Opening my eyes, I see a stony brick ceiling and in the darkness besides me multiple groans are heard.

‘It seems I am not alone… Wait, why am I here? Where even is here?!’

I roll myself to my feet and look around to see around 20 others groaning on the floor. They are all from different ages and ethnicities.

Walking to the closest person, I offer them my hand.

˝Hey, are you alright?˝ I help them stand up but then freeze at my words.

‘What language is this? I never heard it in my life, but can speak and understand it! How is that possible?’

Shocked by the unfamiliar language I am lost in thoughts until the person I helped responds.

˝Thanks! I am somewhat ok. By the way where are we and who are you?˝

The man I helped was towering even the tall me and his raspy voice gives an intimidation factor. But my surprise quickly fades as I start talking again.

˝Well… I don’t know actually. I can… only remember my name, Baldr Firebeard by the way.˝

I extend my hand towards him. He firmly grabs it and shakes.

˝You too, huh? I am Black Bear.˝

I look him up and down. He is at least 2,1 meter tall, around his early thirties has long black hair and beards, muscular with about 130 kg of mass…

‘Wait, how can I assess the height and mass so easily? I have no one to compare it with!’

˝Haha, quite fitting for your black hair and big figure.˝ I try to laugh away my over-thinking.

˝Ha! Says the one who calls his red beard as fire!˝ The man jokes back. He must be the easy going type.

Together we laugh our insecurities away which also attracts the attention of others, who gather around us like a pack of sheep.

‘What is a sheep?’ My mind keeps grinding for answers because of my confusion.

˝U-um! Do you two know where we are?˝  A little girl musters her courage to ask the two big men in front of her.

She looks around 1,3 m tall, around the age of 10, tanned skin, green eyes and long platinum hair.

˝Sadly, no. You also don’t remember anything besides your names?˝ I ask, to which everyone else nods.

‘Weird, they all also understand and speak this language. They must have not even realized it yet.’

˝No use standing in the dark, there is some light there. It’s probably an exit. I’m leaving, Baldr you coming?˝ Black asks.

˝There is nothing here, so let’s check it out.˝

I shrug and follow him while beckoning the little girl to follow. As if seeing her mom, she rushes up and grabs my hand, as if to find some kind of reassurance. I lift her up on my shoulders to keep up with Black while the rest of the group follows.

Black stops after exiting the darkness of the stone brick walls to admire what he sees. A forest with giant towering trees at least the height of 100 meters, beneath the trees lush grass with tons of different flowers scattered within, through the grass a crystal clear stream cuts through. Butterflies, bees, dragonflies, birds and other small animals are flying or enjoying the idyllic place they call home.

His absentmindedness was disturbed by the sound of something stopping beside him.

˝Beautiful, ain’t it? But Baldr, what’s with the girl?˝ His gaze seems to be menacing to her, since she shrunk back and started to shiver under his gaze.

˝I dunno, just felt like it. Must be my father’s instinct… Though I believe I don’t have kids yet. What is your name? My name is Baldr Firebeard and this big guy is Black Bear.˝

˝M-My name is Yamila Rose.˝ She stutters still intimidated by Black.

˝Nice to meet you! Well, back to our current problems. Do you have any plans Black? I don’t see any paths leading from here, no other signs of civilization.˝ I jump from my childish tone to a serious one.

Black looks around and grumbles from exasperation.

˝This is going to be annoying… I guess everyone will have to work together to find any sign out of here, or we will be forced to camp here.˝

˝Will we form an expedition group and a home camp group?˝ I ask after considering the outcome of not being able to find a path.

˝I guess so. You scared fucks over there, stop just standing there and tell us your names, we need to know each group member before we start our preparation.˝ He points at the group behind us.

Another courageous soul nervously steps in front of our scary bear of a man.

˝My name is Franky Panty.˝

˝Good, you will come with us to explore, next!˝ Black yells.

And so the other 16 introduced themselves.

Ten men:

John Mass, Bloody Annoyance, Punk Funk, Cheap Kami-sama, Deadshell, Yomama Fat, BrosB4Hoes, Little Tommygun, Chad the Frog and Ambulance.

Six women:

Dorothy the Witch, Greta Beta, Unicorn Blues, LustyD3mon, Amazon Lily and CookieLove.

…

Me and Black almost shat ourselves from laughing at the ridiculous names. Their parents must have a weird naming sense.

(A.N: A.K.A. me trying to make weird usernames xD)

After some time, we finally stopped laughing under the hateful gaze of many of our companions. We were about to sort ourselves into two groups when our group heard laughter coming from the nearby trees.

A group descends from a nearby tree. They kinda look like fairies, but don’t know why I know that word. The small figures fly and land in front of our group and start to grow to normal human size.

Their facial features are different to us by having bigger eyes, long eyelashes, curvy and pointy ears. They have two pairs of dragonfly type wings. Their eyes, hair and wings more or less follow one color scheme.

˝Hello, our new Nils! I am Silver Citrusbreeze, the commander of the city Willowshade’s guard. I came to bring you to the safety of our city, before something happens to you. There we will explain the situation, since you don’t know anything of the world, right? So come quickly, the forest is dangerous at night.˝

Locking gazes with Black, we shrug in helplessness of the situation and follow them with Yamila and Franky in tow. The others just follow with no better option.

We walk through the forest and after about an hour of walking, we arrive at the bottom of a gigantic tree whose treetop spans over a kilometer wide. There the accompanying fairies start to giggle with mischievous grins and fly up, leaving only Silver with us.

Before we could ask Silver about it, the fairies freefell with vines in their hands, which they hooked to us and moved away with shit eating grins on their faces. Right after, the vines tightened and like reverse bungee jumping we were pulled like ragdolls disappearing into the treetop.