A boy stared up at the glaring sun, his beautiful green eyes were unblinking and oddly vacant. His void black pupils were rapidly condensing and his wild blond hair was lying upon a bed of wild green grass. At first glance his pale white face seemed lifeless, even if you looked deeper, there was no glint in the eye to be found. but he was unquestionably alive.
Arlo sucked in a breath of warm humid air, but after catching several unfamiliar scents his nose abruptly scrunched up. He jolted up to a seated position and scanned his environment, leading to the first emotion to emerge on his serene face, confusion.
'Huh'
Arlo slowly stood up to get a better view, but the more he looked the more perplexed he became. Arlo stood in a sun-blessed patch of long tangled grass, surrounded by enormous jungle trees. Arlo had to crane his neck to spot the apex of the foliage.
It was weird, even though the millions of trees and hundreds of different species competed for just a glance from the dazzling sun, none seemed to encroach on or above the domain of the wild grass he was standing in. This led to the sun still beating down on Arlo from above, gradually melting his translucent skin.
Arlo took a cautious step forward to the shaded jungle, his barefoot squashing a clod of lush grass, and then took a few more slow steps. When he finally arrived at the dence wall of greenery he pushed apart branches until he could slot through. He was out of the sun, and now entirely surrounded by foliage. He could finally reflect on this perplexing situation.
'Where am I?'
'I'm definitely not in a dream or hallucination, everything is just too vivid'
'And I'm definitely not in my bedroom either'
'The last thing I remember was dozing off on the floor of my apartment.'
Vivid memories flooded Arlo's head. He saw himself bussing back from a funeral, entering his home, and crumbling to the floor with distraught eyes. He remembered sitting on that floor for hours before finally falling asleep.
He had been coming home from the funeral of the last loved one he had.
'Did I die too?'
Arlo focused on his body, he felt his heartbeat, his flowing blood, and his every breath.
'If this is death, it feels identical to being alive.'
Arlo once more focused, he felt the tension in some of his muscles, the humid air, the foliage compressing him from every side, and something he couldn't place.
It was subtle if you weren't paying attention, but he felt an odd sensation coursing through his body. Arlo couldn't place this weird feeling in any one position. It felt like it was everywhere, in his heart, mind, left pinky toe, right hand, and yet nowhere at the very same time. It felt powerful and important, dangerous yet controlled. almost like a backyard swimming pool filled with jet fuel, that couldn't react without his permission. It felt abnormal yet familiar. It was comically difficult to describe.
'I'm in a state of panic right now, so for all I know this weird feeling could just be an extreme adrenaline rush'
'Yeah, that makes sense.'
Arlo was currently leaning up against a thick tree with moist black bark. His feet were entrenched in layers of soil and leaves, and his legs were surrounded by assorted shrubs and weeds.
Arlo wasn't a wildlife expert, his only knowledge about plants came from growing up outdoors. Yet, even he could tell that some of the plants around his feet weren't from Earth.
One plant in particular took his attention. The odd plant was as tall as his knees and spread out across the ground in front of him. It had an abundant amount of leaves, but that wasn't the weird part, the weird part was that every leaf on this plant was unique. There was no shared pattern, size, or color, some were big, some small, and some the size of a pine needle.
There were many other weird plants around him, each odd in their own spectacular way.
The more Arlo looked around this jungle the more certain he became.
'No jungle like this exists on earth.'
He took another look below him and noticed something he hadn't before. Tiny little bugs were parading around the mulch on the ground. They moved in lines like ants but were much bigger in size.
This was the first life Arlo had found since he woke up, ignoring the distant bird calls.
Arlo crouched down and reached out to the bugs, but when they noticed the hand coming down from heaven, they scattered. Some bugs sprinted away, some vanished into the soil, and some darted into the dense foliage never to be seen again.
'Oh, maybe that wasn't the best idea.'
Arlo stood back up, looked over to the sunny patch of grass, and noticed that all the grass he had crushed and snapped had returned to how it was in the first place, like he was never there.
The bird calls Around Arlo were slowly getting louder. Initially, the jungle had been silent when he woke up, but the bird calls were quickly the first thing he heard. They kept getting louder since then, yet he couldn't pinpoint where any of them were in the canopy.
But Arlo ignored the birds once more. He had become trapped in his own thoughts, there were hundreds of questions flooding his mind, but one stood above the rest.
It was a thought that had been festering ever since he tried to figure out where he was.
'How the hell did I get here.'