The park was small and lit by only one lamp post. Even though Sei knew that nobody from the compound would be around, he still stayed out of the light it cast. Instead, he waited in the shadow of a tall oak tree.
It didn't take long for him to hear a voice, but when he did, it wasn't Sophia's.
"Will you please tell me why we had to come out here so late?!" The voice sounded tired and really pissed off.
Then three people stepped into the light cast by the lamp post and Sei relaxed a little. The voice had come from Arthur Kirkland, who Sei guessed had come with Sophia because it was so late. Peter was there too, and he looked really excited.
"It was an emergency." Sophia hissed at Arthur. She started looking around, and Sei saw the expression on her face. She was scared.
Is she scared for me? He wondered. It was a new idea. While at the compound he had been told that the adults cared about his well being, they never really seemed that worried. When he got hurt doing something, they always told him exactly what to do to take care of the injury, as if they were telling him how to put together a model airplane (which they had never done).
Slowly, he stepped out of the shadows, his bag slung over one shoulder. He hesitated at the edge of the immediate circle created by the lamp post. He didn't know how to start explaining things, especially with Arthur and Peter there.
Sophia spotted him before he could really figure anything out. "Sei!" She called out, making the other two look in his direction. She ran over to and threw her arms around him.
"What's going on?" Arthur asked, walking up behind his younger cousin.
"Sei?" Peter said questioningly. He looked confused and suddenly looked like a little kid. "What are you doing here?"
"He needs our help." Sophia stated. She led Sei further into the light cast by the lamp post, further into the circle of warmth crated by the light. "Talk to us, Sei." She prompted.
He quickly shook his head. "Don't say it like that, please." He said, suddenly very bitter toward anything that reminded him of the compound. "That's how they phrased it, and it just sounds cold."
"Who are 'they'?" Arthur asked. He didn't seem as pissed anymore.
Sei gripped the strap of his backpack tightly. "The adults at the compound." He whispered.
"Compound?" Peter repeated.
So Sei told them all about the compound, about how he had grown up there, pretty much never leaving. He explained how he had thought everything he needed was right there. The adults explained things when he asked, so he hadn't thought they were keeping things from him.
"But then people on the outside started asking questions." He told them. "I don't know what the questions were, but one day Ludwig-"
Arthur suddenly cut him off. "Ludwig?" He questioned, sounding fierce.
Sei nodded. "He's my father figure." Now, thinking about Ludwig, he had the urge to return home. He couldn't name anything bad Ludwig had ever done, and he suddenly felt like he was betraying him.
"That bloody bastard!" Arthur swore. "What is he doing around here?"
Sophia put a hand on Arthur's arm. "Not now." She told him. "You can worry about him later." She focused on Sei. "Please, continue."
Sei nodded. "Ludwig, he told me that I had to go out into the world outside of the compound for something called school." He suddenly smirked as he remembered something. "That was on Tuesday."
"So you had never been to a school before Wednesday?" Peter asked. Sei shook his head in response.
"Sei." Sophia whispered. "Earlier, you said something about your English assignment? Did you want to talk about it?"
Sei bit his lip. He felt like he had already been out long enough, but he also knew that he didn't want to stop talking to Sophia about what was bothering him. He slowly nodded and shrugged his backpack off. "It's in here." He said, bending to unzip the bag. Then he pulled out his notebook and handed it to Sophia.
She took it from him and opened it. Since Sei had just started school, the assignment was the first thing in the book. She read what he had written, her eyes growing wide as she did so. When she was done, she passed it to Arthur to read. Then she looked at Sei.
"Where did all of that come from?" She asked him.
Sei was a little confused about why she was asking. "Um… When I thought about a different world, I thought of one identical to the one we live in, only with an extra island." He went on to explain everything about how he had come to what was written in the notebook.
When he was done, Arthur passed the book back to him. "I'm going to kill that Ludwig." He grumbled. "It was him all this time." He shook his head in disbelief.
Sei was confused. "What was him?"
"The reason we're here." Peter said, which didn't help Sei understand any better.
"You see, Sei," Arthur began. "That world you created," He pointed at the notebook. "It's not just made up. Subconsciously, you knew about its existence, and about the representatives."
What? Sei couldn't believe what he was hearing. There really are other worlds? Then he had a moment of logical thought. "How do you know this?"
"Because," Sophia said softly. "The three of us are representatives. I'm the representative of The Principality of Wy." She gestured to her cousins. "Peter is Sealand, and Arthur is Britain."
"A whole bunch of us came to this world!" Peter piped in. "Alfred, Kiku, Bella, Francis, and Ravis too!"
"But why?" Sei asked.
"Because our meetings were threatened." Arthur explained. "Someone, who I'm guessing now was Ludwig, kidnapped Sagea." He looked right at Sei. "We came here in groups to try to find him. We've been here for years now with no leads."
"But now you show up, knowing the whole story of our world." Sophia said with a smile. "Sei."
"Wait." Arthur seemed to think of something. "Sei, what's your last name?"
"Gea." Sei said quietly.
"Of course!" Sophia gasped. She turned to Arthur. "I can't believe I didn't see it before. They didn't even change his name!"
"Wha-" Sei started, but was cut off when Sophia turned around again and gave him a tight hug.
"Sagea." She breathed.