Word count: 1,943
"Elijah, why are you walking like that?" Amber asked as Eli stumbled behind everyone else, grimacing and wobbling on unstable feet. Penny no longer sat on his shoulder, instead flying beside him.
"Joan made me do the thing where I see and feel everything and I couldn't fully turn it off and now every movement of every little thing is throwing me off. Do you have any idea how many worms we're stepping over? Too many, if you ask me," Eli complained, practically tip-toeing at this point, as if he expected that to help (t did, a little bit).
"Wow. That must feel so weird, huh?" Evalyn mused, "Do you see everything at once or- no wait, do you see things at all? Like how does that work?"
"I don't see, but I can feel the exact size of the things that are moving, and I feel where they're moving, so it's pretty easy to tell what's what," Eli explained, "There's a rabbit's den right over there." He pointed.
"That's crazy. So how far do you feel? Like is it just a radius around you or...?" Eva asked.
"Um. Everything. Like everything. That's when I'm just tuning in, though. When I really focus, I can pick a specific spot. Except I'm not focusing anymore and I'm not even tuning in, so I can just feel motion like an earthquake but just for me. Like how there's cartoons and stuff where people have that tiny storm cloud over their head? It's that, but instead of a storm cloud, I have my own personal earthquake. It sucks," Eli said, and immediately after, he stumbled and nearly fell on his face.
"That does sound...um...difficult," Evalyn said, falling back a bit to hold Eli's arm to help keep him steady.
"And actually," Eli said, puzzled, "It feels like there's gonna be a clearing. Like a huge clearing. Soon."
"That would be correct. We are approaching Campis, which is essentially just plains and fields until they reach cliffs. Though large, there are few obstacles, and we should cross it relatively quickly," Joan affirmed.
"Thank God, a change in scenery! We've been in this forest forever," Alex sighed of relief.
"We have. I say we step up our pace," Joan agreed.
"Are you good on your own?" Eva asked Eli.
"Yeah," Eli nodded. Eva let go of his arm, and he promptly tripped and faceplanted.
Alex began to sprint as they approached the end of the forest. After days, weeks, of looking up to only see leaves, Alex could see large patches of clear skies. There were birds. Or maybe dragons that were really far away. It didn't matter much to him. Either way, he was the first to reach the last of the trees, taking a deep breath and closing his eyes as the sunlight hit his face. He held his arms out, smiling and basking in the clean, open air.
"What is he doing?" Amber snickered from well behind Alex.
"Being a dramatic nerd. He's been complaining about the stuffy air for forever," Elijah rolled his eyes.
"So pretentious," Amber grinned.
But as everyone else reached the last of the trees beside Alex, they, too, realized just how clean the air smelled and felt to breathe in.
"Be careful, everyone. These plains are covered in tall grass, where things like snakes make their homes," Joan said.
"Way to ruin the moment," Amber droned.
When the sun set, the group just dropped where they were and began to get comfortable. There was no shelter or clearings in the grass, so they made camp where they were.
Alex continued standing for the duration of the sunset just to watch the colors change over the horizon of the distant cliffs. Eventually, Joan dragged him down and told him to rest.
Alejandro did not find any rest. He was too overcome with excitement at the feeling of freedom and hope being out in the open gave him. How was he expected to sleep when he could see the stars? This world didn't have the same constellations that the Earth did, but there were patterns and shapes all the same, so Alex created and named new constellations in his head. Though that didn't last long; Alex's antsiness was becoming too much to remedy with only making up fake constellations.
Quietly, he stood up, stepping away from the rest of the group. The more he walked, the shorter the grass and grains got, until he was able to walk normally. He closed his eyes and put his arms out again, taking deep breaths and finding relief in the breeze that hit his face. Entertaining his thoughts, he imagined the light breeze lifting him off the ground. He imagined floating up to the clouds. He knew clouds were water vapor and couldn't be laid on, but if he could fly, then maybe he could just hover and make it look like he was laying on the clouds. Wouldn't that be neat?
Maybe he didn't even have to fly, he'd just be happy to hover. How much better would this long trek be if he could hover instead of walking? What if he could float above everything and give his team directions? Plus it would just look cool.
And really, who has never thought of flying before? Alex had dreamed of flying many times: he wanted to feel the air surround him, like swimming but cooler. For once in his life, he wanted to feel feather light. He wanted to be weightless and free.
Elijah woke with a start.
"He's gone!" He shouted, sitting up, "He's gone, I can't feel him. Look."
Eli pointed to Alex's spot in the grass, where his stuff was, but he, himself, was missing.
"What do you mean, 'you can't feel him'?" Joan asked, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
"I can feel everything in and on the Earth. I can feel all the plains up to the cliffs and he's not there," Eli sputtered, "You don't think he fell off, do you?"
"You must have a little more faith in him. He can be...mentally absent at times, but he's certainly not stupid. He's here somewhere," Joan said as he stood.
"He's not here, I promise. I don't know what possible other explanation there could be for him just not being on the Earth anymore," Elijah babbled.
"If you insist," Joan sighed, "I'm going to look for him."
The telltale warping sound of his teleporting was heard and then Joan was gone.
Elijah was up before Amber and Evalyn could even fully wake up.
"Alex! Alejandro! Are you there? Can you hear me?" Elijah called, running in no particular direction. He was looking all around, shoving his way through a particularly tall patch of grass before he got to the shorter grass and realized truly that Alex was not there. He could see all the way to the cliffs, but it was all completely barren.
"Alejandro!" He called again in desperate hope that maybe Alex would just randomly appear. (Why couldn't they both have invisibility powers? That was possible, right?)
"Elijah?" He heard from somewhere, followed by a loud "OOF" and then Alex was on the ground several yards ahead of him. A +250 EXP appeared for e brief moment. Elijah ran to him.
"Alex? What was that? What happened? Where were you? Are you okay?" Eli asked all in succession, kneeling at Alex's side and cradling his head. Alex looked as if he had seen a ghost or met God or something similar.
"You're so small," Alex said suddenly, voice laced with laughter, and Elijah was too shocked to be angry
"I'm so small," Alejandro continued, "There is literally no word big enough to describe the massiveness of the universe. I saw everything. I'm pretty sure I was like ten feet in the air, max, but like how you feel everything in and on the ground? I swear, dude, I felt the whole universe. All the stars, moons, planets, and they're all connected by wires in this world! It is the coolest thing, man."
He must have missed the bewilderment and confusion on Eli's face, because he kept going.
"I wish I could have shown it to you, you would have loved it. Actually, you would have hated it, cause it was a lot at once, but oh my God was it beautiful," Alejandro rambled, arms motioning wildly and eyes on the stars.
Elijah blinked hard. "What?"
"I was flying, I swear! Didn't you see me? Or did you just see me fall? I mean, it doesn't matter. I was flying either way and it was amazing. I love the universe so much, it's so cool," Alex sighed with a content smile.
"You're such an idiot," Eli said, voice shaky. He pulled Alex to his chest and hugged him tightly, face in Alex's hair. Then, much shakier, "I thought I lost you."
"What? Why?" Alex asked, belatedly hugging back.
"I was asleep and then I woke up because I could feel that you had just...left the planet and I had no idea what could have happened to you. I couldn't feel you on the Earth because you weren't touching the Earth, which makes sense now, but holy crap, dude, you scared me," Eli said, and let out a laugh that was mostly just a sigh of relief.
"Oh. No, no, that makes sense," Alex said, hugging a little tighter.
Joan came back and found the two, bringing them back to their items and the rest of their group. Alex excitedly rambled about his experiences to Amber and Eva, who were both extremely tired and only half-listening. Then everyone laid back down, and all but Alex fell asleep again. Eli woke up every time someone shifted or turned over, but he was so exhausted he fell back asleep easily.
This was until very early morning, when he had woken up so many times he simply gave up. He was awoken by Alex getting up, and he quietly followed his friend to wherever it was he was going. Alex made it pretty far before sitting down. Eli sat beside him.
"What are you doing up?" Eli asked.
"I could ask you the same."
"You woke me up, stupid."
"Oh. Right. Well I haven't slept at all. So I figured I might as well come out here and watch the sunrise," Alex said, stretching his legs and leaning back. He gazed at the horizon of the cliffs, and then past that to the horizon of the ocean, and was delighted to see the way it glowed dimly. It was just before dawn, they were just in time.
And yet he found himself distracted. Usually, Alex watched the sky change colors, but there was so much else to focus on, Alex hardly looked at the sky at all. The light coming over the sea left a lovely reflection, and as it reached the cliffs, the yellow grass that overplayed everything became a beautiful shade of gold. And then he noticed his friend's hair looked gold in the light as well, though it was darker, and his eyes were shining happily like he had never seen a sunrise before. There was something of a hopeful expression ghosting his face, but he wasn't smiling- his eyes were wide and he looked relaxed. Though surely exhausted, Eli looked...happy.
That is, until he began to squirm a bit.
"Dude, stop staring at me," he said, shifting his hands from his knees to the ground.
"Wh- I wasn't-"
"You were."
So Alex looked away and they said nothing else of it.