Top!

Jade~

Three days left. I glance at Mark, who is silent as usual. I see his eyes are glassy. He must be listening again. I honestly don't know what he listens to. The world's noises, I guess. The noises that repeat every five weeks. It's been four weeks, four days since the last Reset.

"Mark." His eyes focus.

"Hmm?" A man of very few words, if a man he can be called.

"Three days left. What do you want to do?" We sigh together. He shrugs. With a groan, I lay my head back on the grass of the forest floor. There's no people to bother us, only the animals. The night sky is beautiful this night. But the stars don't remember.

Nothing does.

~ 

Jack~

8:25 p.m. 3 hours, 35 minutes until next reset.

The evening seems darker and more silent than usual as I make my way toward the cafe. I would have done this long ago, but this time of year houses plenty of odd jobs, and I'm not one to refuse more money coming my way. I need as much as I can get, seeing as I am essentially alone, without anyone else to aid me. You never know when something could happen where you need additional funds.

The streetlights are the only objects which allow me to see at all. They carve a path in the inky shadows, guiding me onward to my destination. I slowly make my way up to the building: the Midnight Cafe. The exterior is practically black, with one dying bulb being the only source of light. Every other bulb seems to have burnt out. I stand there for a moment, wondering if this is merely a coincidence. Over the past four weeks, I have heard strange superstitions, rumors, and tales, all of which I took quite skeptically. But seeing it for myself, I have to wonder if what I see is pure coincidence or whether it is, indeed, caused by the building itself.

As I ponder the significant change in lighting and the grim atmosphere, however, I glimpse a shadow crawling against the wall, of a humanoid form, piercing what remains of the light with a strange, jet-black darkness, almost more black than the sky itself. I glance behind me, but see, and hear, nothing. Then the most horrifying thing I've seen in my life happens. The shadow peels itself off of the wall, as if it itself is a living being. And as it does this, the wind picks up, and I hear a breeze blow past, bringing words with it. Or at least the remnants of words.

Forgotten - List- Glit- Res- BEWARE- World- Dang-

And then the wind stops. The darkness fades, and the lights seem to stop flickering. And still I refuse to enter the place. I turn around, and dash for home.

Millions of thoughts race through my head as I dash into the abandoned shelter, down the stairs, and into the basement of my house. What happened? Was that real? Am I going crazy? Was it trying to tell me something important? What did it call me?

I slowly force myself to calm down. Whatever the answers to these questions are, I think, I'll figure them out in the morning. And with that, I drift into an uneasy sleep, unsure of what is to come.

~~~~~ 

12:00 a.m. Reset.

The storm comes once again. The wind flies around me, the obsidian peak again holding me above the surface. But this time, something seems different. The wind seems to start and stop abruptly, howling in pain. The waves churn onto the rock I stand on as I struggle to hold my balance. And then, as the storm is dying down, one last wave surges ahead. Water towers miles above me, and after what feels like eons, crashes down, carrying me away, drowning me in the blackness. And as the water carries me along, I hear the screams of many others joining me. And then I seem to hit a blunt force. My body screams in agony, yet still I can't wake up. There is a white flash, a black flash, and another white flash. The wave seems to carry me through an endless tunnel. And then a green flash, a violet flash, a blue flash - 

And I wake up, in a place I am certain I have never seen before in my life.

Gwendolyn~

All is white.

I groan. I can tell I'm bruised and battered from the storm.

What storm?

I struggle to open my eyes. As I do, I gasp.

I am in a foreign world, sinsiter, slow-moving. It's hard to describe. Towers of stone rise far above my head - and far below me. The sky seems to swivel its position, swooping behind the buildings, then under, then above. All around me are gently faling snowflakes, sizzling with warmth as they hit my skin.

I stand up. I'm standing on a small plot of grass in the middle of a busy street. My legs ache.

A black car zooms past, and the sky swivels at just the right moment so that it seems that the car's wheels are destroying it.  Random rays of sunlight seem to come from everywhere - The towers, the cars, my own shoes. Birds fly - not always in the sky, but above me, anyway. Most of them look to big to be birds, and some of them might actually be dragonflies. 

Glancing around me, I run as fast as possible across the road, narrowly missing being run over. The towers below my sway dangerously, and I almost lose my footing.

Why am I here? What is happening? I feel like this must be dream, it's so unreal. Yet -

~~~

WHAT HAVE I DONE GUYS I DON'T KNOW WHAT I JUST CREATED THIS IS WEEEEEEIRD HELP ME

(I do think it's kinda cool though) 

Arkadian~

When I woke up, I knew something wasn't right. The forest was wrong. The trees were different, their leaves pink like cherry blossoms. My camp was gone as well. I had been sleeping on a slab of smooth stone. Even with all of this, I still couldn't figure out what was wrong. Until I realized that the leaves were falling up. Looking up, I saw clouds, and beneath them, land. The entire forest was upside down. "This is certainly a strange fate," I said to myself as I looked around. "I wonder why I am here, or even what this place is." Then, I heard the voice from my dream. As I tried to find its origin, I noticed a shadow beneath the trees, one that shouldn't be there. The shadow grew, turned into the figure from my dream. "Save me," it said in a whisper, "This world, your world, all worlds ... something terrible will happen if I am not restored. Seek the Dreamers. Save me..." With those words the shadow disappeared. Thinking for a moment, I decided to try and find a way to the ground below - or was it above? - me. Someone else must live here. Perhaps they know who the Dreamers are.

Jack~

1:31 p.m. 1 minute after Glitch.

I open my eyes to find myself not in my bed, and definitely not on Earth. I stand on a floating island, on a patch of stones which seem to shift position constantly. Below me, there is nothing, but far above me stands a huge city. The towers stretch far past me, and through a crack in the ground it stands on, I can tell they seem to stretch into infinity as well. The entirety of the ground is perforated with rifts, some merely tiny chips, some wide enough to swallow an entire farm. The sun dances around the sky, but seems to not be producing any light. It seems the world itself is what produces the light - but there is no origin, at least from what I can tell.

Even as I watch, a strange black platform spins onto the patch of rocks in front of me. I look around. There seems to be absolutely nothing on this island besides stone and mud. I put a foot onto the platform, and feel myself warp to face upside-down. I resist the urge to vomit as it lifts me (up? down?) towards the city, depositing me on a strange patch of blue-green grass. A blue cloud deposits volcanic ash around me, but it seems to be as cold as snow. I trudge through it, and make my way onto a sidewalk, shifting in color from dark gray, to violet, to pink, to green. I follow it as far as I can, taking a left when it finally ends.

As I walk, I try to decipher what the shadow told me - or seemed to tell me. I can tell that whatever it was warning me of came to pass. The best I can muster from the broken speech is "Forgotten... Listen... Glitch... Reset... World... Danger..."

So, the world is in danger. A glitch occured, and now not only does nobody remember me, but I am on an entirely different plane. And unless I do something, the world may perish. I'm sure I will learn more later. For now, I'll look for something, anything, which strikes me as being important.

Speaking of important, my stomach begins to protest. I realize I haven't eaten anything in 12 hours. Surely this place isn't abnormal enough for a burger shop?

Top!

Gwendolyn

Yet - there is a coffee shop.

Of all things.

Yay.

I run inside. Granted, it's not normal. It's a square room with five corners . . . .

I go up to the man at the counter and start. The left half of his face is a mirror! I can see myself! Wait, it's the top half . . .  no, the top right quarter . . .

"What can I get for you today, Missy?" 

"Uh," I say, gasping slightly. "I'll have - hot chocolate!"

The man looks at me weirdly with my own eyes. It's freaky. "Are you sure? It's late March!"

"I don't care. Hot chocolate. With whipped cream."

He nods and gets it for me. Out of curiosity, I decide to sit in the fifth corner of the square room.

"Excuse me, ma'am. What city is this?"

The blonde woman near me turns. One of her eyes seems to flash a dull red.

"Awyrn City . . . how didn't you know?"

~~~

Is this ok? I realize I'm doing a lot of working with the world, I hope it's not too much . . . 

Wait, this is still alive?

In that case, top! 

Top.

Sorry I haven't been posting for a while, I've had a hectic beginning of the summer. Hopefully I'll start posting more now that I'm back from Northern Minnesota.

Jack~

5:20 a.m. 3 hours, 50 minutes after Glitch.

Hours of wandering through the strange labyrinth of this landscape, and I still haven't found anything resembling a cafe, burger shop, or anything else for that matter. The landscape seems still and lifeless, although it seems to be constantly in motion. Suddenly, however, I trip and fall over an edge. I fall down, down, down, into what seems like infinity. And then I go back up, landing on a strange underside of the city. And here the city is bustling. In front of me, I see a board, flashing with strange, incomprehensible advertisements and notices. As I step towards it, something strange happens. The world distorts, and a holographic figure appears in front of me.

"Hello," the voice says. It seems familiar for some reason, but I can't put my finger on it immediately. "Finally, I have been able to reach you."

"Who are you?" I ask, somewhat freaked out by the events that have transpired today.

"Who I am is of no importance right now," she replies, "But you will figure this out soon enough. For now, I will tell you what you need to know, and what I tried to tell you before."

"Your world is in danger," she continues, "Something has gone horribly wrong with the patterns of reality, and has sent you here. Even now, the world is in peril, and as one of the Forgotten, you must help save the world."

"What am I supposed to do?" I interjected. "I have no idea where I am, let alone what I should do."

"This place? All you must know is that it is named Awyrn City. As for what you should do, I would suggest finding the Dreamers. They can help you better than I could. Good luck, Jack Wilders."

"Wait--" I exclaimed, but it was too late. I stood back in front of the sign, dazed and confused.