Chapter 5: The swirl in the Sky

Present Time (Kai's POV)

Now he had seen some strange things in his life time, but that just took the biscuit, what on earth was it? He had no idea and the only way he was going to get any thoughts on what it was, was if he returned to the group, something he didn't really want to do, but was doing nevertheless.

He darted through the tree's running all the while; he looked only ahead of him, never up, never down, never to the sides, just forwards. He set his sights on his range, only five metres ahead, but it was enough, it gave him reaction time and stoppage time if he needed it. The tree's suddenly stopped and Kai jumped.

Landing with both feet firmly on the ground, Kai sprung back into his sprint and began to run again. It then came to him what he had just jumped. A small canyon, with a fairly rapid river at the bottom of the fifteen foot drop, and it was probably more than ten metre's wide…he had jumped the whole ten metres. He glanced back briefly, and carried on running.

'That was weird,' Kai thought as he tore through the forest.

Present Time (Nathaniel's POV)

"Everyone here," Nathaniel called as they were halfway back to camp, and sure enough everyone was there as he counted heads, "Okay rest a bit guys, we don't have long ahead of us." It was getting darker and darker by the minute and so Nathaniel had made them all carry light rocks, or where something bright on their heads.

'Okay what was that?' Nathaniel thought as he remembered the swirl in the sky. It had obviously been there for a while. Then he remembered something, 'Where was that storm when we landed, it should have been on the horizon at least…shouldn't it?' Nathaniel thought, 'Yet we landed in a place where it was totally clear.'

"Okay everyone we need to get moving again," Nathaniel called, "I'm sure that everyone is waiting for us now."

Present Time (The crash site)

Mina had been busy treating patients, Kat had been making sure that the paper work was in order, that no one was missing and stuff like that. Elisa was still nursing Sabre as he lay unconscious on the floor.

"Damn," Mina said as her stomach grumbled. Finishing up the patient she was working on she began to smell something from the kitchen area of the plane. What on earth was that smell? Walking over to the kitchen, she found a few students busy in there.

"Huh," Mina looked around surprised as the kitchen was active, "Who are you guys?" They looked at her as if she was off her rocker and then told her.

"Alex," A boy said, he was tall, light and willowy, with light blonde hair and blue eyes, "And these are: Zakai," Mina looked at a boy, he was tall, built much like Sabre except he had spiky black hair and brown eyes that refused to show any emotion but annoyance. Alex carried on, "Reachi." Mina looked at another boy, he seemed to be more active than the rest as he was doing the small jobs, and he was relatively short, short brown hair, hazel eyes. Nothing much out of the ordinary there except for his aim…it seemed exceptional. "That is Zoee over there," Zoee was probably the smallest out of the group, wearing a long dress, it wasn't anything formal, but it wasn't entirely casual either, it seemed a Victorian style dress. Her black hair was up in a bun, held by two chopsticks, the hair that was dangling behind, was set in braids. The girl smiled, she also had brown eyes, though she seemed to be the shyest of the lot. The boy then introduced the last one, "Finally, this is Miriam."

Mina opened her eyes at the last one. Miriam was a medium height girl, dark purple hair cascading down her back, framing her face also, with violet eyes. The girl though glanced over. She was wearing her usual sleeveless kimono. Though a split down each side, ensured leg movement if she needed it and she also wore black boots.

"You two look like you know each other," Alex joked. Mina looked at Alex.

"We do, we're from the same family."

"Oh."

"So what's on the menu?" Mina asked.

"You had better ask Zoee that, she's the one who's cooking," Alex said. Mina turned to Zoee. Zoee blushed slightly; she was used to all this attention.

"Well…um…we're making a mild curry," The girl replied. She really did look nervous; it reminded Mina of how she used to be at one point. Mina nodded.

"Keep up the good work," Mina said.

"Masumai-san," A voice said behind Mina, "We need to speak." Mina spun round to see Kai standing there. He had moved like a ghost, she hadn't heard him at all.

"Sure," Mina replied.

"Where's Nathaniel-san?" Kai asked.

"He went to fetch some water, he isn't back yet," Mina shook her head.

"Meet me in the conference room," Kai said, "I'll go and check up on him." With that he was gone again. Why did he need to speak to them? What was so important? She walked out and headed back to the patients again. Suddenly she looked up to see Kat giving out 'refreshments' to various patients, actually it was just water but she delivered it all the same. Mina smiled, at least she wasn't the only one helping, and everyone was working hard for each other even if they didn't realize it.

"Now I wonder where Nathaniel could be?" She wondered briefly. She turned to see Nathaniel standing there with make shift containers strapped to him.

"Right here," Nathaniel replied, "Where's John?"

"In the cockpit he hasn't come out yet," Mina replied.

Present Time (John's POV)

John had actually, all this time been working on the computers and how to make them work, the auto pilot was actually more advanced than he had first thought, and with enough tweaking with various tools he found in the technicians cupboard he had managed to activate the A.I. system. He had just been in the midst of programming it when he heard a knock on the door.

"John," Nathaniel called, "Conference room now."

"Tch," John replied finishing up on his programming. Then he closed down the system and walked out.

"Why?" John asked as he caught up with Nathaniel

"Kai wants to speak to us all," Nathaniel replied.

"Who's going to be there?" John asked as they walked up the stairs.

"Quite a few people actually, Mina invited them," he replied as he opened the conference room door and walked in. Everyone was sitting round a table except Kai who was standing up near the presentation screen.

Present Time (The conference room)

"Even though most of you will not have seen it, I am sure Nathaniel has," Kai said, "A few hours ago I saw, what looked like a spiral of green clouds?" Nathaniel looked at him oddly but knowingly and he nodded.

"I just want to know your ideas on it," Kai finished. Nathaniel spoke up first.

"Well, I saw the cloud roughly about the same time as you; it was then that we started heading back. The cloud has since disappeared. Also I noticed that even if the storm dispersed there would still be lingering thunder clouds scattered around and the usual after effects. However, there were none, it was as if there wasn't a storm at all," Nathaniel said.

"Good point," Kai said. Everyone had already introduced themselves at the beginning except Nathaniel and John. Kat was there with Sabre who had recently awoke, Elisa and Cassy, Alex was there with a few of his friends namely Miriam and Reachi. The teacher was there.

"In fact the only evidence of the storm is our plane crash," Cassy said.

"There are some other things I would like you to know," Kai said. He looked behind the presentation screen for a moment. He suddenly pressed a button and the screen shot up.

"What on earth," Kat exclaimed.

"I don't think we're on earth anymore," Alex said as they both gazed at the two large moons, "Look at the star constellation, they're all wrong as if they're back to front, upside down and generally out of shape."

"So if we're not on earth how did we get where we are?" The teacher said.

"That's simple," John said after some thinking. He then stood up, "The evidence is everywhere that we are no longer on earth. The navigational setting on the plane are set to specific frequencies, gravitational pressures, magnetic forces etcetera, however, they are completely messed up, it took me from the crash till now to get them working again. The two moons, the star constellation, the size of the moons even. They are all pointing to the same path. The green swirl of clouds finishes my prediction. We came here by portal. Its simple isn't it. Huge amounts of static air floating around, one large enough power surge in the clouds and hey presto a portal to god knows where. We might not even be in the same reality any more."

"Hm, that's true," Kai murmured remembering his jump.

"Did you have that all prepared?" Miriam asked.

"Not quite, I suspected something when I couldn't get the navigation controls to work on the right frequency, but it was only when Kai gave me this information that I could prove my suspicion," John finished.

Kai snorted and looked up, "Any objection?" No one made a move, "Okay what is our next objective?"

"To figure out what reality we are in. We need to explore outwards in the long term that is," John said.

"In the short term," Kai said.

"Food, water, get everyone back to health etcetera," Elisa said, "Also we need to find out what we can eat and drink, and in the medium term before we go out exploring we need to suss out the medicinal plants."

"The plants are extremely like that on earth, they may have evolved the same way as on earth," Nathaniel replied.