Cherish

Chapter 2

We kept talking into the day and once we had stopped to take some breaths, we noticed that it was already well into the evening. We sat for a while in silence until a growling stomach interrupted. We all looked to Cylla and smiled. They had been silently standing there being patient instead of telling us that they were hungry.

"Welp, I say that that's a sign that we need to get supper. Come young'uns. I'll show ya' a nice place." Zeland talked in a random accent before he stood and started to walk as we all scrambled to our feet. Cylla had already been standing and was already a good ways away with Zeland. We quickly made our way toward them.

Something was off. I couldn't put my finger on it, but my body just felt strange. I should have stopped. I should have said something to the rest of them, but they had already gone so far ahead. Would they have heard me? Would they make out that something was wrong on their own? I wouldn't know. Before I could stop and figure all of these things out, my mind took over and shut down... everything. I started to fade in and out of consciousness. Before I knew it the ground had started to get nearer to my face. I couldn't figure it out but I found that I could do nothing about it. I was down. Nothing could be scarier than seeing black and not being able to come away from it.

I woke up to a loud beeping noise ringing in my ears. I slowly opened my eyes and winced away from the white walls. Once my eyes adjusted I looked around a bit more. I saw Mystic, Zeland, and Cylla all sitting to the right of me. They were wearing strange clothes. They looked up very slowly and saw that I was awake.

"Where are we?" I asked in a groggy voice.

"We are at the hospital. The doctor said you should be fine, we just need to make sure that there aren't any memory problems." I looked around a bit more before analyzing what Zeland had just said.

"Hospital? Doctor? What? What do you mean by these words?" I questioned slowly. Zeland perked up and looked at me in horror.

"Cherish? What're our names?" He quickly asked making me ponder my answer even though I knew who they were. I pointed to each of them individually:

"Zeland, Cylla, and Mystic." My mind cleared a bit but I still couldn't figure out where we were.

Zeland sighed in relief but then immediately went out a door and came back with a woman dressed in all white except for her blueish pants. She came to my left side and examined my eyes with a bright light that came out of a little tube. After she finished that she took a look at some sheets that were on a clear stiff board and shuffled through them. She then looked to Zeland and began to talk.

"It looks like she might have either come from a different world and transferred bodies with another version of herself, or she just hit the ground a little hard from her fall. I will test her really quick to see which one is the real answer" She looked to me again and then started to ask questions. "Alright. What is your name?"

"Cherish" I answered nonchalantly.

"Where are you from?"

"Feltscavern," I responded

It kept going on like this, she asked the question, I answered truthfully. She finally asked the last question and then stood and walked out of the room with Zeland trailing behind her.

They were out of the door for a while before they came back in and talked to the rest of the people in the room, excluding me. I sat in confusion for the next minutes that passed. They then came back in and Mystic was white as a sheet. The woman started to talk to me a little bit more about where I was and what had happened to me.

"You are in a different world with the same body, name, and heart wavelength as the Cherish that is in your body back in your world. She must be just as scared but we will try to figure out what has happened to the two of you. For the meantime, we will keep you in the hospital, mainly this room, so that we can examine you further for details on what could be the explanation. Does that sound okay to you?" She explained everything in full detail on the nose, like what tests they will be doing and such.

I nodded and the woman slowly walked out of the room making sure to close the door behind her.

"So you aren't the girl I have known my whole life?" Mystic questioned with a pained expression. I looked at him and almost wanted to cry.

"The Mystic in my world has been with me since I was 9. He was only a year old and needed to be cared for. So I cared for him all his life while we were traveling from town to town. If the Cherish you know is anything like that, then I am kinda the same." He looked at me while tears were streaming down my face. I wanted to go home. I missed the rolling fields and the beautiful trees that protected the ground from harsh sun rays. But I knew I wouldn't be able to go home until we find out what did this to me and the other Cherish.

"What was the other Cherish doing before she passed out?" I asked no one in particular.

"We were going out to get food. Before we could get anywhere though, we noticed that she wasn't behind us anymore but instead was on the ground passed out. We didn't know what had happened." I looked to Cylla and my eyes went wide. "What?" they asked and looked at me and tilted their head.

"I... It's just... In my world... You never talk. We didn't know anything about you, let alone that you could speak." I looked at Cylla a few more times. It was still a bit unknown as to if they prefer male or female pronouns but I decided not to ask.