Second book in There's No Difference Between That World and This World series. I recommend reading book 1 first.
My name is Soren Thain and this is my adventure. It started with my trip to another world, the world of Hyrule. It was different from the world experienced in the video game; more three-dimensional, more hostile, more…gruesome. There I met this girl named Alice who was also sent there from another world and we decided to work together to defeat Gannon and save the land of Hyrule. We worked hard and made it far learning about each other and forming a strong bond. We could have taken anything together but we faced people we never expected. Travelers from another world came after us and chased us relentlessly wanting to recruit us for some reason we never found out. We were able to power through and made it to the end standing tall. When I got back I tracked down Alice and found her near where I live. Even back in this world I found myself still fixated on how we came to end up in Hyrule and why the cloaked man was recruiting people like us.
It's been two months since I had come back to earth from the world of Hyrule and my life was definitely different since then thanks to Alice. Ever since we came back to our world I always wondered why Alice and I ended up in that situation so I researched what I could about it. No matter how close I got though I could never find any info on what happened. I researched even the tiniest details to see if I could find anything about what happened to us. Nothing came up though, it was frustrating to go through an adventure like that and not be able to find out why it happened to us. The only thing I had to remember the adventure was Alice and my body. The strangest thing was when I looked over my body it was more tanned then before and I had more muscle then before; it seemed like the adventure had influenced my natural body from what I did in Hyrule. When I looked over Alice's chart I noticed that the same happened to her, her charts showed a large difference in body mass from before she went to Hyrule to after she came back.
"Hmmm…strange."
"Soren." I looked over at Alice and she gave me a glare, "Looking over a girls chart is an invasion of privacy you know!" She snatched the papers from my hand and set them next to her hospital bed. Since I came back every day I would come to Alice's hospital and hang out with her until I had to head home. It was one of the best parts of my day and every time I would get off the bus and rush here to hang out with her.
"It's just strange that our bodies become stronger even though we went to another world."
"Why is that strange?"
"Well there's the fact that this version of you can't walk and yet the version in Hyrule somehow influenced your body giving the version of you here muscle mass." This muscle mass wasn't just for show either, I had tested out my new muscles and found I was not only stronger but faster with my practice swords. Everything I had worked on in Hyrule had made me better in my world.
"I thought you said there was no difference?"
"Even so this seems strange, it doesn't add up."
"Soren, we went to another world, defeated dozens of creatures on our own, used magic, explosives and sustained a number of bruises and cuts from our encounters; I think the idea of THIS being the strangest thing is pretty far down on the list." She was right about that, the biggest question had to be who sent us there and how they accomplished that, "Now pay attention. It's your turn." She handed me the NES controller and I looked at the screen. We were playing the old 1985 Super Mario Bros. and playing the two player version where we switched off every time we died. We were on world 7 area 3 and having trouble with the jumping from platform to platform bit. I tried my turn and came close but miss timed the jump falling to my death, we had 2 lives left. I gave a grunt of anger and handed it back to Alice, "We can defeat a giant pig creature but we can't jump to a stupid platform!?" She died by forgetting to jump and growled.
"Games and the real thing are very different. Maybe it's because we're use to real reflexes." I died by jumping too early. The game gave us the game over screen and I threw my hands up in defeat. This game worked on different rules…also I've never played the original Mario before.
"Ah forget it; let's just play a Mario Party game." Alice pulled out Mario party 2 and we spent the rest of the day playing it. Let's just say, I could move circles around her in this game.
It was six when we stopped playing; lucky for us we finished the last match just in time.
"Looks like I win." I said gloating. She threw a game at me and stuck her tongue out at me childishly.
"Whatever; see you tomorrow." She gave me a smile and I turned around opening the door.
"See you tomorrow." I closed the door and started walking down the hall. It was nice to have Alice as a friend, my days were happy because I had someone to spend time with after school instead of going home; in all honesty I kind of just like spending as much time as I could away from home. I even got to play games with her which was really nice…crap that's right she threw a game at me and I still have it! I looked down at the game she threw at me to see it was Super Mario Bros. I turned around to head back to her room and saw the game begin to glow. What was happening now? The game shinned brightly eventually blinding me and I felt my body lighten. Just then I heard that female voice speak to me again.
"I need your help again Soren. Please help me."
Wait, was this happening again? I thought it was over though?
I opened my eyes and looked around me, as I stood up I felt solid cement on my hands and looked to see the floor was covered in red bricks. When I looked around I saw the world was filled with floating bricks and gaps that appeared to lead nowhere. I looked at myself to see my clothing was the same as it was in Hyrule. The only difference was that my gloves were made of leather than cotton and my boots were made of much tougher leather than they were before. I had no weaponry and my utility belt was gone meaning I had no way of defending myself. Suddenly I looked over to see a short mushroom like creature rush at me head first, I side stepped and it stumbled forward rolling and ended back on its feet. Think Soren think; without a weapon I have to have some way to fight back. It came at me again and I pushed my foot forward kicking it backwards. It rolled backwards and ended up on its head unable to move. This was weird, that was the easiest fight I've had…ever. As I contemplated I felt someone tap my shoulder and turned around to see a turtle staring me in the face with an angry look. It reeled its fist back and swung at me punching me in the face…what was happening!? I collected myself and punched him back; I pulled my hand back and shook it in pain feeling my knuckles were sore. I had no experience with fighting with my fists; I was much more competent with a weapon. The turtle came at me again and I moved backwards avoiding his barrage of fists. I had no way of defending myself and this turtle could end up being my end. That would be the worst way to die and that wasn't going to happen to me! I pulled back and ran forward stopping in front of the walking turtle and kicked him sending him falling back on his shell unable to move, I pushed it into the nearby pit and watched as it fell into the abysmal pit. Obviously I was in the world of the Mushroom Kingdom as I was attacked by a walking brown fungus and walking turtle. I gave a sigh feeling exhausted and looked past the pit to see a castle on the far end. If I was going to find out what was happening I would need to find people and that castle was my best bet. The pit was too large to jump across…maybe. Knowing this world I might be able to get across by jumping. I looked at my boots to see if it had some form of enhancement to help me jump…nothing noticeable. I put the boot back on and looked above me to see a small brick way a few feet above me. I moved back and jumped up grabbing the end of the path that floated above me; I tried to pull myself up but ended up hanging there for a minute; pushups were never my forte. I scrambled getting up but made it and walked across the pit looking down at it out of interest. I couldn't see the bottom of the pit; it was just an endless abyss that seemed to look back into me with the same emptiness. I looked away feeling sick and ran across not wanting to disorient myself. I jumped down feeling my knees buckle slightly in pain. This wasn't going to be easy but I had to make it to that castle if I was going to find out what I should do to get out of here. I had to get back home, being back here didn't make any sense. I had finally come to terms with my problems and made my life better by meeting a true friend and I was going to get back to see her again. I felt another long journey ahead of me and collected myself ready for another quest to get home.