He spent hours walking, at some point in time he had left the forest and was now going through more barren terrain, that’s when he saw it. Out in the distance behind some hills, there was a line of smoke drawn on the blue sky, perhaps this was his senses fooling him again, but it could also mean there was someone there.

He had a long way to go but he could not stop now. It took him almost two hours, but he was finally there. As the sun began falling again from the high point of mid-day, the light pierced through the autumn-coloured forest that appeared before him.

The sight was majestic, you could not see this forest until you were on top of the hills. And to make things better the smoke seemed to not be far.

As anxiety took over his body he was not able to hold back his desire to see someone else, anyone would suffice, he just couldn’t be alone out here.

Running through the forest the smell of burnt wood became clearer and clearer, and then a voice broke through the quiet beauty of the woods.

“Someone is out there, put it up!”

He came to a stop, not because he was tired, in fear or because the path came to a halt. He was frozen by the feeling of relief, a emotional overload of some sort.

He then walked calmly into the direction of the campfire and saw two figures. One of them looked like a women on her early twenties and the other was a younger boy on his late teens.

“It’s a kid, no need to worry miss.”

“It doesn’t matter. Kid over there put your hands up!”

He agreed and raised his hands, and as such the women calmed down. Before she said anything he decided to come closer without warning.

This was quite the mistake on his part as he slammed his face into the air like he ram into a wall. Falling back with his nose broken he began to throw up.

“Holy shit, the barrier is still up!”

“Oh sorry miss that’s my bad.”

The woman rushed to him, upon taking a look at his face she just became more concerned, his nose seemed to be a bit bent.

“I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

“The hell are you talking about he just hit his face into my barrier, it’s not like he got shot.”

“His nose is bent have you ever seen any shit like this!? We are in the middle of nowhere, he’s going to bleed out and die!”

“Stop being so dramatic you will scare him!”

“He should be scared!”

“Stop yelling, we can’t waste our energy like this! Bring him over here.”

As she walked him to the campsite they had set up, the boy began examining his nose, he didn’t look too comfortable either.

“It does look bad but we don’t know when we will be able to cure that. Hey kid what’s your ability.”

“Uh I’m not sure. Can someone explain what’s going on?”

“I don’t know much either, miss over there should be able to explain it through.”

As they looked at her she let out a heavy sigh, and raised her right hand. Displaying the number 900.

“I’m sure both of you have realised you have this number on you. I’m not sure what it means but the lower the number the more dangerous the person is.”

“How did you figure that out?”

“You have received the same information right? You may exchange the daily use of your power for a tip. What this means is, if you want a tip you can disable your power for the entire day. And you can’t disable it at the last moment of the day, you can only do it during the time after you wake up.”

“How do you guys know your powers?”

“It comes up as your second dream. How long ago have you arrived?”

“This is my second day here, I still don’t understand what’s going on. How on earth did we get these powers.”

“Well to start things off, we are definitely not on earth, the stars are completely off, and the birds are not normal.”

“What is that supposed to mean!?”

“We are on a different world with different rules, don’t know why though.”

“Look kid, I know this might sound though and all, but if you stick around with me and miss you might be able to go back home.”

“I guess I can’t complain for now, but please stop calling me kid, you must not be that older from me.”

“What do you mean aren’t you like twelve?”

“I’m sixteen...”

Both of them stopped in complete disbelief.

“Come on now, I can clearly tell you aren’t sixteen, you don’t have a single strand of hair on your face, and you are pretty small.”

“For someone that just broke my nose you sure don’t hold back on insulting me. Just because I’m not tall doesn’t mean I’m a goddamn kiddo.”

“Now that he mentions it I can kinda see it, I thought he was like thirteen but turns out he’s just 3 years younger then you!”

“Oh come on miss, are you really going to believe baby face over here is sixteen?”

“If you are going to call me that I’d rather you switch back to kid.”

“How about I call you by your name?”

Hearing this he instinctively said his name out loud.

“Oh I’m-“

Has he was going to let out his name the woman covered his mouth.

“Don’t say your name.”

“Here we go again, why do you do that.”

“It’s dangerous to let your name be known, it was a tip.”

“But we aren’t dangerous people!”

“This is a different world with different rules, you can’t rule out the possibility of your name being something valuable, until we know the rules of this world, we play safe.”

“Rules this rules that, this isn’t a game you know?”

“Listen to me! We aren’t on earth anymore, we got superpowers for fuck sake. You can’t expect things to work the same way they did previously, if the tip mentions it, then we follow it.”

“Alright then miss, then how do you suggest we call for each other?”

“Fake names. From now on we will call ourselves by other names. A second name for this second world.”

“I guess you have some good ideas.”

As they discussed some more between each other the sun began to go behind the mountains over in the horizon.

“What path are you two taking?”

“Oh we are going around the forest, miss over here says we might find a town in the edges if we are lucky.”

“Assuming there is any sort of civilization that is, we don’t know anything about this world. Nonetheless we set camp at sunset.”

As they went through the edges of the forest. They realized all backpacks were basically identical except for two items. While he had playing cards and a lantern, the woman had a portable tent and 3 needles, while the guy had a flute and a cooking pot.

“That’s odd.”

“What is?”

“Both me and you got social items but she didn’t.”

“Those two items are probably picked at random.”

“Even if they are, the fact some people get social items means that there is a incentive in forming groups.”

“You’re right but don’t overthink this too much.”

“Actually it doesn’t make sense. Together we have some chance of surviving due to our items, but none of us alone would last long. It’s like they knew we would meet up with other people and complement each other.”

“Man leave it, thinking about that won’t help you out of this situation.”

“Alright you two, we won’t be arriving anywhere soon. Have you thought about your names?”

“I’m more concerned with the current situation.”

“How about you stop wasting your time with all that theorizing and come up with a name instead?”

“Have you decided yours miss?”

“Yes, my will be Rachel.”

“Why is that?”

“You don’t need a reason behind it, I just think it fits me.”

“I’ll be Odin then, it’s a dope name no?”

“Your fake name has to be believable, come up with something else.”

“Odinford then.”

“Why do you keep the Odin? It has to believable!”

“It sounds believable now.”

“I agree.”

“That’s two against one, it’s decided then.”

“Your funeral... What about you though?”

“I want a simple one, I’ll go for Marco.”

They kept talking about their new names back and forth as they walked along the edges of the forest and the sunset sky began appearing, shades of purples, pinks, oranges and blues surged in the horizon.

“Alright boys this is as far as we go. Let’s set up camp. Marco go rip some branches off some trees please. Od start digging a hole about this big.”

“You can call me Ford.”

“Alright Ford, start digging.”

Marco went into the forest and started ripping some weaker branches off the trees, it was harder then he thought and he took quite a while to gather some twenty sticks, when he got back he saw something suspicious.

Rachel had set up the tent, it was oddly large, enough to fit four people if they tried hard enough. Marco began questioning why she had a tent that big with her, it was another item that was advantageous to groups, which meant that their reunion was probably foreseen by whoever gave them the backpacks.

Ford had dug a well round and quite large hole near the tent.

“What’s that for.”

“Rachel wants to do the campfire inside this, she’s afraid we might set the grass on fire. There’s always the risk of fire spreading anyways.”

“I see, also where is Rachel? I thought she would be around setting up the tent but it seems she already finished.”

“She went to get water, there’s a lake not so far from here, she should be back before nightfall. In the meantime stay here. I’m going to look for something easy to burn to start the fire.”

Marco waited attentively for about half an hour but no one came back, as he began to grow bored he decided to start digging out the grass around the hole just to be sure. As it started becoming dark Marco checked the tent.

The tent was made of some kind of animal skin, bone and metal, the inside of the tent was disappointing, it seemed the tent was only walls so you would still have to sleep on the grass.

Suddenly Marco heard someone shouting loudly in the distance and came out of the tent.

“Ford set it up!”

It was Rachel, she was running towards camp and something seemed to be after her, slowly catching up.

As she came closer and closer what was behind her became clearer and clearer, it seemed like some sort of insect but abnormally huge. Rachel was outrunning it but not for much longer.

Ford still hadn’t returned, and they were approaching the camp at accelerating speed. Marco couldn’t do anything, there was no way to stop it from coming closer, all he did was shout for Ford, he was the only one capable of holding that thing back.

As Rachel became extremely close she realized the situation, but it was too late to avoid going through the camp, that was when something odd happened. The creature came to a halt and went away.

“What the hell is up with that thing, I’m fucking dying.”

“Where did it come from, what happened?”

“I went to go get some water from the lake not far from here, it was supposed to be safe. When I was heading back I heard something coming out of the water and there it was. Good lord I thought I was done for!”

“That thing looks like a centipede, you are saying it came out of the water?”

“You always ask too many questions, let me catch a breath.”

“Don’t let your guard down it could come back at any time.”

When the night began uncertainty arose, by the way Ford said it, what he was going to do was not something that took too long. If there were creatures like that roaming around waiting for a chance to attack, then Ford may already be dead.

As Rachel and Marco shared their worries someone approached from the horizon, far along the edge of the forest.