Never the Same - Team Crafted Stories (DISCONTINUED)

Part I Chapter 3: The Budder Boy

*Edit Later!*

Adam's POV

Call me Sky if you want, but my real name's Adam Dahlburg. I'm twenty-one years old, and I was one of the first members of Team Crafted. I have dark brown hair, hazel eyes, and I'm six feet tall, on the dot.

I lived in the northern extreme hills, also known as the Oregon Hills, of the Skylight Kingdom. It always rained there, no matter what the season, so it always looked dreary and gloomy there. Most of our village, Seattle, is built into the side of a mountain. You had to be careful where you stepped. One wrong step, and you'd be tumbling to your death to the ground below.

Despite the fact that we had a dangerous location for the houses, the view was great. The houses all overlooked Lake Camaria. When we were little, all of us kids would always swim in the lake. I have so many memories at Lake Camaria.

I had one friend in Seattle. Dakota Anderson. We've been friends ever since I can remember. All of my good memories before I met Team Crafted are with him, and occasionally with his brother, James. (A/N: idk if Kermit actually has a brother) When we were five, I remember the two of us climed to the top of Mount Gale with James, the mountain which Seattle is built into. When we were six, the two of us would sneak away to the edges of the Oregon Hills to Orion Mountain and Evergreen Mountain, which overlooked the Keate Jungle. We never explored in there; everyone always said there were monsters in the Keate Jungle, and we believed them. Far away, in the distance, Dakota and I could see the beginnings of the Quebec Forest, which was in the Canadian Taiga. We knew it was freezing cold there, and we never wanted to live there.

One of the biggest lessons we learned while living in Seattle was how to face your fears. I was one of those kids who got scared real easily, and by a lot of things. Together, Dakota and I stood on Mount Gale, where I learned to not be afraid of heights. We pulled an all-nighter together when we were only six. I think that's the most dangerous thing we've ever done together. Because the village of Seattle - or any other village for that matter - is a different world once the sun sets. The monsters come out to play, while us humans are sleeping, safe and sound, in our homes. To go outside during the night is basically a death sentence. There's only a small chance you'll survive. All night, we fought and fought. The monsters never stopped coming. We didn't want to die. Because when you die in the world, you die. No one knows what happens after that.

But when we were seven years old, something happened to him. Dakota was kidnapped, and he disappeared for a year. I didn't come out of my room at all. I was too scared of what would happen to me or him. I sunk into an even deeper depression than I had been in before.

Dakota wasn't the same when he found his way back. He was the same person on the inside, but he was a human-frog hybrid mutant. Everyone treated him as an outcast and a freak. Because of his mutation, he earned a new nickname, Kermit. I don't know how it started. Dakota got bullied everywhere we went together, and I did too, just because I was friends with him. But we stayed together as friends. I had the exact same problems in my own life, and we found comfort in each other. He wouldn't talk about what had happened. He only mentioned one name: Quentin.

I didn't have the best childhood. I hated my parents. My older brother, Michael, and younger sister, Skyler, didn't care about me. So I was practically alone for twelve years.

That was, until I was kidnapped and sent to the Mineature Labs.

I was twelve years old. I remember being thrown into a small, cramped room with one other person. The other person's name was Jason. We both had no idea what was going on, so we introduced ourselves, and we talked. We talked about the randomest things ever. We thought we weren't going to escape. But in reality, our adventure was only getting started. Masked men came and blindfolded and handcuffed Jason and me together. They dragged us down endless hallways and finally, when we got to a room, they pushed us into what looked like a portal. We became the test subjects for the Shrinkinator 3000.

Jason and I made plans to escape the Mineature Labs, while four times smaller than everything else. Everything was freaking huge. We got lost so many times, and other scientists found us and used us in their own experiments. I still have the scars from the Labs to remind me. While we were in there, I was scared to death. Fear was my biggest enemy. Jason constantly had to drag me along with him, around corners, down new hallways, into empty rooms. It got worse and worse as we went along, but at the same time, I became less and less scared. I knew what was coming, and I was ready. But nothing that I do will ever cure me of the fear of becoming a mutant. I think that's still by biggest fear.

It took us three weeks, but Jason and I did it. We finally escaped. And we got back to normal size. We were in the middle of the Arizonian Desert. We walked and walked for what seemed like forever.

Finally, Jason and I stumbled across a village known as Phoenix. The people who lived there seemed surprised to see us. We were strangers, traveling alone, in the desert, with no food or water, traveling for two days. An older woman took us into her home, where we originally planned to stay a couple days. The older woman had two kids, a boy and a girl. The girl's name was Rose, and the boy's name was Tyler, but he prefered to be called Ty. They would always play with me and Jason. Ty showed me and Jason parkour, and showed us the secrets of the Arizonian Desert. He also showed us mods, the glitches in the code that shouldn't exist, but everyone used anyway. I loved it, and so did Jason. With mods, there were so many more things that became possible that we normally couldn't do, like fly to the moon, spawn a giant freaking version of a mob that was always after you, or bring dinosaurs back to life. It was amazing.

That was the beginning of our friendship, and #skylox. Jason and I ended up staying in Phoenix a lot longer than we planned to. Over time, we became great friends with Ty. Jason and I told him stories of our lives in the Texxan Forests and the Oregon Hills. Ty told us a lot about living in the Arizonian Desert. But I'll let the two of them tell their own stories.

Eventually, the day came when we had to go. By then, Jason, Ty, and I were practially brothers, and Jason's family and my family were both worried sick about the two of us. It had been seven months. Six months we had lived with Ty, one month Jason and I took to escape the Mineature Labs.

Jason's home was to the east, while mine was to the north. We didn't want to leave each other, yet we needed to go home. So we decided that every two months, we would meet here in Phoenix, the halfway point between Seattle, my home, and Grapevine, Jason's home. We made a promise, and so far, we've always been true to our word.

Since then, Ty, Jason, and I have been on many adventures. When we met the other four, it was Ty's idea to join together and become friends. But Ty didn't want the responsibility of being leader, so he and the other guys elected me as leader, even though I didn't ask for it. We are Team Crafted, and they're my family. I couldn't be any happier.

~Anna