《Tom》Arrival
Advertisement
While Iuustin falls asleep, Tom looks out the window next to him.
The bus was going thru a village and Tom sees how some kids were playing.
He envied them for having a fun and normal childhood and clicks his tongue.
He looks away and in no time the bus leaves the village and outside was pitch black darkness. The single thing that was breaking thru it were the flickering light bulbs of the bus and the light of a few houses, somewhere far away.
Tom gets bored and starts to imagine a guy doing parkour on the trees and houses they were passing by.
These stop appearing and Tom is left to stare in what he thought it was a field with a numb feeling as the character he imagined slowly faded away.
In the distance a few lights appear and the bus started to slow down.
Those light were of a checkpoint with a barrier, a small hut, a truck and some soldiers.
Two of them see the bus and go to stay in front of the barrier.
The bus driver stops and opens a door and the soldier that was accompanying him goes, to talk and shows some papers to the two soldiers that were blocking the way.
They all nod for some reason and the bus starts moving again.
When the soldiers comes back into the bus he sees that Tom is the only kid that is not sleeping and walks up to him.
Tom pretends to sleep but he starts to tremble as he started to imagine that the soldier was mad at him and he will be killed like how the man in a white shirt was.
The soldier puts his hand on Tom’s shoulder and whispers:”Go to sleep, all right? You tomorrow will have a hard day. You need to sleep.” and walks back to his chair next to the driver.
Tom complies and falls asleep.
Iuustin wakes him up and whispers to Tom In an aggressive tone:”Tom! Tooom! You forgot to wake me up to stay on guard! Plus, it’s morning! Wake up!”.
Tom, now half asleep, nods without understanding a word that Iuustin just said.
Tom looks out the window and sees a thick forest.
After a while the other kids start to resume their noise, but they are quieted down quickly when from the forest it could be heard a machine gun firing.
The driver and the soldiers laughs and that calms down Tom and Iuustin understanding that they are in no danger.
They pass another check point similar to the one they came by last night and enter a zone that was guarded by electric fences and spiked wire.
Tom and Iuustin, who saw enough WWII documentaries to start to think it was some kind of concentration camp, even thou it wasn’t.
The bus stops after entering an area full of green tents and buildings populated by soldiers.
The children go out of the bus, then they are separated into boys and girls and part ways.
Tom and Iuustin, making part of the boys group are accompanied by two soldiers and walk up a hill on a dirt path.
Advertisement
The green bags that they were given at the start of the trip start to feel heavier and heavier as the path seemed to have no end.
Eventually they arrive at some other place where it had two guards guarding the entrance.
They enter and see some dorms, training courses and 12 year old boys training by themselves or with someone that looked like a teacher.
After that they are shown where the bathroom and their dorm is.
While the other boys were battling on who will use the bathroom first, Tom and Iuustin take the chance to go and choose their bed first.
They pick two beds next to each other somewhere next to a wall far away from what they believed will be the place where the most fights would break.
The room looked like the room where Tom stayed for a while after he was born, but with bigger beds and lots of windows.
Not too long after that and a boy of around the same age comes inside.
The look on his face was one of disappointment or sadness.
The boy looks around the big room while fidgeting a loose string from his T-shirt.
He sees Iuustin and Tom and sits on a bed in the opposite site of the room and curls up in a ball and stares blankly at a wall.
Tom and Iuustin look at each other and form some kind of agreement to not bother him.
Tom lays down on his bed and starts to imagine his life as a soldier and how he was going to win wars and change the world for the better, while Iuustin still looks at the boy.
While the boy breaks the string and starts to play with while humming some song from the previous world.
Now Tom snaps out of his fantasies and looks at him.
Iuustin:” Are you isekai’d too!?”
Tom under his breath sais:”Boy, shut up you’re going to get us in trouble.”
Boy:”Wait? What!? You too?”
Iuustin:”Yeah. We are surprised too to run like that in so many of our kind. Are we even special?”
Boy:”The boy with dark-green eyes and dark- brown hair is in the same boat as us?”
Iuustin:”You mean Tom? Yeah he’s the same as us.”
Tom:”Yup. I am happy to see that we are not alone, but I would prefer if we were a little more special. Since… well this was supposed to be a fantasy world where all of our desires are accomplished I guess.”
Boy:”Shouldn’t we introduce ourselves? We will be staying here for a while form what I see. I will go first. I am Kong Jo and before I came here I was…”
His speech get’s interrupted by Tom.
Tom:”Look, don’t get me wrong, but if we don’t get along I don’t want for all of us to have ammunition to shoot at each other. If you get what I mean.”
Iuustin:”Tom, it’s not nice to interrupt people like that.”
Boy:” It’s Alright. You can call me Jo.”
Tom:”I am Tom.”
Iuustin:”I am Iuustin, nice to meet ya’!”
Advertisement
Jo:”So…. Do yall know what’s up with this world? I thought this kind of thing would be all about and marvelous adventures, but I found anything but that. How about you two? Anything interesting has happened to you?”
Tom; Iuustin:”…”
Iuustin:”Nope…”
After this they didn’t exchange any more dialog and kids flooded the room, while Jo was trying to take a bed next to Tom and Iuustin, but he is blocked by erratic boys craving a beating.
Then they are yelled out of the dorm by soldiers in aggressive tones to start training.
I guess that this was the “yelling” they were supposed to do in order to teach them stuff quicker.
They go eat a soup that tasted like fermented marshmallows and start playing catch under supervision.
Tom, Iuustin and Jo get bored of it pretty quickly, so they sit down to get to see what kind of person Jo is.
A man that was dressed in casual clothing comes up to them.
Man:”You’re tired?”
Jo:”Nah, we just wanted to talk.”
Man:”I see. Let me tell you something, you talk on breaks, this catch game is an exercise. Go attend to it or I will have to send you to some orphanage. sais on a calm tone.”
Scared all three of them run back into the little crowd of kids.
For the rest of the day they don’t really get the chance to rest, as all day was spent with either a soldier showing them how different stuff were done or where stuff were, either playing different games.
At the end of the day, they come back to their dorm and prepare to sleep.
Tom get’s a good look around, and sees that between al of the kids in there, there were quite big age gaps.
Tom knew that him and Iuustin were around two years old, but he still did not know Jo’s age, since they needed strength in numbers, because the rest looked a lot older.
Tom:”Oy, Jo!”
Jo:”Yeah?”
Tom:”How old are you?”
Jo:”I honestly don’t know, but to make a guess I’d say like one year old, here and twenty if we add my age from the other world. How about you?”
Tom:”Well I’m like two and same is Iuustin.”
Iuustin already fell asleep. It was quite a hard first day for someone with a body of a young child.
The next day was almost the same, but they did more exercises and some chores that Tom and Iuustin carried out almost perfectly.
After they finish they are complimented by their supervisor and sit under a tree, chatting while the rest of the kids were barely able to accomplish the most basic of tasks.
Jo also finishes and sits next to Iuustin and enters the conversation with some small talk.
After a while it became clear that Jo was quite the extrovert.
Almost a week passes and so far so good for everyone.
To summaries the most important events that week, Tom and Iuustin almost had a panic attack when Jo brought into the discussion those “incidents” that unfortunately they had to witness to one of them and some kids formed some sort of gang and started to bully random boys ,but usually their target was Tom, since he was the quietest one out of all of the boys there.
Another day comes around, they all eat breakfast, do the exercises that became more and more difficult and the man dressed into casual clothing, became more and more aggressive on those who fell behind.
While Tom, Iuustin and Jo sat around after finishing their sweeping the dorms they hear a loud bang and something breaking from the bathrooms and kids from the “gang” they formed, run out of it crying and screeching.
Some of them run to them, but Tom and Iuustin waves them off.
Anyway the man in casual clothing, that became like a teacher to them, goes into the bathroom taking out a crying kid.
The boy was wet from head to toe and walks away with the teacher.
Not long after a couple of unarmed soldiers comes around catching the “gang’s” members like they were chickens running around the court yard and takes them away.
Tom starts to smile at the scenery. Iuutin is confused and Jo got up an ran to see what happened.
Not long after Jo comes back with interesting news.
Jo:”You won’t believe what happened! You won’t believe what happened! Those @ssholes finally took it too far! They put the boy with skinny arms with the head in the toilet and broke it and almost killed the poor guy!”
Tom:”What!?”
Jo:”So, now they will be sent elsewhere and we won’t be seeing them again! We can finally catch a break without them annoying us.”
Tom:”How is the boy?”
Jo:”Well he has a few bruises, soo… I guess he will be back soon.”
Iuustin:”Phew! I thought we witnessed another murder.”
Jo:”What?”
Iusstin:”Nothing… Sorry…”
Jo:”…”
Tom:”He apologized all right? Leave him alone!”
Jo:”Ok. By the way, I forgot to tell you, you know those dirt walks that appear here and there?”
Tom and Iuustin:”Yeah.”
Jo:”So those are roads to other camps like this one and we can go meet other people!”
Iuustin:”You go! I don’t want to get sent off here because some overly optimistic extrovert wanted to see some other faces. Are the boys here not enough? And I think Tom would say the same.”
Tom nods at the last statement.
Jo:”Well I get it, I get it, I’ll see if we need permission or something and I go there alone and if I come back in one piece, I’ll drag you both to get some fresh air since you’re sitting around all depressed. says on an optimistic tone.”
Tom and Iuustin lock eyes with a look that said ”What’s wrong with this guy!” for a brief moment.
Tom:”All right! You go if you want! But we won’t raise a finger to help you if you get in trouble!”
Jo nods and walks off.
Advertisement
A Dragon Gnawing Its Tail
Emperor Krystfallen, the fabled First Dragon Emperor, awakens in secret five hundred years after his purported death. Legends speak of the great sacrifice of the First Emperor who offered his life to defeat the Blight Incarnate and the Blighted Multitude that threatened to consume the continent of Forkspear. But legends couldn't be further from the truth. Follow the First Emperor, who is nothing like the person proclaimed by the legends, and the lives of various people he meets along the way, as he tries to uncover what has happened during the centuries that he was asleep.
8 129Ivory Crystal
The nine Ilvistine Crystals are the most coveted jewels by crown and criminal across the land. Five crystals have been found, another remains unclaimed, and one is still unaccounted for. Elody Bequette is a noble woman who wants something more than to marry a prince. She longs for travel and adventure, so much so that she is willing to give up her engagement, her family, and her homeland. Miles away in another city, being a prostitute is just what life threw at Milena Proper. Self-reliant and cynical, she scrapes by each day, content to have a roof over her head and money in her pocket. These two women, who would seemingly never cross paths, have one thing in common—they both possess the last two Ilvistine Crystals. When the prostitute and runaway bride-to-be meet by chance, they’re drawn into a web of deception among the royal families and a band of vagabonds. Their backgrounds create an unstable alliance, but to save their necks, Milena will need to rely on someone outside herself, and Elody will have to be able to stand on her own two feet in a world very unlike the reserved realm she’s used to.
8 86Don't Breathe
A demon lives nearby the cottage Akira and his classmates are staying in - or so the legend says. In hope that Akira would see Kazuya's terrified facial expresssion, who's never afraid of anything, he suggests a test of courage. As they wander into the forest, Akira never expects anything serious to occur. Though, the more time they spend in there, the more he realizes something is wrong. And the more he realizes, that the truth behind the legend is a real-life nightmare.
8 72Incant - A Wizard in Cienmiedos (Short Story)
The town of Cienmiedos requests assistance from the AWW. A level three Incant is promptly dispatched. The horror she finds in this podunk town might just be beyond her pay grade. This short story is complete. Set in the Incant world with other stories in this setting likely coming soon. Same Book Banner will be used for the short stories.
8 184The antique shop of the devil
Victor Wartell transmigrates from the Earth into a similar world as his previous one. Setting up an antique store, he goes on to live a normal peaceful life. Or so he thought: Strange people, cosplayers, historical fanatics and nutjobs kept showing up. They all wanted to buy his products and he does not know why antiques go so well in this new world.Either way, he is content with his situation. Learning and adapting to the new environment, Victor will have to experience ups and downs of the new society. Making enough profit to maintain a carefree lifestyle and getting used to his chance of a new, exciting life seems like a good deal for him.Only thing he would say to the nutjobs: Stop with all the wild speculations, I am not what you think I am. Current schedule :Every saturday and extra chapter sometimes in Monday as per poll result :) Special thanks once again to Asviloka for the amazing cover!
8 149Jinjuriki Compound
First try at writing fanfic! Constructive criticism welcome.Description: What would happen if all the jinjuriki grew up together, away from the villages and nations with only a few select people to raise them without the animosity of the public?
8 106