Week 1, Day 0 — Bright blue sky. The Arrival Field.
And the voice was gone.
For a moment, nobody moved, and then the panic arrived all at once. People screamed, cried, shoved, and tried to push through each other even though there was nowhere to go. A man dropped to his knees and threw up, and the sound of it made other people gag. Someone tried to run, but the crowd was packed so tightly that he tripped after two steps and got stepped on. Next to me, a girl doubled over and vomited into the grass, shaking so hard that she could barely stay upright.
I stood there with my feet locked in place.
My heartbeat was so fast that it felt messy, and my chest hurt with every breath. My hands shook at my sides, and my mouth felt dry and rough. The air was cold and clean, and the light above us was sharp and bright, and my eyes kept watering even though I was not crying.
Six months. Unite. Survive.
My head was still stuck on the last thing I saw, and it kept replaying in pieces that did not fit together. The darkness in the sky, the red drops, the creature, the screaming, the alley, the angel, the falling, and then waking up here under a clear blue sky as if the world had been reset.
"No. No, no, no. This can't be real."
My parents.
The thought hit me so hard that my body finally moved. I started pushing through the crowd, shoulders scraping against strangers, people yelling at me, someone grabbing my arm for a second before letting go. I shouted, "Mom! Dad!" and my voice vanished inside the noise. I shouted again and forced myself forward, scanning faces, hoping for anything familiar.
Nothing.
Not them.
Not even close.
People around me looked just as broken as I felt. A woman in a hospital gown clutched her stomach and kept repeating a name that nobody answered to. A teenager with a school bag screamed for his brother until his voice cracked. An older man stood completely still and whispered to himself, over and over, as if repeating words could turn this into something normal.
I stopped because I had no space to move anyway, and I suddenly realized I could not even remember what direction I had come from. My thoughts were slow, and my body felt heavy, and my head started to ache, right behind my eyes.
I looked up.
The sky was bright blue, and it made no sense, because just a short time ago it had been night and there had been that thing in the sky, that huge glowing oval, the colors around it, the darkness inside it. Now it was gone, and the sun was up, and the light was warm on my skin. My brain could not connect those two scenes. The pain in my head got worse, and a wave of dizziness hit me so suddenly that I had to bring a hand to my forehead and stand still until the ground stopped moving.
All around me people kept panicking, and the noise kept pressing into my ears, and I felt too slow to react to any of it.
Then something changed.
Not in the crowd, but inside my head.
It started as pressure near the back of my skull, and then my ears popped, and my eyes watered harder. For a second it felt like my thoughts were being pushed aside, and then everything snapped into place.
I understood words.
Not because I suddenly learned a language, but because the meaning arrived in my mind immediately, without effort.
I turned to my left. A man in military gear, mid-forties, squared jaw, stiff posture that looked trained, muttered something in a language I had never heard before. I should not have understood it.
I understood every word.
He was not praying or screaming. He was quietly swearing and trying to think.
I turned to my right. Two elves stood close together, tall, armored, their metal reflecting the sunlight. They whispered to each other in their own language, and one of them glanced toward the humans with a hard expression. Their voices sounded different, their pronunciation different, but the meaning still appeared in my head as clearly as if they had spoken German or Polish.
I was not speaking their language, and they were not speaking mine, but it did not matter.
People noticed at the same time, and the panic turned into something sharper.
"What the hell is this?"
"Why can I understand them?"
"Did it do something to our heads?"
A woman near the front grabbed her hair and screamed, "Get out of my head!" while another man shouted back, "Calm down, you are not the only one!"
Someone else yelled, "This is a trick!" and another voice answered, "A trick by who, where are we even supposed to be?"
The shouting grew, and arguments started immediately, because fear always looks for something to fight. People pushed each other, accused each other, demanded answers from strangers who had none. I stood there and listened, and my stomach felt tight, and I could not find any useful thought.
My hands moved on their own and reached into my pocket.
I pulled out my phone and opened a social media app.
It did not load. There was no signal. No internet. No bars. The screen just stayed empty, and the little loading circle kept spinning, and it made my chest sink, because it confirmed what I already knew.
My phone is useless here.
I stepped away from the crowd until I could breathe without someone's shoulder pressing into me, and I sat down on grass that looked clean enough. My legs felt weak, and my head still hurt. I tried to force my thoughts into order.
If this is real, and I am actually on some other world with elves and dwarves, then the first problem is survival, and the second problem is that I cannot do it alone.
And the third problem is that I am me.
I watched groups form quickly. People who came with someone grabbed them and held them close. Friends found each other and hugged so hard it looked painful. Couples cried into each other's necks. Even strangers started clumping together because being alone felt dangerous.
I sat there by myself, and it felt familiar in the worst way.
Maybe I should have never left my room.
The thought came in without warning, and it was not even dramatic, it was just tired. Leaving the house had always been hard, and now leaving it had apparently ended the world, at least for me.
I forced myself to look around instead of spiraling.
To my right, a group of elves stood together, calm enough to look trained, with controlled movements and quiet voices. Their posture made it clear they already knew each other, or at least knew how to stay organized.
To my left, there were mixed groups of humans, dwarves, and elves talking together in rough circles. From a distance, I heard them exchanging short stories about what they saw before they arrived here. It sounded more useful than sitting alone with my thoughts.
I stood up and started walking toward them, trying not to look desperate.
Then a scream carried across the field.
"Water! There's water over here! I found a stream, it might be drinkable!"
The reaction was instant. People started pushing in that direction, and any attempt at conversation died immediately because thirst and fear have a way of taking control. I hesitated for a moment, then followed, because my throat was dry and I could feel how dehydrated I was.
As we moved, the field ended and a line of trees came closer, and the air got cooler under the shade. The crowd in front of me slowed and then stopped, because the people at the front reached the stream and everyone behind them had nowhere to go.
I could not see it from where I was standing, because too many people were crowded between me and the water, blocking the view and blocking any chance of moving forward without shoving.
I stepped to the left and climbed a small hill so I could see what was ahead and avoid the crush, and when I reached the top I spotted the stream cutting through the forest, narrow but clear, with sunlight reflecting on moving water.
People were already kneeling at it, drinking straight from it, filling bottles, cups, and anything they could hold water in. Some dwarves were gulping it down so fast that they barely stopped to breathe.
The forest around it looked normal. The trees looked like trees. The plants looked like plants. The dirt smelled familiar. That normality made it worse, because it suggested this place was real enough to have its own nature, its own air, its own sunlight, and it was not going to vanish when I blinked.
I got down on my knees near the stream and leaned in.
Before I could drink, a voice behind me spoke.
"You should not drink too much of that."
I turned quickly.
An elf stood a few steps away, watching the chaos with a calm expression. He had short, light-gray hair that almost looked silver in the sunlight, and he looked around my age. He wore a dark blue tunic with short sleeves, and silver embroidery that curled across the chest, sleeves, and hem. It looked old-fashioned, but it was clean and detailed, and it fit him the way expensive clothes fit someone who is used to them.
"It might be bad," he continued. "Try a little first, and wait a few hours. If your body reacts badly, you will know before it is too late."
I blinked at him.
He was right, and I hated that I had almost been stupid enough to drink a lot without thinking.
"Shit, yeah," I said, rubbing my eyes. "You're right. I seriously can't think straight after everything that happened."
"You would not be the only one," he replied, and he nodded toward a dwarf who was still drinking without stopping.
I looked at the dwarf and then back at the elf.
Something about the elf's calmness made it easier to breathe for a second, because he did not talk to me like I was an idiot or an animal, and he did not sound terrified even though he should have had every reason to be.
I cupped a small amount of water in my hands and took a careful sip, then forced myself to stop even though my throat wanted more. The water tasted cold and clean.
I stood up slowly.
"My name's Aleksander," I said, then corrected myself because the full name suddenly felt too heavy. "But you can call me Aleks."
He nodded once, polite.
"My name is Cealith," he said. "Nice to meet you."
Nice to meet you.
On a day that should not exist.
I swallowed and nodded back, because it was the only normal thing I could do.
"Yeah," I said quietly. "Nice to meet you too."
And even while we stood there, with people still pushing and drinking and shouting around us, one thought kept circling in my head, cold and clear.
If six months is all we have, I do not even know how to live for one day.