As the sounds of the ocean soothed my senses I felt cool waves splash through my body. As I began to slowly awaken a heavy cough overcame me. As the coughing began to disappear I could open my eyes to catch a glimpse of it. A large beach with a thick forest on the outer edge of the beach. As waves moved toward me I made an effort to crawl away from the sea. Pulling myself up on a tree, I turned to the beach and saw a storm off the shore.
A hurricane of thoughts raged in my head as I tried to remember what happened to me. A cold breeze broke my train of thought. As looked down I saw I was in ragged clothes covered with holes, and soaking wet. I began to scan the beach looking for any sign of how I got there all that was on the beach was a backpack. Limping over to the backpack I opened it to find a set of clothes and a badly drawn map. Pulling out the clothes I looked around looking to see if there was anyone else.
Quickly changing into the new clothes, and putting the old clothes in the bag. I looked at the clothes It was a tightly fitted black sleeves shirt and a pair of loose grey pants. It felt a bit weird to wear these types of clothes. taking another look at the map it looked as if a child drew it. Looking at the map I realized it was telling me to go into the forest. With a deep breath of hesitation, I walked through the forest. Following the map, I saw piles of stone like a makeshift wall. Groans of pain came from the other side of the wall. As I walked over to the wall with a smile I heard the sound on the other side of the wall get louder. As I peeked over the wall with a smile as soon as I saw what was on the other side I fell back. A pile of carcasses from all kinds of different animals. I could feel my disgust as I threw up.
As soon as I could walk again I began to follow the map with a repeating thought. "I should turn back" turning around to look back. I felt worried that if I went back I wouldn't see people. With a sigh, I went back to following the map. While walking the path I looked up at the sky to see that the storm that was off the shore of the beach seemed to keep going up. I had thought that maybe this place was a sort of natural prison. The path began to become nicer; it looked as if it was made of marble. Walking along the path I saw a puddle. Crouching down I saw myself in the water. I saw my dirty blond hair sticking to my face.
My face was wrapped with black bandages covering my eyes. After a few seconds of wondering how I could see I gave up. Looking at myself felt a little weird jumping up from the ground and I started back on the path. Soon enough a gleaming light shined further ahead on the path. Running ahead to see what the light was, a tall archway made of a light blue stone. Walking through the archway I saw a city that shimmered with a white glow. Buildings moved through the sky, and the only thing connecting them were bridges of iron disks. Watching them move felt like watching a race as the iron disks shifted to different places.
I began to become distracted from watching it because I didn't notice someone else had come from a different path. Turning to look at him he looked just as distracted as I was. I began to walk over to him and tapped his shoulder. He jumped with fear and fell over. Looking at his face he had similar badges to mine except they were dark green. He was wearing the same clothes as me and they seemed to fit him the same. With a smile, I put my hand out to help him up. He took my hand and pulled himself up. "Nice to meet you," I said while he cleaned himself up. "Nice to meet you too," he said with a smile. "So do you know where we are?" he asked, looking around. "No, I was hoping you did," I said, scratching my head. "Well looks like we both got the same clothes," he said with a light chuckle. "Yeah we do," I said while smiling.
With a silence that lasted a few seconds, it felt awkward he spoke while putting his hand out "well my name is Gaze what's yours". While shaking his hand I said, "my name is Zane". Looking at him I noticed we didn't look too different from each other, the only difference being his hair which was a dark brown. He was looking at me as well, probably thinking something similar. With a smile, I wrapped my arm around his shoulder "you know me and you don't look that different". He seemed to be just a bit shorter than me. Gaze began to smile "yeah we do who knows we could be related". We began to chuckle as I was letting him go. After a bit, we stopped laughing "how about we just say we're siblings" Gaze said scratching his head. "Doesn't sound too bad to me" I said while turning to the city. "Let's have a look around the city," I said as I started walking.
As we walked the paths of this city there were no people or animals. The paths began to look black like it was stained. "Where is everyone?" Gaze asked looking inside a building. "They could have just left this place," I said looking up at the floating buildings. "Why, though this place is great," Gaze said, scratching his head. "How am I supposed to know," I said, rubbing my forehead. I heard Gaze mumble under his breath "you don't have to be so mean about it". Feeling bad I decided "let's find something to eat before we search for more people". Gaze began to grin like a little kid with a smile as we went to look for food. Searching from building to building we could only find a few pieces of bread and a few carrots. Looking at the food with disappointment we both grabbed a carrot and began to eat the old food. If we had eaten it any later we would have no food. Looking at Gaze I could see his disappointment in the food. Looking at the food I remembered the carcasses on the other side of the wall.
Standing up I said "I think I know where we can get meat" turning to Gaze. His smile came back jumping out of his seat "where can we get meat?" he asked, putting down the old food. Walking to the door "outside the city I saw a bunch of dead animals, we can see if there's any good meat" I said watching Gaze follow me. He seemed so happy "lead the way," he said following beside me. Walking along the path we came from, I noticed that the path looked a little different. Ignoring it we kept walking and getting back to the archway I began to think if we should start some form of a farm. In the middle of my thoughts "How far is the food" gaze said pulling my arm. Pointing further up the path "it's just up ahead" I said watching him run ahead. With a chuckle, I said "you know you remind me of a little kid" Gaze smiled at me. "It's called being youthful," Gaze said walking to the wall. With a sigh, I walked over to the wall "it's just over this wall" I said turning to Gaze.
In a moment he jumped over the old wall with ease. On the other side Gaze turned to face me "you coming" he said with a smile. "I'm coming, just wait for a second," I said, trying to pull myself over the wall. After a moment I got over the wall with difficulty. I heard Gaze laugh "you had some trouble there," Gaze said looking at me. With a grin, I said "yeah yeah just go check the meat" watching Gaze check the food I saw that a lot of them were cleanly cut. Walking over to Gaze I grabbed his shoulder. "Is there any good meat?" I said while looking at the meat. "Just a few chunks it's not much," Gaze said, holding up a few chunks of meat. "Something is better than nothing," I said looking around. Looking around I saw that there were scratch marks on the trees. "We should head back soon," I said looking at the wall. Gaze stood up after putting the meat in his backpack "alright I'm ready" he said while jumping over the wall. With a sigh, I began my try to jump over the wall. After a moment I got over the wall it felt like it took longer than before. Walking back to the city I thought of how we were gonna cook the meat.
"We won't be able to cook the meat yet," I said as we reached the archway. Gaze frowned "why did we get the meat then," he said looking down. "It's better this way if we left it there it would go bad," I said looking at a few buildings. After searching a few buildings I found one that seemed more like home although the path outside was black it worried me. The home was deeper in the city where the black paths were more common. Looking through the building we found that there was nothing special about it. I was happy with this but I did want to talk with gaze about a few of my worries. Gaze and I sat down against a wall to relax. "Gaze, I think we need to be more careful when we go out," I said, turning my head to him. Gaze spoke quietly "I know but we do need a way to survive here," he said looking down. Patting Gaze's shoulder "Hey don't be so down let's just rest for tonight," I said watching the light coming through the windows disappear slowly. "Good night Zane" Gaze said as he began to fall asleep. As I dozed off I felt so relaxed with no concerns after a few seconds I fell asleep.