Chapter Two: New World Part Two

Upon seeing the Stonehenge up close, it was much bigger and in perfect rectangles than the ones in our world. It made me wonder who built this place. Each standing stone was seventy meters tall, and each short one on top was fifty meters. Many from the crowd pulled out their cell phones, taking pictures and selfies. Some were writing graffiti on the stones.

Strange, there should be someone guarding landmarks like this would’ve stopped them. However, after scanning the base of each standing stone, they were all covered in graffiti as far as any arm might reach. Could it be that there were others already here before we came along?

Wilt had an idea. He asked us to put the translation stones on the ground. Once we did, almost all English writings magically changed into several languages before our eyes. I recognized some of them. We were astonished for a bit before we picked up our stones.

“Katie, try to think of French and see if it does read French,” Wilt said.

Katie squinted for a few seconds. “You’re right. I can also switch it to English.”

“It’s all Finnish to me,” Alex said.

For a moment, we studied the graffiti and our translation stones while taking pictures. Most of them were people’s names with words ending: was here.

That answered my question about others arriving in this world before we came along, but how long had they been here? Maybe we should’ve asked that flying girl before she left.

“Should we write our names too?” Katie asked. “Do any of you have a pen?”

“We don’t have time for that,” Alex replied. “Let’s go. People started moving again.”

After we got out of Stonehenge, we found ourselves on an island in the middle of a round lake. There were four stone bridges connected to the mainland. Three of them were in ruins, so everyone took the only one left to cross, but it had cracks and scars of wars. My legs trembled after spotting a few bullet holes. Maybe that was how those three got destroyed. I started to think we might not be safe after all. I should tell the others about that later.

After setting foot on the mainland, we found a sign greeting, Welcome to the Great Blue Zone.

Right in front of us, we were surprised that we were inside a massive green wall, spanning tens of kilometers, with farmlands almost everywhere. There was a city in the middle of this place, connected to a river and an aqueduct. It was too far to get a clear description, though its city wall was as tall as its green counterpart.

I said one word to describe it, “Beautiful.”

Such a vast landscape with a breathtaking sight could only be seen in a bird’s-eye view. Then I realized that we were all on top of a mountain.

“Guys.” Wilt was glancing upward. “You might want to check the sky.”

We tilted our heads, and our jaws dropped when we found seven suns forming in a circle in the sky.

“We are officially not in Kansas anymore.” When I said Kansas, I meant Earth. The others agreed while gawking at the alien sky.

“Alright, everyone!” Andromeda’s distinctive voice cried. “Come on down!”

There was a dirt path leading downward. As we descended a short distance, we stumbled upon eight trolleys lined up in a single file on the track. The front-most trolley was on the edge of the slope, with Andromeda standing at the doorway, telling us to get on board so she could guide us to the city. There, her king would welcome us and explain everything that was happening in this world.

“Alright, I’ve got two front-row seats here,” she asked aloud. “Who wants to sit next to me?”

In an instant, a lot of fists started flying. Despite Andromeda’s strange looks, she was a gorgeous girl. She could’ve been a model if she wore normal clothes. So many boys of my age wrestled to get to the doorway first. As for me, getting cuts and bruises weren’t worth the effort. I also don’t want to get scorned by the girls, especially from Katie and Alex. Both of them were not very happy.

“Guys, let’s sneak to the other side while they’re distracted,” Wilt proposed.

“Why, so you could sit near Tinker Bell?” Katie pouted.

“Well, yeah.” He shrugged with a smile, which Katie began boiling in red. “We need to ask her about this world and the Game. It’s best for us that we get close to her.”

What he said didn’t help. Her red face was still boiling and gritting her teeth. I never understood why she got mad, but I was certain that Wilt was in trouble.

“He’s right,” Alex said. “We still don’t know anything about this place. It’ll be better for us to stick with the flying girl.”

Katie breathed out steam to cool herself down. “Fine,” she grunted.

I sighed with relief.

While everyone was paying attention to the massive brawl, we managed to sneak into the other side. The two front-row seats were positioned close to the control while facing the rest of the twelve rows, having five seats each.

“Hello.” A Shaolin monk was sitting on the second row. We were a bit surprised that someone got in first. “I’m Li Bao of the Shaolin Monastery,” he greeted with a bow.

“Wow, you really are a Shaolin,” Katie gasped in astonishment to meet an actual Shaolin. He was bald and dressed in monk attire I recognized from the kung fu movies I watched. Although his towering physique made him a giant for a teenager. After introducing ourselves, we decided that we would sit with him in the second row.

“Oh, goody.” Andromeda noticed us with a smile. “We have our first passengers.”

I quietly told Wilt to start asking questions. He nodded before shifting toward her. “Um, excuse me —”

“Victory!”

We jolted from our seats when we heard a cheery scream. A jock burst in with bruises on his face. I could tell he was one because of the red and white varsity jacket he was wearing.

“I won!” he cheered.

The five of us darted out the window. We were stunned to see hundreds lying injured and unconscious all over the ground.

“Congrats, handsome,” Andromeda said. “You can sit right next to me.”

Once the jock sat beside her, he flirtingly introduced himself as Brock Tannen, former captain and star player of the Mad Dogs, a high school football team from California that had won many state championships. The large patch of a bulldog’s head holding a football with its mouth on the back of his jacket proved his point. That was how schools commemorated their champions.

As for Andromeda, we managed to get to know her when she told Brock about herself. Her birthday was on January Twenty-Four, she was from Australia, and she was an Aquarius. She didn’t tell her age and what year she was born. Every time Brock questioned her about this world, Andromeda asked him his other interests, but we didn’t care to listen since most of them weren’t noteworthy to our situation.

The two kept flirting and ogling each other in front of us — as if we didn’t exist. We were getting annoyed. Katie, on the other hand, was beginning to get irritated.

“Hey, Tinker Bell,” she called in an abrasive tone, and Andromeda’s attention shifted toward us. “Hate to break your little lovey-dovey —”

“What my friend’s trying to say,” Alex stretched out her hand to interrupt Katie and said politely, “if you be so kind as to tell us more about this world.”

Andromeda giggled sheepishly, “Sorry, I would love to tell you everything, but my king ordered me not to. My job is to escort you, newcomers, to the city.”

“And who is this king?” Wilt inquired.

“The one and only,” she answered vaguely. “You’ll be so thrilled when you meet him.”

We were not thrilled at all. I grumbled and slumped back in my seat while the passengers were pouring in.

“Are you going to leave them behind?” Alex gestured to those still lying on the ground.

“Don’t worry, the healing braves will take care of them.” Andromeda pointed at a group of healers that had arrived to tend the injured.

“Healing braves?” Wilt said, bemused.

“Braves that have healing powers, silly.”

“And what’s a brave?” Katie asked, annoyed by her vague answers.

“A brave is the same as champions, players, and chosen by the gods to participate in the Game,” Andromeda explained. “That’s what we called everyone here, including newcomers like you.”

“Brave,” I whispered, wondering if I was worthy of being called by that title after what I did back on Earth.

Once everyone was on board, we started moving down the mountain. Andromeda grabbed the microphone from the controls to transmit her voice to all the trolleys. She congratulated us for coming to this world, and our journey would begin here in the mountain called Starting Point after we got summoned at the Gate Ring, the stone landmark on top.

To our left, three huge waterfalls, known as the Trident Falls, cascading down into a reservoir where they flowed either to a river or to a water station, and the aqueduct carried the waters toward the city. Andromeda stated that the Trident Falls was created by ancient water braves to serve as the source of drinking and watering crops throughout the Great Blue Zone.

Moments later, we were at the bottom of Starting Point. Our trolleys traveled between the river and aqueduct, through the vast farmlands that grew all kinds of grains, spices, berries, fruits, and vegetables. There are also orchards bearing fruits, nuts, and olives. There was enough produce here to feed the city tenfold. Andromeda revealed that this place was the only breadbasket of this world, owned by the Blue Bucephalus Guild.

As the city walls drew near, the passengers were agape at its sheer size. Two hundred meters tall with three equally imposing gates that were a kilometer apart from each other and a row of Chinese castle-towers on top. There was also a massive moat wide enough for two ships to sail around the city. I imagined if Genghis Khan could see this, he would ride back home with his army.

“Everyone, welcome to the City of New Beginning,” Andromeda said on the microphone once the trolleys crossed the steel drawbridge through the middle gate. The passengers had a mixture of curiosity, nervousness, and excitement from whatever awaited us.

As for me, I hoped it wasn’t trouble.