Justinian wakes up with a jolt, red hair spilling across damp leaves.
The air smells of moss and wet bark. He blinks against the dim light filtering through the canopy above, trying to remember what happened. The meeting with a god, the forceful transfer to another world.
It all blurs together like a half-remembered dream. He touches his chest, half-expecting to find the fabric of his old school uniform, but instead his fingers brush against rough linen. He looks down. A simple tunic, plain and unfamiliar, clings to his frame.
He stands, knees protesting from the cold ground, and steadies himself on a nearby tree trunk. His body feels... different. Lighter, yet more solid somehow. The air tastes sharper, clearer. Birds chirp overhead.
"""Where the hell am I?"""
Two voices, feminine sounding overlap with his Voice, one sharper, the other cooler and more measured, echo through the trees.
"Oh my god, where am I? What the hell is going on?"
"Who are you?"
The first voice cuts through the rustle of leaves—sharp, panicked, with an edge of anger underneath. The second voice comes from farther away, closer to the right, quieter but still carrying clearly through the still air.
Justinian turns toward the sound, red hair shifting over his shoulders. He sees her—tall, silver-haired, eyes flashing silver as she stands a few paces away.
The woman with silver hair looks back at him, her gaze sharp and assessing. Her tunic, like his , is plain and unadorned, but she wears it with the easy confidence of someone who expects respect. She holds herself like a fighter—shoulders squared, chin tilted just slightly upward.
Justinian blinks, trying to piece together where he is, who she is, but his mind feels foggy.
The first voice, the panicked one, comes again, closer now.
"Hey!" A blur of black hair darts between them, and another woman bursts into view—shorter than the silver-haired one, though still taller than him. Her eyes snap to Justinian first, then to the silver-haired woman, then back again. She looks like she's trying to decide whether to run or fight.
Justinian raises his hands, palms out, in what he hopes is a non-threatening gesture. "Hey, easy," he says, voice cracking slightly. He clears his throat. "I don't know where we are either."
The silver-haired woman's brow furrows. "You're not... from here?"
Justinian replies in a tone full of injustice "No I was kidnapped by a psycho who claimed to be a god"
The silver-haired woman's eyes narrow, and she looks at him as though she's trying to decide if he's joking. "A god," she repeats, the word flat and disbelieving.
Justinian shifts his weight, feeling the strange, new strength in his legs. "Yeah, a god. Or something like one. He had this—" He gestures vaguely with both hands, trying to mimic the vast, impossible scale of what he'd seen. "—all this power, and he said he was bored or something. And then I woke up here."
The black-haired woman steps forward, arms crossed tight over her chest. "You saw him too! I thought I was insane," she says, her voice higher than before.
The silver-haired woman glances between them, and Justinian realizes she's weighing whether they're telling the truth or just trying to confuse her.
He watches them both—the silver-haired one, standing steady like she's waiting for a fight, and the black-haired one, breathing hard like she's having a panic attack.
"So what," the silver-haired woman says, "we're all... wherever this is. Together."
Justinian shrugs. "Looks that way."
The black-haired woman huffs out a laugh that sounds more like a sob. "Great. Just great."
Justinian looks at the two women and thinks now would be a good time to introduce himself "Well since we're stuck with each other I'm Justinian Lock or Justin for short."
With a annoyed look he adds "My mom was a history teacher"
Before continuing "I'm a Seventeen year old High School student…or at least I was"
Silence hangs in the air, thick and charged, as Justinian waits for their response. The silver-haired woman tilts her head slightly, studying him with an expression that somehow manages to be both skeptical and pitying at once.
"Seventeen," she repeats, drawing the word out like she's testing its shape. "You're a child."
Justinian bristles, his shoulders squaring automatically. "I'm not a child," he says, and his voice comes out sharper than he intended. He can feel his face warming, and he hates it—the way his body betrays him like this.
The silver-haired woman, just watches him. She doesn't smirk or gloat, but something in her gaze softens, just slightly. "You look like one," she says simply.
Justinian opens his mouth to argue, then closes it again. He does feel young here, surrounded by trees that tower above him like skyscrapers, wearing a tunic that feels both too rough and too thin against his skin. He doesn't know where he is or what dangers await. He's just a seventeen-year-old kid who got dragged here by something that called itself a god.
The Black haired woman who looks to have calmed down scoffs, breaking the silence. "Well, I'm twenty-seven, and Im the CEO of the tech company Bright. Lucia Bright, but you can call me Cia." She extends her hand, palm up, waiting.
Justinian stare at it for a second, then take it. Her grip is firm, almost too firm, like she's trying to prove something. "Justinian," He says again, because apparently once wasn't enough.
"And I'm Clarissa West, or Claire" the silver-haired woman says, her voice quieter now. She doesn't offer a hand. "Twenty-two. I was a professional MMA fighter."
Justinian tries to absorb all this. Twenty-seven, twenty-two, seventeen. A CEO, a martial artist, and a high school student.