The bright green lights emanating from the runes painted on the ground was a good sign. The fact I was standing in the middle of the giant circle of light was a little more off putting. I lifted my eyes from the words, to look at my best friend on the other side of them. He was emaciated, but then again, everyone was now a days.
It wasn't like food was on the available side since D day, but we made do. Living in the middle of a 'wilderness city' gave ample places to hunt, fish and collect edible plant life. Northern Canada was probably the least effected by the disasters that popped up all over earth, so that was where we had escaped to. What used to be Whitehorse was rubble, and anything that was left standing was taken over by the dragons.
Yeah, I said dragon.
About 3 years ago, out of the blue, the sky opened up and gigantic lizards fell right on top of us. Nobody was prepared, how could we be when dragons were just stories, fairy tails that you heard as children.
The city where I grew up, where I was living, had a dragon land on top of it. Literally, it fell out of the sky and landed almost perfectly in the middle of everything. It was an odd purple blue colour, which we later found out was the colour of the poison that it breathed out. My entire city was wiped out in hours. My family was working in their flower shop when it happened, my parents and one of my brothers were killed instantly.
I was out out on a delivery for someone's anniversary and my oldest brother was on a hiking trip over some famous trail south of whitehorse, so I think he's okay. Jax was the reason I escaped to the middle of nowhere Canada. My goal was to find him and stick together, but plans got messed up.
Being so far north, you expect mountains, and trees and views, and lakes and the whole 'I moved here for nature' deal. What I did not expect, was for there to be cliffs over part of the city. I had been walking for hours, and I was just so tired that I guess I didn't notice until it was too late. I rolled down the clay cliffs and broke my leg, collar bone and several ribs. Laying at the bottom of said cliffs was how I met Grant.
Grant Steele, master arms man, life saver and best friend extraordinaire. He had spent the beginnings of his career in the armed forces, but when the overgrown gecko's started wreaking too much havoc for the army, he fled north. Grant was my rock the past year, especially when I couldn't find Jax.
Now though, now Grant had locked eyes with me, and smiled grimly.
"Good Luck Ash"
I smirked at him, just as my body was starting to tingle.
"See you soon Moon-Moon"
The last thing I saw of him was the disgruntled look on his face, and I felt my body contort and pop away.
I didn't know where I was going to end up, or when, or anything. The whole 'lets make a portal to another world with no dragons' was mostly desperation, and a whole lot of guessing. I never actually thought it would work. Magic isn't real, but we figured that if dragons can be real, why can't we try.
I did not however, think I would need to wear a swim suit to go portal hopping.
I landed with a massive splash and a feeling like I just got slapped across my back. The hard landing took my breath away, but I was alive. I finally got oriented and kicked myself up to the surface, taking in a deep breath and pushing my hair out of my eyes.
"Water. Just fucking great"
I quickly threw my hair up into a bun on top of my head and glanced around for any sign of life. The grass that was a little ways away seemed to be moving, which either meant animals or some weird tides. I swam as far as I could before hauling myself up onto some of the sturdier grass. Walking wasn't a thing that was happening when I couldn't keep my balance enough to get off my knees, so I crawled in a west direction, following the sun that was setting.
Gods its been days, I'm so hungry. The water itself was really soothing, and the lights that lit the plant life at night was gorgeous, but I didn't know any edible plant life here, so I was stuck going hungry. I would kill for a cheese burger right now, fries and a pop too. Man it had been too long since I'd had good greasy food.
I laid on my back and let the sun warm my skin, I had ditched the jacket I had arrived here in, it was too heavy wet, so it was left on an island somewhere behind me. I had also left my jeans somewhere about a day from the jacket. The shirt was next, stupid thing was heavy and I was tired, so it was laying three islands from the jeans. My bra and boy short panties were good enough, it wasn't like there was anyone around to judge me, I'd probably die out here, alone, no water or food and mostly naked. Great.
I knew I needed some water, I couldn't last much longer without it. Food was something I could probably survive without for at least another week. I was used to going hungry back home and this was no different. I rolled onto my stomach and rested my head on my arms, falling asleep almost instantly from the suns heat and the spicy citrus smell of the water around me.
I woke to a soft voice chattering in a language I didn't know. I was cold, the ground wasn't the grass I'd gotten used to waking up on and the smell of the air wasn't as pleasant as it normally was. I cracked my eyes open and took in my surroundings, I was on a hard cot of some sort in a dark, wet room. I sat up as slowly as I could and rubbed at my sleep crusted eyes. I wasn't alone in the room either, on the far side was another cot with a very very small little girl on it. I slid off the cot and tip toed my way over to the little girl, slowly checking her heartbeat and checking for fever. I gently shook her awake and her eyes shot open and let out a ear piercing scream
"Ssh Ssh sweetheart, it's okay, it's okay. I'm not going to hurt you love, I want to help you" I whispered softly and she quieted, her eyes filling with tears quickly before letting out a heart wrenching sob and burying her face in my chest. I rubbed her back gently and whispered small reassurances into her long dark hair. It was almost 20 minutes before she calmed herself down and I could get her to talk to me.
"What's your name love?" I asked her, a soft smile on my lips and my thumbs wiping the tears from her cheeks.
"Kali, I'm six" she whispered and I almost choked. Six, this poor little girl was stuck here at six!?
"How long have you been here Kali? How long have they kept you in this room?"
"Uhmm a long time. More then a hundred sleeps." She nodded and tilted her head to the side
"Whats your name?"
"My name's Asher little love" I brushed my hands through her hair and cupped her cheeks.
We spent the next few days with the constant trilling of the people outside, the only time we saw anything but the walls around us was when food would slide in through a small metal flap under the door. Kali had gotten very attached to me, and I to her, she took to me like most small children would in her situation.
I made sure Kali got as much food as I could give up, she needed the nutrients more then I did. It was six days after I had woken up in the small cell room when I heard the first explosion. I ran to Kali and hid her underneath me as dirt and small stones rained down on us from the ceiling. I don't know how long it took, but there were 5 more explosions before everything went quiet.
"Stay quiet Kali, it'll be okay" I whispered into her hair and hugged her tighter to my body.
The door slammed open and I clutched Kali to my chest and turned to the door and growled deep in my throat. The man shaped blob of shadow put his hands up and crouched down on the floor.
"I won't hurt her, I'm just here to get you free. You can take care of her better out of this room" His voice was deep and lilting with accent. "I'm a healer, I can look over her if you're okay with it." He tacked onto the end of his previous sentence. I whispered small assurances into her hair as I shifted to crouch on my feet and shuffle towards the now kneeling man at the open door. I could smell the spicy citrus water again and I took a deep inhale through my nose.
"Kali, love, are you okay to stand?" I whispered softly and felt her nod. I gently set her onto her feet and she grabbed at my hand before shifting to stand behind my shoulder and look at the man.
"Who're you?" She asked sweetly and tilted her head to the side, gods she was cute when she did that.
"I'm Cristoff, I'm a Lunar Dragon slayer, and I have healing magic, can I take a look at you?" Kali nodded, a soft smile pulling at her lips as he came closer. I felt another growl rumble out of me, I didn't like that he was getting close to my Kali. I slid her closer to me and hissed at the pressure I could feel building from the slayer in front of me.
"Where are we" I narrowed my eyes at him.
"Bosco, on one of the islands in the Sea. We, my team and I, took the guild that had taken you out, it was a non magic one that worked in human trafficking." I winced and leaned back enough to sit on my butt.
"Wait, you said magic?" I shook my head and looked at the man who was slowly coming more and more into focus over the fading light from outside.
"Yes, it's not exactly a rare thing here, or in most of the countries in Ishgar." I knew that word, where did I know that word from.
"Kali, go let Cristoff see if you need healing sweetheart." I gently pushed her towards the man still sat in the doorway. I knew I knew that word. Ishgar, where have I heard that before. Bosco.. what else did he say, Dragon Slayer. My eyes widened and the breath was stalled in my chest. No, that wasn't possible, I wasn't... no. No. That was crazy.
"What year is it here?" I nearly whispered. Not real, not real, not real.
"X791, why?" I gripped the sides of my head and let out a whine. Not real, not real, not real, not real.
"Hey, are you okay?"
"Asher, Asher" a small voice appeared by my head and I felt my shoulders being shaken slightly.
"Not real, not real, not real. Its not real. It's all a story, its a picture story too, not even a novel. A manga, oh gods what am I going to do. What was the last big battle? Had Lucy lost Aquarius yet? What about FACE had that happened already? OH GOD Alvarez is going to be such a mess." I was murmuring to myself, I knew I looked crazy, gods maybe I was crazy. It would just make so much sense. Did the dragons never happen? What about the portal? What about Grant and Jax?
"Hey, Asher right? You have to calm down a bit" The man's calm voice interrupted my racing thoughts and I snapped my head up to glare at him.
"Calm down? You want me to calm down? How about you portal hop to get away from dragons and end up in a fucking manga and see how well you handle it you useless bag of human. I have spent the last 3 years of my life in constant fear of being eaten by angry giant fucking geckos and now I'm stuck in a comic book and you want me to CALM DOWN!?" I screamed at him. I was not able to handle this. I stood quickly and grabbed Kali's hand.
"Come on Kali, we need to get going now" The man stood and I saw his eyes searching my face.
"Asher?" I lifted my eyes to his
"Sleep Asher" I heard him whisper Shit was all I could think before everything went black.