Wake Up And Run

This is another world 2

After walking for almost two more hours, suddenly, without any notice, at once came this thick mist or fog that I couldn't differentiate, and the only thing I immediately noticed, though I didn't know why, was that this mist that surrounded us suddenly, was not a natural thing. While we were walking, we had to stop immediately; none of us was able to see even one foot ahead of us, I reached out with my hand towards Azmar, calling him "Azmar, give me your hand," and reached towards him at the same time.

Obviously, Ajbadan stopped also, since he was the oldest of us and the most experienced, and he called behind himself, back to us, "Amran and Azmar, keep walking straight towards me, and slowly, Raco, you too follow my voice and come towards me, take a step by step, all of you, at the same time move when I say now, and I will keep talking so you will know where to go."

His quick judgment and thinking, showed how capable he was, and he really is a capable person, fit to be a leader. Holding Azmar's hand, we moved forward towards Ajbadan, listening to his voice while he was saying and kept on repeating, "Come to me, listen to my voice, take a step at a time." He wasn't that far from us, to begin with, and we reached him after less than 10 steps, me and Azmar first, and Raco a couple of seconds later. All I could see was a shadow, though my other free hand was able to touch him. When Raco also joined us, Ajbadan gave us the next instruction: "And now we will move the same way each step at a time forward, walking the same way, and I will be in the front leading, Azmar, and Amran in the middle, and Raco will be at the back on the rear guard."

Maybe it was a military way of doing escorting or maybe a system they way they used it for hunting, I didn't know and didn't care, my instinct was yelling at me, "There will be something wrong coming our way, whatever ever that is, and there is nothing I can do about it." Clustered together, like we were tied together, we continued walking as slowly as possible, the vision was almost zero, and we put all our effort ts it, looking at where our foot goes since we couldn't see anything below us or in front of us. Even though I couldn't see Azmar, to whom I am holding his hand, I could distinguish him by his footstepsps.

After a few minutes, not more than ten, we all felt a chill going through our bodies, every one of us felt it, but none of us could figure out what was going on. In my opinion, the mist was not capable of changing the temperature, although it was not something natural. This change was something fundamental, and my guess was that, not only the temperature had changed but also our surroundings. I couldn't prove that, of course, so I kept it to myself. Even if I said it aloud, and shared what I was thinking with my companion, I didn't think that they would believe me, because I couldn't prove it. So I didn't think that they would believe me, because I was absolutely sure. My conclusion was correct, but to avoid any misunderstanding or any suspicion. I kept my mouth shut, simply waiting to see what would happen.

Mybe it was only me, but while we ware walking like toddlers, I felt something like a goosebumps all over my body, it lasted only for one second, I didn't mention it to anyone, but my senses ware high enough to feel the change, at the same time no one else said anything, me neither I couldn't say anything unless someone volunteered and say something, and since that didn't happen I also kept moving with an extra vigilant, of my surroundings, anticipating something to happen suddenly, my guess was not wrong at all within less than few seconds later, we all felt the change on ground we ware moving on.

That is when Ajbadan stopped walking and said, "Stop, all of you, something is different around us." No one was able to see anything around, so how did he figure it out and came to that conclusion? It was not something strange; I did feel it myself, and I am the least experienced one among the whole group, so it was natural for him to feel what I felt from the beginning.

We stopped all of us at once; nothing was visible to us; we couldn't see anything, but we could hear and feel; that was the only advantage that we had, so we stood still for a few minutes, and as usual when you are thinking about time, time moves in a different pattern, and very slowly, so those few minutes seemed like an hour, everyone holding his breath, waiting and anticipating something to happen, but nothing happened immediately; only the mist started to clear slowly during that time. Finally, we were able to see again. For the first few seconds after the mist cleared and we looked around, I was the first one to speak and say something. I didn't even notice that I spoke loud enough for everyone to hear me; personally, I thought I was talking to myself.

"This is not the same forest," that is what I said. None of them commented on what I just said, but I noticed Ajbadan shaking his head as an agreement, only Azmar still holding my hand, and even though the mist cleared out, he asked, "How did this happen?" No one had an answer for him. We stood there for a few minutes, and when nothing else happened, Ajbadan decided to move forward, since he didn't know where we were and couldn't even guess a direction to go to, just to keep going straight.

In the chance that he may see something familiar, my line of thinking was on a different level, it was not just a hunch, but a conclusion, based on my experience, simply because I am walking in a forest in a different world, a world that I was brought to, without my consent, so who could say that the same party was not behind what's going on here now.

Still, I didn't share my concerns with my party. First, I don't have a practical proof, and second, our escort was suspicious about us to begin with, so if I say anything, that will increase their suspicion even more. Because of that suspicion, we are in this situation; otherwise, we would have been in the capital a long time ago.

I thought about their reasons for this trip, like making us walk to a nearby city and taking a regular transport from there, and the only thing I came up with, was that they don't trust us, and there were some other methods, that they were going to test us with. No one can blame them for being cautious about us, since we are an alien that came from another world.

Even for a second I thought this was it, and what we are going through now is probably the test I was expecting, but seeing the faces of Ajbadan and Raco, when they both noticed that the place we are in is not on their route, convinced me that they are in the dark about this matter, just like me and Azmar, so obviously this is the second option I thought about.

The forest we were walking in was thicker than the one previously we had been walking in, the trees are bigger, the roads are much narrower, and plants are growing everywhere, almost similar to a jungle than a forest, or maybe it is a jungle, I am basing my assumption on comparisons to earth's forests and jungles, but I am not on earth but in a different world, completely different, which makes me and Azmar an aliens in an alien world.

I was thinking about all those things, and kept re-thinking them again and again, while at the same time I was giving my full attention to my surroundings, trying to notice if there was something lurking around, and I didn't get disappointed, because after walking for less than an hour, we heard something similar to gunshots coming from our front side. The first thing that came to my mind was to take cover and hide, I didn't expect to hear gunshots in another world.