---------- 𝒲𝒾𝓁𝓁𝒾𝒶𝓂 ----------
----- ????? -----
The first thing William noticed when he woke up, was that it was incredibly hot.
Boiling hot
Scorching hot.
Feels-like-your-skin-is-melting-off kind of hot; and he didn't know what to do about it.
He'd experienced heatwaves before. After all, he travelled a lot with his mother. He had the privilege to visit so many amazing places: like Cairo, and Bangkok, and Madrid; all places that could reach very high temperatures. Some sandals, some shorts, and some water: that was all he ever needed whenever he went outside in such conditions. Hot weather never bothered him, or any weather for a matter of fact. He never really paid attention to such small details, like whether or not the sun was out or if it was snowing. To him, they were insignificant, daily abnormalities; and abnormalities weren't worth his time. To him, if it was raining, he'd take an umbrella, but he wouldn't cry if he got wet because he forgot it at home. The same way if it was hot, he'd take off his shirt, but he wouldn't cry if he was sweating too much because he didn't bring a towel. He didn't mind if he had to take certain shoes to not slip on snow, or if his tan was uneven from all his sunburns (and trust me, it was so uneven).
To him, it was all the same - and if it was the same, what was the point in acknowledging it?
But that... that heat... that was something else.
That heat, there and then, as he was lying on the ground, was on some next level. It made his skin itch and burn, and made him sweat as if he had just taken a dip in a waterfall. Molten lava on bare skin would've been more pleasant than whatever the hell was going on around him.
The heat was intense.
William didn't like it.
Groaning, William brought his hands to his eyes and rubbed them ever so gently. They were incredibly sore for some reason, and he didn't want to aggravate them further. He winced as he felt his hot palm come in contact with his eyelids, but didn't remove them from his face. Instead, after massaging his sockets for a few seconds, he moved his hand to rub his forehead, that also felt sore. 'Did someone smash me over the head with a brick?' he wondered, as he rocked his head from side to side, hearing soft crunches when he did so from the floor beneath him. It wasn't just his head, his entire body felt like it had taken a beating. Not a horrible one, just a mild one; but a beating nevertheless. Maybe it was from the harsh temperature it was exposed to, but William wasn't too sure. It wasn't as if him getting a good beating was something new. After all, he got into a lot of fights whenever he visited places. Cairo, Bangkok, Madrid: those holidays wouldn't have been the same without him getting put in his place.
But... he wasn't fighting anyone. At least he couldn't recall anything violent from the day he had so far. Then again, the details of his day were a little fuzzy.
His day.
For some reason, those words hitched in his mind. He sighed, knowing that once again his habit of not paying attention was biting him back. Quickly, he regretted doing the small movement as his lungs pricked in agitation. Damn, was everything painful.
His day: it swam in his mind like a shark fin gliding through water. He watched as it spun around in clean circles, a never-ending loop. Occasionally, the fin would duck under the surface, only to resurface a few seconds later. It was those brief moments where he couldn't see the dangerous fin that he worried about.
What could he even remember?
Wracking his brain, William tried to recall what had happened to him that could've possibly resulted in him being on the floor and in pain. The memories he had went as followed:
He woke up... woke up Liath... fell off his bed... and... ate some... pancakes... his mum had made for them... blueberry ones.
Nothing out of the norm.
He remembered... forgetting... that it was the geography trip that day... so he rushed out the house with Liath to catch... the bus... no... it was the train, not the bus.
Not something he did usually, but still pretty normal.
He managed to make it... on time... and... saw Daisy by the coach.
Alright, alright, a bit strange he was on time, but not impossible.
He... talked to her a bit... before Addy and Lewis joined them.
So he was with his group, what happened next?
They chatted before Daisy... before Daisy... before Daisy started to act weird? Didn't she claim the time was wrong or something? Was that right?
Fog... fog? How was that relevant?
His brain began glitching, running like a broken record jammed on a fourth interval that made the song incomplete. For some reason, it all felt kind of mushed together from that point onwards. The water's surface began to ripple too much, the waves causing the blue shark fin to camouflage itself in Will's mind. William groaned, vexed that his own memory was failing him.
The memory was made only a few moments ago, for sure. He shouldn't have been having such a hard time retelling what he did.
He just had to focus.
Okay, trip... they got in groups... Archie came?
William stiffened. That didn't sound right, but his brain continued anyways.
Walking. Walking. Talking. Missing. Arguing. Shouting. Some more walking. Running. Running? Yeah, running; and white light.
A white what now?
At that, William could feel his heart drop, and the colour left his face, as a certain realisation began to dawn upon him. He began connecting dots in his brain, something he didn't do very often, but if his sudden thought was correct, it was an emergency. A very, very big emergency.
‣Incredibly hot.
‣Pain all over.
‣A blinding light.
‣Little to no memories of the last moments that day.
It could only mean one thing...
... HOLY PONY IN A BARN, WAS HE DEAD?!
William shot up from where he was lying, fully awake and pumped with fear, despite the aura of pain around him. Eyes wide open, he took in his surroundings, expecting to see fire engulfing him as he burned in the deepest depths of hell. He knew he should have listened to his Abuela; why did he decide to be an atheist? WHY? Why did he even care enough in the first place to make that decision? He could feel her looking down at him from above, shaking her head in disappointment as she played poker with the angles and Jesus. Even the trees around him looked like they were judging him for being so unfaithful. It was all his fault, now he would rot in hell for eternity-
Wait... trees?
Looking around, he saw no blazing inferno fuelled on the cries of the guilty. No demons with pitchforks, no chains and pain, no screaming or wailing. Only... trees... towering over him as he sat on a leafy floor. The trees had tall, thick stumps with ivy dancing around them. Even if they were sapping the life of the tree, they looked alive against the dull texture of the rough tree trunks, the vibrant green sticking out against the dry brown colour. William could see a slight refraction hovering in the air that surrounded him. He might not have been in hell, but he doubted hell's temperatures could rival the heat that lingered amongst the place he was in.
It was all so... dry. From the grass that stood pathetically on the shrivelled soil, to the mushrooms that looked old and ready to burst into dust. William couldn't see anything, other than a forest cruelly tortured by an unholy heatwave, and a sickly green parasite thriving. He couldn't believe he was stranded alone in such a place. The only reason he was holding back his assumption that he was in hell, was because he could hear water running in the background, the gentle shum of the stream cancelling out any white noise... that could have been lava though. Either way, he felt a sense of defeat as the isolation began to bite at him, along with the pain he already had in his bones. Being alone sucked.
William looked to where he was sitting and paused.
Well then, guess that was a lie.
Four other bodies were lying next to him, all in random positions, but still clustered together invasively. Bodies of people he felt like he should've recognised. They looked... strangely familiar. From the facial structures to the body types, hell, even the way they were lying down looked familiar. But he didn't know anyone with curly blond hair and a tiara, or a man of colour with long silky black hair, or a person with a sword and armour, or a woman in a white wrap dress wielding a sceptre.
Was he supposed to know them?
The pain was slowly beginning to fizz away as he tried his best to figure out who they were. He could feel the cogs in his brain begin to turn once more as he tried to piece the puzzle together. He was rusty. He knew he was. He rarely let himself indulge in curiosity.
Abnormality: a rare instance where something is out of place or is simply uncommon.
It was ironic how many things qualified for that label in his mind. The word 'rare' had a different meaning to his subconsciousness. Not that he'd ever bother to address the clear miscommunication... or rather, he wasn't ready to.
Just earlier though, he managed to piece together a reasonable-ish conclusion to his situation; surely he could come up with something again.
Suddenly, the stream wasn't the only thing he could hear. Almost as if they had felt him staring, they all started moving.
"Ugh," could be heard being mumbled collectively amongst the group, like a choir of parrots that were waking up. All of them rubbed their eyes and heads, much like William had when he first woke up. Guess he wasn't the only one who was in pain. A small wave of "Where am I?"s and "What happened?"s passed over them, before the others looked around.
And that... was when everyone started screaming.
"AAAHHHH!" they all yelled, scrambling backwards in the hot shrivelled debris, desperately trying to put distances amongst themselves. William was the only one who didn't bother to move, but he too was shocked, and most of all... confused as hell.
One moment.
Two moments.
Three moments.
They were still screaming.
Four moments.
Five.
William began growing tired of their shouting.
"OKAY KINDLY EVERYONE SHUT UP!" he yelled, a voice crack hitting him mid shout at the sheer amount of power he had to manifest to project his voice above their yelps of fear. Silence. Everyone complied. An echo bounced around the forest as they all looked at the boy. William looked around and saw the confusion that was swarming in all of their minds. He would've felt bad for them if only he didn't feel the same way too. The sound of running water gushing in the distance was prevalent once more. He took a deep breath.
"Okay, clearly none of us knows what's going on," William began, before being cut off by the girl with a pixie cut.
"Are we dead? Oh gosh, we are so dead aren't we?" she said, her voice trembling in fear.
"Dead? Thank fuck for that," scoffed the girl in a tiara, an empty expression replacing her previous look of dumbfoundedness, "Although real shame I was wrong on the whole reincarnation thing."
Wait a hot minute... that voice... that pessimism... that face...
"Andrea?" Will asked, more to himself rather than her. He hadn't intended for her name to slip out, but it had, and the girl looked at him with wide eyes.
"Will?" she asked, her poker face breaking as a look of confusion riddled her face once more. She squinted her eyes and quickly crawled towards him, her knees making soft crunches as they crushed the leaf corpses that were littered everywhere. Getting very close to him, she grabbed his face and started turning it around in various angles, examining him as if he was a broken toy. He was too much in shock to stop her or protest.
"Hey, leave him alone," said the man with long silky hair. Will would've thanked him, but he made another connection in his head.
"Lewis?" he asked, and 'Andrea' (he assumed it must have been her) stopped her small examination. She glanced over to him, with the same confusion and perplexion that they all seemed to have glued onto their profiles.
"Holy shit..." she whispered, Will only heard her because she was still close to his face.
Abruptly, she stood up and dusted herself off. Everyone looked at her, as the sunlight bounced off her curly locks and gave her a sort of angelic glow. She spun around in a circle.
"Wait, are Daisy and Liath also here?" she asked, her voice small and cautious, clearly unsure if her assumption was correct. The other two girls there nodded, both rubbing their necks and arms.
"Where's my scarf?" asked the girl in a wrap dress. She looked down and saw black hair cascading down her strange clothing. She grabbed it abruptly, shouting, "What the fuck? My hair is purple, not black?!"
Her remark made Will blink... Liath?
There was no way that was Liath.
"Dude William what's up with your face?" asked the man Will assumed was Lee. Tearing his thoughts away from the girl, he raised his hands to his face and slowly rubbed his skin in curiosity. His left side felt... off. He felt something... rough... and bumpy... pressing against his fingers as he gently brushed over the area. It felt like... a scar? Perhaps an injury of some sort. It covered most of his left cheek, and a prominent bump of some sort poked out, that went from the corner of his eye to the corner of his mouth in a clean line. Almost like some sort of strange mountain range on his face. What the hell? He felt it; the jagged lines that were etched into his cheek; the strange soft texture that felt suspiciously like open, half-healed flesh; and tried to draw yet another conclusion. Boy his mind was running a marathon that day.
Logically, it felt like an injury. How do we get injuries?
...
...
So he did get into a fight. Did he?
"Okay, I'm starting to freak out," said the last girl there without a name, and Will only assumed that that must've been Daisy. She sure as hell didn't look like the timid girl he knew and loved, but who else could she have been. She looked nothing like she usually did. She wore a metal chest plate that hugged her thin frame, that had a lion of some sort engraved onto it; a metal and yellow skirt laid on her thighs as she knelt on the ground, that sort of looked like a tennis skort. A large shell was stuck onto her back, but Will quickly realised that it was, in fact, a shield. He couldn't see what was on it as she was facing him. Not that it mattered, he was too busy eyeing the sword that was laid beside her. It looked sharp and heavy, and very dangerous. One wrong swipe and it was definitely off with someone's head.
And where was her hair? Daisy always had long hair to her hips that she'd try to hide behind whenever she was in doubt, but there she sat, with all of it gone.
It actually suited her really well.
All together, Daisy looked like some kind of warrior, and it was pretty damn impressive. However, Will's silent praise was soon cut short with the sound of dismay from his pessimistic friend.
"What the fuck am I wearing?" said Andrea, grabbing at her strange attire and pulling at like it was stuck onto her skin. She was wearing a revealing shirt (a very revealing shirt) that kind of looked like a laced up bra (a very laced up bra) made of leaves. The golden laces swirled and attached to some kind of makeshift leaf skirt, with more golden laces running down all the way to her feet, where she had sandals on. How the hell did she put it on? It looked like a very intricate bikini that was part of her body. Not to mention she was also wearing a literal tiara with green gems on her head for some reason.
Will thought as he looked at his friend in the unusual clothes. If he had to use one word to describe the outfit, that word would be: green. It was like she had come out of the earth and mother nature decided she would grant her some coverage. Although, there wasn't much coverage going on.
Andrea looked disgusted. He could see it from the way she had stiffened to the green hue of sickness that was rapidly growing on her face, slowly matching her attire. He couldn't blame her, her whole thing back home was wearing clothes that didn't give people much to work with. As she stood there on full display, she wasn't leaving much to the imagination.
Before he could offer to give her something to cover up, Liath had thrown something grey at their green friend. Andrea stumbled, before pulling the fabric (was it fabric?) off her face.
"I think it's a coat of some kind?" Liath said while she tried to manoeuvre her hair into a dealable hairstyle.
Andrea turned it over, before putting her arms out and letting the bottom of the thing drop to the floor as she held the top up to examine it.
"No, it's a cloak," Andrea said, before hastily putting it around herself.
William had no idea how she was going to survive the heat with that on, but he didn't want to comment on the situation. He was just glad his friend was covered up in a way she felt comfortable.
"Dude, we all look so weird," said Lewis, as he stood up and began looking around himself at what he was wearing, "And guys! I have silky hair!"
If he thought Andrea and Daisy looked bizarre, oh boy was he in for a shock. Lewis was sporting an outfit of scales. Lots and lots of scales. He wore a kind of crew cut, a sleeveless crop top that glittered harshly in the beating sunlight. His legs were adorned in black and silver scaled shorts, that were just as shiny as his red top. Amongst those scales, two broken katanas were strapped onto his leg, each on either side. The centre of the blades were removed, allowing the boy to bend his legs freely. They looked just as lethal as the sword Will had seen before, despite them being in halves. The top of his hair was pinned back with a black and red hair ornament, with small black ribbons swaying around in the breeze.
He looked... extravagant... to the say the least.
"At least you're not naked!" Andrea exasperated, still looking slightly queasy from before.
"At least William and Liath look pretty normal," Lee said in response, nodding to the other two there, "Ish."
Will looked down, hoping that he was wearing what he had put on that morning. Of course, that would've been too true to be good, but at least Lee was half right. He did look pretty normal... ish.
If Lee looked like he was going to a rave, and Andrea looked like she was modelling, he looked like he was wearing a skimpy Indiana Jones outfit. He didn't have a shirt; his eyes could see his bare torso as his gaze wandered about himself. He had two straps across his chest that wrapped around his back, forcing his spine to keep an upright posture. That would've explained the back pain. He could see two bronze badges on each of his shoulders, where the straps were, and what looked like a cape attached to it. The cape draped around to cover his arms. He had pretty normal cargo shorts on by the looks of it, weirdly, but they felt... different. He had worn cargo shorts before, but these felt like silk against his thighs. They were covered in dirt. He would've complained, but he was more surprised by the fact he didn't have shoes.
What had happened to his old clothes?
What had happened in general?
"Okay... What the fuck is going on?" asked Liath, crossing her legs as she adjusted her seating position.
That was the question that was running across everyone's mind.
I mean, how could it not have been. One moment they were on a school trip, the next they're in some sort of hellscape, dressed like they were going to a drugy's dress-up party. Abnormalities weren't worth his time: now he was living in one. Will rubbed his eyes, pinched his skin, held his breath... nope, he was definitely living in one. He regretted deeply complaining about the shark fin dipping at will into the waters, because now it had completely swum away, leaving its circle prison, and leaving him in absolute shambles. He couldn't think, couldn't even begin to comprehend what was going on. It was slowly dawning on him how strange it all was. No. It wasn't strange. It was outright fucking insane. Impossible. Madness. Ludicracy. This wasn't him forgetting his umbrella, this wasn't him getting beaten up, this wasn't him being careless with his mind. Insanity: that's what it was. A very, very hot insanity.
"Oh my lord, I feel like I'm melting," said Daisy, as she shakily stood up on two wobbly legs. That metal didn't look light.
"I know, what is this place?" asked Lewis, as he tried to shade his eyes whilst looking up into the sickly blue sky. There were no clouds in sight, only a blazing ball of blinding light that no one could look directly into.
"Hell?" suggested Liath, as she ruffled her hair in frustration that wasn't cooperating with her at all. Will was beginning to think she wasn't wrong.
"Would explain this damn heat," Andrea said, waving her hand in her face that was slowly becoming red. Sunburn, or overheating? Will couldn't tell.
"That cloak isn't helping," said Lewis without moving his lips, still gazing up into the missing heavens -
... wait what now?