Thump. Thump. Thump.

There’s a banging on the door.

“Colton, stop it,” I mutter trying to find a pillow to toss at the door. He likes to play this game where he wakes me up in the middle of the night to remind me to get up on time in the morning. Usually he would’ve barged in the room by now and dived on my bed while yelling something like, “Aether wake up! You gotta get up early tomorrow! So get some sleep.” I think he got the idea off the internet or something…but it’s not amusing.

I roll over and it dawns on me that I’m not in bed. I’m on a hard wood surface…my room is carpeted. It’s hotter than my room usually is since my family keeps it down in the sixties.

Thump.

I sit up swiping sweat off my forehead and see Raylen curled up with my pack as if it’s a stuffed animal, beside me. And I remember.

We’re still in the shed. But the question is…are we still in Acid land? I shoot up and scramble to the door. There’s another loud thump. I turn to look at Raylen again, how is she sleeping through this?

I tear the door open and something the size of a house cat slams into me with a strange humming sound that I’m guessing is close to a purr. Outside the sky is a bright purple that is steadily lightening. Past that is the giant trees and a slowly waking up forest. We’re still here. I should feel disappointed but now that I’ve slept my fear off I’m left with excited curiosity.

The creature that is now rubbing against me just like a cat is none other than Sir Flies A lot.

“Hey buddy!” I say patting his bulbous head. Raylen was right; I smile to myself as I imagine her reaction. And then the smile fades; she’s not going to be happy if she wakes up to Sir Flies chilling out.

“Alright buddy. I know you want a treat, don’t you?” I scramble towards my pack but stop short of pulling it away from Raylen. She might wake up. And then I remember that we ate the last of my snack stash yesterday. I turn back to Sir Flies who is patiently waiting for me by the door. I go back to him and pat his head again. “Sorry buddy. I don’t have any more treats.” He hums and then flies past me. Guess he didn’t understand. He starts circling around the room as if scenting the air for food. Raylen rolls over and mumbles something about turtles in her sleep. I’ll have to ask her what she was dreaming later.

“Come on buddy. We can find food out there. We don’t want to wake Aunty Raylen, right?” At the sound of my voice the fly comes back to me and hums happily. He blinks his large multifaceted eyes and hovers there. I gesture out the door to get him to fly out but he doesn’t seem to understand. He turns and zeroes in on the pack. “Oh no no no. Come with me buddy. Let’s go find some food.” I jump out the door, grabbing on to one of the vines to rappel down. Thankfully, Sir Flies follows me out.

“Sorry Raylen,” I mutter under my breath. Hopefully I can get back with breakfast before she wakes up and the knowledge that I left without her will be overshadowed by the food I return with.

My first thought when my feet finally reach the ground is that I’ve just had the coolest work out of my life. I’m guessing I just rappelled down the equivalent of a ten-story building and that’s not even a third of the tree. The sky is completely blocked out from where I’m standing on the forest floor.

I’d imagined that it would resemble a normal forest floor but instead of scattered leaves and dirt on the ground there is the softest grass, at least the downy light teal fuzz must be this world’s version of grass. And did I mention that beneath the fuzz of grass is a layer of silver sand instead of dirt. Makes it softer on my feet at least. I can see flowers that are the size of trees and for a moment I just spin in circles staring at the world around me. The veins are on the ground as well, trailing in all directions, connecting all the plant life I can see. My eyes have a hard time taking in all the color but it’s beautiful, breathtaking, and teeming with life.

I remember reading about the layers of the rainforest and I apply that knowledge here. From what I can tell our shed rests about a third of the way up the tree in the understory layer, far above that I can see the intersecting branches and leaves larger than some houses that make up the canopy. I’m standing on a forest floor that’s almost like a meadow minus a real sun and adding in the man-sized flowers. Near the base of the tree, roots shoot out slightly from the ground, the veins are a darker color where they wrap around the roots. I place my hand on the root and then pull it back in shock. The tree has a heartbeat.

I lay down on the fuzz to listen to the sound of the planet. A steady thump fills my ears, soothing, though it probably shouldn’t be. I was right in my earlier assessment. The whole world is alive. And not just with the heart beats but I can hear birds and what I assume are large crickets. The forest sounds are almost like a country night, bullfrogs, crickets, rustling leaves. I hear the whistling of wind through leaves and and what seems like a far off bubbling brook. At least the sounds of nature are pretty much the same as they are in the forests back home and that puts me at ease.

But the smells are all off. I’ve hiked enough to know the smell of forest. Instead of the normal musky woodsy scent and the underlying smell of wet moss, there’s a cloying sweetness to the air. It’s reminiscent of when someone is baking cookies complete with undertones of cinnamon and vanilla. It makes me crave some sugar cookies and gingerbread and wary that I might find a candy house with an all too friendly witch.

After the initial awe wears off I remember Sir Flies and am thankful that he’s still hovering beside me, eyeing me like a puppy waiting for a treat. A bead of sweat trickles down my nose and I realize I never took off my snow hat. Despite the sweltering humidity, it felt like it hit below freezing last night. I toss it to the ground but Sir Flies seems to like it as he swoops down and picks it up, plunking it on his own head. I laugh at him but give him a pat and we set off.

I walk at a leisurely pace, I’m not sure if I’m following Sir Flies or if he’s following me. As we walk along I watch him from the corner of my eye and avoid the plants he avoids. I figure he’d avoid anything poisonous and I’d rather not die before I get to explore this place. Although flies are known to eat garbage…

We find a patch of ground fuzz that reaches to my waist and is emitting the bitter smell of coffee, I begin to wade through the stuff, resisting the urge to roll around in it and vaguely wondering if I’m going to get bug bites or if all the bugs are going to be large here. Because as nice as that sounds, I’m not really looking forward to meeting a giant mosquito, I’d rather deal with the tiny ones and don’t even get me started on spiders. I saw Lord of the Rings and let’s just say I had nightmares about Shelob for weeks. Maybe I can train Sir Flies to become like a guard dog? He’s got the loyalty part down pretty well already.

Patches of light shine through this part of the forest. Strangely the rays shining from the just rising white sun aren’t warm but cool as if it needs to offset the natural humidity this world seems to have. And their brilliant swirling colors, like shards of rainbow piercing through the forest. The fuzz begins to recede a bit into a copse of flower-trees that resemble large roses and daisies. The roses have long spikes along their stems, and the bright red of the petals matches the sky from yesterday but the stem is teal just like the leaves. And the outside of the spikes matches the teal.

Giant petals fan out from the daisies and not all of them are white but green, pink, and a few fuchsia, a whole lot of blinding yellow and an assortment of other neon colors. Sir Flies heads to one of the pink and settles at the white center for a moment. He plucks something and then begins munching on it. A few moments later and he plucks another before flying back to me. I catch what resembles a large seed pod. I take a tentative bite and it has the texture of an apple but tastes just like a pineapple. The inside is the same color as the petals and bright pink.

Sir Flies begins bringing me more white seed pods from the other daisies. Each one tastes different but they all have the same texture and all of the insides match the color of their petals. I eat through another one with a green inside that tastes like watermelon and follow Sir Flies to where he’s having trouble pulling off a spike from a rose. I try to yank it off but the thing is too tough and the spike is sticky. It starts to burn my hand a bit and I yank it back rubbing the sap off on my jeans in the hopes that that’ll stop the burning. After few moments of the continued stinking Sir Flies seems to grasp my dilemma and flies down to the base of the rose, a moment later he’s dropping silver sand over my palm and the stinking stops, but my hands are covered in tiny welts now.

“Uh…let’s not try that again…” Sir flies goes back to the spike and I see he’s eating the sticking substance off it, guess he can eat anything. I suddenly don’t want to try to eat anything else he does. But remembering that rose petals are edible I reach over the spikes and tear off a piece. I take a tentative bite and drop it in shock. I’m not sure what I was expecting it to taste like but it’s got a spicy strawberry flavor that I wasn’t prepared for, but the next bite I eat taste like a minty green apple and still the next is a soft nutty flavor. It’s like it doesn’t have a set flavor. I gather a decent amount of daisy seed pods and rose petals to take back to Raylen. Weaving petals together that litter the fuzz I create a makeshift basket for the food and begin to make my way back. Sir Flies trailing behind.