When he opened his eyes Carter was standing in an empty suburban street. It was eerily quiet and the houses surrounding him were spaced quite far apart, surrounded by trim lawns and verdant green trees.
Strangely, there was no movement in the foliage, no rustle of leaves. The sky was an empty blue with no clouds, and he finally realised what was putting him on edge. Not only was there no noise, there was no wind.
His eyes came to rest on the house in front of him. It looked no different from any of the others, the same modern design with clean-cut angles, painted alabaster white and dark grey. However, for some reason he couldn't quite explain, Carter felt drawn to it.
It was more than just the convenience of it being closest to him. There was a tugging sensation in his chest that had him walking carefully up to the front door and reaching for the handle before he had realised what he was doing. The door was unlocked.
Stepping softly inside, Carter glanced around with interest. It was darker than he'd expected. The inside walls were painted the same dark grey as the facade, and the few small windows in the main room at the end of the hallway emitted only small focused rays of light onto the floor directly in front of them.
Carter could see dust motes swirling in these sunbeams, and they stole most of his focus as there was precious little else to look at. It seemed as though whoever had decorated this house had been very minimalist in their approach. There was no furniture, no pictures on the walls. Everything was grey and featureless.
Shaking his head to remove traces of light from his vision, still feeling that pull inside him, Carter travelled deeper into the house. Past the main room he found an open trapdoor in the ceiling with a ladder extending down to the floor, as if in invitation.
As he approached he started to hear faint voices murmuring in hushed tones, but with a hint of frustration in them. They seemed to be coming from the attic. Pausing at the foot of the ladder, he tilted his head to hear them better.
"Why won't it open? Argh, this is so annoying!"
"Let me try..."
There were two distinct voices coming from up above. The owners of the voices sounded like teenage girls, about his age, one loud and angry and the other quiet and calm. Carter wondered what they could be talking about, so he took hold of the first rung of the ladder and began to climb.
Upon reaching the trapdoor he pulled himself up and out and stood for a moment, taking stock of his surroundings. The attic was quite large in terms of floorspace but the roof was barely taller than he was, though it tapered up to a ridge that ran down the length of the room.
Unlike the rest of the house this room was wallpapered, in autumn greens and reds, with an intricate leaf pattern. There was only one window, in the far wall of the attic. It was oriented so that the golden glare of the sun illuminated the whole far end and the two girls, standing in front of a large chest placed under the window with their backs to him.
The one on his right had long wavy snow-white hair, dressed all in flowing black, and was muttering angrily to herself as she fiddled with the lid of the chest, trying to open it. When she tilted her head towards him, coming at the chest from a new angle, he could see her hazel eyes.
The girl on his left had her blonde hair half-up and flowers woven through it, wearing a white top and denim overalls, and lively blue eyes that were currently intently focused on the white-haired girl's attacks against the chest.
Carter moved forwards and the sound of his footstep, quiet as it was, alerted the blonde girl. She spun around. Her friend was too engrossed in her task to hear him but a quick nudge had her turning too, and both looked at him with surprise. The white-haired girl shuffled back, trying to hide the chest with her body, while the blonde girl stepped towards him. She spoke softly and with confidence.
"Who are you? What are you doing here?"
Carter wasn't really sure how to respond appropriately.
"My name is Carter. I'm not sure why I'm here. I fell asleep, and when I opened my eyes..." He trailed off.
The blonde girl nodded to herself, as if confirming something.
"I'm Fay, and this is Nova." She jerked her thumb towards the other girl. "Something similar happened to us. We woke up here, and felt drawn to this attic."
Nova looked at her with a frown. "You don't know if we can trust him. I wouldn't reveal anything more."
Fay shrugged her shoulders. "We haven't seen anyone else since we got here. Surely if he wished us harm he wouldn't have revealed himself to us like this. It seems much more likely that he's undergone the same experience we have, and we're all in the same boat. We can't just never trust anyone."
Nova subsided, but the frown didn't leave her face. The rhythm of their conversation seemed familiar, like they'd discussed this many times before.
"Sorry about that," Fay turned back to him. "We're on the same page now. Maybe you can help us? When we reached the attic we came across this chest, but we can't find a key and we've had no luck opening it."
Carter gently inserted himself between them to look at the lock. "I might be able to help."
He knelt down next to the chest and placed his fingertips lightly against the outside of the lock. The girls watched with considerable interest. They hadn't actually expected a solution, especially without any kind of tool.
Carter focused intently, running his sensitive fingertips over the lock, noticing every slight fluctuation in the surface. He could feel a layer of energy flowing over the metal, and as he calmed his breathing... he began to see the energy, glowing a molten orange.
He found the places where the grooves in the surface focused the energy into nodes, and pressed his fingers onto them. Then he channelled some of his own energy into the nodes through his fingertips and began to move them, slowly disentangling the web of energy.
Once each energy path was fully separated from the others, he converged all the nodes into one and molded it into a small key, before turning the key in the lock. All the energy surrounding the lock rushed down the paths into the key and with a click, the chest unlocked.
The girls couldn't see the energy, having never been trained in the art of perceiving it, so to them it looked like Carter stared intently at the lock for a few minutes while making some strange hand gestures, before it magically opened. They were shocked.
As Carter stood up Fay asked the obvious question, straight to the point.
"How did you do that?"
Carter responded matter-of-factly. "It was an energy lock."
Fay's eyes widened. "I didn't know those existed. How could you unlock it?"
"My parents taught me," Carter scratched his head. "They think it's very important for their children to be able to deal with energy devices in the times we live in."
Nova gave him a sceptical look. While his answer was somewhat believable, it felt like he was leaving something out.
Carter continued, oblivious. "Energy locks are very resource-intensive to create, but as you just saw anyone who knows how can unlock them so they aren't very popular. It's pretty strange to see one here."
Fay picked up the lock and examined it carefully. "There's a symbol on the back, two circles, one inside the other. I wonder what it means?"
Nova couldn't contain her impatience anymore and placed a hand on top of Fay's to get her attention, breaking her train of thought. Even her distrust of Carter couldn't stop her from eagerly turning to him.
"Lift the lid! Let's find out what's in here. Hopefully it's something that can help us figure out where we are and what's going on!"
Carter turned towards the chest, about to open it, when his ears picked up the sound of climbing. He looked up at the window, just as two more people's heads came into view.
One of them was a teenage boy with spiky white hair and a silver ear cuff on his left ear that made him look like an elf. He froze as his almost-black eyes landed on Carter.
Next to him was another boy the same age, with short messy brown hair and gold hoop earrings. He grinned sheepishly with deep brown eyes as he realised there were people watching them, before gesturing hopefully at the window lock.