Round 1 Entry SciFi-Fantasy

New Faces and Places

I stumbled through the thicket, cursing my luck.

I reached up and pressed my cold nervous hands against my hot cheek. I couldn't believe my luck today. Things kept getting better and better. If people could die of embarrassment, I'd have a certificate by now that detailed, 'Death by Mortification'.

I should be that lucky. I'd happily surrender to death rather than go back to school on Monday and have all of my class laughing at me. I'd never live this down.

I felt myself cooling down a bit but then I remembered the cause of my embarrassment and that made me flush red to my blonde roots again. I obviously had had some liquid courage at that party. My blood by now was pure adrenaline and false confidence. I had summoned the tipsy courage to tell Cole I liked him.

It would've been fine if he had rejected me, I could've turned it into a joke or a dare, Marcella would cover for me. It would've have been best if he had responded positively. But nothing could be done now that he'd just stared at me, dumb-struck for five whole minutes. That's when I took off running into the woods. But by this time in my escape I found that it was probably a stupid mistake to leave the party tipsy and in the wrong general direction.

When the lights flashed around me I couldn't fathom what would happen next. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck tingled. I could feel the electricity zip lining through my veins, I could see it crackling and shimmering down my chest, along my elbows, I could see it dance along my fingertips. And then they was gone, not the electric currents. Nor my fingers...at least I don't thinkso... My eyes, my eyes were gone. And slowly tye rest followed.

I couldn't feel the air on my skin any more. The zapping had become my existence, buzzing was my everything.

Then nothing.

....................................

The word came to me; coalescing. That's what I was doing. Piecing back together, cell by cell, organ by organ. At first there was just a flurry of confusion. Then it took form, or rather, I took form.

First I felt the warmth spreading through the emptiness, then the prickling pain of blood pumping back into numbed  appendages. The pain flowed from my heart, thrumming to my extremities And everything in between.

"...think she's waking up." A soft feminine muttering whispered somewhere above me.

Every single cell of my body hurt. It felt like period cramps but everywhere. My very sophisticated response to her voice was a groan that sounded like it came from a heavily wounded animal.

"I think she's dying." A male voice rasped, his throaty voice sounded like it came from the lead singer of a rock band.

There was a rush of footsteps a hurried flurry of clinking and clanking before the male sounded out a soft protest as if he'd been smacked. And then the sound of just as quick a retreat on the footsteps.

It took a while to reach full consciousness. Opening my eyes wasn't as painful as I had thought it would be but sitting up was way worse. I felt as if I'd been compressed and dehydrated and shredded before being put back together.

At the risk of sound cliché and all, I dared asking the question. "Where am I?"

"I only thought they did that in movies." The boy sounded amused. When we made eye contact I practically started heaving. His pupils were slits in the crystal blue of his irises.

I'd backed away so rapidly that the girl had to keep her hands on my back to keep me from falling off.

"Your hideous face scared the shiznits out of her." the girl said.

Had I been in a stable mental condition I would have laughed at her joke because turning to her had me realize something. If she'e cut her two long high ponytails and removed her dark maroon lip colour, she would've been an exact replica of the boy.

His eyes twinkled through the black bangs of his extremely straight hair. "Maybe it's the opposite. Maybe I look exquisitely gorgeous and my good looks are unparalleled back in her world." His smirk drew my eyes to his snakebite pierced lower lip.

"Maybe she can't figure out if you're a person or an animal or a thing." I said, glaring in his direction.

"That's rather offensive." The girl behind me said, her hands still on my back.

I swung my legs off the exam bed I had been on. The moment I attempted to stand up my body pitched forward and shoved into a trolley of items and it rolled a few feet hit a wall and started rolling sideways with me thrown over it like a blanket.

"Overcompensating for the lack of height?" The boy asked as he stuck his leg out. The second his combat boot touched the trolley it stilled.

"I am not short, just well packaged." I hissed, pushing myself off the trolley and suddenly I was swinging all the way back onto my back. This time onto the floor. "What on earth is happening?"

"Earth? Honey... no one's called Terra that since sixty sixty-six." The girl said. "I'm Heidi. This is my brother Maxin."

"Call me Xin." He said. Sin was right he looked just as dangerous and tempting.

"Stop crowding the girl. She's probably in culture shock." A flurry of footsteps later a lady came into view, she too had hair black as night but hers was in a tiny braid. When she walked she took small footsteps but in rapid succession. She helped me up gently and had me sit on the table as she examined me. "Don't put so much effort into moving. The gravity make up here is different."

"Where am I?" I asked as she shone a light in my eye.

"Same place you were a minute ago." She replied, oh so helpfully.

I blinked around then looked back at her. "No I'm not."

"The question you are looking for is 'When am I?'" The girl, Heidi, said as she looked over the doctor lady's shoulder.

"What are you guys on about?" I looked at Maxin as he rolled his unusual eyes at me and got up with unimaginable grace, he moved like an animal as well, stealthy and swift. His hips and shoulders moved effortlessly, as if her were gliding not stomping with his boots.

His look screamed dangerous and his eyes cut sharp, but the way he walked told me he could probably melt into the shadows. Meanwhile Heidi looked like a doll. Her dark hair, her bright eyes, her summer-y dress and friendly smile was the exact opposite to that of her brother's.

The snapping of fingers in front of my face brought me back to the conversation.

Heidi gave me a slightly concerned look before the
Doctor started again. "I'm Michella, this is my lab, we've been experimenting with wormholes and they generally open across space to an alternate universe or a completely different world. As luck would have it the wormhole wormed its way into your timeline and you slipped into our realm."

"This had to be a hallucination, I must have tripped and hit my head." I rationalized out loud.

"Any hits to your grey matter happened way before tonight." Was the boy's response. He poured himself a glass of what looked like something he shouldn't be drinking.

"Xin!" Heidi scolds him halfheartedly as she clucked around me, studying me like I was the Rosetta Stone. "This is the year Gamma twenty-eight. We are homo-sapiens just like you. We're centuries in your future... I can't believe it, look at your hair. I haven't seen anything like it. Did you do something to it?"

I shrugged her hand out of my locks. "If you're asking me whether I've dyed them then no."

"I've only seen this in pictures. Gosh, if you went outside with that hair and those eyes you'd cause a riot. Sticking out like a flippin' splinter."

"Don't you mean sore thumb?" I asked.

"No, ew." She fussed over my clothes and other details that hardly seemed important.

The Doctor smiled at me with mild understanding. "When are you from?" She asked.

"Twenty-fifteen." I said. "Have I really jumped ahead in time?"

Michella nodded. "You're ancient... I mean... wow. You're from before the Galactic Wars. You haven't seen the water crises. Or the sun split of delta-two."

Xin kept his eyes on us from across the room, as if expecting me to do something Throwback Thursday, like sing an old song or ask about a celebrity long gone.

"Can you send me back?" My voice quieted as my hands shook lightly.

"It will take a few minutes to recharge. We've always been able to send things back in space, but we've never tried time before." Michella remarked while she jotted down some stuff.

"If you take a short walk I should be able to change some specs to calibrate--" she looked up into my face and chuckled. "Don't want you to freak out."

The building was on a cliff of sorts. The sky was a strange indigo but that wasn't the strangest thing. From the ground we stood on, I could what looked like two appendages of the earth scaling out for miles and miles on either side.

The earth had been twisted out of shape somehoe, it now looked like a pair of hotns and the sky - god help me - boasted two suns.

The world looked enormous. And sprinkled on it in thick numbers were vehicles, zipping and gliding over ground and air.

"This is insane." I whispered to myself.

My awe was long lived and the twins didn't disturb me.

Michella came out. "Hey, girl. Let me ask you something. What is white, green and a one way ticket home?"

And all at once there was a zap, a soft sizzle and pop.

Then I was back in the forest. Tingling on the back of my neck was the only tell tale sign that proved it had worked. I was back.

I ambled around... a bit shakily I returned to the campsite. A couple of kids giggled but I couldn't care less.

As a teenager, generally the smallest of things felt like they'd tear my world apart. But having seen the future in all its glory had me thinking maybe there isn't an ending just more off shoots, more branches, more roots to spread.

As I felt the shiver of the cool night set into my bones I had a strange want to go back, to the spot. Back through the worm hole to the future.

Where there was so much more than I could fathom. What was school like there? How had theor eyes turned cat-like? What happened to the gravity?