It was late Autumn. Numi and her class have been staying in mountains for the past week. They were on an 'educational' trip, which in reality was an excuse given by their main teacher to go to the mountains. The class was rather small if compared to the average. In fact, this class was a result of merging of three different classes into one. The reason for this was that legally, mandatory education ended at the age of 14, and the majority of inklings preferred battling in turf wars than continuing their education. This left many classes with just a fraction of students, so for the sake of efficiency such classes usually were merged together. Numi and her friends, or Team Muffin, chose to continue their education.
The afternoon sky was cloudless. Gentle breeze caused the leaves on nearby trees to lazily sway with it in a rhythm. Occasionally a leaf would detach and fly away from its home, carried by the breeze for its greatest adventure. Numi, her friends and a small group of other students were hanging out around a crystal-clear mountain lake, surrounded by a large forest on one side and by steep, rocky mountain side on the other. Some people had bags or backpacks with them, most people were wearing casual clothes, others wore more fitting clothes. The two things that everyone had was a survival kit and emergency protective specials. The specials included bubbler, stronger variant of baller and better ink armour.
Numi was currently regretting her choice of clothing. Although her short beanie, jacket, scarf and boots were perfect for this trip, her skirt was a completely different story. Her legs were freezing and she couldn't do anything about it. Aside from that annoyance, she was enjoying the 'magical' views, taking many photos with her pink squidphone. "This is the best view!" she beamed to no one in particular as she took another photo. Her tentacles were a bit longer than usual, because she decided to try getting a tentacle style like her mom, even if only for a bit. And never having really long tentacles before, she was curious about them.
"You say that for every view, Numi." Tal replied and stretched.
"Because all views are the best!" Numi replied with a smile. Arlie was beside her, holding a proper camera, and Coco was reading a book next to Tal. Suddenly Numi exclaimed "Oh! I've got an idea! Group selfie!" and did a 180° turn on the spot. The lake was now behind her. "Come on, it's going to be great!"
Arlie snapped a photo and turned around. "You sure like selfies. What if I never told you about them?" she said in a joking manner, putting her camera back in its pouch.
Numi gasped. "If you never told me about them, I wouldn't have many good photos of us!" she exclaimed in a single breath, getting Coco to look up from his book.
"What's the noise about?" Coco asked, looking at Numi and Arlie with a confused expression.
"Numi declared selfie time." Tal replied as he walked over to Numi, helping Coco get up along the extremely short way. The four friends grouped closer together and everyone smiled brightly as Numi took the selfie. Numi brought her squidphone closer and they all looked at the selfie. It was perfect.
"This is the best selfie!" Numi beamed happily.
Arlie nodded and added "There's something magical about this one."
Numi admired the selfie for a few minutes before putting her phone away. She was about to say something, but something stopped her. "Did I hear something?" she thought and started listening closely. She could faintly hear... music? Her expression became puzzled, there shouldn't be any music around here. It was forbidden. But there was also something about it that seemed odd.
"Are you alright, Numi?" Arlie asked a moment later, sounding somewhat worried.
"I hear music." Numi replied and started walking in the direction of the forest.
Arlie looked at Tal and Coco and asked "Do you hear anything?" Tal shook his head negatively, while Coco focused and listened closely.
"Faintly." Coco answered after a moment. "It sounds like... store music..." he added with confusion in his voice and on his face.
"What... is that another one of your jo- hey! Wait!" Arlie shouted to Tal, who was already following Numi. She bolted after him, Coco following her a moment later. They all followed Numi, who was too stubborn to listen to them telling her to ignore it. They entered the forest and followed a path for a short bit before walking off to the side.
Numi blindly followed the sound, put on autopilot by her curiosity. After a short while she stopped by a few large boulders at the edge of a shallow, but rather steep crater. The source of the odd music was a rather large orb of some kind, which sat in the centre of the crater. The orb was perfectly spherical; however, its outline was warping the light around it, almost the same way black holes do. It looked water-like, was somewhat transparent towards the edges, seemed to be way brighter than its surrounding and lacked any colour of its own, stealing colour from its nearest surrounding. It wasn't touching the ground, but rather levitated ever so slightly above it.
Numi's friends caught up to her moments later, but they all remained silent at the sight of the orb, all of them dumbfounded. "It's magic!" Numi beamed triumphantly after a minute, pumping both her first in the air. She had starry eyes and excitement written all over her face, hopping up and down in excitement and quickly repeating "We need to get it!" over and over again. Tal picked up a rather large nearby rock and threw it at the orb. They watched the orb ripple as the rock passed through it and disappeared.
"What even is that supposed to be?" Arlie asked after a moment.
"It's magic!" Numi insisted. Suddenly a somewhat muffled, distorted voice could be heard shouting something angrily. It didn't sound like any oceanic, nor like any language they knew.
"What was th-agh!" Coco yelped and stumbled backwards after the orb threw out the rock at him, hitting him in the forehead. Everyone turned their attention to him.
"Are you ok?" Numi quickly asked, still hopping in place.
"Yeah..." Coco replied, rubbing his forehead. "I don't like that thing even more now..."
They all remained silent for a minute. Numi broke the silence, declaring "I want to touch it!" excitedly.
"No." her friends replied in unison.
"Why?" Numi asked.
"We don't know what that is. It can be very dangerous." Tal said and added "We should go back and tell someone about it."
"But-"
"No." her friend repeated.
Numi puffed her cheeks and started stomping, repeating "I want to touch the magic!" over and over again. Suddenly the ground beneath her broke because of Numi's hopping and stomping. Numi lost her footing and fell over, sliding down into the crater before any of her friends could react. They watched in shock and horror as Numi fell into the orb and vanished, leaving only ripples on the orb. Some rocks and gravel followed her, adding more ripples to the now unstable orb. The orb pulsated for a few moments before collapsing in on itself and imploding, creating a gust of wind that kicked up the dust and dirt in the crater. There was nothing left behind to suggest that the orb ever existed.
"O-oh Cod." Arlie uttered in shock.
...
UK, October 9th 2000 A.D.
An odd orb has appeared in a shop right under a light, because of which it was harder to notice. A few people noticed it, but in the end didn't care about it, mistaking it for an optical illusion that wasn't really there. A while later, a somewhat angry man was trying to remember what he had come there for, and just when he remembered what he had to buy, a rock hit him in the head. The man looked at the rock in confusion, before realising that he had once again forgot what he came there for, turning red in fury at this realisation. Cursing, he picked it up and looked around for where it came from, noticing the orb after a moment. He thoughtlessly launched the rock at the orb, not even caring that the rock vanished in the orb, and walked away, angrily muttering to himself. His act attracted the attention of a few other shoppers and a staff member.
A moment later some more rocks, along with some dust and gravel started raining from the orb, attracting more attention of the onlookers, who were exchanging confused looks between each other. Without a warning something larger fell from the orb and onto the floor, letting out a rather high-pitched yelp. The rain of rocks, dust and gravel continued for a few more moments before the orb disappeared. All eyes turned to what was on the floor. Lying on the floor amongst the rocks, dust and gravel was Numi, who slowly sat up, rubbing her head.
Numi looked around, confused more than ever before. "Where am I...?" she asked no one in particular. After a moment she noticed that there was something off about the air. It was different, but she couldn't tell what it was. A short moment she noticed that she was in the middle of what to her looked like MakoMart for giants. She paled once she noticed the giants, all of them looking at her. After a moment passed some of the giants backed off while others started quickly approaching Numi. Scared, she hastily got up and started running away, dodging the giants' attempts to catch her. She was easily outrunning the giants, but the more she ran the dizzier she was getting. She ran up to one of the huge shelves, turned to her squid form and slid right under the shelf.
Numi's hearts were pounding. She was scared, confused and increasingly dizzy. In addition to that, she couldn't see where she was going, blindly pushing forward. She slithered her way to the other side of the shelf and peeked out. There was a clear way to a different group of shelves, with no giants in sight. The shelves she took particular interest in seemed to be dedicated to toys. A simple plan hatched in her mind: if she hid among the toys, she wouldn't be found - giants don't play with toys after all.
She took a deep breath to calm herself, but it only made her dizzier. She was certain that something was off about the air, but she didn't have time to think about that. After a moment of hesitation, Numi got out from under the shelf and bolted in the direction of the toy shelves. She passed what seemed to be candy aisle, which she would normally want to explore, canned food aisle, fruit and vegetables aisle, detergent aisle and a few more aisles, focused on reaching the toy aisle.
She reached the toy shelves without a problem. The bottom shelf was focused on beach and sand pit toys, which wouldn't help her hide. Having no other option, Numi started slowly climbing up the shelves. The next one was focused around plushies. "I'm not like plushies." she thought and continued to climb. The shelf above was full of dolls. As Numi climbed higher and higher, she was getting worried that she'd be noticed or that there isn't a good place to hide.
Numi was starting to lose hope when she noticed something. There was a huge, open, cardboard box standing at the very end of the shelves, containing a multitude of individual toys of different types. "I should be able to hide there." she thought. She continued to climb regardless, making her way to the very top of the shelves. Once on top, she turned left and headed for the end. Once at the far side, she looked down - the box was right there. Numi didn't like in the slightest how high up she was, neither did she like that she had to jump into the box. But she had to.
Numi scanned the box for the best landing spot. After a moment she found one: a rather large group of what seemed like soft rubber animals. She turned to squid form, and after hesitating for a minute, she managed to build up enough courage to jump down. She landed safely on the toys and immediately half buried herself in them. Not very comfortable, but she was at least harder to find.
Numi laid there for several minutes. A few giants passed by, but none paid any attention to her. Now fully confident that she was hidden, Numi decided to take a nap. Her dizziness was partially responsible for this decision. Once she closed her eyes it took her mere minutes to fall asleep.
An hour later.
A person wearing black trainers, black joggers and dark grey hoodie walked into the shop. He had blue eyes, black hair and was of average height. He went straight into candy aisle and got several candy and chocolate bars, before heading towards cash register. On the way he stopped by the box that Numi was still napping in. He looked through it, checking out a few toys before his eye caught glimpse of Numi's squid form. He reached out for and picked Numi up, bringing her a bit closer to have a better look. "Rosie might like this one." he thought to himself and checked for a price tag. "Odd. No price? I'll assume it's free then." he thought and put Numi in one of the two deep pockets in his hoodie before heading for the cash register. He paid for the candy and left the shop, heading home with a gift for his younger sister.