I had a nice dream. I felt very peaceful, as though I was on some kind of slow and gentle rollercoaster. There were ups and there were downs. But I could see nothing. It was all black. Still, I felt as though I were gliding gently along a smooth surface, pushed along by something. It felt like I was wading along. Just wading along. For hours, endlessly.

I felt like I was actually there. I had never had a lucid dream before or anything close. In fact, most of my dreams felt like they were just a series of pictures that my mind tried to convince me were real, but that I quickly distinguished from reality as soon as I woke up. But this, I could actually think through. But for some reason, my mind wanted nothing more than to enjoy the black, empty ride. When it was over, I saw again a white light and woke up.

Still feeling at peace from the dream, I looked at my hands and around all the trees that surrounded me. It seems I was the first one awake from that whole ordeal. And the rest of my family was still sleeping.

Wow, I thought to myself with a yawn, nature is pretty.

And like the bumbling idiot I was, my first thought was to turn on my computer and check my messages. Then the house of cards fell and it finally dawned on me.

I was in a forest.

No, my whole family was in a forest.

Where the hell was our house?!

I started to silently panic, hoping not to wake anyone else. I couldn't handle everyone panicking at once.

But wait, just what on Earth is going on?

It was all starting to come back to me. Just last night, we were caught in a loud thunderstorm. And then there was a white light shaped like a door. Then an earthquake, in Florida of all places, a US state that’s probably never had a real earthquake. And now we’re in a forest? None of this was making any sense.

My head was beginning to ache, from all the possibilities of what this meant.

It’s like we teleported…

We had no doubt been in our house, and now all five of us were in a forest. And we had been sleeping. So whatever that light was had knocked us out cold and transported us here.

Ridiculous. No way we teleported. That’s impossible. They must have rescued our bodies trapped under the rubble.

“Okay, stay calm. Analyze your surroundings.” I took a deep breath and began to jot down mental notes.

“There’s branches everywhere, fallen from all these trees. It’s possible we’re in the middle of a forest in the dry parts of the Everglades swamp, or another forest close to our house.” I whispered aloud, stepping on some branches underneath me. But there wasn’t any marshland at all. So the Everglades theory was starting to appear unlikely

And why would whoever saved us just dump us here? And there were no forests near our house for miles. And we would surely be in a hospital bed and we’d have bruises on us, right? Hadn’t the roof caved in on us?

When I took a further look, I saw small woodland creatures. A few squirrels up trees. Butterflies flapping their wings. Colorful birds, too.

“Okay, first of all, when my brother was shouting to leave the house, I was still carrying my cell phone. But now it’s gone.” I whispered to myself, puzzled.

I didn’t know if any of them had let go of anything during the flash, but I was sure I was holding on to my phone. Where had it gone? I looked down at my clothes and verified that I was still wearing the same ones I was yesterday.

But my clothes are still here at least…

Just then, it occurred to me that I was carrying something in my right hand. It was some kind of stick. How long had I been holding this? Why hadn’t I noticed it before?

I started getting excited. I had watched movies and shows where someone gets powers and they’re channeled through some little wand.

It was mostly straight and smooth, but slightly twisted especially towards the farther edge from my hand. But the bottom of it made me think it was custom-made: it was completely rounded out, like if an artisan had personally finished it. It was also very shiny and reflective. It appeared to be made of a dark wood, maybe mahogany. But I wasn’t someone who actually knew. I was just basing it off the color I had seen in ScapeRunes, which had in-game mahogany wood.

Okay, how does this stuff go? A flick of the wand and a bit of imagination?

I tried waving the stick and imagining a ball of fire launching out of the twisted edge. Nothing happened. I then proceeded to wave it furiously and shout “fire!”

Nothing.

I wished for some kind of smoke to come out to tell me that it had at least tried.

I tried similar things, shouting the four elements of the old world. I also tried to imagine teleportation since we already possibly had proof of it. Again, all efforts that made me look like some weirdo waving a stick.

I thought that it couldn’t be a coincidence that I arrived here carrying a stick. I started thinking about the conditions we had left the house. I silently tiptoed back to the little spot I had awoken on.

I must be going crazy. Teleportation… but what else could it be? Is someone going to pop out of the bushes and surprise us?

“…uuughhh.” Gigi yawned, stretching her arms.

I guess she was the next one awake. I started to panic a little again.

How am I going to explain to them what’s going on?

I took a glance at Gigi’s body and noticed that she wasn’t carrying a stick like me.

“Jay, where are we?” she asked.

“…we’re in… a forest.” I muttered. “I know what you’re going to say, how did we get here? I don’t know.” I motioned her to stay calm.

Even though teleportation was seeming more and more a fitting explanation, I didn’t want to scare her.

“We were probably rescued by someone, because I don’t know if you remember, but we were all in the house last night.” I explained.

“Yeah… I do remember.” She started looking around, trying to make sense of her surroundings.

She started crying.

“What’s going on?” she sobbed. I could tell she was scared and wanted to go home. But where was home?

I moved closer and gave her a hug.

“I don’t know but we’ll figure it out, okay? We’re all here and safe.” I put my hand on her head.

That seemed to calm her a little. She looked at my right hand.

“What is that stick?” she asked, in a slightly better mood. “It’s kind of shiny.”

For a second, I was scared and wanted to hide it but that would be foolish. She had already seen it.

“I just woke up carrying it. I didn’t even notice I had it until like 10 minutes after I woke up.” I said.

“That’s weird. Hey let’s wake everyone up.” She said a little more spirited. She moved to try to wake up my mom.

“No!” I whispered aloud. “Don’t wake them. We don’t know if their bodies still need some rest after what happened. Just let them wake up on their own.”

About 15 minutes passed. But I couldn’t be sure since neither of us had a way to tell time. In that time, I had walked with Gigi to all the places I had walked to, and told her about the animals I saw.

By the time we got back, the rest of my family was awake.

“Where were you?!” Flo gasped, out of breath, clearly worried about her daughter.

“We were the first ones awake, so I took Gigi for a walk.” I tried calming her down.

“Jay, do you know what we’re doing here?” mom asked, very concerned. “Why are we in a forest?”

“Everyone relax.” I said. “Like I said, I woke up earlier than you guys so I had time to think.”

Now that they were awake, my analyzing instincts kicked in. All of them were wearing the clothes they had on last night. No one seemed to be carrying anything else. But my brother was the exception. He was carrying a stick in his right hand too.

“Jay, did you see anyone? Who rescued us?” mom asked impatiently.

I explained everything I thought of since I woke up about our situation. Everyone took the news surprisingly well. Probably a side effect of really good sleep. But soon I realized I was wrong. The looks on their faces weren’t of calm understanding. They were making fun of me.

Mom didn’t believe my teleportation theory. She started wandering around a bit, looking for someone. Flo and Gigi also started giggling.

“So you’re saying we might have teleported? Did you see that in an anime, Mr. NEET?” Mario looked at me funny, holding back laughter at my idiocy.

Why does everyone think this is so funny?

“If someone rescued us, they wouldn’t have dumped us here. It makes no sense. We live in an urban area, with neighbors! And why don’t we have bruises on us? The roof of our house collapsed!” I reasoned.

“That’s true, I—I don’t know.” he said, examining his body for any marks. “But teleportation is impossible. Are you sure we’re not in the Everglades? Maybe crooks rescued us and stole all our stuff.”

I shook my head. “And healed our wounds somehow?”

Finally, I pointed to my brother’s stick.

“Also we woke up carrying a stick like this, Mario.” I said. “It was like 10 minutes after I woke up that I actually noticed it I had it too.”

“Huh? When did this get in my hand?” he inquired, eyeing his right hand. “I didn’t even feel myself holding it. You know, I can almost see my reflection on it.”

My brother had had the same thoughts I did. After all, we had both been gamers and the stick probably reminded him of some kind of wand.

He started waving it and shouting some nonsense.

I laughed. Of course nothing happened.

Then in a bout of frustration he threw it about 15 feet away.

“Dude, pick it up. We need to hold on to it. We were both carrying a stick. This thing could mean something. Besides they look custom-made… somehow.” I insisted. He shrugged and went to retrieve it.

I didn’t want to face the truth. That our house had probably been destroyed and that this wasn’t a dream. And that we literally had no idea how we got here. For now, I just thought about trying to stay busy and move a little closer to some kind of goal, a destination.

I looked at everyone. My mom was pinching herself, to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. There was a sense of unease. The remnants of a possible supernatural event weighing on us.

“Let’s try to get out of this forest so we can figure out where we are.” I suggested.

It would be nice if we had woken up with some kind of map. But we really seemed to be on our own in this one. Whatever put us here just dumped us with no guide or free stuff, except a stick that does nothing.

I said that we should pick the direction where the sun was coming from and just walk straight until we’re out of here.

We marched on in silence, with Mario leading the way.

Along the way we passed bushes with berries, mushrooms of all varieties, hill peaks and troughs, and furry creatures.

“It feels like we’re hiking.” I said, lightening the mood.

It felt pretty good to crush some of the leaves on the ground. Wherever we were was probably in the spring season, maybe close to summer, just like back home. But I was a NEET and barely went outside, so what did I know.

We kept going. I had this uneasy feeling that we weren’t going to be home for a long time.

We walked straight along, dodging trees but mostly staying on course. At last, we made it out of the forest. There was a small road made out of smooth, flat cobblestone. It looked like we were pretty far from any buildings. The forest we had just come out of was to the left of the road, and to the right was more forest. We decided to take the road and see where it led.