Somewhere far away, a viscous white light suddenly appeared out of nothing. It grew larger and larger until it in an instant it retracted into the middle of itself. Where the light once was there where now three things Ella, Max and the book.

After a while, Ella came to her sense. She sat up and came to the realization.

“I can’t see anything!”

She started to rub her eyes quite violently, but it didn’t help. Max didn’t react to Ella instead some more coffee erupted from his stomach. The light before had been so bright that it left them temporarily blinded. Max just kept on laying down on the ground as Ella worriedly tried to feel around. Maybe she had gone blind. She put her hand on the ground and felt the grass. Not asphalt, not concrete, not snow but grass. Maybe Max took her to the park, but no it was winter. Or maybe she was dreaming, Ella thought. But why couldn’t she see?

Ella tried to settle her thoughts as her vision slowly started to return. When it returned, her mind became blank. What she saw was not a park but a mountain. Even Max who had been occupied with laying on the ground was completely taken aback. Both of them were laying on to of a mountain. They were above the tree line which meant that they had plain sight out over the landscape. The air was incredibly fresh. The view was breath-taking, and Max was the first one to snap back to reality.

“What the fuck is this….?”

“Where’s the city?”

 

He quickly stood up looking at the landscape in a daze.

“Eh…. Max, what language are you speaking?”

Ella asked without realizing she was speaking the same.

“What are you……”

Max got quiet. What am I saying? This was no language he ever heard before. After a while, he decided to try to speak English. His head started to hurt as he looked for the words. After putting a lot of effort into finding them he said.

“I’m speaking E……”

It felt like a baseball bat had hit his head and the last word only came out as slur. Max felt electricity jolting through his body as his eyes closed.

Ella sat in the grass watching Max as he suddenly started shaking and fell handsfree backwards. She quickly ran up to him. He was having a seizure. Ella quickly grabbed Maxes shaking body making sure he wouldn’t hurt himself. After violently shaking for a while his body calmed down and Max opened his eyes. He looked at Ella. She was barely keeping her composure as she did her best to hold him pegged down on to the ground. His whole body hurt, and he could barely move. Max sarcastically smiled It seemed like his muscles didn’t really like to explosively expand and contract. It was even worse than getting kicked. When he thought about this he stopped smiling. Ella noticed that he had woken up and asked.

“Max are you OK??”

Max nodded. How is he going to get the money back? Now he wasn’t only in dire need of money he was also in debt.

“Max!!”

His train of thought was abruptly cancelled by Ella.

“Yes Ella, just… I nodded, I’m fine!”

Max said but quickly regretted it after seeing Ella’s sad face.

“Sorry, thank you.”

Max said as he sat up.

“What happened?” Ella said.

“I’m not sure, but…. don’t try to speak English. I think I got a seizure because of it.”

Things were just too weird. First the book, then appearing here and now not being able to speak English. It was a lot to prosses and Max felt like he needed some time to make up his mind. The two of them together decided not to speak any other language for the time being. Ella also said that he had heard about something similar somewhere else. There was this boy from the US who had hit his head while playing football. He fainted and was sent to the hospital. The weird thing was that after he woke up he spoke perfect Spanish and every time he tried to speak English he would have a seizure. Maybe they experienced something like that Ella thought. But what was the odds of it happening to both of them? After making some senesce of the first thing they logically proceeded to the next. Though this one they had they had a much harder time answering.

“Where are we? Or rather… how did we get here?” Ella asked.

Max decided not to answer, as the answer to the question was not something he was aware of. Where were they? After a while, he stopped thinking and proceeded to do. They wouldn’t know the answers anyway. Their first goal should probably be surviving the night.

 

“What the fuck should we do?” Ella asked “We are out in the middle of nowhere and have almost no food with us. “

 

“Max Answer me!! How can you be so calm in a situation like this?” Ella almost started to cry

 

“I’m hungry… Let’s make something to eat.”

He glanced over towards Ella’s grocery bags.

“Well yeah me too, but how?” She said while sobbing

“Well let’s start by gathering some firewood.”

Max said as he looked around. This was the second time he looked at the landscape around them. Big mountain stretched as long as the eye could see. The thing they were sitting on wasn’t actually grass but lingon and blueberry bushes. Or at least they looked like lingon and blueberry. A couple of hundred meters down the mountain was a large forest stretching over the landscape. A lot of small streams were running down the mountain and after having recovered a bit Max felt how thirst struck him.

“Let’s go get something to drink!”

He said as he picked up his book, backpack and the grocery bags. Ella watched Maxes sudden spur of energy and wondered if he had become possessed. But she as well quickly got up and ran after him. It felt good to focus on something else than what had happened. After a couple of minutes, they arrived in front of one of the springs.

“Look at the water, its crystal clear.” Max said.

“It’s probably melted snow, it should be fine to drink,” Ella said with a prideful smile.

Max jumped to one of the rocks in the middle of the spring and scooped some water out. He raised it towards his mouth and took a sip. After that, he took a gulp and suddenly it was gone.

“Wow….”

“What???” Ella curiously asked.

“It tastes amazing, try it.”

Ella also jumped down.

“Wow….”

“Yeah, what did I say?” Max proclaimed.

The water was perfect temperature and tasted super fresh, almost sweet.

“I’ll go fetch my water bottle. Do you have one?” He said as he jumped off the rock.

“It’s in my backpack,” Ella answered while drinking.

It had gotten warm so Max took off his outer layers as he started to rummage through their backpacks. He grabbed the two bottles and jumped over to Ella. While jumping Max hit his foot on a rock and fell over Ella. They both plummeted down into the water.

“Ahuuu it’s so cold,” Elle said while laughing

After a while, they both realized they were laying on top of each other and quickly stood up embarrassed.

“Sorry,” Max said shortly

After getting up they realised their clothes where drenched. The only things they had where Maxes jacket and coating trousers. They quickly changed clothes. Max wore the trousers and Ella the jacket.

“Ok, let’s go look for some firewood before it gets dark,” Ella said while looking towards the woods.

They took their backpacks and walked towards the trees. The forest looked unusual, it was nothing like what they were used to. Unfamiliar flowers sprouted everywhere and big trees were covering the sky. The woods looked untouched no signs of it ever beeing chopped down.

“Max, do you recognise any of these trees or flowers?”

“Well…  No, I don’t think so. But I’m no plant expert so don’t take my word for it…. No, I definitely haven’t flowers like these before.”

 

Max stopped and began staring at a plant. Elle quickly walked over to see what it was. When she saw it… it was hard to explain. A big flower close to the ground with blue petals which formed a cup. Inside the cup laid a little ball. The small ball was glowing with incredible brightness.

“What is that?” Ella asked cautiously.

“I… I don’t know,” Max said as he started reaching for it.

“No, don’t touch it!”

Max didn’t listen and grabbed it.

 

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