I randomly stumbled on some castle while falling through a portal. It wasn't any average day. I don't blame myself. I landed on the stone porch of Greenhaven. At least, I hope it was Greenhaven. A tall, fat, coffee-smelling old man stared at me. Olvan? My thought was confirmed by a huge moose that seemed to be yawning, despite the fact that I just fell from a blue liquid hole in the sky.

"Who do you think you are, just randomly landing on the battlement of Greenhaven?" asked Olvan, frowning.

"I'm Alicio and I-"

"Not your name, miss. I want to know why you are here," he interrupted.

I rolled my eyes. "I don't really know how to explain this, but here, I fell through some huge door made of gooey blue stuff and came here because my friend was stupid enough to pull on Meilin's sleeve."

His expression was the funniest thing I have ever seen.

"Well, I don't think we can tolerate people with no spirit animals, here."

"I have coffee beans, from another planet…"

Olvan's face lit up. "I'll take them, thank you. We will be honored to provide you and your friend each a room."

I secretly congratulated myself.

Scarlet. That was a problem. I searched for her right when Olvan left. And where were the four fallen? My heart twisted at the thought. What if we all appeared at a different place on Erdas? What if Scarlet was in Stetriol? What if she was in Artica? What if she was in the middle of Nilo, getting eaten by some random jaguar? Or what if she was right behind me and-

"BOO!"

"AHHHHH!" I screamed and turned around. Scarlet. "Thanks a lot. I really appreciated that."

Scarlet smirked in response. "Alicio the undefeatable. Not!"

I mumbled a 'whatever' and went to find Conor, Abeke, Meilin and Rollan. Well, I was going to do that, anyway. But I felt the strong urge to blame Scarlet for just about everything she had done wrong in her life. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? Why did you have to drag me here, to Erdas, with a one-way ticket?! Do you know what could possibly happen?!"

Scralet made a small tsk. "So now my stubborn friend won't admit that she likes this world? She's not happy that she's here?"

"Scarlet, I do not like it here. There is an absolute possibility of us staying here forever, our parents worrying about us, the alien institute being sued and DYING! Do you not understand?! And because you were probably going to ask me, no, I do not want to come back to Earth with a spirit animal," I yelled. "And plus, since when did you start referring to me by the third person?"

"You worry too much. We're not going to get stuck here."

"How do you know?"

"Because I'm smart."

"Since when?"

"Since I was born."

"How come I never knew?"

"Because you're not smart."

I grumbled. "Thanks a lot, Scarlet. I totally so appreciate it." I knew, at that point, I did not win the conversation. This was my give-up sarcasm.

But then, I realized something. Scarlet didn't come here to just visit, nor to get the spirit animals. She came here for Shane.

Shane had always been her favorite. I even shipped them once, just to make fun of her. But ever since the alien institute told us Erdas existed, she wanted to make five-hundred Shane fan club branches. You know, some underwater, some in Sadre, and some in Heaven. Just to get the spirit started. Then, when the Four Fallen came here, Scarlet literally tried to sue the alien institute for not teleporting Shane. I bet her dream is to be Shane's girl-

"Friend! Hello!" said a male voice behind me.

There stood a boy not much older than us. He looked a bit like Conor, only with blue eyes and tanner skin.

"Um, hi? Who exactly are you?" I asked.

"I wasn't talking to you," he snapped. "I was talking to miss beautiful Zhongnese girl over there." He pointed to Scarlet.

I giggled as Scarlet blushed. Maybe this wasn't going to be so bad after all. We just need a bit more, ooh, I know! Guilt.

"Shane, why are you in Greenhaven?" I asked, half expecting him to ignore me. He didn't.

"Hehe- you see, I was just-"

"Oh, because all true stories begin with 'you see'," I interrupted.

Shane sighed. "Fine, I was here because I heard the news of aliens coming. But then I realized it was all false. Also, how did you know my name?"

"I knew because I'm smart," said Scarlet. Oh, here we go again, I thought.

"How come I didn't know?" asked Shane.

"Shut up, you're stupid."

Okay… That wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Why- How could she just reject him? Normally I would laugh at Shane and say: 'Rejected!' But again, it was an alien we were talking to. Wait, weren't we the aliens? Oh, whatever. I guess I should tell that to Shane. "Just to clarify, we are the a-"

"Aviators, she wanted to say aviators. We fly giant birds. And yes, I am totally Zhongnese, not Chinese, because I don't know what that is," said Scarlet, nervously. I got it. When your dream comes true of meeting your fictional crush, you didn't want to ruin the moment and tell them that you're an alien from another planet in a distant galaxy when your fictional crush doesn't even know what a galaxy is.

I tried playing along. "We, uh, were bird aviators. But now they decided to fire us because it was too dangerous for us kids to ride on giant birds."

I followed pretty well. (In my opinion, at least, I thought so. Plus bonus points for me getting us out of the danger of him asking us to ride giant birds.) Shane, however, didn't.

"Er, giant birds? What type?"

I gulped. Luckily, Scarlet had us covered. "It's a secret. We're not allowed to tell."

Shane nodded, as if he understood. "Anyways, I'm not really allowed to be here, so, I guess this is goodbye."

I thought I saw tears welling up in Scarlet's eyes. "No, I'll come to Stetriol with you!" she said, so desperate to be with Shane.

"Don't-," I began.

But they were already gone.

New ship name: Sharlet! (I still like Shaneke more, though.)

oooHo