Chapter 1: Clouds on a Sunshiny Day

Cody tossed in bed, nervousness, fear, excitement, and more, all blending together in his head. He was dreaming, or so he would guess, but what they were of, he could not understand. He slammed his hand into the wall beside the bed, the jolt startling him, but not enough to wake him up. However, it did cause him to roll off the bed, and crash onto the floor several feet below, jolting him out of his sleep and causing him to yelp in pain..

He rubbed his arm, trying to alleviate the stinging pain from landing on it. He was able to move it fine, so that meant he didn't break it, but it still hurt.

"Shut up alarm clock," Zack mumbled while smacking Cody a few times trying to turn off the annoying noise.

"Zack," Cody groaned, knocking away the arm that kept hitting him in the head. He didn't need a headache on top of his bruised arm.

"Sorry Codes," Zack mumbled into his pillow, trying to get comfortable again, too sleepy to want anything but to rest.

Cody looked up to the bed he feel from several feet off the ground, and noticed something didn't seem quite right. "Zack?"

"Yeah Cody."

"When did we get bunk beds?"

Zack instantly shot up in bed, his head crashing into the wooden plank above. That was new, he thought as he rubbed his head, trying to chase away the splitting pain in his head/ He looked beside him, seeing Cody on the floor, eyes wide with concern, and maybe a hint of a smile beyond the shock.

"Okay, sitting up fast in a bunk bed, bad idea," Zack said, getting up, carefully this time, and looked on the bed he had never seen before. "A better question would be, when did we start living in this room?"

Cody, now noticing that they were in a completely foreign room, started walking around and turned the overhead lights on, taking in everything. It was a room, probably about the size of their room in the Tipton, maybe a little smaller. There were two desks, one covered with text books and what appeared to be calculus notes on the top, and the other with a mixture of food, trash, and stuff he didn't want to guess what it once was. It was as if this was he and Zack lived here, but he'd never seen this place.

"Zack, did something happen last night?" Cody tried sorting through his memory, to see if anything had happened recently. He was a college freshman, and knew that some of his friends went to some wild parties, but he never went. At least, not that he remembered. But as his mind sorted through his memories, he couldn't figure out where he was last night, or what he was doing.

"Not that I remember." Zack too tried to figure out what he did the night before. But, he couldn't place anything. It wasn't like it was such a boring night, not worth remembering, it just wasn't there. "In fact, I don't even remember last night."

"Did someone drug us or something?" Cody asked. That could make some sense, the missing memory and waking up in a strange room. But he would have thought he'd at least be able to remember something from the day before, even something minor like eating lunch or going to class.

"Well I remember dreaming something about trying to get you to help me with a plan involving a squeegee and a water fountain, and maybe something about waffles."

"Did I agree to it?"

"No."

"Good."

Zack glared at his brother for a moment, though considering how bad his plans normally ended outside of a dream, figured it was probably the wise choice. He then walked to the door, carefully opening it, hoping that he could find some clues outside this room.

"Cody, come look!"

Cody was quickly beside his brother as they stared out in the hallway, shocked and even more confused at seeing flames dashing up and down the walls. The smell of burning carpet singed their nostrils and the cracking of the flame caused their hearts to race.

"Where the hell are we?" Cody asked trying to make sense of this. To his surprise, he didn't feel any warmth from the flame.

"Get down!" Zack yelled, wrapping his arm around Cody's stomach and slamming them both to the ground behind them while slamming the door shut with his foot.

An explosion shook the whole building as a red light peaked through the cracks in the door frame.

"What was that?" Cody asked.

Zack looked at his brother's face, and then at the door, and then back at his brother. "I have absolutely no idea whatsoever."

"Then why do you pull us back."

Zack sighed. "Because…I don't know. I just had to, otherwise we would have died." Zack held out his hand to interrupt Cody's question. "And I don't know how I know that either."

"So, what do you think we should do?" Cody was at a loss here, and knew that his brother seemed to know something about this mess.

"We should get out of this room. Fast. It's giving me the creeps. That and I don't trust this bed."

"Think we could get dressed first?" Cody asked, not really wanting to go out and public (or wherever they were) in only his boxers.

"We might have enough time for that."

The twins walked over to the closet, guessing that there'd have to be some type of clothes in there. And upon opening it, they noticed it was evenly divided into two sections. One was neatly organized, filled with perfectly folded clothes hung gently on hangers, organized by season, color, and size, while the other was piled from the floor up in a mess. "I'm guessing this half his mine," Cody said as he began sorting through the neat clothes, shocked to see that they seemed like what he would buy, except for the fact he had never seen them before. Chalking that up on the things that made no sense list, he pulled a pair of jeans out and a grey sweatshirt. He considered going with something lighter, but not knowing what they'd run into out there, more clothing to protect him.

After getting dressed, Cody turned and saw Zack fighting with the pile of clothes, thinking of how some things never changed. He then noticed something else. "Zack, what's that blue star on your back?"

Zack looked in the mirror and was at a loss for words. In the middle of his left shoulder blade, there it was, about an inch wide, a light blue star that almost seemed to glow.

"This keeps getting weirder and weirder." Still, Zack knew too little to make any guess to what it meant. He finally managed to pull out an outfit, and despite the fact that it didn't match at all, put it on. The two of them went to the door and opened it, not sure of what they would find this time.

A/N: Yes, another new story from me. This is actually a bit of an experiment because I am writing this as I go as much as possible, seeing where it will take me. Maybe it will work, maybe it won't. I'm also trying to write at least a little bit for this each day, since I'm now off school, and at the end of the summer, see what I have come up with. I'm also not going to edit these chapters as much as my other stories, so sorry if I miss typoes, but I'd rather spend my time seeing where this will go.

And for the fans of my fantasy series, a new chapter of Red should be out tomorrow, and I've gotten back in the mindset for it. Yay!

Also, I wonder if anyone can figure out where I got the inspiration for the title from. It's not as clear as you might think…