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lonely-letters-from-xeria · 1 year

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A Letter of Beginning

Dear… whoever,

My name is Glenn. I’m a student at Rexridge High School. Was? I’m not sure. I’m writing this down to process everything that’s happened, and I guess a part of me hopes someone back home will somehow receive it and know what happened.

It hasn’t been that long. Twelve hours, give or take by the position of the sun. It’s not too different from the one at home, so small mercies, I guess. Glad my field knowledge doesn’t go to waste here. But I don’t know if there’s a time difference between here and home, so… just in case…

Hello. My name is Glenn. Yes, the Glenn on the missing posters.

I’m with the other four missing kids. Fyrus, Avery, Sophia, and Adrien. We’re alright, for the most part. Just… lost.

It all started like this.

————————————————————

Glenn doesn’t know why the woods are calling to him.

The small forest bordering their high school is nothing significant. Aside from the unusualness of birch next to red cedar trees, the dense shrubbery and common moss don’t exactly stand out as some mysterious landscape. It isn’t particularly big either; it wouldn’t take long to walk through it, and nobody ever got lost in it.

All in all, it’s rather unremarkable.

And yet Glenn’s boots drag him there after school one seemingly random Tuesday. He trudges along, bandana scarf ruffled by the wind. His nature guidebook sits in its usual place in the satchel next to his waist, but that isn’t why he’s walking into the woods.

He’s not sure why he’s walking into the woods.

But he’s walking into them all the same.

Dirt muddies the soles of his boots. The fresh scent of cedar spikes his nose. He brushes twigs away from his sightline, curiosity ballooning in his chest alongside the mysterious feeling tugging him forward. Distantly he can hear the last bell ring, shooing any stragglers in the schoolyard away. He reaches an open glade in the woods and pauses. As far as he can tell, he’s completely alone-

A twig snaps somewhere on his blind side.

He whips his head to the right, immediately defensive whenever someone or something approaches from his right. A guarded scowl tugs at the scars under the trusty eyepatch covering the right half of his face. He scans the trees, trying to find who made the sound.

A teen in a grey and red hoodie stumbles through the bushes, shaking leaves from his carbon-fibre leg. When he catches sight of Glenn, a bright smile bursts over his face. “Glenn!”

Glenn’s shoulders drop from where they’d been tensed. “Fyrus. What are you doing here?”

Fyrus stretches, swiping spiky bands of black hair from his freckled face. “I could say the same to you, but I just kinda... felt like going into the woods for some reason? Like-” He makes a gesture with his hands as if a rope was connected to his chest pulling him to the glade. “Odd, right?”

Glenn frowns at that. “I... have a similar feeling.”

Fyrus cocks his head. “Wait, really? No way! That’s so strange!”

More rattling shrubbery catches their attention, and from another side of the woods steps a teen in a white and blue jacket, ripped black pants, and knee-high boots. Her hair is swept on one side, shaved on the other, and dyed black, white, and light blow. A baseball bat is hefted over her shoulders.

She looks at the two of them in surprise. “Who’re you?”

Glenn opens his mouth to answer, but before he can, another rustle catches his ears. He turns to see yet another teen step from a different direction towards them, this time from a more clear trail. Her face pinches slightly in discomfort as she tries to tie her long blond and blue hair behind her to avoid getting it caught on branches. Glenn recognizes her as a member of the student council, though he doesn’t know her name.

She catches sight of them, gaze swiping over each with an analytical, skeptical look. “What are you three doing here?”

Fyrus pipes up before Glenn or the girl with the baseball bat can speak. “Glenn and I just kinda felt a tug. Weird, huh?”

Baseball bat girl’s eyebrows raise. “A weird tug? Same.”

Student council girl crosses her arms in disbelief. “Oh, sure. You just felt a mysterious tug. That’s definitely not an excuse you’re feeding me because you three got caught.”

Fyrus tilts his head. “Caught?”

“Yeah, caught before you could do... whatever you gathered here to do.”

Glenn shakes his head. “We didn’t intend to-”

The bushes rustle again, quieter than before. Glenn trails off, staring ahead as a fifth teen cautiously steps into the clearing. He moves quietly with soft footsteps, a burgundy umbrella held open above him despite the sunny weather. His hair is black, the roots stark white. In the shade, his eyes look red- though they might actually be that colour. He’s dressed in a fashionable slim silver coat with a maroon scarf.

The other four teens quiet. Glenn’s never talked to the kid before, but he recognizes him as the mysterious loner of the school, the one with countless rumours swirling around him. What rumours, he doesn’t know, never bothering to pay attention to those, but he does at least know they exist for some reason.

The mysterious teen watches without speaking, gaze switching between them. His knuckles are white around the handle of his umbrella.

“So who are you?” Baseball bat girl asks.

“Did you feel a ‘weird pull’ too?” Student council girl says with a disbelieving scoff.

Mystery boy stares at them. As he opens his mouth to answer, the ground suddenly begins to shake. Fyrus throws out his arms of balance, pinwheeling them. The others struggle to keep their footing, eyes wide in surprise.

“An earthquake?!” Student council girl shouts. “What-”

Glenn rubs his eye, shaking his head to clear it. For a moment he could have sworn the trees around them were moving in unnatural ways, twisting and contorting and growing with bending shadows. It must have been an illusion from the earthquake, like the sudden prickling feeling of heat across his skin. Oddly enough, he hears the... ocean? Waves crashing on a beach.

It must be branches falling in the woods. They’re nowhere near an ocean.

The wind picks up, whirling around them with vicious howling. Glenn raises his hands to protect against it, squinting through the sudden storm. His boots slide in the shaking dirt. A burnt taste suddenly finds itself on Glenn’s tongue.

As he watches, strange symbols of light seem to etch themselves in the air and on the ground. Indistinct shouting rings out from the other teens, muffled by the wind. The soil under his feet starts to give away with a sinking sensation, crumbling from the centre of the glade outward into a forming hole. But the hole doesn’t have dirt at the bottom, nor is it a black void. It’s a spinning collage of colours, rippling like a mirror.

Glenn tries to stumble back, but the swirling spiral of wind pushes him forward. The ground cracks away underfoot, sending him pitching forward into the vortex along with the other four teens.

The next thing he knows, he’s laying in the grass of somewhere distinctly not Earth.

————————————————————

I know, I know, sounds impossible. A cave-in? Underground gas pipe explosion? Science class fumes hallucination?

No. We discussed all the possibilities together, and there’s only one conclusion.

We fell through a portal to another world.

It’s mind-blowing, honestly. Scary. A part of me is trying to distract from the fear and confusion by wanting to study the unique flora of this world. I mean, there are so many new mushroom types alone here. I’ve already seen honey-coloured caps and ones that mimic tree bark. And the trees in this area seem similar to birch, though more silver in colour. It’s weird but kind of cool, that’s for sure. Hopefully we can find something edible.

Another part of me finds this place strangely familiar.

Right now we’ve managed to set up a base camp in a nearby glade using a boulder as cover. The others have turned to me for guidance because I’m the only one with experience part-timing as a camp instructor. Fyrus and Avery managed to find some firewood and Sophia found some giant plant leaves to use as a tarp. Adrien did his own thing and cleared the area of stones and sharp twigs, and is now sitting under a tree in the shade of his umbrella and... doing something, I’m not sure.

I’ve never met Adrien before. There’s a lot of rumours about him- he’s a loner, he always has his umbrella, gives off “mysterious vibes” according to my classmates (apparently he’s “totally a vampire”, which I highly doubt) - but I don’t pay attention to that stuff. He’s careful of where he steps on the flora, and that’s good enough for me, I guess.

Sophia and Avery are also newcomers to me, though I’ve seen Avery on the sports field for the rugby team and the baseball team. She’s got her bat with her, and she’s already said she’d fight anything that approaches our camp to defend us. A little brash, maybe, but her words helped Fyrus and Sophia, so it’s comforting. Sophia’s on the student council and I see her around the library, though she usually avoids the campgrounds I work at. Avoids a lot of the outdoors, but hey, she’s doing her best here.

Fyrus is really the only one I know well. He’s a good friend of mine, full of energy and drive. He won’t stop for anything once he puts his mind to a task (usually because he gets so focused he forgets), and I’ve had to remind him to grab food and water before. He calls me a hypocrite (and then immediately apologies- he’s too nice for his own good) because I can go overboard on work too. Kid’s a little naive and overtrusting, but he’s got a good heart.

I don’t know why I’m writing all this down. Probably as a record in case... well, just so people know who we were in if something happens.

Morbid thought, I know.

That’s it for now. I want to save paper space for the others and it’s starting to get dark. Not great for the eye to be writing in the dark.

And I want to check on the others. Just because I don’t know them well doesn’t mean I shouldn’t make sure everyone’s handling this okay.

We’ll get through this together.

We have to.

- Glenn

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