I’m just a normal kid. My name’s Dylan Meyer, and I was just a normal ninth grader. At least I was, until my school was blown up. Yay for no school, boo for mass chaos ensuing. It had gone off like someone had filled my lunch with firecrackers and somehow made it so that when I’d opened my lunchbox they exploded. Personally, it was hilarious. The staff of the school thought otherwise. They thought I’d filled my lunchbox with firecrackers. Props to the one who pranked me for getting off undetected.

Anyways, I’m getting sidetracked. My life was normal until my school exploded. And then it only went downhill from there. Whatever caused the explosion, we were all still inside. Including me. I was on the second floor. At first, when the explosions started, I thought to myself, say goodbye to season four of Attack on Titan!, but then I realized I wasn’t going to die. I don’t know what prompted this assumption, but everyone in class had it. We all had just kind looked at each other and said goodbye. I don’t know why, if we knew we weren’t gonna die, why did any of us bother with farewells? Then our room simply fell apart, each piece floating farther from the others. The outside world saw an explosion, and a blue bubble in place of our school. The first gateway to be formed in over ten million years.

Nowadays, I have to tell myself that my surreal surroundings are as real as the ground beneath my feet. I can’t say my family, because that might not be as real as I’d expected it to be if I’d been born from a plant. I’m not kidding, I woke up and some little girl fell out of a giant plant and declared this the fourth time she’d died. She then gave me a handful of chestnuts, pointed which way I should go, and walked away. Strange kid. Now that I think about it, I wonder if this world has chestnuts, or if these are just similar. I wonder if people are created the same way. Were they all like the girl I’d met earlier? I haven’t seen anyone for quite some time. I’ve just been wandering a purple sanded desert. There was no wind, luckily so I didn't have to deal with that. I was just wondering why I felt like I was being watched.

“Whoever you are, you can come out now,” I sighed, not really wanting to be stalked any longer. If I was being stalked, and not just paranoid, I would sound smart. If I wasn’t, I’d sound like an idiot but that wouldn’t matter because no one would’ve heard it.

“How did he know we-” Came a small boys voice, quickly hushed by another. I facepalmed, realizing that I was being stalked by two little kids. I turned around but saw no one. “Do you think he can smell us?” Came the boys voice. Apparently the other was fine with being heard now. I looked back and forth. Where were they?

“So he hasn’t seen us!” Came an excited girls voice. “Strange clothes, I wonder where he’s from.” She remarked, sounding a bit curious. I turned to face the voices. I heard a small ‘eep’ as a bunch of purple sand was thrown up into the air. So they were following me through the sand? Strange kids.

“Who are you?” I called, rather confused. I knew two things. I was in another world, and I had no idea how hostile this world was. I continued to wait for a response. I didn't feel too thirsty. I knew this world had no sun, but instead a collection of moons. The largest moon I’d seen so far was either just way too close, or it was actually massive. It’d knocked over a sand dune with the air around it. It literally just left a fiery trench in the landscape as it went along. I wasn’t sure, but at that level I think it’s closer to a comet that’s orbit is just high enough to avoid collapse than it is a moon. It’s just too close to the surface, a ladder and a broom and I could’ve poked it. It got really hot under it, but the fire trench only formed directly underneath the middle of it. Sidetracked again!

“We’re the-” started the boy. A resounding slap had cut him off. Silence followed in the next few seconds. “OW!” The exclamation finally came. I heard the boys grunt as he lifted something up.

“PUT ME DOWN!” Came the girls voice. Suddenly, a short, childishly dressed girl popped up from the sand. She looked at me in terror. “Please don’t kill me!” She squeaked. I faked an evil laugh, I couldn’t help myself. She screamed and buried her head in the sand. I laughed at her in a normal tone.

“I’m not gonna kill you, I’m just bored out of my mind for the moment. Also where am I?” I finally asked, getting to the point. She took her head out of the sand and rubbed her eyes. The sand hadn’t stuck to them, and it hadn't stuck to her clothes either. Now that I thought about it, it hadn’t stuck to me either.

“You’re in the Killalokae desert.” She informed me, raising a hand to her forehead in a salute. I just looked at her. What kind of name was Killalokae for a desert? And why the silly salute? I just looked at her confused. She nodded her head and tilted it to one side, looking past me. I turned around just in time to see a tall, gangly creature roar with a mouthful of teeth. Yellow slobber dangled from it’s leech-like mouth. My eyes simply widened with surprise as I was faced with all my life choices and all my regrets. By the time it stopped roaring, I was at compliments I had accepted that weren’t for me. Oh the look my math teacher gave me. First, I didn't get A’s on my tests, and second, I didn't sleep in class. Well, not math class. Distracted, again!

“Strange being, are you from the fragment zone?” Came the gravelly voice of the black skinned leech with limbs. I just looked at it, confused. It let out what I presumed was a sigh. “Are you from this world!?” It roared at me, teeth rotating steadily in its mouth. I thought it would’ve been cool if they’d moved around like a ring, but each one spun in place like a mini drill.

“No,” I confirmed, looking back at the girl. The leech looked like it was ready to bite my head off. She mouthed the word sir, looking panicked. “No sir,” I finished, hoping he wouldn’t roar at me again. He seemed satisfied and said something in his gravelly language. The little girl responded in the same language, doing her best to imitate the gravelly tone he used. I was actually rather shocked, if I hadn’t ever seen her before, I would’ve assumed she looked just like the leech thing behind me.

“Come with me now,” The little girl demanded as she’d finished her conversation, coughing off the gravelly tone between the words ‘come’ and ‘with’. She walked over to a specific spot in the sand and brushed the purple aside to reveal an almost black metal. She knocked on it twice, and then reverted to talking in the gravelly language. She got a slow response. The boy clearly struggled with the language she spoke fluently. Whatever they were saying, it would’ve been easier in english but I presumed they didn't want me to hear it. I looked back towards the leach thing, but all I saw was a black tail disappearing into the purple sand.

“Inside, now.” Came the boys voice, tired of talking in the other language. I didn't move, the hatch hadn’t opened. “Oh wow, you really must be low tech.” He sighed. His hand went right through the metal and grabbed my leg, pulling me down through it. I panicked and tried to hold onto the metal, but it didn't work. Purple sand was the only thing that didn't fall through the metal, and I’d guess it was the only thing holding me up considering my slow descent and his constant tugging. Either that, or I didn't understand the physics of this world. He continued to pull me inside the machine, tunnel, or whatever it was and immediately put a bag over my head.

“What’s this for?” I asked, not really caring now. The boy pushed me along before I got an answer. The answer I got came in the form of a confused grunt as the boy messed around with a really crinkly sounding piece of paper. I heard another thud of shoes as the girl jumped down through the metal. They started arguing in a language different from english and the crinkling of paper intensified. The argument flared up for a second or two and then went dead silent for a few seconds as several ripping sounds were made. The argument immediately flared up again although it was clear the girl was winning the argument this time. Considering all I could hear from the boy were whimpers of fear for his life and small cries of pain, I figured he’d ripped up a map. I heard a couple of joints snap and the bag was pulled off of my head.

“We’re short a map now, so it doesn’t matter if you see where we’re going because we don’t even know!” Came her voice. It was really dark down here so I couldn’t see anything anyways.

“Why are you so mean?” Came the boys sob. The girl sounded like she was ready to explode into arguing again.

“Who’s the one that ripped up our map because he thought that it wasn’t going to be useful?” The girl retorted angrily. The boy whimpered and scuttled along the floor.

“I hate to break it to you, but I can’t actually see anything,” I claimed honestly, unable to see my hand as I wiggled my fingers. I pulled up my other hand and did the same. It was weird how your brain could tell where the rest of your body was.

“That doesn’t matter, light’ll be coming soon!” The girl claimed, grabbing my hand and dragging me to the wall. A loud rushing sound started, and I got the feeling I was in serious danger. The boy started screaming and the girl sighed, grabbing his hand too. Then I realized I could actually see her grab his hand. It was faint, but there was light now. I was about to step back out into the middle of the hall again, but was tugged back even harder as a loud siren went off. I slammed back against the wall. That sounded like air raid sirens. A large beam of light shot by us, illuminating the boy and the girl next to me. They were literally half my size. I could’ve drop kicked them if I really wanted to.

“I don’t ever get used to this.” The boy sighed, falling into the light and disappearing. The girl did the same after a short period. I thought they’d just left me, and then I realized they were the only ones with a clue of where they were going. I fell into the light. As I did, I pondered how in the world someone half my height had gotten their hand through the metal which was two feet above my head. There wasn’t a ladder.