It was the strangest feeling. His entire body was… it was…

Pain? No. But it was far from comfortable. Cal knew he was changing. Not violently, though, thankfully. It was a rippling kind of change, moving from the core of his belly to every bit of flesh on him, then back again. Over, and over.

He couldn't see anything. Couldn't hear anything. Couldn't breathe. Not that he needed to. It was the most terrifying thing he had ever experienced. He wondered if he was dead and entering the afterlife.

And then: Light. Air. Grass.

Gone was the water that Cal had been swimming in before his 'change', and when he opened his eyes, he realised that he did not recognise this place at all. Sitting up so he could see over the grass, he saw that water lapped against some rocks to his left, and splashed him with gentle sprays as it moved down a stream. To his right, the grass beneath him stretched along as far as he could see into a golden savannah before rising into tall snow-topped mountains.

Behind him, there were trees only twenty or so metres away forming a thick, dark wood he didn't plan on entering any time soon.

"I must be dead," he muttered as he got to his shaky feet and grabbed his cornrowed head. The sun was high overhead, peering down at him from among white-grey clouds. Above, a bird passed by, so far away it was barely visible.

This all felt so… foreign. Like something he'd see in a documentary of the African savannah. There were no such grasslands back where Cal was from.

The plastic bag that held the backpack with his dry clothes was still tied to his ankle. Surely that wouldn't have gone with him if he had died.

He allowed himself to fall onto his wet behind. He took of his goggles and shook off the wetness from his plaits, then wiped the remaining water from his face.

It was then, without the fogginess of those lenses, that he was able to see how strangely shaped the trees were. They didn't have leaves as Cal knew them. In fact, they looked like satellite dishes. Each had a single broad green surface that faced skywards. Some had brown projections that joined together above it, just like real satellite dishes. And, like a real forest, some were taller than others.

It was a good thing Cal was sitting down because he'd likely have fallen quite ungracefully in shock if he hadn't.

"Where the hell am I…?"

A sound drew his attention back to the water. Huge bubbles were rising in the centre of the five-metre wide stream. At first, it was just as if that small section of the water was boiling, but soon, the bubbles were literally rising out of it, and bursting, sending large droplets of water back into the rivulet. But not all of them. Some of the droplets stopped in midair before slowly moving together and coalescing above.

Cal was unable to turn his eyes away as the glob of water grew bigger and bigger and began to take on definite shape. He wasn't scared of it, though. For some reason, he knew it was no danger to him; indeed that it was meant for him.

When it was an oval about a foot tall, it began to grow opaque. In a matter of seconds, it was white with a few big light-blue spots.

An egg.

And in front of the egg, a tiny spark of blue appeared, quickly growing and changing shape as well. Both strange objects moved towards him. And Cal instinctively reached out his hands to catch them.

The egg was warm. It rested in his left hand and pulsed with life, as if it had been laid by a huge bird weeks or months ago, not been birthed by water mere moments before. In his right hand was a grey and blue device with a total of four buttons on it: a red power button to the bottom right of a rectangular screen, two white arrow-like buttons below the screen, and a dark yellow horizontal oval under that. It had a loop at the top with a pivoted blue arm that seemed to be designed so that it could be kept in a belt loop.

On the screen, he saw a pixelated image of the egg that rested in other his hand. No colour. Just black, as if the device was one of those digital pet toys that they used to sell when he was younger.

And, as the egg started to shake, so did the image.

He held on to the egg, resting it in his lap, so spellbound he was barely breathing. A gentle glow started coming from the egg, and before he knew it, it was gone.

But in its place was the most frail-looking creature he had set eyes on in a long time. It was as warm as the egg; light blue, round, with dark eyes and a tuft of hair on its forehead. In its mouth was a dark-yellow pacifier. It had a tail of pale blue, and at the edge of it was a shiny sphere the same colour as its main round body.

It looked up at Cal with such innocence and trust. And it babbled. In fact, it sounded almost like a baby trying to say the actual word 'babble':

"Babbu, babbu."

Cal, as utterly bewildered as he was by all that was happening, couldn't help but smile. "Don't worry, little thing," he found himself saying, "I'll take care of you. Whatever you are."

Cal was dry and dressed, his navy-blue goggles resting against his clavicle like a necklace, when he heard the sobbing. Babbu, as he decided to call the little thing, fidgeted in his arms, as if it had heard it, too.

He'd been walking along for just a few minutes, following the stream away from the strangeness and darkness of the satellite dish tree forest. He'd seen or heard no sign of human or animal life until then.

He turned away from the water, trying to find out where the sound was coming from. The only possible location was the sole satellite-tree a short distance away. Its dark brown trunk was broad, and could easily hide a crying person behind it.

He jogged through the shin-high grass to the tree, trying not to make too much noise and startle whoever was there. The tree's bark was smooth, and had branches that reached up and supported the dish. And as he moved around it, he heard the sob turn to a gasp.

A little girl sat with her arms wrapped around a round woolly ball. She had tan skin, and dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. In a quick movement, she got to her feet, and was backing away.

"It's okay," Cal said as he knelt so that he was closer to her height. "I won't hurt you. My name is Cal."

The little girl didn't look older than seven, which would make her ten years younger than he was. If she had come to this place in the same way he did, no wonder she was scared. She was visibly shaking. The golden woolly ball, however, cooed in her arms, as if had not a care in the world. Hazel eyes fluttered open and stared curiously at Cal. Another strange baby creature.

"Did you just get here, too?" he continued, trying to calm her. "I know this place is strange, but…" He stopped, searching for something to say, but could find nothing that he felt could help. She just kept looking at him unblinkingly.

"You have a little friend, too, huh? Did it come from an egg like little Babbu here?"

Nothing. Not even a single word. It was then that Cal realised that she looked Middle Eastern, like some people he'd recently seen on an international news station. Maybe she didn't even understand English.

"Yes," she finally said. "He's fuzzy."

She did have an accent he couldn't place, but at least she understood him. She still looked scared, though.

"Wh-Where are we?"

That was one question Cal wished he wasn't asked. All he could say was, "I don't know. But I promise we'll find a way to get back home." A lie. He didn't know if they'd ever get back home. Were they abducted? Drugged? Was that why his body had felt so weird?

She was shaking less, but still looked scared when she bent her knees and sat on the grass. "My name is Ari." She looked down at the creature she was holding. "I haven't given him a name yet."

"Ari? That's a pretty name." He followed her lead and sat.

"It's Hebrew. My mom says it's a pretty name, too."

"My mother calls me River," he told her, trying to find anything to distract the little girl from the situation at hand. "She gave me that name. It's my middle name. I'm Calder River Lynn. I don't usually tell people my middle name, 'cause it's weird."

"No," Ari said, seriously. "It's not weird."

Cal saw Ari's gaze shift suddenly. When he turned, he saw what she was looking at. Across the river, there were two other people. They were walking quickly across the grasslands towards them, holding things in their hands, too. Each had their own tiny creature.

One looked around Cal's age: A tall, light-skinned girl with short blonde hair framing her face. In her arms was a pink ball with a fox-like tail. Beside her was a boy in his early teens who had dark skin and black hair, and had a small silver thing with no distinctive feature that Cal could see from all the way across the river.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only thing Cal and Ari saw. Some distance behind the two newcomers, something stood up, so it could be seen above the grass. Large, fuzzy pointed ears and a head of ginger and black fur showed themselves. The grass parted as the creature started towards the pair with such speed that Cal instinctively thought it could only be some sort of predator.

Ari screamed and nearly stumbled as she got to her feet. Cal stood, too, and yelled at the two who were coming towards them from across the river, but it was nothing more coherent or useful than, "Run!"

They turned and saw their pursuer. As it came closer, they could see that, though feline in appearance, it stood on two legs. That fact made it look smaller, but no less ferocious, nor did that stop it from moving faster than any cat that Cal had ever seen. There was no way they would escape. It would be on them in mere seconds.

But from Cal and Ari's side of the stream, a blur dashed over to their rescue, clearing the rivulet in a single leap. It had moved straight past Cal, and yet he'd had no hint of its coming. What in the world were these things?

When it landed on the other side, he saw what it was: a huge grey canine with disproportionately large black paws, a long, slender tail, and a head that seemed too big for its body, too. It had black stripes all along its back, and piercing red eyes that looked almost as fierce as the fangs that it bared as it faced the feline creature, standing between it and its human quarry.

The cat thing had a coat pattern that would seem quite natural on a real cat. Its belly and snout were white, but its back had black and ginger stripes that also covered most of its head, and its tail was ginger and brown. It narrowed amber eyes at the intruder, lifting gloved hands. The gloves were dark brown and tipped with sharp claws so that they seemed to have been the paws of some other poor creature, pilfered by this feline for its own use.

The blonde girl and dusty boy stood frozen behind their saviour. What else could they do?

"Get over here!" Cal screamed at them. Ari was at his side in an instant, as if it was her he'd given the instruction, gripping onto him so tight he wondered if her little golden woolly creature was getting similar treatment. She was shaking again, and he couldn't blame her. But the two on the other side still hadn't moved. Then, he shouted so loud his throat hurt: "Now!"

That seemed to galvanise them. The girl grabbed the boy's arm and dragged him the rest of the metre or two towards the water, and they jumped in. The water reached the boy to his chin and the girl at her chest. They both held their little friends above their heads as they fought the current to get across.

Behind them, the canine and feline started fighting. In a flurry of fangs and claws, bark-roars and meow-screams, they fought so viciously that Cal wanted nothing more than to get away. Babbu was shaking in his arms, Ari's face was buried in his shirt, and he found himself just as frozen as the two across the water had been.

He tried to give Babbu to Ari and tell her to run as he waited for the newcomers to cross, but his body refused to get that message. For agonisingly long moments, his attention shifted from the two battling creatures to the humans crossing the water. Don't look back, he thought at them. Just keep coming this way!

They were quite disobedient, of course. The fighting was just too horrible to ignore. The feline slashed at the canine, but was too slow, so she sent a huge hunk of grassy earth flying into the brook. The blonde let out a yelp as it fell into the water before her, making a splash that doused her hair. It was a good thing she'd been looking back, or she'd have had a mouthful of water.

The two finally made it across. Dripping water onto the bank, they stumbled to dry land.

"Ari, time to go," Cal croaked, his throat still somewhat sore.

She obeyed, turning away from the frightful scene. As the four started to run past the tree into the wide open savannah, Cal heard a final high-pitched scream behind them. He held on to Ari's hand, forcing himself to run slowly enough that she could keep up.

That meant that the other two were ahead of him and Ari by the time the canine overtook them in another unnatural burst of speed. Cal fell back in terror, pulling a screaming Ari with him into a protective embrace as the other boy and girl crashed right into the grey and black fur.