Under the new sky

I stood there in a daze when my eyes saw small brown trees loaded with what seemed to be Purple leaves and black fruit? Never in my life had I seen such a thing, not to mention the sky, having a white, marshmallow-like hue. The clouds looked like cotton candy as they had a very slight pink tint.

'What is this place?' Yamada muttered in a confused manner.

"Hell, as if I have any idea."

Yamada picked up a rock lying next to his boots and held it at arm's length, staring at it and simultaneously showing it to me. The rock was exactly cuboidal! And it wasn't an outlier not in the slightest. All the rocks that I set my eyes on were proper geometrical shapes. Cube, pyramid, cylinder-shaped rocks, and each of them appeared as if they were carved and chiseled by hand.

'Did we both die because of rolling down the cliff, or is it some sort of hallucination?'

'This is impossible'

'I can't believe it'

Yamada was frustrated and could hardly believe a thing.

"Yamada cal--

'I am going back, ' he shouted.

My attempt to calm him down failed. He just wouldn't listen. He tried to rush back into the cave and following him, so did I. We were scared out of our minds not because we saw anything horrifying, but because we didn't understand this place.

As we both tried to rush back BA-DUMP

Both of us fell on our backs after crashing face-first into something, but there was nothing there. After getting up and dusting off my clothes, I extended my hands towards the cave, and there was some sort of invisible wall there.

We both tried breaking it and escaping but all our efforts turned out to be futile.

I sat down with my head glued to my legs, trying to hide my face. Now we were lost and had no way home. All of it is my fault.

"I am sorry, I shouldn't have dragged you into this."

'This is not the time for crying. I came here to find my friend, this has nothing to do with you.' he said as he held me by my arm and raised me.

'If we can't go back, then moving forward is our only option to escape. We might find a way out. '

We began to move. Though we didn't wish to travel through this purple forest, we had no choice. It was unexpectedly tame. No beasts or creepy crawlies happened to be roaming about it. There were some bushes that seemed to be abundant here, but nothing else of note.

We kept on for hours, taking resting intervals and continuing. We had some food on us, but our water supply betrayed us.

"Seems we ran out of water", I said, as I jerked the bottle to get the last drop of water.

'Seems so'

We were resting our legs when a strong wind blew. All of a sudden, the area was crowded with high-pitched screams. Reverberating in my ears. We both ran shitless to save our lives from whatever was making this abhorrent noise. We couldn't tell where this noise was coming from. It was coming from all directions. We just ran straight, hoping to avoid a fatal encounter.

We kept running until the wind stopped blowing, and soon it became quieter.

'Huff huff'

"hagh hagh"

"I think we are safe."

'We should still be on the move just in case, ' Yamada replied.

I saw something in the distance. We went to check it out. Luck seemed to be on our side.

"Wait, is that a lake?"

We began celebrating with joy. Yes, so we will survive, now we have a shot.

We both gulped water as the water was very clean. Much more transparent than average. We both spat it out and glanced at each other.

"I-t's - it's sour. "

Sour water? What had we just drunk? It would be another thing if it were salty but sour water isn't a thing back at home or anyone's home that I can think of.

Our mouths had been tainted by the horrible aftertaste of our drink. We regretted drinking it. We continued forward but we could not go on for much longer. We were hopeless, but still walking.

' I don't think we will make it out'

"Neither do I."

Just an hour after we had lost all hope. In front of us was a house- no more like a church? Well, something between that. It was in the middle of the woods. We thought it to be creepy, but the sun was about to set on the murky horizon. Without shelter, we were doomed to be some beast's meal. We reached the doorsteps of the building.

*knock* *knock*

"Hello! anybody there?"

We waited a minute or so, then in the shadow of the flickering flame lantern, we saw a figure behind the curtains that was about 6 feet from the windows. We could hear his footsteps as he approached the door and opened it. It was a short old man wearing a hat half his size.

'#&*$&:*&: _#:#&:#/$(*) ©] >>€>[^¶*' the old man muttered in gibberish.

' DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?' Yamada spoke as slowly as he could in hopes that he just might understand.

"Oh! You came from the other side. Haven't seen one of you in a while, come in."

We were glad and confused at the same time, but decided to wait until after we were inside.

___________________________________

The building turned out to be his house. It had a mystic aura about it. It was more expansive than it appeared from the outside. He offered us to take a seat.

'Could you spare us some water?' said Yamada.

The old man took a glance at our lips, which looked like crumpled leaves. He then took out his stick, waved it around like a swoosh, and then put it next to his ear and said

"Decan, your ppl are here and bring some water."

It appears this place also has different phones.

He turned towards us and told us that the guy he just talked to was another sider like us.

"What do you mean by othersider?" I asked out of curiosity.

He replied, "Well, people who come here from the other side, of course, you speak a language that is not spoken in these lands. It just so happens that I comprehend all languages."

A door opened, and a tall blonde man who looked to be in his late twenties entered with some water.

' Ohayou gozaimasu, ' Yamada greeted the man

We both drank the water, quenching our thirst.

" Hmm, that's Japanese if I am not wrong", the man spoke in English.

'What! So they don't speak your language? '

"Didn't you understand all languages?" I interrupted.

'Yeah, they all get automatically translated so I can't tell them apart unless I am familiar with them'

'This water is not sour like the lake, Thank god!'

"Sour water? You boys don't mean you drank from the acid lake nearby, do you? You better be thankful that it was a very dilute lake or you might have actually died".

We both looked at each other with a grim face, knowing that today could have been fatal for us.

I tried to bring the conversation back to the point and continued the conversation in English.

'So are we dead, or is this some other world? Can we go back?"

Demac answered," This is another world, and yes, you can go back. The gates are usable only once a week".

"Gates?" I enquired.

"Yes, there are multiple".

"So are there more people like you and us who came here?".

"Yes, it's pretty rare, but about 6 people have come across it in the last two years, excluding me."

Yamada and I look towards each other. There was a chance that Tanaka might have come through. The pieces seemed to fit no sign of his body, he couldn't be tracked down.

We discussed it among ourselves and also explained our dilemma to the wizard and Demac. They said they didn't particularly remembered the names of any of the other siders but knew a place which had information on them.

"He could have been eaten by the beast in these woods, though".

"What beast? There is no beast here. These woods only inhabit small rodents and insects," the old guy replied

'Then what were the screams that we heard?' Yamada asked.

He explained, "Those must be the porpish bushes, they make such noises in the wind. They are all over this area."

We gasped in disbelief, well, at least now we knew that there was no danger out there. We expressed our wish to find our friend for them, and they agreed to help.

Wizis like me usually help the other siders to survive here this land of magic. Sadly, you othersiders are always devoid of it. There has only been one exception only one outsider who was blessed by magic. Since you lack magic, we allow you to choose 1 arcane relic or weapon.

Are you willing to pick a weapon and roam these lands to find your friend?

"No doubt about it ", Yamada and I spoke in synch.

Follow me, then I have just the weapons for you.