Water Lilies

“Lilly!” I jolted awake, my head aching. "What the hell happened to us?!"

A soft warmth emanated from my body. It wasn’t sunlight, though the clear blue sky let its rays bask on my skin, nor was it the soft layer of grass beneath my feet.

It was something more internal, like the feeling I got when drinking a cup of hot chocolate. “Lilly? Where the hell did you land?”

I rubbed the hazy fog out of my eyes. Where exactly was I? Japan didn’t have grassy fields and skinny trees. Lilly had to be somewhere around here. I frantically spun around. “The jokes over Lilly!"

But I couldn't find her anywhere.

The ground shifted like a trampoline as I got to my feet. Loose blades of crimson grass fell from my blue uniform. Despite the warm air, the gentle wind brought a slight chill.

Yet that was nowhere close to the weirdest thing around me.

I gently reached my hand down toward the grass. With a single tap, it sank into the ground, only to gingerly reappear seconds later.

The trees swayed in the wind, and not just the leaves. The thick, solid wooden trunks danced like stage performers. Small streams of water leaked from the trees’ bark.

“This can't be Earth,” I muttered, failing to subdue the increasing panic building in my chest. “Lilly, come on!”

I had read my fair share of light novels. They were impossible to miss at any bookstore, and what would a light novel section be without the massive advertisements above every shelf showing some anime protagonist decked out with a cool weapon?

But those were fiction! Stories made up on the internet. That wasn’t reality!

I had to be in some foreign country. Europe maybe? Who was I kidding? This was straight out of an isekai novel, not France.

But with the fog out of my eyes, one glance to the sky was enough to throw that theory out of the window.

Where on Earth the same familiar yellow sun rose every day, here two suns–one a familiar yellow and the other a pale blue–were forced to share the sky.

No place on Earth had that.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to slow my racing heart. Of course, I would be the one tossed aside like a ragdoll.

This was another world. I could live with that. A world without my parents, without school, without a single reminder of my past was something that I would have wished for day in and day out.

Until I met Lilly. I couldn’t live in a world without her. This was a fate someone like me deserved, not her.

“That can't be the case. I have to think about this logically,” I said to myself, barely keeping it together. “Think about it Rin! We both got sucked up into the vortex. Lilly has to be somewhere on this planet. We just got separated," I felt my chest rising faster and faster. “If not for that damn boiling water, we would be together right now!”

And what was with that voice anyway? The hero stuff? That had to have been met for Lilly! No one would be stupid enough to consider me a hero.

“Let's put off looking for Lilly; future me can deal with that.”  For now, getting my bearings was priority number one, and that started with getting some water.

I slowly walked towards the nearest tree, letting one of the miniature waterfalls run over my hand.

“What in the world?” There was a slight blue hue to the water. Nothing that screamed danger to me, yet, I couldn't look away from how it glimmered in the sunlight.

As the water flowed over my hands, a soreness came from my throat. “Might as well,” I muttered, trying my best to stay calm as I took a sip.

The cool liquid felt like ambrosia as I traveled down my throat. Though there was a bit of an unfamiliar kick. Maybe a bit of spice? I took a few more drinks before splashing some on my face.

I dug through my bag. There wasn’t much: a few notebooks, my phone, some pens, a pocket mirror, and an empty water bottle. I took out the bottle and filled it to the brim.

If this was another world like those novels, then there had to be a town somewhere nearby. Though if there was, it had to be a good hike away.

Typically, in those isekai novels, the protagonist always gained the ability to understand the world's language. I couldn’t assume I'd be that lucky.

With my water bottle filled and bag slung over my shoulder, I took another look at the forest. Even with the shifting of trees and grass stiff like wood, I couldn’t shake the weird familiarity with this place. Trees were trees no matter the world.

Now which way to go…

“Who–” I froze. The slightest whisper of an alien voice tickled the edge of my ear. “Who’s there?!” I shouted, spinning towards the source of the voice, fists raised. “Show yourself.”

“Wait a second!” From one of the emerald green bushes, a girl tumbled out, falling flat on her face. “I'm sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you!”

She hastily got up before giving me an apologetic look. The girl had bright, electric blue eyes and blonde hair that ran down to her shoulders. But neither of those were that unique. It was the cat ears sticking out from the top of her head that caught my eye.

“If that's so, why hide until I called you out…?” I kept my arms raised, not daring to look away from her for a second.

“Do you approach every stranger you see in Harada Forest?” She dusted off her light brown shirt, careful to keep the blue leather straps running across her waist clean. “My name is Aila. Can you tell me yours?”