"…Where the hell are we?"

I jumped to my feet and whipped my head around to instinctively check my surroundings. I spotted Maria a few meters away, groaning and holding her head. As she stood up, I noticed something different about her…something odd. I tried to look closer, but when she saw me staring, she gave me one of her famous death looks.

"What?" she glared.

"Uhm…well…" I didn't know where to begin, so I ignored her completely.

Maria tried to get my attention. "Hey…hey, Miranda! Are you listening to me? Miranda!"

This was the first time that I tried to take in the surroundings, and I realized that Maria's looks weren't the only odd aspect about this place. We weren't on the busy street in the middle of daytime anymore. There were trees, lots and lots of trees. It was dark out, which meant that it was probably nighttime, and Ivan was nowhere to be found. In fact, I couldn't see anybody other than Maria at all.

As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I was sure that we weren't in a city at all; not even a park. We were in a small clearing, and encompassing the clearing were dozens of bushes and trees.

We were in a forest.

"MIRANDA!"

I decided to answer her now. I ran my fingers through my hair.

"I don't understand…" I started.

Maria raised an eyebrow. "Understand?"

"Well, we were just running after Ivan on a busy street, and now we're here!" I deducted.

"Couldn't we be in a park?" she asked.

"I don't think that there would be a random park in the middle of a downtown street," I said.

"Sure there can be!"

I looked her straight in the eyes. "Trust me, Maria. I live downtown, you live in the middle of nowhere. You take a train AND the subway every morning to get to school. I would know whether I've seen a park in the middle of a business district, and I can say with reassurance that I haven't yet seen one," I pointed out. "Plus, it's dark out. We couldn't have been knocked out by anything now, could we have been?"

All of the words in Maria's mouth were instantly transferred to her middle finger. I stuck my tongue out at her and finally noticed what was different about Maria that was irritating me.

"You…you look weird."

"Okay, that's it. If I had my chainsaw with me right now, you'd be dead," Maria threatened.

"No no no, it's not that. It's just…" I walked right up to her and patted her head. She knocked my hand away. "…Your hair is poofy."

"So is yours in the morning, remember?"

"That's not what I mean! Your pigtails, they're huge! And they stick out to the side all jaggedly like!" I assessed.

"Well then, if you want to play that game, huh? You're eyes are huge and—" she cut herself off, mid-sentence. "Shit, this can't be happening!"

I was just about to ask her what was wrong, but then a thought came to my mind and I knew.

Robert's machine had worked.

"I-it worked…" I said in disbelief. "It really—"

My words were silenced as Maria placed a hand over my mouth. I licked her hand to get her to quit it, and in turn, she slapped me upside the head. All I could utter were a few mumbles as I tried to wiggle out of her rock-hard grip.

"Shut up," Maria whispered. "Listen."

I closed my eyes and did as I was told. Behind me, I heard something, so I concentrated on the little sound. A rustling in the bushes made the sound that we both heard. That sound froze us dead in our tracks.

The rustling grew louder, and then turned into a few creaking and snapping of branches and twigs. It grew even louder as the seconds ticked by.

I was shaking, and so was Maria.

"I-it must be a zombie. O-or an alien!" she stammered.

My face turned pale. I accepted the sense that Maria made, and started to wonder what made the noise that we were hearing. The possibility that it was a monster of some sort was very high, if the machine had worked.

And if the monster was huge; it was likely that it ate people.

Which meant that we were in danger.

We can't die in an anime if we're not really from here, can we? I shuddered at the thought.

Prepared to face the horrors, Maria and I listened closer, and suddenly noticed that there were no more noises in the bush. There was dead silence all around us.

Not good.

"I found a bloody good clearing for you chaps over here!"

We both jumped and whirled our heads around to where the strange new voice was coming from.

Out of the bushes where we heard the noise, came a lone figure. The figure was a boy who was maybe about an inch or so taller than I was, with crazy white hair. He wore a light colored sweater and a pair of jeans…

…And I was astounded when I realized who it was.

"Uhm…Maria? We have a slight problem. I know him," I stated.

The boy, hearing these words, cocked his head to one side.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

Maria gave me a sharp nudge in the ribs with her elbow. "What the hell, Miranda? Have you lost your goddamn mind?"

I turned to face her. "Can't you tell who it is, Maria? It's Bakura from Yu-Gi-Oh!."