Digiworld Adventure

Part Two

My eyes cracked open to the feeling of blazing sun. When I opened them, all I could see was white light. If it wasn't bad enough that my entire body hurt, now my head was going to hurt from confusion. "There isn't any sunshine forecasted for days… and besides, this is the Fraser Valley, it shouldn't be warm here."

I heard whispering above my head, and as my eyes started to focus, I found myself surrounded by more little monsters, or as Guilmon had called them, digimon. They were small, about the size of a soccer ball, grey and had long fluffy ears.

I groaned in pain, trying to make sense of where I was and what was happening. That's when all the little digimon sprung into life.

"You're awake!" they cried, "you're awake! You're awake! You're awake!" They started bouncing around me in a circle, speeding up when I managed to crawl into a sitting position. One of them stopped in front of me and said, "are you what they call a human?" it asked.

I rubbed my head, pushing the hair out of my face, and looked around. "Yeah," I said, my voice rather gravely. "And what're you called?"

"We're Pagumon!" he replied, a wide grin spreading across his face. He then joined back with the rest of the Pagumon in the circle around me. Their chant continued, drilling into my aching head.

I stood up, swaying precariously on my wobbly legs. I was surprised that my clothes were dry, especially since I had just fallen into the Fraser River on a giant digimon's back. Then I realised that Guilmon was no longer with me. I whipped my head around, which turned out to be a bad idea, as I became very dizzy, very quickly. We were in a small village, well, rather a miniature village made for the Pagumon, I assumed. There was a giant mountain range a few kilometres off, and to the other direction was a dense forest. Well, that's it. I must've ended up in whatever world those other digimon came from.

"Have any of you seen Guilmon around here?" I asked, holding my head until everything stopped moving around. "He's a tall, red lizard with black markings and a white stomach."

The Pagumon didn't have to think for even a second before saying, "nope! We have never seen a digimon with that description!" They continued bouncing around without a care in the world.

It was then that I remembered how hungry I was, and that I hadn't had any meals since lunch, which I assumed was the previous day. "Is there anything to eat around here?" I asked quickly, a rumble dashing through my stomach. "I haven't eaten in ages."

"We have lots to eat!" they replied in unison. It was rather creepy listening to them all talk at the same time. Then they started bouncing towards the nearest house, which must've been half my size. One jumped into the house, then after a few seconds came bouncing out with a basket of fruit which it held up using its ears.

I suppose that if I wasn't so hungry that I might've been curious to know how they could hold things with their ears. "Thanks!" I said, grabbing an apple off the top and sinking my teeth into it.

Within a few minutes, I had devoured two of these apples before I found myself satiated. "Thank-you very much for the food," I said, "but I really do think I should go and find Guilmon."

"Go?" they all asked. "No! You must stay here at the Pagumon Village!"

For a second, I almost considered it, then I realised how creepy this was. "I'm sorry, no," I said, shaking my head kindly. "I really can't stay."

"But you must stay!" they said, "you cannot leave the Pagumon Village!"

By now my weird sensors were going off like crazy. I knew that I had to get out of there before something even stranger started happening. I decided to turn and run, but I hadn't even taken three steps before one of them came hurtling into the back of my legs, pitching me forwards to the ground. "What the-" I started.

Another one rammed into my side, and I felt teeth dig into me. This wrenched a loud yelp of pain from my mouth, but before I knew it, I was being pummelled by twenty or more of them. All of them were hitting and biting, hitting and biting. Many of these bites I could tell were drawing blood, and I didn't hesitate to start screaming. Is this how I'm going to die? Being attacked by a bunch of dust bunnies?

"Blue Blaster!"

I felt a jet of coldness whiz by my head, and when I looked up, I saw another digimon running at me. It was about three feet tall, stood like a human, was yellow and had a blue fur draped over its body. It also had a horn protruding from its forehead, but that's all I saw before I had to duck from another one of its attacks.

After three attacks, I was able to stand up and run towards the new digimon. "Come on!" it said, making sure that I was ahead of it, "get moving! I can't hold them off for long!"

I nodded and kept running, noticing that my white shirt was already stained in many places with blood. The same went for my beige pants.

We ran to the forest, only stopping when I couldn't hear their voices anymore. Then, I slumped down against a tree and slid down to the ground to examine my wounds. I looked up, though, at the digimon who had just saved me. "Thank-you very much," I said, out of breath.

Only then did the digimon look at me. "No problem!" he replied with a smile. His big green eyes were very friendly. "Someone always has to keep watch on that village to make sure that they're not up to something."

As I ran my hands over my waist, I felt something in my pocket. I reached into it and pulled out the strange device that I had been holding right when I fell into the river. There was a faint red dot at the edge of the screen, but that was it. I shook my head, realising that the digimon was still looking at me. "I'm sorry," I said, looking back up to him. "My name's Ian." I extended a hand to him, hoping he knew the gesture.

He took my hand in his, shaking it and answered, "my name's Gabumon. You must be one of those human creatures that I've heard about."

I raised an eyebrow, but nodded in affirmation. "I am," I said with confusion, deciding to drop the idea. "By any chance have you seen a digimon called Guilmon come by recently? Or maybe it wasn't recent… I can't tell."

Gabumon looked up in thought, then looked down at me. "I know who you're talking about, but I haven't seen him in days. Not since that Seadramon and Birdramon were fighting back at the lake. I high-tailed it out of there, but he wanted to stay for some reason."

"Hmm…" I looked down at the strange little device. The red dot hadn't moved. "Well, to be perfectly honest with you," I said, "I have no idea what to do now. Following Guilmon was the only thing I could do when I was back in my world, but I don't know what to do now."

"You could always stay with me until we find him," Gabumon suggested. "Besides, it's getting late and even though I may be a digimon, I'm sure that humans need their sleep too."

"Sure," I said, standing up. Are all digimon like this? Evil or kind? It's not like I have any other choice, though. I glanced at the cuts that still bled into my shirt. "Is there a river nearby? Or a lake?"

"There is a stream a few minutes away," Gabumon answered, "it's very deep in the middle, but the edges are fine for wading."

"Great," I said. From there, he showed me the way through the trees. None of them were like anything that I had ever seen, and I had seen a lot of trees. The mother figure was a forester, and when I had to go on guided walks with her, I did learn a few things about trees and plants. Actually, none of the vegetation around even resembled anything that I had ever seen before. Where the Pagumon had found apples was beyond me, but I wasn't in any position to be questioning my whereabouts.

We walked for several minutes, but not once did I see something recognisable. Everything looked like something someone had drawn right out of their imagination. It was all very strange, and I felt like I was living in a dream.

I wonder if anyone knows that I'm gone yet? After that big deal with the Port Mann Bridge in Vancouver, I don't know what people are going to think… Did anyone else end up being able to see the digimon? Or am I still the only one? This is very strange; I wish someone could explain things to me about this predicament. Suddenly, we weren't in the forest anymore, but instead at the edge of a river. It was about fifteen feet across and moving quite swiftly, but it was still clean water. I slipped off my shirt and pants, then plunged into the water.

"Hey!" Gabumon exclaimed, "be careful! It's very fast in the middle of the river!"

I lifted my head out of the water and swam back to the edge. "Don't worry," I said, trying to quell his fear. "I've been swimming since I was your size."

He snorted, not finding the joke as amusing as I did. "Just don't get caught in the current. I don't want to have to go in after you; fur doesn't smell very nice when it's wet." He plucked at the blue fur around his body.

I nodded, then grabbed my shirt and started to wash the blood out of it. My foot was stinging from the cold water; apparently I didn't notice it hurting when I was being battered by the Pagumon. When my shirt was as clean as it was going to get, I tossed it off to the side in the grass and examined the bottom of my foot. Fortunately it didn't seem to be infected, which was good for me because I was pretty sure that there wouldn't be much antiseptic in this world. It was even healing: a very good sign.

After I was done with that, I checked out the rest of the cuts on me. I counted about twenty of them, along with several bruises on my arms, legs and chest. Silent curses flew from my mouth, but it was probably my own fault for following Guilmon in the first place.

Then, I jumped out of the water, shook off as much of it as I could, and pulled on my pants. I carried my shirt over my shoulder, because there was very little that I had found that was more uncomfortable than wearing wet clothes.

"Gabumon," I said, my hand finding its way back to the device in my pocket, "do you know what this is?" I showed him the device.

He looked at it carefully, but didn't seem to recognise it. "I don't know, Ian," he replied, shaking his head. "I've never seen anything like it before. Mind you, I've never seen a human before today, either. Shall we return?"

Sighing, I nodded and returned the device into my pocket. I'll look at it later. We then started walking back into the forest, my foot recoiling from the feeling of a prickly plant or thick brush.

The walk didn't seem to take as long, this time, and the area surrounding us got very beautiful with the setting sun. The sky turned an explosive gold and orange and the plants seemed to soak up the colour with it. It was all too weird, though, for me to try and get relaxed easily. I didn't really have much of an urge to return to my own world, so it wasn't a top priority like it might've been for other people in my position.

Mind you, there weren't many other people in my position.

"Gabumon," I said after several minutes, "why did the Pagumon attack me? Are they just unkind like that?"

Gabumon sighed, his face falling. "There are good digimon, and there are bad digimon. Why they are like that? No one really knows, but if you keep with the good guys, they can't normally get you down. Like Guilmon; he's a good digimon to stick around with."

With a new smile on my face, I looked out to the horizon above the treetops. Even the mountain ranges were very different from Chilliwack, but I was starting to not care about it. "Where exactly is this place?" I asked. "Not just the forest, but what is this world that we're in?" Could it be that easy to find out?

"That's easy," Gabumon said, "we're in the Digiworld!"

Another smile ran across my face. That sounded good enough for me.

Gabumon's cave, however small, was very comfortable. It was right in the side of a hill, covered by dense trees and long grass, and had walls of sold rock. It was about eleven feet long and six feet tall, although the entrance was only about three feet high. Overall, though, it was very nice for anyone. Gabumon had brought a few more fruit, and to my mind's relief, I didn't recognise them. One was very similar to a mango, but that was as close as it came.

"Don't worry," Gabumon had said, "we'll look for him in the morning. For now, though, you can assure your safety in this cave. There are very few who know about its existence."

Somehow, not matter how reassuring that should've been, I still didn't feel very safe in this world. Sure, it was great, I mean, I had already been greeted so nicely by the natives. Even if that did mean having the crap beaten out of me by monsters the size of soccer balls. And then this digimon: he saved from the little monsters, fed me, and gave me a safe place to sleep. It was quite a change from my first few impressions on digimon. "One thing that puzzles me though, is where did that strange device come from? What is it? And why did it react to Guilmon? Man… It's not like I've got an urge to find my way home, 'cause this has already proved better than home, but I just want to know what the heck is up with this place. It's all very strange." With that, I flomped down onto the ground and lay down to sleep.

It didn't take very long for the sun to completely set, at which point the cave was filled with darkness. That, of course, meant that the cold would set in too. Now, the temperature that's being defined as cold isn't necessarily 'cold,' but rather just such a difference from the heat that I had been introduced to in the daytime that it felt quite cold. In reality, had I just been in my own world, I would've found the night time weather to be quite warm.

In any case, I let out a shiver, trying my best to silence it. The cold nipped at the cut on my foot, making me curl myself in to the foetal position. Even if Gabumon had seemed so friendly, I thought that I might've been mistaking it for that in comparison to the Pagumon. "I don't know," I thought, "maybe my sense of perception has been skewed because of today." It's not like I felt unsafe, I just didn't want to be a helpless human child in a world full of monsters.

"Are you all right?" I heard Gabumon ask.

"I'm fine," I replied through a clamped jaw, stifling another shiver. I crossed my arms around the backs of my legs, pulling them close to my chest. "It's going to be a cold night…"