Krovukk and Xar stood on the main deck of the ship, looking down. They thought themselves as hardened adventurers that had seen it all. But here they stood, surprised and shocked at what they saw.

It was simple really. Nothing extraordinary if you thought about it. But the circumstances changed that.

A young boy that couldn’t be much older than sixteen or seventeen could be seen lying on the floor, naked.

He had short brown hair, just on the edge of being chubby, or was that because of his face being a bit round? And mostly without hair. Like anywhere. Not that he was looking.

Slowly, Krovukk bent down to check on him. See if anything was wrong. The youth stirred, and just as the huge Karkaris was checking his face, he opened his eyes.

“Are you alright?” He asked the kid.

The young man screamed for all his worth before fainting.

Xar took one look at the surprised and hurt look on Krovukk’s face and couldn’t hold it in. He exploded laughing.

“Xar, this is serious!” Krovukk sternly said, but somehow it only fueled the hilarity for the rat man.

“I know I’m sorry Krovukk, it’s just, the face you made!” Xar continued to laugh, but soon calmed down.

“Who do you think it is?” The big blue muscle head asked.

“I don’t know, but we should probably cover up his privates…” The ratman said, looking down at the very naked young man.

****************************************

Matt was coming home from school. It hadn’t been a great day. It wasn’t really bullying. But something close to it.

He was just a bit awkward sometimes with people and sometimes they messed with him a bit as a consequence. In good humor! Most of the time. Today hadn’t been pleasant though.

He blamed his awkwardness on teen hormones, as usual but tried not to dwell on it too much. He had turned seventeen recently and his teen hormone excuse was running thinner as the years went by.

Technically still working… but the question that he really dreaded? What if he continued to be awkward… for the rest of his life?

A shiver ran through him at the thought. No, no. Obviously it would stop at some point. Even his parents told him not to worry about it too much and that things would change as he grew up.

Of course they would. Trying to forget about it, he went up to his room, turned on his computer and dove straight into his current favorite game.

“Matt! Dinner!” His mom yelled what felt like ten minutes later.

Coming down he saw that his dad hadn’t come home yet.

“Where is dad?” He asked, curious.

“I told you last week he was going to New York for a few days…” His mom told him while serving up food.

“Ah, yeah! I completely forgot. Sorry.” He said. He felt a bit dumb having forgotten when he knew she had told him more than once for sure.

“No worries pumpkin. How was your day?” She asked him as she finally sat down herself.

“It was okay.” He tried.

“Okay? Or okay…” She said, the first part with a bit of pep, and the last part glumly.

“The second one…” He admitted.

“Jonas and Co?” She guessed and he nodded.

“Did they make fun of you again? I don’t understand why you try to be their friend in the first place…” She continued, but clearly said more to herself. She had long abandoned changing his mind on the subject.

“You don’t understand mom, Jonas is nice to me, at least when it’s only us two… He just changes a bit with the others…” He mumbled weakly.

“Doesn’t sound like a friend to me, but it’s your life pumpkin. It’s just that sometimes I worry, you know? I just want you to be happy.” She said in a resigned tone.

“I know mom, I know.” Me too, he almost added.

“Do you wanna finish eating in front of the TV?” She said, clearly trying to cheer him up. He didn’t have the heart to tell her it wouldn’t make a difference but nodded instead. If she thought she helped, he knew it would make her happy.

They ate in comfortable silence, the only sound coming out of the TV and the occasional forks hitting the plates.

They finished eating, watched the end of the episode on the TV and Matt helped his mom clean up. Maybe it had helped take his mind off things after all, if a bit.

As he was walking back to his room, Matt felt his stomach hurt lightly. Was it something he ate? As he concentrated more on the feeling, he got a bit confused, it wasn’t really hurting. It was a strange feeling of wrongness.

He stopped in the hallway to his room. Was it spreading?

“Mom?” He tried, but he got no response. To be fair he hadn’t been loud.

The feeling intensified. Something was wrong. He had a feeling in his gut. Something was terribly wrong. He saw his arm start shining from the inside. The light was weak, but growing, and the wrongness was growing with it. It didn’t hurt, but somehow it made him panic so much more.

“Mom?” He tried louder, with an audible dose of panic, never taking his eyes off his arm as it shone with unnatural light.

Soon his whole body had started glowing. Was he going to die? To explode? What was happening to him? Tears soon started to streak down his face.

“MOM?” He yelled, desperation clear in his voice. It felt like he was disappearing. Like everything about him was being removed.

He heard something behind him and turned around. There his mom was, looking at him, with clear confusion. He was glowing all over, but she didn’t even seem to see it.

“Do I know you?” She asked him, visibly shaken by seeing him in her house.

“MOM?!” He repeated, feeling his last grip on reality fading.

And then there was nothing anymore. He was nowhere and everywhere. He was floating. All he could see, no, feel was light.

It felt like a second, it felt like a year. It was a matter of perspective. Time held no meaning. Until it suddenly did again. The all encompassing light that had held him started to dim, and only darkness remained.

In his house, his mom was looking at where he had disappeared, tears streaking down her face.

“Why am I crying?” She asked herself out loud, unable to stop the tears from flowing. She had never felt so sad, yet she was uncomprehending of why she was crying.

****************************************

Matt could feel himself waking up. It felt like he had been in the longest dream of his life, and he had a hard time coming out of this dream. But ever so slowly he made an effort to wake up.

Groaning a bit, he started to feel cold. Was he naked? The thought panicked him and he opened his eyes.

“AAAHHHHH!” He screamed as he came face to face with a shark-head, inspecting him closely, looking at him with small but piercing eyes.

He passed out from shock. Was that a question he had heard the shark-man ask before falling unconscious? Probably not…

****************************************

Krovukk had put the kid on a bed, put some too large clothes on it and left him alone.

The crew was in the main room, all trying to figure out what had happened.

That had been some extremely high tier magic. Some kind of teleportation? But the amount of mana and power used for a single kid, even if it was from extremely far away, seemed… too much.

The kid was naked, no equipment on him. He couldn’t weigh much more than 60kg max. Maybe even less, as he wasn’t big to begin with. Teleporting that amount should be relatively cheap mana wise.

The spell had clearly taken a lot more mana, but why? What could it have done more? Had it needed it to punch through a thick mana barrier? Like the planetary shield on Dust?

Even then it was still clearly overkill. The only real explanation he had was that the kid might be from very far away, maybe another galaxy?

But why send a naked kid? That was a bit ridiculous.

Krovukk turned to look towards the room the kid was sleeping in. He hoped he would wake up soon.

“How long until we get back to Trupen Station?” Xar asked their captain.

“A few days, we aren’t taking a direct route just in case.” He responded.

“What should we do about the kid?” Krovukk asked.

The silence stretched a bit as the captain was in thought. The thing was, they didn’t know anything about the boy. Only that he was human.

Could they even send him home? If it took the amount of mana that sent him here, it would be impossible for them. He wasn’t even sure if it would be possible even with all of the high-mages on Dust working together.

Krovukk himself had never felt that amount of mana. It had been so dense it had almost felt like being in water. It had been an incredible feeling, but also dangerous as his small wounds showed.

The thing was, they couldn’t do much at this point except wait.

****************************************

Matt woke up several hours later. Like he hadn’t slept in ages.

He was in a strange bed. It was obviously a bed, but there were some details that made it strange. Like the fact that the texture of the sheet wasn’t quite what he was used to. It felt so… smooth to the touch.

More than cotton or whatever he was used to. It had a strange quality to it he couldn’t place. Even the pillows had a strange quality to them. If this was his room, he would definitely take this bed on a test drive to dreamland.

But it wasn’t his room. Where was he? Standing up he took a look around.

The rest of the room was… small, was the only word that came to mind. The walls were bare of any decorations. They seemed to be made of some kind of metal, but it wasn’t cold to the touch. Almost felt like strong plastic.

There was a shower, a bed, a very tiny desk, what looked like a wardrobe and two doors. All crammed together in what was probably the most space efficient room he had seen.

There were some odd details that stood out. Like the foreign writing, it looked like runes from video games. The shower head looked strange, the desk chair looked strange. Small details that made this room feel alien.

The question was, where was he? He had been home when…

Suddenly it hit him like a ton of bricks. His breath quickened. His heart started pounding in his ears. His body wouldn’t listen to him. Just take deep breaths he tried to tell himself.

But the vision of his body disappearing before his eyes played in his mind, his mothers last words, the head of a shark smiling at him, revealing his row of teeths.

His lungs wouldn’t listen to him. In-out-in-out-in-out. His breath was too fast. Frantic. And he couldn’t calm down, which made it even worse. He had to calm down.

Like a spiral he tried to calm down, failed and panicked even more, until finally he was about to pass out again. It made him relax slightly which was enough to pass the episode. His energy spent, Matt finally managed to take deep shaky breaths.

A knock on the door made him freeze.

Who could that be?

“Can I come in?” A deep voice asked through the door.

A million different scenarios played out in his head, as he stood frozen, trying to stare through the door.

The door opened slowly as he stood stock still, looking at the opening grow. He was like a deer about to be hit by a car, unable to move or react, his brain unable to process a correct response.

As the door finally opened enough for him to see who was standing there, an extremely loud scream could be heard in the small room.

It took him a second to realize it was him that was screaming, and another long second to finally stop.

His eyes were about to pop out of their sockets at the sight, and screaming had clearly been justified when he looked at who was coming into his room.

A giant shark… man? He was clearly humanoid in form with beefy arms and thick legs. He was both huge and muscular. And the teeth! When he talked he could see rows of teeth in his mouth.

Was it a costume? It sure didn’t look like a costume. But how else would he explain the… sharkman.

“You feeling ok?” The huge pile of muscles asked him.

“How are you talking?” He said before he could stop himself. The completely ridiculousness of the situation made it feel so unreal, he knew he was in a dream. Which strangely had made him more confident. There was nothing to be afraid of, this was just a very strange dream, right?

The sharkman sighed and sat down on the floor in front of him. His head was still above his own, but they were almost eye level now.

“First time seeing a Karkaris I take it?” He asked in what must have been a gentle voice… for him.

“Karkaris?” Matt asked.

“It’s the proper term for my species. Sharkpeople, Blueskins and Sharkhead are some of the names we get called. The correct term is Karkaris.” The sharkman explained calmly.

“Uh, so you are like, a real shark person.” He said ,eyes wide, not having registered anything else than that it spoke. A vein could be seen popping on the shark’s forehead at the term shark person.

“Karkaris, kid. That’s how we are called. Not ‘shark person’. Understand?” His voice was still deep, but not so gentle anymore.

“Anyway, where are you from?” He continued, changing the subject.

“Uh, Virginia. Well, we moved recently. Before we lived in Colorado but had to move because of my dad but… uh… yeah it doesn’t matter… sorry.” He excused himself, embarrassed.

“Never heard of ‘Virginia’, new space station? Or is it a planet?” The karkaris asked.

“Planet? On Earth, duh.” Matt said, feeling more and more unsure about himself and this whole situation.

“Earth? Never heard about it…” Krovukk mumbled to himself.

“In what galaxy is this Earth?” He asked, and Matt had a hard time believing he had asked that with such a straight face.

“Uh… I should know this… Mi… Milk-something?” He said, clearly embarrassed.

“Do you mind if I ask you what your class is?” The huge sharkman asked, voice as gentle as he probably could make it.

“Class? I’m in 12th grade.” Matt answered, puzzled. Why did that matter?

“12th grade? Is that some kind of code? What kinda class has such a weird name…” The giant pile of muscle mumbled to himself.

“If you don’t want to answer, it’s fine. No need to make anything up.” He continued.

“I’m not making that up. I’m in 12th grade! I’m a seventeen year old boy, living in Virginia, and the last thing I remember before being here is my body basically just disintegrating into motes of light!” He finished almost screaming at the huge Karkaris.

“Sorry.” He quickly added as he realized he had kinda lashed out at someone who’s arm probably had more muscles than his whole body.

“I’m a bit rattled with… uhhh, being here. Where are we by the way?” Matt continued, searching the Sharkman’s face for his reaction to the outburst.

“We’re in our ship, close to Trupen Station.” The sharkman answered calmly.

“Ship, are we at sea?” Matt asked.

“No, we are in a spaceship, in what is called sector 14. Basically nothing out here except asteroids and if you are lucky you might find a Piece.” Krovukk responded.

Matt didn’t respond. He couldn’t process it. That had to be a lie. There was no way they were in space. That would be like science fiction!

“Wanna see for yourself?” The sharkman asked at his obvious disbelief.

“Y-Yea-Yes, please.” Matt finally managed to say.

As he stood up Matt was reminded of how big this Karkaris person was. It had to be a costume. Like a mini mecha. Someone was inside of it he was sure.

This was just some elaborate prank. It had to be. In space? Talking to Sharkpeople? Hah! Yeah right. Or maybe this was just a dream… A very strange one.

The huge shar-person motioned for him to follow. They got out of the small room and into a sort of big hall. He didn’t see anyone else, and he thought maybe this ship wasn’t that big. It wasn’t small per se. But it clearly wasn’t a ship with dozens of crew members.

It all felt fake. Everything looked slightly wrong, the aesthetics were more rounded in general than on earth. The strange written language looked like something made up in a video game.

He yelped in surprise as he saw a small head peeking at him from the other side of the room. It looked like a rat or a mouse. Way bigger of course, but still small for a humanoid. He, or maybe a she? He couldn’t tell, but he guessed he, was smiling at him.

He looked up and saw a ladder going into a small space that looked like a gun turret if he had to guess. There was another room he couldn’t see into, but it glowed a deep blue out of it.

Just as he was about to ask where they were going, he got to the far end of the room. There he saw something he hadn’t seen anywhere else on the ship yet.

A window. It was glorious, it was scary. It was many things. The deep darkness of the beyond. The twinkling stars, failing to fill the void with their light. But only one thought was on his mind right at this time.

I want to go home.