I don't think being forgotten is a bad thing.

You have no more debts.

People won't have to care about you, and you won't have to worry about that.

Being forgotten means I can be free. At least, a little bit freer.

Wait, that car just sped through a red light.

WE'RE GOING-

Blink.

Where am I?

I look around. I specifically recall…

The car!

"Oh my God, I'm dead...Wait...What?" I stated, panicked. I began quickly glancing around the area, expecting remnants of an car accident. Wait. This didn't look like death to me. It looked like a very weird forest.

I looked around, mostly at myself first. T-shirt, jeans, socks, shoes. I felt at my head. The familiar feeling of hair was there. I looked down to see grass blowing with the breeze.

"Okay…What just happened?" I asked myself, astonished. I remember being in our family's Toyota Tundra truck, on an interstate on a trip home from Texas. We were on the exit, and a passing car ran a red light. The next thing I know, I could hear the deafening sound of brakes screeching against the road, then a collision of two hunks of metal, and…

"I'm here, now," I blankly stated. "But...Where?"

I then realized a weird feeling. I was speaking differently. It didn't feel right. "I am Alan. I am a boy," I tested out.

Am I speaking a different language?

"Shouldn't I be speaking English? Or Vietnamese? What am- Hm." I said a few words to see if I really was speaking something different. "I. Wait. Stop. Thank you. I'm speaking Japanese," I realize, seeming to have a familiarity with some of the words. I was extremely surprised by this. Should I be happy about this?

Maybe it's like a native language kind of thing, where it just feels like speaking English, when really it's speaking five other languages.

"Does this come with...Uh...Whatever happened to me?" I asked again to myself. I instead ignore the change in voice, and look around. The forest was definitely strange and unfamiliar. The trees looked very different from the ones I used to see back home, and there was a very strange distortion to it. As if...It was giving the illusion that it was never-ending and ominous. There were vast amounts of flowers and fungi around, but each one looked stranger than the next. None of them brought any memories to me. Even plain white ones looked somewhat foreign.

"Is that my mind playing games, or is that magic?" The forest suddenly seemed much terrifying to me. I checked in my pockets for anything of familiarity. Nothing. Except lint.

I looked up to the sky. Blue skies, orange sun. Hey, now, don't blind yourself. I thought to myself. I took a closer look up at the sky. There were strange colors. Various patterns of a brighter blue, yellow, green, and red strobed in the blue horizon. Many of them seemed to be getting closer.

"What is that…?" I wondered out loud. I then immediately stumbled back, watching as the colors flew much closer, appearing as a sort of yellow star, which clashed harmlessly onto the ground..

"W...What?" I said again, before suddenly jumping into cover behind a larger set of trees. More stars of similar color and size clashed with the ground, and hit the tops of the trees as well.

"Are they bullets?" I wondered again, somewhat panicked. My heart was beginning to beat faster now. I looked up through the gaps the trees' leaves left. More and more colors was filling the blue sky.

"That can't be…" I halfheartedly stated.

"That's danmaku…"

But how? I should've been on Earth, in America, casually complaining about how the end of school should be coming sooner until the last day!

And here I am, in a forest, watching magical barrages of bullets shaped like stars hit the ground like artillery. Well, not really artillery, since they're unintentional bullets that went astray.

I'm fairly sure two people are dueling it out, using this...danmaku style. Maybe I am still on Earth…

"Is this...Gensokyo?" I wondered out loud. It was a reminder of a game I used to play. It connected and it was a possibility. If I died, or at least I was about to die, maybe someone decided it was a good idea not to let that happen. The forest with the strange distortion, and the stranger flowers, what if it was the same forest? The Forest of Magic?

I needed to dig deeper for confirmation, and to do that, I needed to find a way out, or rather, a way to get even more lost, one would say.

I looked around, careful not to step on any strange flowers or mushrooms, and began traversing carefully through the trees.

I need to think this through carefully. I began planning in my head.

If this is really Gensokyo, then the first thing I need to do is find a friendly. This...place isn't exactly the most human-friendly out there. No thanks to its creator. The one time I wanted to wake up in a world that I would like to live in, I end up getting mostly the opposite. I have no power here, I'm a human just like any other regular human, and I'll end up getting massacred or eaten by some powerful, or even weaker youkai, like Rumia. I needed to get somewhere safe. Well, if this was like the game I used to play, there should be a shrine. Not near here, but here either way.

I inwardly groaned as I traversed through the forest. It's a good thing I wasn't that hungry or thirsty, so it wasn't like I was a homeless bum. Though, that'll come up real soon, the way I'm going. I needed to stay calm, and plan ahead. The Forest of Magic had at least two inhabitants, and there were...friendly, I think. I just needed to find one of their "members". It looks like I found one as well.

I spot a nearby presence, what appeared to be a doll. It was hovering around, looking as if it was patrolling the area. I decide to approach it, slowly at first.

The doll seems to react in a way that notes my presence, so I…

How do I talk to a doll?

"Uhm...Hi," I tried out. The doll inspected me, moving in different places around me as if to judge me. It then took out a marker, and began writing on the ground.

Oh...Crap. Hiragana. There's no way I can...Uh…?

Wait, I can read all of this? ...Lucky me. Resurrection doesn't seem like a bad thing now. It's so weird, it's like reading a regular book in English.

"Who...are...you…" I slowly read out quietly to myself as the doll wrote. The doll looked up at me, the marker also pointed in the same direction.

"Well, I'm just a guy who's lost, so I was hoping for a lead out." May as well keep it simple. I needed to find a friendly person, and I knew at least two people who would provide that role. Find them, and my goal slightly comes closer. I quickly looked down, noting the doll already writing.

"Stay at...You want me to stay at your house?" I realized that perhaps the puppeteer was making an offer. The doll nodded, confirming my thoughts. "I see no problem with it, but I still need a way to get to the shrine." The doll nodded once more, before the marker disappeared, taking me by surprise.

Oh, magic is such a wonderful thing. Disturbing laws of physics must be fun.

The doll began flying, gesturing at me to follow it. I had to admit, for a puppet that looked like a tiny plush toy, its movements sure were humanlike. I continued following it with haste.

After a few minutes of what felt like power-walking in a straight line, there I saw it. A hut. It was a fairly big hut, but something about it seemed to throw me off. Then I noticed. Carvings and engravings rested on the roof of the cottage, which formed a visible array of colors around it. Barriers, I assumed. Surprisingly, it was very European-esque. Clean, smooth, and nothing staining the house. Perhaps it was just the use of magic, or just really thorough cleaning.

Is it natural that I'm human and can see this? The doll gestured toward me to continued following. I must've stood there, petrified by this magical shield I was just staring at.

Oh wait, it might be a bad thing if the puppeteer knows I can see it. I quickly followed the doll, which moved to the front door. I noticed there was a table outside, which chairs set upside down on top of it. I wonder if this is where they both hang out and drink tea. Though, from all I've seen, it seems more like she would just explode through the door.

The doll gestured to the door. "Uhm…Hello?" I said to the door, knocking on it after. The door looked fairly new to me. After a few seconds, the door swung open, revealing the great puppeteer herself. The doll quickly flew by me and hovered over the new stranger's shoulder.

Alice Margatroid. She wore a pink-white dress over a blue apron. Her skin was pale, and had blonde hair which had a matching headband and ribbon. She held a black book wrapped with a pink ribbon, and she was also wearing black boots. Her blue eyes complimented her apparel, and her appearance overall reminded me of a doll. I noticed that I was taller than her by about half a head. She looked fairly human to me, but I was a bit surprised noticing how realistic she was.

"Hello," I heard her politely say. That is so weird, hearing her voice. She had a soft smile on her face as well, which is something I wasn't expecting. Maybe she was used to welcoming lost visitors. She had this voice that sounds like she's only in her late teens, but she speaks as if she's older, like an adult. As expected from a youkai.

"Uhh, hello, miss," I replied, somewhat awkwardly. "Can I just come in?"

"I think that's the idea of inviting you to my house, yes," Alice replied jokingly, gesturing me inside. I am not going to get used to these characters talking. I walked inside, avoiding banging my head against the ceiling of the door, wondering how I managed to live this long without dying by stepping on a random pile of mushrooms.

The house itself wasn't small, but compared to back home with my family, it was like looking only at a large living room. There were several bookshelves, but there was a kitchen in one corner, and another room that looked small enough to fit a bathroom. There was a closet which likely held most of her clothes, and some drawers and cabinets. There was a single table, likely only for being set for dinner, and it was fairly decorated with various arrays of dolls.

There were several windows I saw, and I noticed an upstairs, a sort of tower connected with the cottage.

The dolls all looked like plush versions of Touhou characters, though several of them shared the same appearance as the one I was looking out. It looked like Alice, but wearing a black apron, and having long blonde hair, with a red ribbon. Its eyes were simply two dots. It was cute, when there weren't about twenty different dolls gazing into your soul.

"Would you like some sandwiches while you rest?" I heard her ask from my right. I blinked. Right, I'm in her house. I shouldn't be rude.

"Sure, thank you." Alice nodded in reply, and moved to the kitchen. It was a fairly small kitchen, but it seemed enough for a one-man home. Well, Gensokyo is behind on technology, but not that far behind.

Only the windows provided light, but it seemed to illuminate the room enough. There was an unlit fireplace nearby a corner, and multiple couches sat around the room, pointed in a singular table. There were several pieces of furniture that seemed to accommodate much of the empty space. Flowers, books, bookshelves, and many pictures framed onto the wall were about the majority of what I noticed. I took my mind away from the aesthetics and I sat down on the nearest chair, watching as various dolls began moving around, setting the table with a large patterned cloth, and then fine china for tea, and finally plastic plates for sandwiches. I assumed it was just budget.

I looked at the sandwiches that Alice set on a separate plate. Sliced in triangles, with the crust perfectly gone. Salad, what looked like bologna, and maybe tomatoes. I hoped mayonnaise existed in Gensokyo.

I tried a sandwich while one of the dolls poured my teacup with a steaming kettle. Wow, this is really good.

"This sandwich is delicious, thank you," I complimented.

"Thank you for the compliment, but...I imagine you're not from around here, correct?" Alice politely asked.

"That's true," I said, swallowing my food. "I'm from, uh...Not here. Earth?"

"Well, this place is still on 'Earth', so I would say you're from the Outside World." The clothes. Welp.

"Alright...So I'm an Outsider."

"Which is somewhat of a strange discovery," Alice replied, sipping her tea. She glanced at me, and then toward my cup. "It's creamy black tea with coconut. I think you should try it."

"It has a nice smell," I commented, looking into the cup. I blew into the cup for several moments, before softly sipping it. GAHH- BLOWING IT DOES NOT HELP! I manage to force the liquid in without looking like I was having a seizure. It was pretty good, and I ignored getting my tongue melted.

"It's good, though I think this would go good with almond milk." Alice responded with a nod of acknowledgement, rubbing her chin.

"I'll take note of that," She commented simply. "So, continuing, it's actually a peculiar discovery. Usually people are not transported here out of all places."

"It seems like the last place people would want to be...transported," I commented, in a somewhat scared tone. I wasn't looking forward to being in a forest that literally went out of its way to distort itself so I couldn't get out.

Alice didn't notice, and only replied, "I do hope the gap youkai is not up to her tricks again…You just suddenly appeared out of nowhere in the Forest."

"Wait, how did you know I woke up here?"

"I already had caught sight of you when you woke up, I simply waited for you to catch one of my dolls."

Careful eye. Guess it's needed for finding lost people like me.

"I guess the first thing I should do is lead you to somewhere that's safer. You're surprisingly accustomed to this."

I sighed. "I'm terrified, actually. The forest looks like it lasts on forever, and I'm taken to a world completely different from mine."

"Hey, at least you're still in the same world. I'll lead you to the shrine, and I think you'll be given a better explanation. You're only human, so anything in the forest could potentially do you harm."

"Thanks. I think I should know your name first. I'm Alan Vu." Man, my name makes me sound like an old person. Gensokyo's going to mutilate my name.

"Alice Margatroid. Pleased to meet you, Vu." Oh right. Customs. Should uh...I guess refer to her by her last name.

"Same for you, Miss Margatroid. Should we go now?" Alice looked through a nearby window. I forgot this hut even had windows.

"Yes, let's go now. I think my friend is busy at the moment, but by the time I take you to the shrine, they'll likely be done."

Must be them dueling it over for fun.

"Alright."


have fun.