The Pond, 1 PT, Day 2, 2:21 AM

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The night was not as calm as the group would have liked…

“AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

Devin was rudely woken up by a shriek that sounded almost like a banshee.

‘The hell?’

Quickly getting up from the damp grass and onto his feet, he looked around to see what was going on. It was the middle of the night and visibility was terrible, to say the least, with the only light source coming from the moons.

“What’s going on?!” Several members of the group were looking around to try and find out what was going on while the rest of the group was still getting to their feet, all the while the screaming continued.

Several thoughts were racing through Devin’s mind. ‘Should I run? Or should I try and find out what’s actually going on? But I don’t even know any of these people… so why the hell should I help if helping puts my life on the line? Fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck…’

Through the dim light, he can’t see anything that is attacking them. But the screaming is all that Devin needs to assume that there is a threat around and that he is (definitely) not prepared to deal with it.

‘Where are we getting attacked from?’ Panicked, he continues to look around to see what is happening, only to see nothing.

Not knowing what is going on and where the trouble is coming from, mankind's greatest fear, the fear of the unknown, starts to overcome Devin. His heart rate spikes up to 120 BPM as he can feel it thumping in his chest ever so violently. Pupils dilating, missing small details to see the bigger threat, Devin did not want to die to whatever was out there.

So absorbed was Devin in thinking that there was something in the dark, just waiting for the right moment to pounce on him and kill him, that he did not notice the man who was huddled in a ball, crying his eyes dry in a not so quiet manner. 

While Devin was still panicking, the man in the thawb approached the crying man, realizing that the crying man was the source of the original scream. While everyone else was trying to see what was attacking them, they had all forgotten to think about if the source of everyone’s panic came from inside the group, rather than outside of it. Not that they can be blamed for their shoddy intuition after the day that they had been trying to sleep away.

“Everyone, calm,” The man in the thawb started to calm everyone down, “There is no need to panic, this man’s soul here is scarred from the encounter we had yesterday.” Proceeding to kneel on both legs next to the crying man, he tries to console the man. “Are you alright?” The man, not expecting the consolation and, at the moment, frightened of everything and anything that is not him, panics when he feels the Arab man’s touch. Violently slapping the hand away, the man backs away from the Arab man, getting as far away as he can move his arms and legs. Unperturbed by the man’s actions, the Arab man continued to try and console the man.

The rest of the group, however, was not as lenient. In fact they were quite angry and frustrated for multiple reasons. The first reason was that they genuinely thought that they were in danger, thinking that they were going to die at any moment. Everyone’s minds were in overdrive and, to learn that there was no real threat at all, was very unnerving to everyone. ‘At least nothing attacked us,’ was on almost everyone’s minds. No one realized at the moment, but the entire time the group was asleep, they were defenseless to anything that could come across them.

The second reason why everyone was pissed was due to the fact that their precious sleep was ruined. Still tired as hell from the initial running for their lives and ensuing death march away from a certain clearing that was certain death, no one was full of energy. Even worse, since it was still pretty deep into the night with the sun most likely not rising for a while, they probably would go to sleep again. But even if they tried to go to sleep again there was a high chance, with it being almost a certainty for Devin, that they would just end up tossing and turning on the damp grass.

And to finish it off, the morale of the group was now, in some demented twist of a miracle, somehow lower than it once was. Getting sent to another world unwillingly? Sure, a lot of people would lament the idea initially, but they warm up to the idea after a while and there are even people that glorify the idea in a vain attempt to escape their 9 to 5s! Other people dying in front of you due to a wolf popping out of *fucking nowhere* and ripping them to shreds due to the meddling of a possibly fourth dimensional being that was bored? That’s fine too! It was them dying, not me… and besides, they didn't even know the people who died anyways! However, someone near you having a panic attack and screwing up your well deserved sleep? Now that is a line that should not be crossed in the minds of the group.

All in all, at the moment, everyone currently had the crying man on their now very short shit lists (and possibly ‘To Fuck Over’ lists), owing to the fact that they didn’t know if the people that were once on their shit lists were even still alive. So they all stood, looking at the crying man in silence with contempt on their faces as the Arab man vainly tried to calm him down.

After around half a minute of looking at the crying man the silence was broken. “So, what do we do now?” Ms. Mascara Massacre spoke, opening the dialogue to anyone in the group.

“It is alright,” the Arab man spoke, not looking at the group as he continued his attempts at placating the man. “Everyone can rest again, I shall care for this one.”

Happy with that answer Devin and the group slowly started to drag their attentions away from the man who everyone hated and dragged themselves to their previous sleeping spots in order to try and get some more sleep. But then came the issue of trying to get to sleep. After everyone’s adrenaline had spiked due to what had just happened, they couldn’t immediately pass out. No, everyone now had to agonizingly wait as the adrenaline fully passed through their bodies before they could properly go to sleep. However, for those like Devin who had broken circadian rhythms or lived in certain time zones, had trouble going to sleep again.

Though as Devin tried to go to sleep, he looked up at the night sky to see that there were three moons in the sky. ‘Well, I guess that confirms that this is another world.’

He had mixed feelings about this. On the bad side, not even a day on this world and he had almost died brutally to wolves, been starved due to a lack of recognizable food,  passed out from exhaustion and is now sleeping on damp grass right next to a lake. Even worse there was no sign of sentient life anywhere. No castles, no medieval villages, not even a small thatch hut in the middle of the forest! This whole day was nothing like what the holy manuscripts proclaimed what being transported to another world would be like.

On the good side however, he didn’t have to work customer service anymore!

‘...ok there really isn’t any much good to this is there?’

‘What now then? Do we just continue trying to find somewhere that is inhabited? Do we try to see if other people have survived the first day in this new world? Or do we just try and find a nice place to settle down and just try to make do? Damnit… nothing I can do now except fall asleep.’

With the crying now drawn to a low whimper, Devin realized that now was as good a time as any to try and get some more shut eye. Getting into the “comfortable” position of lying on his back, he closed his eyes. Though much as Devin tossed and turned, he could not fall asleep. All he could do was turn his head and body on the damp grass in a pitiful attempt to try and go to sleep. As he slowly dozed off though, a thought went into his mind, ‘What if the next one is real?’ And after tossing and turning a bit more, he realized that that thought was basically a Trojan horse which would keep him up for a while longer.

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After finally passing out, Devin woke up a few hours later due to the sun shining through the trees and leaves. ‘Fuck the sun, I swear…’ He didn’t want to get up that early, but the combination of the sun in his eyes, having no curtains to block out the sun and lying down uncomfortably on grass, made it unlikely that he was going back to sleep.

Devin was an American night owl through and through, he worked the closing shift at Walmart and abhorred mornings as that was the time he usually slept. So his disdain for waking up this early could not be understated.

Grumpily, and with an ache in his back, he slowly got up. The sun was bright, glaringly so, to his eyes. ‘Is the sun brighter here or what? Seriously, when were sunrises back home this bright?’ To the rest of the group, the sun was, in fact, not brighter than it was on Earth. It is merely the fact that Devin hasn’t seen a sunrise in years and his eyes have adapted to lower light environments over those years, leading to his retinas’ inability to quickly adapt to the current light level.

Most of the other people were getting up in the same manner as Devin did, very poorly. However, a few were already up and about. ‘Did they even sleep? Seriously, it looks like some of them will pass out if they just rest their backs on the trees.’ These people looked the worst out of the entire group, with the crying man being among those who most likely did not go back to sleep. And a few minutes later, when everyone was fully awake and had drunk some of the pond water, the group was left with a decision.

With awkward silence being the unofficial standard for the group, the construction worker was the first person to break it. “Well then, shall we keep moving?” The question surprised Devin. They had almost walked themselves to death the previous day and still haven’t eaten anything since coming to this world, meaning that everyone had gone at least a day without eating anything. Yet, despite all of that, this man still wanted to keep going?

“Are ya fuckin’ with us right now?” A new voice, female, answered the construction worker’s question with another question that was probably on everyone’s mind at the moment. The voice was quite distinct to Devin, as he could only guess that the person was from somewhere in Britain.

Looking at the person who spoke, Devin saw a slim grisled woman who, despite her stature of 5’ 4”, clearly had gotten into many fights over the years. The woman had a very freckled face, slightly curly, shoulder length, black hair that was a bit of a mess and practically emerald green eyes. She was dressed much better than most of the group given their current situation, as she was wearing a tan polo, blue jeans and comfortable running sneakers. However, the most noticeable thing about her was the scar that she had on her chin, which gave here a “Fuck with me and I’ll break your jewels” aura.

“I don’t know if ya had a bad dose or somethin’,” Visibly pissed, the woman starts to go off on the construction worker, “but ah can tell ya that the whole group was more than knackered after yesterday. And before ya even start, ahm sure that we are more than far enough away from the damn death wolves since we walked the whole feckin day!” Finishing what she wanted to say, the British? woman glared at the construction worker to see what he would say.

The worker did not need many words, “Food. We need to eat.” 

Quickly, the woman’s expression and the expressions of those in the group changed from anger/contempt to an embarrassed understanding. The whole group had not eaten a single thing since they had arrived in this new world almost 24 hours prior and they were all starving. ‘We don’t eat soon,’ Devin thought, ‘we could end up collapsing where we stand.’

The woman who had confronted the construction worker on the other hand, was visibly embarrassed, “Ah… fair.’ She had not thought about the food situation that they were in and, to Devin, was more than likely just venting her frustrations about the group’s current situation. 

The construction worker continued, “If we want to survive, we need to find something to eat. And that means we will have to move and look around.”