Brand New Animal: Beyond Human

Chapter 4: The Soaring Souls

The noise that saturated my ears is now eerily absent, replaced by the sounds of the occasional chirping from birds, and the rushing of the ocean waves.

I'm near instantly on my knees, as is Shirou and Nazuna.

My eyes are wide open right now, my lungs feel almost as if they were just run through even thinner air than that on Mt. Everest, I'm trying to keep breathing to calm myself after what's just happened.

Nazuna, as I notice, is frozen, her eyes twitching, I tap her on the shoulder to snap her out of it, and she goes into a sitting position, still shook.

The currently human Shirou, surprisingly, though trying to keep his cool, does not do so well at trying to regain his equilibrium standing up, and falls back in a sitting position, his pupils are dilated.

"What..." I start.

"In god's name..." Nazuna adds as she snaps out of her stupor.

"And everything that's good..." Shirou continues.

We all look to Skyfall.

That's getting kind of tedious to say repeatedly...

"WAS THAT?!?!?"

"A Warp."

That's...self evident...

"So you can teleport?" I ask, still wide-eyed.

"If you would call it that, yes."

"How does that even...never mind." I hesitantly suppress my questions on that matter, more than likely going to get an essay-like reply for an explanation.

"Rest assured your reactions are natural and rational. If you're anxious, steady your breathing. If you're nauseous, hum to yourself to keep yourself from throwing up. If you're off-balance, just stay still for a moment, it'll pass. All of your ailments will pass in a moment."

They all do as I suggest, and they soon recover as I said.

I recompose myself and get up, Nazuna no longer has to vomit and rises as well, Shirou uses the nearby tree we arrived at to steady himself as he stands.

"Can you give us a bit of a warning next time?" Nazuna asks sincerely.

"Always expect the unexpected."

"Isn't that an enigma?" Shirou asks.

"Don't be surprised by everything new that comes your way. That brief moment of shock will get you killed. In a life-or-death situation, don't ask. Act."

"Uh..." We say.

Still dropping advice on us...okay...

The three of us finally take a moment to observe our surroundings.

"We're already here..." Shirou says, recognizing the shipping yard in the distance to our right, and the fancy looking house directly to our left.

"Nina's house..." I say, but soon hesitantly gesture for everyone to follow me, still shook by what happened. "Let's go."

They follow me down the small hill and we eventually make it to a front door. I knock on it.

The door is soon opened by a young girl who looks like she's still in high school. She has a tan complexion, large turquoise eyes, aqua eyebrows, long aqua hair pulled into a ponytail, and wears pink lipstick. She wears a white halter top dress with a pink ribbon around the waist and blue pumps.