I stared out the window, out at the trees, wishing I was there, wishing I could be a child again, outside in the world instead of trapped within the walls of the classroom.
Write this. Solve that. Do this.
I’m sick of it. Why should I tolerate this? Any of it?
And then, a little voice. The voice in my head. His name was Vincent. That’s what I named him anyway. Vincent told me to leave. Told me to exit the room.
Like the teacher, he wouldn’t shut up. Wouldn’t stop droning on. So eventually, I chose a voice to listen to.
“Sit down, Adam,” came an external voice. I didn’t listen to it. “Adam, what are you doing? Go back to your seat.”
I pushed up the already partially open window a bit further, and jumped out onto the grass. This side of the school faced a small forest. The grass was a soft landing, not that it was needed from the first floor.
With shouting coming from behind me, I began running away from the school. I kept running. Eventually, I saw a portal.
Vincent had led me here. He knew where to go. I jumped through.
On the other side, I came out a rat. I mean that I was a rat. My clothes and body were gone. When I looked down, I had the body of a rat. I couldn’t hear Vincent anymore. My mind was quiet.
I looked around at my surroundings. I was in a field. Lots of flowers. It was far brighter than the gloomy, rainy world I had just left behind. I wandered around a bit, enjoying the sunshine in my fur. After a while I heard noises. There were carts and animals and such. I headed towards the sound. It was difficult to see it at first, due to the tall grass and flowers, but I found that the sounds originated from a stone road populated by carts, mostly pulled by animals such as horses and cows. However, there were some unusual creatures thrown into the mix. Some of them had wings, or odd colors.
I didn’t pay them much attention, but focused on the carts. I wanted to see where they were going. There were two directions along the path which the carts and travelers walked. At random, I picked a cart, and leaped onto it.
Somehow, I managed to jump onto it. I landed in the cart, but still skidded until I bumped into something. Not something, someone.
There was a person sitting in the back of the cart. She was a short blonde girl with a green cloak and pointy ears. I stared at her, then heard a shriek as a fist came down upon me. The fist belonged to an identical girl wearing blue.
Surprisingly, the fist didn’t connect to my body, and instead bounced off of a purple dome that appeared around me. The translucent dome quickly disappeared.
“May!” the girl in green shouted. “It’s a magical rat. Leave it alone.”
“Its on our cart.” May said, sitting back down. “Plus, it scared me.”
“This isn’t our cart,” the other girl said. “That rat has as much a right to be here as we do.”
“At least we got permission,” May said.
“Ignore my sister,” The girl said to me, “My name is Ray. What about you?”
“My name is Adam,” I said. I could hear my words come out as squeaks. I felt sad, figuring they wouldn’t be able to understand me.
“Nice to meet you, Adam,” Ray answered, surprisingly.
“You can understand me?” I questioned.
“I snagged this a while back.” Ray pointed to a thin ring she wore. “It allows me to understand any language.
“So what did it say?” May asked.
“Its called Adam,” Ray relayed the information to her sister.
I bobbed my head in agreement.
“Alright. What does Adam want with us?” May asked Ray.
“I don’t know.” I answered honestly. “I just jumped onto a random cart to see where the path goes.”
Ray repeated my squeaked words. “How do you not know where we are going?” she added.
“I’m not from around here.” I responded cryptidly.
“How far away are you from?”
“Not sure. I got here through a portal.” I didn’t mention that I was human before jumping through said portal.
“Come on! What’s it saying?” May whined.
Ray translated, then said, “What color was the portal?”
I thought a moment before answering, “Purple.”
“Purple?” Ray repeated.
May’s face fell. They both looked at each other with concern.
“What?”
“It’s just-” Ray cut herself off before continuing in a calmer tone. “You’re from another world then. That’s all.”
I suspected there was something I wasn't being told, but I didn’t say anything.
“We’re going to the capital, Pender,” May explained. “We’re looking for somewhere we can get an apprenticeship.”
“What trade?”
May shrugged, “Any that’ll make us money.”
