Powerless in a New World

Chapter 1

Mychal walked down the empty sidewalk with nothing but her bag of books around her arm. Her short brunette hair swayed behind her while she shivered slightly as her pink, sleeveless shirt failed to protect her from the freezing temperature that constantly plagued her city.

Finally, Mychal stopped walking and stood before the worn out building she called home. Instead of going in, she kept walking to clear her mind. It's almost over, she kept reminding herself. Get through next week and my life might actually begin. I just need to relax. She took a few deep breaths while she turned the corner of the block.

She kept going straight, taking deep breaths with every step she took. She went around the block of her shabby home whenever she needed to relax. It was the only good way she could clear her mind. Usually nothing can take her out of her mind. Maybe bumping into a stranger or barely tripping, but she would always return to her mind, her safe zone. But tonight, she saw something that wouldn't let her go back. As she was walking by an alleyway, she saw a flash of ocean blue light. It flickered a few times before it stopped, making the flood of blue light constant.

Despite her better judgement, she lets her curiosity take the wheel and guide her through the slimy path between the two buildings. She kept walking the path laid out by the alleyway until she saw a figure's shadow in the blue light. She peered around the corner and saw what appeared to have the shape of a tall, lanky human, but with a cyan blue skin color, a bald head, frog-like eyes, and long pink slits on their cheeks, which resembled gills. Along with this appearance, the blue man had a black robe, with the hood off, and nothing covering their aquatic looking webbed feet and hands. As for the source of the blue light, the creature was standing next to what looked like a mirror with a blue border, only, instead of reflecting what was in front of it, it seemed to reveal a path to an entirely different place. Mychal squinted her eyes and tried to make out what the portal was displaying. To her, it looked like a small village on a beach.

As she went to take another step, the fishy being looked over and saw her. He looked around, unsure of what to do. Mychal herself didn't know what to do, either. She started to back away when the fish monster decided the only thing it could do was take her. It waved its hand, which made the puddle of water Mychal was standing in rise up and move however he wanted. The wave knocked Mychal to the ground. She went to scream, but he made the water go down her throat, making her cough and unable to say anything. He grabbed her by the legs and dragged her to the portal. As she was being dragged, she grabbed a shard of glass that was on the floor.

She was dragged through the portal and dropped on the sandy beach. The second the fish monster let her go, she swung the shard of glass at his arm, leaving a deep cut which revealed his thick, green blood. The monster squealed and stepped back, shutting down the portal.

Mychal got to her feet and coughed out the remaining water that was left in her lungs. She looked around and saw that she wasn't in a small village. She was in a base camp beside a city. A city that was submerged in water, with a few skyscrapers peeking out through the surface. She looked over at the shut down portal and began to panic. The fish creature held his arm and growled at her. She began to back away and dropped the glass and her bag of books as she started to run for a nearby forest when she saw two more of his kind come out of the water holding tridents.

Once Mychal got deep into the forest, she tripped over a rock hidden in a small bush. She turned her body and watched the approaching monsters. Before she had a chance to start panicking, the world around her was submerged in darkness. The only source of light were the blood red clouds, giving everything around Mychal a nightmarish design. The two fish creatures looked around confused before running back in a hurry. Their shadows were replaced by a single shadow, one of a figure that was shorter and thin, but not as thin as them.

Mychal didn't waste any time to get back up and continue running down the forest path. She ran for what felt like forever, but the dark figure seemed to remain the same distance from her the whole time despite the fact it didn't appear to be moving. She came across a split in the road. One path went deeper into the forest while the other one led to a distant tunnel. She chose to go deeper into the forest as she couldn't even see through the tunnel. She eventually came to a dead end. She was surrounded by too thick of a forest to go through and all she had was a boulder. She put her back against the boulder and watched in terror as the figure followed her. She closed her eyes and covered her face with her arms. This is the end, she thought.

"Heya," a kind voice said.

Am I dead? Mychal thought. She took her arms away from her face and opened her eyes. Everything around her was back to normal. The beautiful blue sky and the rich greens of the forest had returned. Mychal then looked in front of her to find a ginger boy who was just a bit shorter than her and looked only a few years older. Just like the fish creatures, this older boy wasn't a regular human. He had a light pinkish red skin color, but that was the only notable difference Mychal noticed so far. He had a plain, dark grey sweatshirt on and a pair of black sweatpants. He was holding out his hand for her to shake.

"Well, go on," he said. "I don't bite."

Mychal slowly lifted her hand and shook his. "W-where am I?" she asked him in her shaky voice, forgetting the blood-red clouds.

"The woods. What's it looked like?" he chuckled, but she didn't find it very funny. He realized she was still nervous, so he said, "The Aqualites that were chasing you ran off, I think they got tired. You don't need to worry."

Mychal didn't care about the Aqualites. Her head was busy spinning in every direction possible, even some directions that weren't possible. "Where am I?" she repeated. "This is Earth, right?"

"Duh."

"Then why are you red? And why were those things blue and fish like? Where am I?"

"Something tells me you're not from around here."

Mychal gloomily shook her head. "I was taken by one of those.... Aqualites? Through a portal of sort. They took me from my home."

"A home where Aqualites and people like me don't exist?"

Mychal nodded.

"So, a... Parallel universe?"

Mychal started to panic. "Okay, this is ridiculous, I need to get home! Final exams are coming up and I'm lost and don't even have my books anymore. I need to pass, this is my future, I can't lose it because of some science fiction bs. I have to go back and-"

"Hey, relax! You can't go back. That area's gonna be swarmed with Aqualites, now. It's best if we got help somewhere else." He put his arm on her shoulder. "I might know a place, you just have to follow me."

Mychal knew to never trust strangers, but "Anything would help," she said.

"Alright, miss...?"

"Call me Mychal"

"Mychal?" He paused and looked unnerved for a second. Quickly, his expression went back to normal. "Alright, you can call me Rusty"