Wait a minute. I think I left my conscience on your front doorstep. Woah-oh, woah-oh
Wait a minute. I think I left my consciousness in the sixth dimension

-WILLOW

-ˋˏ ༻ʚ𓆣ɞ༺ ˎˊ-

"I'm starting to feel lightheaded." Evie wobbles until she stops to sit on a nearby log. The cut on her arm continues to gush, painting everything red.

Cosette, the sheep woman who is currently leading Evie and Theo to her house, gasps at the sight of the weak girl. "Honey, you're not alright. Let's sit down for a bit," Cosette suggests while looking at Evie's cut. Her soft fingers graze gently over the wounded arm.

Theo looks around cautiously. It wasn't until now that he realized his glasses had been cracked. The glass on his left eye is completely shattered.

It would be terrible if another monster jumped at them right now. Especially, since Evie is injured. For the last couple of minutes, she has been whining about how much it hurt. The cut on her arm looks terrible, and if it didn't, Theo would have thought she was just being dramatic, but this is serious. Theo tries to look away from the oozing blood, but the bright red catches his eye. It makes him sick to the stomach to see it.

Cosette's heart drops as the condition of the wound starts to get worse. Evie has stopped crying, but that doesn't mean she's any better. The poor girl is in lots of pain. Cosette wanted to reach her home before trying to treat the cut, but she needed to at least put some pressure on it. Cosette takes a handful of fabric from her long skirt and forcefully tugs at it. A piece of fabric rips off.

"Your skirt? Why would you do that?" Theo's confused questions are ignored as Cosette demonstrates what she's doing with it. Being careful, she wraps the fabric around Evie's cut. The blood soaks through it immediately, but it has stopped some bleeding. Evie hisses in pain. Sweat beads her forehead, but at least the color in her face is coming back. She tells Cosette they should start moving again.

Cosette does her best to stay calm about the situation, but her heartbeat never lies. It's currently going a million miles an hour. Never in her life has she seen a human, let alone two humans. She'll figure out how they got to her world later, as of right now, she needs to help them by hiding them.

Evie focuses on her breath instead of her arm. Cosette promises her that they are almost at her house. Theo brushes Evie's sweaty strands of hair out of her face. They start to see a small neighborhood up ahead. The houses aren't perfectly lined up like you would see in Evie's neighborhood, instead, parts of the forest are scattered between the buildings. It looks like a street from a fairy tale.

Theo asks Cosette to point out her house. She gestures to a small, two-story cottage. It has a tall, green roof with decorated beige exterior walls. Wildflowers have grown over parts of the house and the fences out back.

"We'll have to sneak through the back," Cosette tells them before leaving their main path to move through the woods. "Otherwise, one of my neighbors might see you."

Theo is still confused about their situation. "Why do we need to stay hidden? I recognize that we are somewhere exotic, but is everything here considered dangerous?"

"Theo, you and Evie are the danger. Therefore, we cannot afford to be seen." The sheep woman rubs her head in stress. She couldn't leave these kids alone in the woods, but she has put a lot of consequences on her shoulders if they are found. The species in this world are no longer accepting of humans. Cosette pushes these thoughts to the back of her head right as they approach the back of her house.

Evie looks at the flowers covering the white fence. How are they going to get over without wrecking them? She doubts that she can even get over the fence with her hurt arm. The pain has dulled slightly, but she doesn't want to upset it again. Cosette stops before her fence and tells Theo to put a foot into her hands. Theo is skeptical for a moment before doing so. Evie watches from the side of the woman and lifts Theo to the top of the fence with ease. She made it seem like he weighed two pounds.

Theo swings his legs over the fence before dropping to the other side. He watches the top carefully for when Evie comes over. Cosette lifts her, and Evie grabs the top with her good arm. Theo rushes over to carry her down to the ground. Cosette calls from the other side that she'll go through the front door. Theo and Evie wait in her yard for her to come around.

A second later, the back door opens.

"That was fast," Evie notices. But, Theo and Evie turn around to see two small sheep running towards them. The twin sheep ram their baby horns into the shins of Evie and Theo. Evie moves away from them while calling out to Cosette. Theo reaches down to grab one of the sheep. It thrashes in his hand, while the other one bruises his legs.

"Evie." Theo looks over at her with an unpleasant expression. "I think this is a trap. We need to escape. Look at these sheep, they're already attacking us... Ouch!" Theo puts the sheep down to examine his fresh bite mark.

Evie holds her bandaged arm close to her while trying to avoid the two sheep. What's taking Cosette so long? She had fully trusted Cosette, but she was not here to help them now. Theo might be right, this seems like a trap. Evie tells Theo they should escape now.

The tiny sheep scream at the humans as they sprint from them and to the back door. Evie enters the house, and Theo slams and locks the door behind him, keeping the sheep on the other side. Evie runs through the hallway until she finds the front door. She's about to open it, but Theo tells her not to.

He peers his head through the nearby window to see Cosette talking to someone. It must be one of her neighbors. If they go out there, they'll be caught. The neighbor is a weird human version of a fox. Cosette might be trying to convince the fox man to help her trap them. Cosette must have felt his eyes on her because she saw him peeking through the window. They hear her excuse herself from the neighbor.

"Crap, we have to hide," Theo decided. Evie follows him through another room, and that's when they hear the front door open. Cosette calls out to them. They hear her getting closer to them, and they still don't have a hiding place. Evie picks the nearest door to her and rushes Theo and her inside. They crash into each other as they enter the small closet.

Theo lets out a yell of pain, and Evie slaps her hand over his mouth. Her arm hurts too, but this isn't the time for complaining. Theo's yell turns into a hiss. "No really," Theo whispers, "Something is biting my leg... Argh... It hurts," He can barely talk through the pain. Evie is torn between helping Theo and keeping their hiding place secret. Cosette's confused calls get closer to their room.

"I can't do this," Theo says at last before getting off the closet floor and opening the door. He calls out to Cosette. She rounds the corner quickly, her eyes wide in shock at Theo's painful face.

"Theo!" Evie shouts as she notices what is latched onto his leg. An animal trap of some sort has closed onto the leg. It has ripped through his clothes and pierced his skin. It's too gruesome to look at. She stands near the closet, hoping Theo will return to her. What happened to their escape plan? Evie is also hurt, but Theo doesn't care until he gets stuck in an animal trap.

Cosette rushes Theo into her kitchen. Quickly, she pries off the trap he had somehow set off. She doesn't look at the condition of his leg, but instead cuts his pant's fabric off until his calf is exposed. She notices Evie watching from the corner and asks her to help mix the herbs. Theo hides his head in his hands as he leans over the kitchen table. Sounds of pain come from him.

Evie helps Cosette mix the unfamiliar substances into a rocky bowl. She mashes all the weird colors and smells together. Cosette cleans Theo's wound. He hollers in pain. It makes Evie's heart pound. Cosette comes back for the herbs and applies them to Theo's wound. She lets the green herb substance stick to his skin.

"Shouldn't you wrap it? To apply pressure just like you did with my arm," Evie questions. She wants to help Theo, but why is he being helped and not her? Her arm still feels like it's been ripped into a million pieces.

Cosette's head pops up in realization. "Evie, honey, you poor thing. Let me put some herbs on your arm."

Evie is still slightly mad, but because it has seemed to help Theo, she accepts. She watches as the woman takes off her bloody makeshift bandage and spreads the cool herbs over her arm. Almost immediately, the pain soothes to nothing.

"What is this stuff?" Theo asks in astonishment. Cosette goes back over to him to wipe the herbs off his skin. Once it's removed, the skin is perfectly healed. Like nothing had previously punctured it. She does the same to Evie's arm, which has the same results. Evie and Theo stare at their healed skin in shock.

"It's only herbs," she answers. "I'm guessing you guys don't have this stuff in your world," Cosette laughs before realizing what she just said. Both Evie and Theo turn to her in confusion. She shouldn't have said anything.

"What do you mean? Our world?" Evie's tone goes serious. Theo sits down in a kitchen chair to zone out. He shakes his head slowly in disbelief. Cosette tries to explain what she means without upsetting them, but Theo cuts her off.

He turns towards Evie, his eyes lack expression. "We should have known, Evie. The weird creatures, the purple trees, and the magical fruit that makes you understand sheep woman... it's all not from our world."

"You don't mean that!" Evie shouts. Her hands slam against the table, tears come back to her eyes. She tells him how this is all a sick joke that's being played on him. That none of this is real. She continues to freak out and Cosette interjects to place a gentle hand on her shoulder. Evie rejects the gesture and throws her hand off of her. She backs into the kitchen corner, trying to put as much space between her and the weird woman. "You're not real... This is not real," Evie cries while holding herself tight.

"Oh, Evie," Cosette softly calls from the other side of the kitchen. She understands that this is all a difficult concept to grasp. Cosette's heart hurts for the humans as she watches Evie break down, and Theo go into a state of dissociation. "You guys are far away from home, but I promise I can get you guys back," Cosette tries.

Evie continues to cry, not caring what she has to say, but Theo's head lifts. "How will you ever get us back to our world? We don't even know how we got here," He objects. Cosette tells them she has a lot to explain. Theo pulls out a chair for him and Evie to sit in. It takes Evie a moment to leave her part of the room, but eventually, she comes to him.

"Did you guys find a mirror and a crystal?" Cosette asks. Her face is completely serious while her eyes flicker between the two humans. It's the only possible way they could have gotten here. Relief fills her as Theo and Evie exchange a shocked look.

"We did. How did you know that?" Evie accuses. She stares at Cosette like she's a witch. Theo tells her to continue.

Cosette takes a deep breath. "The world we are in now is called Ethera, home to many species you might be aware of, such as Fae and Goblins. Also, a world containing sources of magic," She explains to them carefully. Evie burrows her head in her hands while Theo continues to ask questions.

"... But not humans? Is that why we have to stay hidden? And this is good to know and all, but we need to know how we got here and how we can get back to Earth," Theo explains, slightly annoyed, but Cosette stays calm.

Cosette tells him that he's correct. "Yes, humans were once a part of this world, but then they moved to your world known as Earth. You're no longer common in this world, and so you have to stay secret, I can explain this more later," Cosette starts, and Theo's eyes go wide, but she's not done. "Back to what I was saying about Ethera; this is a place of magic. We have Fae here who have special abilities to put magic onto crystals."

Theo leans in closer as they are now back on the subject of crystals, which is the cause of how they landed in this strange world. Even Evie has calmed down and started to listen to what Cosette is explaining.

Cosette continues, "The people in this world use these magic crystals to get around our world. Each crystal can be placed under a spell where that can lead you to a specific place. Anyone can use these crystals, and the way to use them is by touching any mirror with them. Instantly, you will be transported to wherever the crystal was designed to take you.

Theo stands up, his chair moving away from him. His hands go to his curly hair in shock. Evie looks at him with the same expression. For the first time in a while, Evie says, "That's what must have happened to us," Evie turns to Cosette. "We found this strange beetle crystal in a lake and a mirror. I remembered I had set the crystal down on the mirror, and then we both must have touched it." Everything is starting to make much more sense.

Theo makes a grunting sound and sits back down. "Ah! We left our crystal at the place it teleported us to. Can we go back there so we can use it to get back to Earth?" Theo pleads while trying to remember where in the woods they landed.

Cosette shakes her head sadly. Theo and Evie watch her with so much hope in their expressions. Cosette starts to talk again, "Unlucky for you guys, these crystals are only one way. So, that crystal will not get you back home." Theo and Evie slump in their chairs out of disappointment.

"But," Cosette's voice makes them look at her again. "I'm going to help you guys get a human crystal. I'm going to get you back home, no matter what it takes to do that."

-ˋˏ ༻ʚ𓆣ɞ༺ ˎˊ-

2538 Words

Posted on 3/6/2024

Woo! Chapter 2! What do you guys think so far? Things are just getting started.