language that I had learned ten seconds earlier.
I ran through the door and out onto the street. My heart was racing so fast; it felt like it was about to burst out of my chest. I had no idea what had just happened, but I knew one thing for sure: it was dangerous. The thing could have killed me if I hadn't seen it in time.
"Where go?" I shouted at Frisa in a broken version of her language. "Where–fly away?"
"Let go and follow me!" She replied squirming out of my hand and flying out the door.
We bolted through a maze of dilapidated buildings, weaving around corners and dodging shadows. I could hear the monster's relentless pursuit, its thunderous footsteps echoing through the ruins. After what felt like an eternity of sprinting, the earthshaking sensation of its movements faded away into the distance, and we were finally safe.
Gasping for air, I looked around at what appeared to be an abandoned hospital. What was once a long sterile corridor of white tiles and fluorescent lighting was now completely dark, with broken glass littering the floor and cracks in the cement walls. The silence was deafening, broken only by the distant sound of wind and dust and the wheezing from my heavy breathing.
"Shit! What was that?" I coughed out with the thick taste of adrenaline on my tongue.
I collapsed into a nearby chair and rubbed my chest, trying to get my breathing under control while Frisa hovered just above my face
"Bleh! It was a Grimm. And here I thought you were a clever one," Frisa snarled with frustration. "How is it that a simple-minded human child like you managed to survive for so long, hmm? If it weren't for me, you'd be long gone by now. Yes, you would have been dead without a doubt."
“Umm. Thanks for saving me then.” My grip on the language seeming to have reached a native level.
"Hmm, I had thought you were a foreigner, but it seems you do speak the language," Frisa remarked with surprise. "Then why were you speaking incoherently earlier? Were you just spouting meaningless gibberish? How crude and impolite. It's no wonder you're such a repulsive human child, who talks like an animal."
"Uh-huh." I replied absentmindedly, wishing that I could remove the knowledge of this language from my head. It seemed that Frisa was native to this place, whatever that meant. My initial impression of the dungeon from the Planes of Din was that it was a lifeless place, minus the odd monsters, but apparently there were intelligent beings that called it home. The fact that I was in a city should have made that obvious, but I felt like I was missing something.
"What do you mean by… ‘foreigner’?"
“An outlander… Someone who isn’t from around here.” She explained, her tone laced with annoyance. “Is this really that difficult for you to grasp such a simple concept?” She pouted and waved for me to follow her, but as she began to float away, a male voice shouted behind me in a language I vaguely recognized. Urgent and aggressive, it was enough to cause a sudden headache, followed quickly by comprehension. Something about ripping a few new coin-sized holes into my…
"Don't shoot!" I shouted in the new language, sending my hands sky high in a gesture of surrender.
Suddenly, from a pile of medical equipment stacked to form a makeshift barricade, emerged a grizzled black man in his early forties. His face was weathered and scarred, with a thick blue beard that did little to conceal the hostility etched onto his face. He wore a tattered puffer jacket and bright orange cargo pants, and clutched a massive rifle at his hip with one good eye trained on me without any hesitation.
With my hands up, I looked frantically at Frisa, who just shrugged and flew over to the man with a wry smirk on her face.
"Frisa, what the hell is this?" He said lowering his rifle.
"Well, as you can plainly see, it's a young human girl who's lost her way," Frisa said, her tone dripping with sarcasm as she made a mocking gesture to one of her own eyes. "I stumbled upon her sleeping in a shop over at Faraday market, and out of the kindness of my heart, I thought you humans could use some fresh company. So, I rescued her from the clutches of the grimm," she added, her playful expression belying the sharp edge in her voice.
The man examined Frisa skeptically as she looked back at him with a mischievous grin, and then turned his gaze to me with a look of resignation and a very deep sigh. "The name's Geddes. Geddes Patty." He looked tired, and not just from lack of sleep.
"I'm Lyn, my mom and I are traveling through this city on our way to Hel, but we got separated." And with those words, I felt a wave of despair. The adrenaline that had carried me here in the thirty or so minutes since I had awoken had worn off, and tears began welling on my face. I was in deep trouble.
"Whoa there girlzoe!" Geddes said while making placating motions with his hands. "Don't be letting out any tears, you'll attract the grimm…” He said with a gentle growl in an attempt to quiet me down. “Besides, I'm sure your mama is doin' just fine now. Riiiiight—Frisa?" His brow creased and he nodded toward Frisa, who was actually matching his concern. "Don't worry, little girl. Your mother is perfectly fine," Frisa said with a tone as awkward as a divorced salaryman speaking to his estranged children. "Please stop crying now. You don't want your eyes to get all puffy and make you look ugly, do you?" she added, trying to console me.
I chucked and smiled. "Thanks, Frisa. You're right too. Mama is invincible."
"So—Lyn... Where did you say you were from? It almost sounded like you were from outside the city." He shook his head and pointed over his shoulder. "Never mind that. Come with me; I'll introduce the rest of the crew."
Frisa gave me a wink before flying off to the city. I walked over to the other side of the wall and saw what appeared to be something of a storage room with scattered crates of looted goods. The room was lit in the cold light of a few LED lamps hung from wires on the roof and littered with magazines blankets and empty cans.
"All right, everyone, I want to introduce you to a guest. This is Lyn. Frisa found her over at Faraday. Said she was about to be grimm-chow."
Geddes introduced me to the rest of the group. There was Sevens, Monkey, Skinner, and Melly along with her younger brother, Pinto. The only one who seemed to have any real authority was Jade, Geddes's second in command. Everyone looked like they had just woken up from a nap, including Geddes and Jade. Despite Melly appearing to be my age, the others looked incredibly young, with Sevens, Monkey, and Skinner seeming to be first-year middle schoolers at best, while Pinto was even younger. "Make yourself at home. Boyzoes and girlzoes, take care of our newest and get some rest," Geddes announced before giving me a reassuring pat on the back.
Jade, a young woman in her early 20s with short green hair and freckles, approached me with a hand held out in greeting. However, her expression quickly turned to horror as she pointed a burn-scarred hand at me accusingly. "Where did you get those clothes?" she demanded, her intensity making me take a step back. "Actually, why are you so clean? Your face is spotless. I don’t see an ounce of dirt on your entire body," she continued, ignoring my confusion. Turning to Geddes, she exclaimed, "She’s a foreigner, Geddes! That bitch Frisa brought us a fucking foreigner. She’s working with them, Geddes. Which grimm was it?"
Geddes scratched his beard and shook his head. "I didn't ask, Jade."
Jade paced back and forth, muttering to herself. "You said Faraday, right? That's Spindle's turf... No, wait." Suddenly, the realization struck both of them at once, and they exchanged a fearful look.
"Oh shit. It was Slime, wasn't it?" Jade whispered, as if afraid of her own words.
I interrupted, feeling more confused by the second. "Yeah, the thing shot a ball of orange slime at us. It almost hit me. What's going on here?"
Jade ignored my questions—a bad sign—and walked up to me again gesturing and pointing without saying anything as if the words were stuck in her throat.
“We’re dead.”