Trials of Nebula

Chapter 1: The Planet of Volcan

                                                              Ivy

My head hurts. My vision is swimming. Shifting from my crumpled laying position, I feel something itchy and rough on my feet, which I realize must be bare, and soon I realize it's sand. Where are my shoes? Sitting up slowly, I brush the sand out of my hair and off my arms, legs and face. I look around. There's something lying crumpled a few feet away. I begin to crawl over to get a better look at it, but have to stop because my arms are in too much pain. By the time I finally get there, it's like a thousand needles poking in all the worst places on my arms.

I take a look at the thing I so uncomfortably crawled over to see. It's a person, male-presenting, with a black mullet and a dorky face.

A wave of heat smacks me in the face. Where am I? I shut my eyes and desperately try to remember what happened but my mind is blank, nothing... Tears burn my face. Why can't I remember? I'm stuck in the middle of the desert. There was something around my neck. I see a plant... Ivy. It was an Ivy plant that choked me, wrapping around my neck... a necklace of Ivy.

"Where is this?" The person asks. Their voice is deep and gravely

I open my eyes and nearly smack the person in the face.

"I don't know," I say. "A desert of some kind. And sorry. I didn't mean to try to smack you" I continue, He laughs it off. He runs his sandy hands through his sand filled hair, He looks around to see what to do.

"You want to try and figure out where we are together?" He asks, I nod. We stand up and agree to go through the forest. We grab anything we think to be of value from the wreckage around us before we start through the deep dark forest.

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"Mix the chemicals quickly—and don't get burned! Sy water tends to explode!" I yell. Where is that test tube?

SMASH.

The tube falls to the stone floor. The purple liquid glowing on the floor will burn right through that stone if I don't collect it. I need another tube before the Sy water distorts and ruins my lab. My lab was dark, except for the faint light from the windows, and full of possibly dangerous chemicals and my other tools. I quickly grab the only other test tube on the highest shelf. I suck in a breath as I clean it up, trying not to get burned. I stare at my scarred hands, whoever I was, I had picked a few fights. It's reinforced by the many knives and muscled arms I found when I woke up in the desert. I had tried to keep it up but I lost a lot of it. I look up at the handsome boy right in front of me.

"That's the 5th time this month!"

Chad hasn't changed since the day in the desert, with the same mullet and the same dorky face. Though he still doesn't know his name, because of his clumsiness and how he forgets almost everything, I have quickly started calling him Chad. I hear sizzling, I jump away from where it was spilled. Darn! I burn my overalls.

For the past three years I have grown interested in tinkering with chemicals, gears, and anything I could find, so I can re-learn every bit of information I lost. Today is the three year anniversary of the day in the desert. They also left me a few notes about the necklace, the only thing I found was something about an étoile... whatever that is.

"Sorry, I can get you another one," he laughs, I grab his collar.

"You can't just steal another one!" I shriek, scrunching up my nose. Like always he laughs it off.

"If you help me, we'll steal some jewelry to pay for one," He says, holding out his hand.

As I stand up my goggles fall over my eyes, pulling my wavy hair forward. I take his hand without saying another word.