The Origins Of Wonderbeasts

Ritchie ~ 1

(Made with help from GlitchyEx3, so go check them out!)

Ritchie felt himself be pushed out from the water onto the ground, water spreading around as he heard rocks falling behind him. Pushing some of the remaining water from his lung with a few coughs, he tried to get up. His legs were betraying him, feeling like jello after being thrown around that tube. Ritchie managed to push himself back to the tube, the exit now covered in rocks that were impossible to squeeze through. Even if he could squeeze through them, the current was far too strong to swim back anyways.

His breathing slowly turning back to normal, Ritchie turned back to the place he was spat out. He looked at the wasteland covered with tall trees and other plants. The sun shone brightly above the land, and Ritchie quickly tore his eyes away from the fiery sphere. This was the surface, it really was. He had never been to the surface before, having lived in a sheltered burrow with other people his whole life.

Ritchie had no idea what would be waiting for him among the broken buildings and vegetation. There had been many theories and drawings of what was above the burrow, but nothing was really known for sure. Well, it was known that creatures called mutes and the much taller, much more dangerous, subspecies of mega mutes inhabited the places humans once lived in. What kind of mutes existed, what lived where, and what they wanted was unknown, but it was made very clear that most, if not all, mutes were dangerous.

"Okay Ritchie, stay calm. All you have to do is find your way back to the burrow. Just survive until then, and everything should be fine. No, it will be fine. You'll be perfectly fine!" Ritchie told himself, trying to calm his nerves. Ritchie knew he had no real way of knowing if he would be okay, but he had to stay hopeful and find his way back home.

Taking a deep breath, Ritchie set out into the unknown world of the surface. With no idea where to go or what to do, he just had to start walking and try to figure things out along the way. What else was he supposed to do?

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Ritchie had found a dirty piece of glass and tried to map out the direction of the burrow based on what he remembered, but as he kept second guessing himself, the map became more and more confusing. He ended up having no idea where he came from, where he was, or where he should go. And there wasn't much more glass to use to make any more of his "map".

He groaned, falling onto his back from where he was sitting. He looked at the ceiling above him, holes letting light come through into the old clothing shop where he had made a temporary shelter. He had also found a new clothes. A hoodie, jeans, and a blue bandana with white spots on it to keep his orange hair out of his face.

He was slowly starting to stop believing that everything was really okay and that he would be fine. He was completely lost and he knew nothing of where he was, beside the fact that it was dangerous. It was dangerous, right? He hadn't actually encountered anything dangerous yet. Maybe he had just gotten lucky so far, or maybe it wasn't actually dangerous on the surface.

Ritchie quickly figured out it was actually dangerous when a giant bird burst through the wall, screaming it's head off. Jumping up and running away as fast as he could, Ritchie had to stop himself from running right into a giant snail with a car instead of a shell on its back. Looking back, he let himself breath upon realizing that the bird wasn't following him.

Alright, so mutes were at least somewhat dangerous. Even if by accident, that bird could have killed him. That was honestly pretty terrifying, and definitely snapped Ritchie back into reality. He would have to be more cautious and take things more seriously if he wanted to survive long enough to get home. The surface was not his friend.

Waiting until the snail had fully passed by him, Ritchie began walking down the street. He looked around, trying to take in everything around him. He had always been told that when you are in danger you should follow burrow protocol, but there was no burrow protocol for being on the surface. Some of the old books one of his brothers would tell him about often had characters with a skill set made for adventure and danger, which Ritchie didn't have.

Ritchie wasn't paying attention to the ground, causing him to step into a rope circle and end up shooting upwards, the top of his head pointed to the ground. He tried to grab the rope tied tightly around his foot, looking around for whoever or whatever trapped him.

"Stay sti- you're not a mute." an angry voice said. Ritchie looked in the direction of the voice, only to see a human boy instead of a mute.