Resurfaced

Chapter 6

Upon respawn, the first thing Grian noticed was that his balance was all off. No, that's not true; the first thing he noticed was the pain, but his balance was a close second. He couldn't even stand up properly without falling over. Confused, he looked at his back to find a pair of wings. They were pail grey, with a hint of purple in them. He had almost forgotten about them, the watchers had given them to him when he joined them, and he hated them so much he hid them in the void. He immediately attempted to shove them back in their holding cell, but his magic was gone. This . . . actually explained a lot, the wings had come back to him because he respawned, but they were grey now, not white. Contrary to popular belief, the color of his watcher form, mirrored in his wings, was determined by his magic, while height was determined by age.

    It took him a while to realize he had respawned at all. That means he had done it! He had successfully not killed himself while simultaneously taking out the Watcher before they killed him! How had he forgotten all of that? Sure his memory was a bit fuzzy, but it had just happened, right? Sighing, he stepped out of the World Spawn building and into the city of World Spawn A4.

      As he walked through the streets, more than half the people threw him nasty looks. A few even snarled at him. It wasn't until a hooded figure pulled him aside that he understood what was going on.

      "You must be new here," she scolded, "Everyone knows hybrids aren't welcome here. How long has it been since you last died?" Grian just looked at her in shock. This woman just grabbed a stranger's arm, pulled him into an alley, and started yelling at him! How rude!

      "Yeah, I am new. What was that for?" He pulled his arm out of her hand and held it to his chest protectively.

      "Oh! Sorry! I'm Leia. I'm a hybrid too, don't worry." She pulled back her hood to reveal pinkish appendages and a bald scalp. An axolotl hybrid, then. This did absolutely nothing to calm his nerves, however, as he was more worried about if the stranger who had just grabbed him had a knife than if they were a hybrid or not.

      She seemed oblivious to this and continued on. "You need a way home? Actually, probably not; you have wings!" Gosh, this lady was overly chipper. Was she always this way?

      The builder simply rolled his eyes before saying, "My kingdom is gone now. I- don't really know what I'm going to do." As he said it, he realized he hadn't thought this far ahead. The Hermitlands had been obliterated, and who knew where the hermits were now. He would never find them. He felt his shoulders slump in defeat.

    Leia's bubbly personality seemed to finally dampen at that. "I'm so sorry. If you want, you can come stay at the hybrid village with me and the others? You don't look like any hybrid I have ever seen, but if you aren't human, then you aren't welcome here." Grian considered this. On one hand, going with this stranger when against everything he had ever been taught. She could be a sociopath, or a drug lord, or just a really shady person who wants to manipulate him. But if she really wanted to hurt him, wouldn't she have done so already? Besides, what did he have to lose? His friends were gone, even if they weren't dead. So against his better judgment, he nodded and followed her out of the city.

      The hybrid village turned out to be just that, a small town in the forest full of hybrids. There were plenty of common ones like cats and foxes and hostile mobs walking the streets, but also some more uncommon ones too. A girl with bluejay wings helped fix the roof of a witch's hut, and a man with eels for hair was reviewing blueprints with a slime humanoid. What surprised him most, however, was that humans walked the streets as well, speaking up glass and making idle chatter. NOt that there was anything wrong with that, but he expected the hybrids to hate the race that persecuted them.