Chapter One

Here? Where is here?

"So wake me up when it's all over,

When I'm wiser and I'm older

All this time I was finding myself

And I didn't know I was lost."

I wasn't sure where we were, or even when. By when, I mean, I wasn't sure if we were in another dimension entirely, or if we were simply back in time.

Judging by the massive trees and garb, I couldn't tell. Some spoke a language we knew, and in a familiar accent, English and Scottish. Others, one I couldn't even identify with. Not Spanish, French, certainly not German or Gaelic.

We stuck to where we landed, for days..

Just in case the doorway opened up again, we'd be ready. After the initial shock wore off, we realized we were tired of sleeping out in the middle of no where, we stunk and were starving.

We located a swift river and built a small shelter in the middle of the locations.

My brother, Jacob, was ten and old enough to take care of himself, however I wouldn't let him leave my side. Every morning, we checked the old tree where the doorway had left us, then we would check our traps.

We could never catch a rabbit or a deer, I was relieved.. And in the back of my mind, I knew Jake was too. He liked to hunt, but a bullet was so much quicker than anything else. I didn't have the heart to kill it, if we ever did catch one.

But we did always manage to catch a few fish.

"Maybe we should just leave the land traps at the cave? Since they're not doing us any good, I mean." the blonde's face went red as he tried to clarify.

I chuckled, "Yeah, we should."

I pulled the rope, sitting on the edge of river. The handmade net sloshed and squirmed as- what looked- four fish struggled to get away. Jake had been in the boy scouts since he could walk, and I had never been so glad in my life for those obnoxious brown shorts and badge filled sashes.

He knew what was edible and what wasn't, how to make nets, bows, arrows, how to knot and make ropes, even knew how to make the shelter. When a storm was coming and not to eat the sweet smelling mushrooms.

"I'll go take them down." He turned.

"No!" I quickly hissed, "No." I said a little more calmly.

He narrowed his eyes, trying to see what I was going to say, "I don't want you to go alone." I clarified.

"Look, I know the way there.. and the way back.. and to the shelter and to the cave.. C'mon! I can do it!" He whined, stomping.

"Hey." I snapped quietly, "If there is something huge or even small in these woods that can hurt you, you have nothing to save yourself. You decided to be a boy scout, which was more helpful than I could have ever imagined." I said, trying to make up for all those years of me teasing him about boy-scouting, "I decided to take martial arts, I'm a weapon, you're the encyclopedia. One without the other, and we're screwed. Okay?"

His face twisted and I knew he wanted to argue, but he didn't. He sat on the edge of the river and glowered. Lately, he listened to me more than he ever did. And I did the same.

"We should make weapons. And you should teach me how to fight." I knew that was his way of telling me to go 'kick rocks', but it did make sense.

"I'll teach you how to fight if you teach me how to boy scout." I chuckled.

"Deal."

I quickly cleaned the fished, the scales biting into my fingertips. I tried not to think about it when I killed them, I would feel guilty well into the night when I knew we needed to eat to live.. But I never thought killing a simple fish would have hurt me so much. Every meal, I made Jake and I say thank you to the woods, the animals, the air, the Earth.. It was all we could do.

It was nearly 9 AM, according to the sun in the sky and Jake's scout brain, when we ate. Staying up late at night was rendered boring when we couldn't watch TV or read, or draw, or write, or surf the web, or.. you know what I mean. It sucked, but it gave us time to really learn about the world around us.

We found there was a town not far away. A few hours there and back. Jake and I came across it when we first arrived. Freaked out, we ran around like chickens without their heads. Seeing what they wore and hearing the language some of them spoke, we ran all the way back.

That was about 12 days ago.

Lately, I was thinking of going there. Asking them how much new clothes would cost, at least some bedding.

Seeing as how what we brought with was useless, we weren't sure what to do with it.

The doorway appeared beneath us, weird markings, or runes, etched into the old wood. Suddenly springing open, we dropped and fell into this world. What came with us was a couch, a remote controller, and some coffee mugs. We had broken the coffee table and used it as firewood, and the surface for the top of the shelter.

Finished eating, we threw the bones across the river. Every morning, I noticed, the bones were gone. I wasn't sure what took them, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to know.

We slept in the shelter when it wasn't cold or raining. We used the cave as a sort of garage of sorts, we kept the couch and firewood in there, and whatever we found and thought we could use.

Looking at Jake's torn, carpenter jeans and muddied shirt (that was once a bright red Adventure Time shirt with all the characters printed on the front of it), I frowned. He needed better clothes, a coat, scarf, gloves. Hell, even a blanket to cover up with at night would be okay at this point.

I wore my black skinny jeans (the knees torn), my rainbow Chuck Taylor's (muddy and starting to wear out), a long, gray t-shirt and a black cardigan over that. More often than not, I'd let Jacob wear it.

"Hey, Jakey.."

He looked over to me, adjusting the black cardigan. He was identifying some flower by a tree on the other side of the clearing. The clearing was where we were dropped off at, and in the middle of the clearing stood an old oak tree.

"I'm thinking that we should go to that village, do some work and get some money so we can buy some stuff."

His eyes grew twice the normal side, "What kind of stuff?"

"Clothes, blankets, swords." I shrugged, "And if we do good, shoes, and maybe a toy or something."

He gasped, "Really?" He grinned.

"Yeah, but we have to work.. I'm sure it'll be tough." I urged that this probably wasn't going to be a cakewalk.

He nodded, "I'm in! Don't you remember how hard I worked to get that new game?" He smirked.

"You cleaned your room." I deadpanned. "It wasn't even that dirty."

He frowned, deflated and plopped back down on the ground and played with the flower.

I was hoping to be able to get several sets of clothes, a new pair for each of us, and many blankets.

Maybe I could even get advice on how to make a life in a place like this..

Author's Note:

Stay tuned for more! I've actually got quite a lot of this one written out. This has been sitting in my folder for a while and I thought, what the hell? So, I posted it. I am sorry, I've been on an idea roll, it's awful. But worry not, I have not forgotten any of my other stories. I do realize that Jenna is a bit of a Mary-Sue and I apologise for that, I hope you can like her all the same.

Avicii, "Wake Me Up"

If you enjoy covers, you should listen to Madilyn Bailey's cover of this song.. oh, it's wonderful!

Cheers!

-Captain Grin