Prophecy, Book One of the Kingdoms of Chartile

Chapter Two: Chartile, part two

Leo was the first to wake. He blinked in the bright sunlight and pushed away the dizziness that lingered. He got to his knees and saw Jayson and Jack close by. They were still unconscious. He crawled to them and gave each a gentle shake.

Jayson shook his head and sat up.

"God, what happened?" he asked.

"We must've...blacked out... or something," Leo said uncertain.

"Yeah, but, where are we?" asked Jack as his eyes came into focus.

Where they sat was not their fort or any place in the woods they recognized. There was no wood, only a sloping plane of craggy rocks before them, and a towering gray mountain behind them. The sun was shining, but the sky was a dreary, overcast gray.

"Do you think someone at school is trying to bunk us?" Jayson asked.

"More likely we were kidnapped," said Leo with a nod.

"Then why aren't we tied up?" Jayson raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms before him.

Leo shrugged. He opened his mouth, intending to give a scientific hypothesis, but was cut off.

"Hey look." Jack pointed to a line of smoke rising into the air in the distance.

"Where there's smoke, there's fire," said Leo with a grin. He always looked exactly like his father whenever he did so.

"And where there's fire, there's probably people," Jack finished.

"Maybe they know where we are!" Jayson jumped to his feet and nearly twisted his ankle.

"And how to get home," Leo added, taking no notice of Jayson.

The boys ran up the sloping hill, tripping occasionally on a loose stone from the boulders that littered the way. They stopped when they reached the top of the hill, panting and surveying the scene before them.

Below was a tiny village nestled between the hill they stood upon and another identical hill at least a mile away. The homes were small huts with thatched roofs. Dirt roadways wound between wooden structures that appeared to be bakeries, smithies, and stables.

Jack fell to the ground in disbelief. Jayson plopped down next to him.

"Come on, man!" he cried and pulled on his red hair. "No electricity? I figured a campground would have electricity."

"I don't think that's a campground, Jay," Leo whispered.

"It's gotta be! What else could it be? Like some stupid renn faire thing?"

"What's the last thing you all remember?" Jack asked them.

"Well," Leo folded his arms and grabbed his chin as he thought. "It was like I went deaf."

"Yeah, and everything just kind of stopped. It looked like the creek stopped in mid-wave," said Jayson.

"And the light," Jack added quietly. "Like from my dream."

"Mine too," Leo whispered.

The boys fell silent, not daring to look at one another.

"Maybe this is one of those government tests, and they messed it all up," Jayson broke the silence. Jack and Leo looked at him but did not speak. "Maybe they're working on a way to control a person's mind, to make them see things. Like... a controlled and forced hallucination. Or..." Jayson paused, his eyes widening. "Maybe they were doing something with time and accidentally sent us back in time."