Chapter 5

We all exited the bus and got into our groups.

I found myself standing next to Lucas nervously while Dylan was standing silently and Jacob was going on and on about DOTA or something and wouldn’t stop.

“Okay, I trust everyone read the instructions and knows what to do correct? You’re all high school students, so you should be mature enough to not stray too far away from us. Be careful and I expect the full data report to be due next week on Monday.” announced Mr. Vand as he led us to the beach.

‘Sigh… why couldn’t we bring out swimsuits and have some fun? I have a really sexy bikini that I want to show off to Lucas. And the weather is terrible also… I bet it’s gonna rain soon.’

The clouds were dark and the temperature was cold.

We walked along the beach gathering samples of the ocean water and looking for any type of marine life. We found this little pill bug things that were buried in the sand but we left them alone.

Before we knew it we were pretty far from the main group.

“Rumble!” There was bright light that flashed above us. It suddenly began to rain hard.

“Oh shoot. We gotta get back.” Said Lucas as he grabbed my hand and we started running towards the main group.

‘Kyaa!! Lucas. Is. Holding. My. Hand.’ My inner thoughts were in shambles.

I let him lead me when suddenly Lucas got a text on his phone.

“Okay guys, Mr. Vand told us, because we’re too far away we might get sick. There is a cave nearby that he saw and he told us to go wait in there and he’ll come to us with umbrellas.”

After about 2 minutes of jogging, we found the cave. I looked up and saw long roots of a tree. It looked quite amazing actually.

The roof of this cave has roots of a tree hanging from the top of it. It was pretty cool.

I was completely drenched my clothes were sticking to my body. Soon it started to get really cold because the wind was blowing into the cave and I started shivering uncontrollably.

“You must be cold. Let’s go deeper into the cave.” Lucas said, and he put his arm around me and we walked deeper into the cave while Jacob and Dylan just followed behind us.

‘Oh. My. God. Is… Lucas flirting with me?’

My mind was going at light speed as Lucas took out his phone and used a flashlight app.

‘This is perfect. Lucas holding me in a cave. Us, both wet from the rain. This is so romantic. If only Jacob and Dylan weren’t here.’

We were walked for about 10 meters and I was completely enraptured in the moment when Jacob interrupted it.

“Hey Lucas, shouldn’t we be heading ba-!!! AAAHHHH!!!” Jacob stopped mid-sentence and screamed like a little girl. Even I don’t scream like that.

We were all in free-fall in the large hole that mysteriously appeared out of nowhere beneath us.

Fast. That was how we fell.

‘Was this how I was going to die? Holding hands with Lucas? Worth.’

What I didn’t expect was that we didn’t die. My eyes were closed for roughly 1 entire minute and I realized that we weren’t piles of meat yet.

I tried to say something but whenever I opened my mouth a burst of air entered and I was incapable of speaking.

So I waited and waited. It was dark so I couldn’t see anything or anyone.

I lost track of time as my mind was just in a blank state because I was so bored, it was on autopilot.

“Oomf!” I hit the ground and for some reason it didn’t feel like I was falling to my death. It was a normal fall to the ground.

I got up and looked at my surroundings.

“Ugh. What happened?” I noticed Lucas’s voice and saw that he was on my left. Jacob and Dylan were behind us and I saw that Dylan was already up and looking at our surroundings with caution.

We were in a large prairie.

“What the hell? How did we get here?” Jacob said in confusion.

“Did we somehow travel through time and space and reach a different dimension?” Jacob just went on a tangent about some weird sci-fi, nerdy stuff and about how he read something like this in a book before or something but I’m pretty sure most of us were ignoring him.

I had an epiphany. Grandpa’s diary. I began to connect the dots and it all started to make sense. We entered the cave. What was the caves name again? It started with a K… We then all fell into the hole and came to this world.

I took out my grandpa’s diary and everyone looked at me strangely.

“This isn’t the time to be reading Lily. We have to find out where we are and look for help.” Said Lucas.

He was right. We have to first find out where we are first. How come we’re in the grasslands while grandpa was in the desert? It doesn’t make any sense.

“Okay guys, I think that we should all head to the hills in that direction.” Said Jacob as he pointed at the single hill in the distance.

Because no one had any objections we decided to go there. It took us roughly 30 minutes to walk to the hill. The grass on the

prairie went up to my waist and I saw a couple of large bugs that creeped me out.

Jacob was breathing heavily by the time we got up to the top of the hill.

“Hey look! I see a road over there.” Lucas pointed towards the right.

We all decided to head towards the road and it took us another extra 30 minutes. It was a dirt road. The kind that you would see in the country side and it was poorly maintained.

“Okay guys, which way should we go, right or left?” said Lucas.

“How about a short break first, huh guys?” interrupted Jacob. He was sweating and began to smell a bit. He was kinda fat so I guess it’s expected that walking for an hour was rough on him.

“Sure. No problem.” Lucas replied as he took out a water bottle for Jacob to drink because Jacob drank all his water by the time we reached the top of the hill.

We rested for a quarter of an hour before we decided to head to the left. Dylan was silent and just nodded, which we assumed meant he either didn’t care or would just follow along with what we chose.

Good thing I brought sunblock in my bag because the sun of bright and I didn’t want to get a tan.

“Do you guys want some sunblock?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks.”

“What about you Dylan?”

He ignored me. Wow. What a bitch.

Suddenly, we could hear rumbling from the ground.

There was a dust cloud from behind us. After a while we saw that it was a bunch of horse riders that were riding full speed in our direction.

“Hey guys, I think we should get out of the way.” I said. And we moved roughly 10 feet away from the road and waited for them to pass by us. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

The foremost rider saw us and he waved his arm and as he reached us he abruptly turned to our direction.

“Woah! Watch out!” Lucas cried out as he grabbed my hand and pulled me back along with the others.

The other riders followed his lead and they all circled around us with their horses and surrounded us.

“W-what’s going to happen to us?” asked Jacob. I wish I knew, because they didn’t look like they were the friendly type.

I saw that every one of them was wearing some sort of armor and helmet and was equipped with swords hanging from their waists.

The dude that was leading suddenly stopped and the others stopped as well. I noticed that he had a mustache and was kind of short.

“Hey, bros, you know that umm… you guys are kinda in the way right? So… um… do you mind moving just a bit?”

Jacob somehow mustered the courage to say that while I was thinking he was being a complete fucking retard. I mean, we’re obviously not in fucking America right now. These guys have freaking swords and can and will kill us. I’m the only girl in this group. You guys will probably become slaves or something, while I’ll become their sex toy. I was muttering curses at Jacob in my head and the leader spoke.

“Seize them.” Was all the dude with the mustache said and several men got off from their horses, manhandled us and tied us in rope.

The leader of this gang then got off of his horse and walked towards us. Yup, he’s definitely short. I’d say about 5”5.

He came up to me first and held up my chin.

“You’re a pretty lass aint’ ya? You will warm me bed tonight.”

“Let go of Lily!” Jacob shouted.

*Ooomf!* Jacob fell to the ground as the short man with the mustache slapped him with the back of his hand. It looked very painful because Jacob’s nose was bleeding and I saw a tear on his lip.

Another man came up from behind him and started kicking him while he was on the ground.

“Do not speak unless spoken to by the captain!” replied the soldier

“You must be spies from the west. Did you think we were stupid with you strange clothing?”

“What the hell are you talking about? What spies? We were just on a field trip and- Oof!” Lucas was cut off midway as the same soldier hit him behind the head and he got knocked out.

“No! Lucas! What’s wrong with you guys!” I screamed but they ignored me.

“Take their bags. They might some information.” Said the short captain and he went back on his horse.

“What? No! Don’t! Hey! Give that back!”

My grandpa’s diary was in there. If they find out that we’re from another world then I have no idea what would happen.

We were quickly rounded up and they forced us to lie down on their horses on our stomachs and they tied us so we wouldn’t fall and they began to ride.

I was in the position for over 2 hours before we took a break and my stomach was insanely sore and hungry. Jacob apparently didn’t learn his lesson was being incredibly annoying with his smart mouth and they eventually gagged him. I fortunately learned from his lesson and didn’t say anything the entire ride.

We reached a small town by nightfall and I was pretty sure that I would have bruises on my stomach.

The town was old. In my opinion, of course. There were people wearing outdated clothes and the streets weren’t paved that well.

There was a lot of dirt and most of the buildings were made of stone or wood, kind of like those old European towns in movies.

We were sent to a prison cell that had steel bars that prevented us from leaving and they didn’t untie our restraints.

It was night time when Lucas finally regained consciousness. “Wha- where am I? What happened? Lily, why are we tied up?”

*Smack*

Lucas was hit in the back of the head again by the guard who was behind the bars and I screamed as Lucas fainted again.

“He could get a concussion! You could give him permanent brain damage! Stop that!”

I was scared. I didn’t know what to do. If only I had completely read Grandpa’s diary. Maybe that would give me some answers.

I want to go home. I miss my parents, my bed and my TV. I never realized how ungrateful I was to the things that I owned.

I guess being in a miserable situation such as this stinky cell opens up your eyes and makes understand that you never really appreciate the things in life until things go sour.

The guard finally left and Dylan was as quiet as always and I figured he was scared so I tried to talk to him because I didn’t feel like talking to Jacob. Plus he was still gagged.

“Hey Dylan, how are you holding up? Funny situation we’re in right? So… what you thinking about right now?”

“To escape.”

“What? How? We are literally tied up and locked behind bars. How do you plan to do that? I asked.

He showed me his hands and I saw that the ropes were untied as they slid off his arms.

Jacob’s eyes widened and I stared in shock.

“How did you do that? Well… what’s the use of getting out of your bonds when you can’t get out of this cell?”

He reached into his back pocket and took out the key that the guard used to lock this cell.

“What the f- How did you do that?” I asked incredulously.

“I took it.” Dylan answered cockily as if it was the simplest answer in the world.

“Did you do some of your Asian kung fu stuff?”

“That’s racist.”

“No that’s not! I was just asking a question.”

“You assumed I knew some “Asian kung fu stuff” because I’m half Chinese. You stereotyped me and therefore, were being racist.”

“Oooh, you're racist Lily.” Jacob tried to intervene in the conversation but he couldn’t really say much because he was gagged.

Dylan ungagged Jacob and released us from our bonds and unlocked the cell.

“Jacob you take Lucas.” Directed Dylan.

“But why do I have to? I’m injured.” Groaned Jacob.

“Because you’re injured you can’t fight the guards off. And you don’t know how to fight anyway.”

“Hey! I took karate when I was a kid and reached black belt!”

“Some good that did you today.” Snorted Dylan and that shut him up.

“Hurry up. We have to get out of here before the guard comes back.”

“Wait! We have to go find our bags! I have something important in there! It can help us get back home.” I said.

“How will it get us back home? We’re obviously not in Washington, let alone the U.S. Lily. Heck, I doubt we’re even on Earth anymore.”

“It’s my grandpa’s diary. He’s been here before.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this beforehand?” said Jacob.

“Well…-“ I was cut off because of the sound of a bell ringing in the distance.

“Murderer! Catch the murderer! He killed the captain!”

We heard the guards running towards the direction of the alarm.

“We have to go now.” Dylan said and we followed.