…
A strong light shined on Jonathan, forcing him to close his eyes. Along with it also came a fresh breeze of air, carrying the unique smell of clean, unpolluted nature. Even the sound of birds chirping came to his ears.
When he opened his eyes, he was shocked by the scenery in front of him.
He was currently on a high hill and could see an enormous green forest in front of him. It easily contained over ten species of coniferous trees along with tons of leafy trees. Smaller vegetation was also very abundant, with many different types of bushes. Everything was abnormally green, giving a particularly beautiful look to the forest
Jonathan had often driven a few hours north of Montreal, where they were very similar scenery, but they lacked compared to this.
Furthermore, there was a huge sun could be seen in the sky at the horizon. A black celestial body could also be seen near it and was about the same size. Surprisingly, a pillar of light from the ground to the sun could be vaguely seen.
His surprise was also shared by the five thousand people around him.
“Whoa! Look behind!” Someone screamed out, drawing the attention of many others.
Jonathan also turned around and saw something equally amazing.
A chain of mountains so high that they pierced the clouds blocked all view of what was behind them. There mountain shined with an almost metallic glow, along with their snowy tips, giving them a very unique look.
They were at about one kilometre from them and they were extremely sleep. Any attempt to climb them without specialized equipment would result in an immediate failure.
As Jonathan looked around him, he saw many familiar figures.
“Stop! You guys are here too!”
Everyone that was in Rafik’s house seemed to have been teleported together
“Eh. How come you look so different?” Steph asked him with a puzzled expression.
“What do you mean?”
When he observed Stephanie, he was shocked to see such a major change. Flat chest, straight hips, smaller legs and a less mature face where some of the changes present.
“Could this be the…” Jonathan quickly examined his other friends, finding that they too seemed to have regressed a few years. “There’s no doubt about it, this is the age diminishing that that guy was talking about.”
Even when he looked at himself, he could see many differences. Although he was only 14 to start with, he was already over 6 feet tall. A such it didn’t bother him to lose a bit of growth while working out. Naturally his hands should’ve been rough from going to the gym almost every day, but they were currently very soft. His finger was shorter along with thinner arms and legs. He could also feel that his voice was much higher-pitched.
“Instead of just lowering our age by some sort of downscaling, it looks like the process is more like a backward time machine. Except for superficial things like haircuts, everything else is exactly like when we were younger. Thankfully our clothes are scaled down.” Julien made a quick analysis of the situation while staying calm.
“That’s probably the case. I had permanently injured my knee while playing American football when I was thirteen and although it doesn’t stop my mobility in any way, I could always ‘feel’ that that knee was weaker or more fragile than the other. However, I can’t feel any of that now.” William also added his personal to Julien’s hypothesis.
After a bit more talking, it was evident that that hypothesis was correct.
“STOP TALKING! STOP TALKING!” An extremely loud voice swept over the entirety of the group. It seemed that a large group of teachers had formed.
It seemed like they wanted to regroup everyone. Screaming was necessary as there were so many people talking.
After about twenty minutes of the teachers running and screaming around the students, everyone went silent.
“Everyone regroups in a circle so that we can transmit information please!” The teachers’ orders seemed like a holy aid in this time of chaos, so everyone naturally followed them.
Thankfully the hill was very large and soon a human circle of about 600m of diameter was formed.
As for Jonathan, he had sprinted along with his friends, so he was close to the centre of the circle.
A confident man of about fifty years of age stepped right in the middle of the circle. He was the science teacher in 12th grade. He was fully bald and quite fit for his age as he biked almost every day.
“We have no time to waste, so I will cut to the chase. As you can see, we have nothing but wilderness around us. No homes, no restaurant and no water. As such, we must absolutely find or build those things. We might feel fine right now, but it is only a matter of time before dehydration, lack of sleep and hunger settles and that we’re in trouble. In fact, we should use our current energy to establish a strong base. We don’t know for how long we’ll be here, or if we’ll even ever return on Earth, so I think that…”
“Hold your horses, 'knowing when we’ll return to Earth'. We don’t even know if this is all true, which it probably isn’t anyways. I hope you realize how ridiculous this sound. Different worlds? Teleportation? None of that exist. In fact, RealVision has shown that they can produce a world where it is hard to make a difference from the real world. Even if we are trapped in this world, it is only a matter of time before the law enforcements deal with the situation and force them to take us out.”
A woman which Jonathan recognized very well was the one who opposed the science teacher. She was the French teacher of his grade. She was a skinny woman that seemed to have much hatred for the world. Her words towards students were often vicious and she had almost no admirers.
However, she was a clever woman with a clear and reasonable train of thought. As such, she gained some backers and soon enough an argument between the teachers broke out. The students could do nothing but sit back and watch.
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“I can attest to the fact that humans that were not on that headset got teleported here. I was cooking when this all happened … and here I am. Personally I find that this proves that teleportation is a thing. It might be like the internet, which existed forty years before it was released to the public.” Another teacher walked to the middle and sided with the science teacher.
“Sure, but it is too early to deduce anything. What if our movements cause a bug in the system, making so that we can’t go out when the authorities intervene?” Another teacher joined into the fray.
“Movement? We already moved just to do this circle. I think that we should…”
As time went by, the argument grew bigger and bigger. You could even hear some students screaming their opinions in the back. Soon enough, it went from an argument to a fight.
“Don’t act like you don’t want to take authority here you bastard. You’re always so cocky.” A male teacher advanced towards the science teacher while looking very mad. Even though he had a reputation for being bipolar, nobody expected him to suddenly throw a punch towards the science teacher.
It seemed that a past grudge fuelled this violent decision.
The punch from his right hand flew surprisingly fast since it was coming from a man with the notorious “dad stomach.”
Everyone could see the outcome of this in their imagine but right before the punch landed on the science teachers face…
Pah! The violent teacher found himself folded in two, as if he was trying to touch his feet with his hands. A knee was lodged heavily in his stomach. A second later, he flew out about four metres, crashing into the ground without being able to get back up.
Contrary to what was expected by everyone that witnessed the fight, the science teacher dodged to the left right before the impact while staying completely unfazed. He had also passed his right hand over his opponent’s shoulder during this time. After that maneuver, he had thrown his right knee out while he lowered his right arm onto the violent teachers back, ensuring that the latter receive the full strength of his kick. In addition to the forward force that the violent teacher had, this strike was extremely fast and it caused a lot of damage to the science teacher’s opponent.
This could be tested by that fact that he was lying on the ground completely defeated and attempting to catch his breath.
Although most would only be surprised by this, Jonathan knew how difficult this was to execute as he had taken a few mixed martial arts classes while at the gym. This type of move requires a lot of technique in addition to a body well adapted to fighting. It was also impossible to avoid a strike without wasting any movement like the science teacher had done without any experience. Considering that this teacher was a cyclist, it was quite amazing that he could do this. An age regression definitely wasn’t a proper explanation
“SHUT UP!” The science teacher screamed out loud. The two groups of teachers immediately ceased all dispute amongst each other. They had both witnessed the fight and seen the dominance of the science teacher.
The person returned to his side as if nothing had happened. His display of strength had intimidated many here, teachers and students alike.
“Look, whether this is true or not, we have nothing to lose preparing ourselves for the worst. I know this might sound like some fantasy story for many of you, but that shouldn’t be the reason why we die in vain… You heard it yourselves… Those that don’t believe will be the first ones to die. And I hope not to die, so better believe, right?”
A long silence followed this statement and soon everyone was looking towards the science teacher.
This was the silent approval towards the science teacher’s opinion.
“Well, since it’s decided, I’ll propose something. Firstly, you’ll all group up with the teacher you had your last class with.”
Soon, everyone was with the last teacher they had. Stephanie and Jonathan were in the same class so they stayed together but the other guys had to separate.
“You will now separates in three groups. And we'll mix those sub-groups to ensure a balance in age. The younger ones are too weak to do many things, so the older ones will support them through this.”
After the organization of groups was done, Jonathan and Stephanie found themselves with a few older people they know, including Stephanies older brother.
“This is a pretty decent group, especially since we have Stephanie’s brother. This will ensure constant support instead of only superficial support.” Jonathan was fairly happy with his group.
“Now, can every person that is a boy scout or had experience as one to walk towards me please.”
The science teacher proceeded to then evenly distribute the boy scouts across groups.
“For here, you have a bit less old people than the other groups, so I’ll give you an older boy scout. Although you only have one, he is older so he will naturally do things on the same level as two younger ones.”
After he finished organizing Jonathan’s group, the science teacher left to do other things. Everyone seemed to be satisfied by the arrival of the scout, yet Jonathan was in a foul mood.
“What’s wrong with you? Is something wrong with the boy scout that they gave us?” Stephanie could naturally tell what was wrong from Jonathan’s facial expression.
“No, the scout himself has no issues. It’s just the fact that having a single scout for a group of about 30 people isn’t favourable for us. As the scout is older, he will naturally aid older people first. In the short term, that would make it so that others get better shelter while we are still dealing with little branches. In the long term, the older people will receive a lot of knowledge that we won’t, allowing them to keep an importance in the group. As for us, we will be left aside. After all, what use is someone who can’t set traps or forage. However…” Even after leaving her with this depressing reality, Jonathan still had a slight smile on his face.
“However, what?”
“We have three things.” Jonathan pointed at the top of both of their heads.
“First, bodies. We are very tall and developed for our age, so the number of things we can do is comparable to those one or two years older than us. Anything like reaching into the trees is made much easier for us.” Although he was technically 9, Jonathan was 5”4 while Stephanie was 4”9, which was above the average for both guys and girls.
“Second, we have these.”Jonathan lowered his voice and slowly pulled out a knife in its cover from the inside of his pants. As it was very weird for someone to have a knife, he had hidden it immediately when he arrived here. “The most common thing in our situation is that people turn on each other. So we can’t show these knives to anyone, especially since we are the younger ones. People would simply take them from us, saying that they could use it better for the group. Apart from that, they are extremely useful while building structures. They also serve as excellent self-defence as they require almost zero expertise.”
“Third, my phone. Along with my battery bank and its current charge on Super Power Saving mode, we can get about 6 days of usage.” Jonathan always carried a 4000mah battery bank on him, as it was small enough to fit in his pocket and fully charge his phone. It also had a small micro-USB extension, so it required no cables to be carried. “I have an app called ‘Survival Manual.’ It details almost every aspect of survival. We will have 6 days to learn it by heart.”
“Although we aren’t on the same level as a boy scout since all of our knowledge is theoretical, it won't take much time before we are proficient in putting them in practice. With all these advantages, we are many times better off than other people here. We’re quite lucky that pockets count as storage.”
“So it seems that we’re going to be just fine out here.” Stephanie was overjoyed at this news.
Although everything seemed to be composed, the truth was that the majority of the group of humans was experiencing a high level of stress and anxiety. Stephanie was one of those people. Unlike Jonathan, she wasn’t nearly as mature and composed.
“Just fine? Stop your fantasies right now. We will be able to survive, not live. Hunger will always be at our doorstep, tiredness ready to strike at us when we need energy the most. Although I’m confident that we won’t die, going through this easily is a whole other matter.”
“Ugh…”
“Don’t worry about it, as long as we put effort in it will be able to find a way through this. Now, you better start collection wood before everyone else does, or we’ll have to walk more to get some.”
Although it seemed like Jonathan was having a much more realistic view of the situation then Stephanie, he too wasn’t ready for what was about to come at him.