VENTUS 2465

Wren stepped out of the portal and fell to his knees. He felt like his stomach had been ripped out, taken a trip around the world, found the tallest rollercoasters it could, ridden them at least seven times, returned to him and then done a back flip. It was safe to say that his meagre breakfast was now on the ground beneath him.

“I do not like portal travel. Nope. Not for me.” He murmured to himself.

Looking up from his vomit, he was surprised to be presented with a translucent blue screen hovering in front of him. A message was displayed in bold white writing on the screen.

[Status]

[Affliction: Portal Sickness]

Wren looked at it in confusion, he wondered where it had come from. Putting his hand out and waving it, he discovered that the screen lacked any substance and his hand passed right through it. He tried to swipe the screen away, removing it from his field of vision, but it remained. He wondered how to get rid of it, he couldn’t see much with it covering his view. As soon as the thought entered his head the screen disappeared, freeing up his sight. He questioned whether the screen was thought activated, and immediately tried bringing it back up.

[Status]

[Full Health]

With the appearance of the message Wren noticed that he was no longer feeling the nausea that had struck him upon exiting the portal. He dismissed the message with a thought and pulled himself to his feet, finally making an attempt to gain his bearings. Looking around he found himself on a small meadow with long unkempt grass that came up to about his knees. There were other people around him, they all seemed to be suffering from the same portal sickness, some had thrown up like Wren, spoiling the lush green grass, others seemed to firm it but still looked queasy.

Scanning the other people around him, he saw that none of them had a screen hovering in front of them. What he did notice was that all of them the same green band on their forearms that he did. They were all wind elementals. He recognised some of them from the testing ceremony but a majority of them were strangers, never having seen them in his life. He assumed that they were from awakening centres all over the world. After all, his city was not the only city with elementals.

Forming a ring around the meadow, encircling Wren and the others, were groups of trees, not too dense to block out all light, but dense enough that they made Wren curious to see what was beyond them. He made his way towards them, wading through the tall grass, making sure to avoid the spots in which people had vomited.

The ring of trees was not thick, only going on for about ten metres or so before they cleared into an outcropping. Stepping out of the trees Wren gasped, the view, literally breath-taking.

The sky was a soft light blue, with white fluffy clouds drifting to and from, hiding and revealing the two suns in the sky.

“Two!?”

Wren couldn’t believe his eyes, two astronomical balls of fire shone high in the sky, they were blinding, brighter than the single sun on Earth. He could even feel a slight tingle on his face, the warmth from the suns radiating down over him. As if to shock him even more, the suns illuminated large masses of land floating in the sky.

“This really is another planet.” Wren said to himself.

He took a few steps forward, trying to get a better look at the floating islands. They looked as if they’d been ripped from the ground, with the earth supporting the islands tapering into a sharp point that glistened in the sunlight as they reflected off the suns. The islands were of all different sizes, some looked no bigger than the clouds floating about them, while others looked big enough to host small towns.

He kept walking until he heard a sharp familiar voice off to the side.

“Woah woah woah. Watch where you’re going there. Don’t want to fall off.”

Wren stopped in his tracks and looked to the source of the voice, his eyes finally drawn from the floating islands in the sky. He recognised the owner of the voice as the boy that sat next to him at the testing ceremony.

Looking from the boy, back down to his feet, Wren saw that he was stood on a ledge. Too busy looking at the islands in the sky, he hadn’t noticed that he was standing on one himself and had almost stepped off the edge. He poked his head out over the edge and looked down, he saw nothing but cloud, he didn’t want to know how far down that drop was.

“Liam right?” Wren asked, taking a step back from the ledge that definitely didn’t make him queasy.

“At your service.” He said, giving a mock bow. “You never did give me your name, the silent brooding type ay?”

“No, just the not talking to randos type.”

“Hey, I’m not a rando.” He lifted his arm and pointed at the green band wrapped around his arm. “We’re both wind elementals now, definitely not a rando.”

“I’m Wren.” He sighed.

“Well Wren, you like the view?” Liam said, sweeping an arm out, gesturing at the view before them.

“Yeah, it’s alright, can’t say there’s quite as many floating islands on Earth.” Wren replied.

Liam only laughed, turning to stand side by side with Wren as they looked out across their new planet.

“Hey, this might be a weird question, but did a weird blue screen appear in front of you when you stepped thorough the portal?” Wren asked, breaking the silence.

He had pondered over whether or not he should ask about the blue screens but thought it was worth the risk of asking. He thought that maybe it could be that everyone saw the screens but couldn’t see each other’s. If it turned out that no one else saw the screens, Wren knew that he could pass it off as a hallucination from the portal sickness.

“No, can’t say it did.” Liam replied. “Why’d you ask?”

“No reason.”