International Legends

Chapter 1: Leo

I am a world's way from the comfort of Purple Mountain Park. Having climbed nearly over half of the famous peaks, leaving only the Grand, I find myself feeling betrayed for the failures upon my part to keep everyone safe. All my coworkers have loved ones that they may never return home to, and their loved ones may not wake up. Ever since the Great Tree broke through all reality, we have been living in a dream. I go to my window and I strain my eyes to hopefully see a bear. Instead? It's a gaggle of girls who are lounging on the pool deck.

This cruise is like a glittering disco party, and nobody knows how long we've been here. Like the famous Land of the Lotus Eaters, its parishioners look like they are happily on vacation. Workers mull around trying to give them as many drinks as possible while a bird kid on stage is telling terrible jokes about paying taxes and going to the dentist. I feel around in my pocket to find my phone, turn it on, and discover that it is completely dead. That's right. We don't get cell service out here in the "Vortex."

Nobody can explain exactly what the Vortex is, but I know that it exists outside of time and space. Our cruise, manned by the hotel tycoon's daughter Carmen DeAngelo, is floating along an inter-dimensional sea. The waves crash back and forth as the ship moseys its way along, but there is no rhyme nor purpose to this reality. We are at the dock of a floating, en-circulating city that seems to spin around in circles as ships fly in and out. There are a few boats here, but we stand out like a sore thumb. This is the largest ship that I've ever seen in my entire life.

Nearly 2 times the size of any luxury cruise line, The Diva of the Seas can hold roughly 10,000 passengers and nearly 4,300 members of the crew, bringing the full capacity to 15,000. 400,000 in tonnage, it sports a number of amenities onboard including a golf course, a wave pool, a kid's water park, a floating aquarium, a nightclub, a two-story library, a three-story dining room, a spa, a sushi restaurant, and a giant movie theater that is playing on deck showing a recent film "Singapore Sci-Fi."

"Watch the new hit that has swept the Multiverse - Singapore Sci-Fi. In it, a girl's crew of ungrateful friends fail to keep her together, causing the entirety of reality to fall apart. You will laugh and cry as this girl who is meant to be supported is abandoned by the people who love her again and again. Feel your heart race at the dramatic conclusion as the heroes realize they have failed at saving those they care about. Watch Singapore Sci-Fi now!"

What a dramatic advertisement. Like everything else that existed in our lop-sided world, this advertisement screams desperation. It is almost near as controlling and possessive as the rhetorical person who wrote the novel, though we dare not tell her that. Imagine how she'd feel. I imagined she'd lift me up in the sky and drop me down on this very same spot. Honey. Cutie pie.

The hours seem to pass on with very little fanfare. I pass by the cruise itinerary desks that are designed to sell excursions. Where to? What kind of places would even exist in a land that is beyond space and time? It seems pointless, but the Vortex Sea is the only place that Naomi's powers have not infiltrated yet. It is a land beyond space and time, designed to inspire in the populace a sense of ingenuity and exploration. If you ask me, they should have shared this technology with the world a long time ago.

"Naomi, where are you hiding?" I murmur to myself, fiddling with the rainbow umbrella that stands alone in my drink. "I'm not that scary. You could always tell me how you feel."

That's not true says the voice. You would have told me this eons ago. You wouldn't have left me on that mountain range alone.

"Well, it was kind of scary when you were thinking about destroying the entire multiverse."

Naomi picks me up with a force that I cannot describe, lifting me through multitudes of clouds and dropping me into the Vortex Sea, only for me to smack headfirst into the deck.