Discord Ch. 2: A Little Bit of Rain

[Discord is a very old passion project I have long since abandoned due to a severe amount of plotholes. I’ve been slowly posting edited versions of the chapters.]

(Woah! It’s been a while since I posted. Though I doubt anyone reads this. Anyway, for my nonexistent audience, here are some of those weird magic world shenanigans that I wrote a long time ago. Well, I did edit this a bunch, but that doesn’t count; the concepts and most of the phrasing remain the same. So uhhh enjoy!)

      Max blinked open his eyes, and he noticed that he was laying down on the ground. He immediately sat up but ended up crashing his head on something above him. Rubbing his head (and mourning over the loss of his last few brain cells), he looked up to see metal. It was his invention!

        His eyes fell on the ground where the carpet was now grass. He stood and analyzed his surroundings. He had been transported to a forest, except it wasn’t like one he’d seen before. The trees were crooked. They twisted this way and that as if they were a strange artistic sculpture. It smelled like nature, as it should have, and the air was a lot cleaner and easier to breathe. It was quiet and eerie, yet mysterious, magical, and almost fantastical like something out of a fairy tale. The atmosphere felt different- unearthly. And it wasn’t just the lack of air pollution.

        Had the portal transported him to another planet? Or maybe even a whole other dimension? Wherever he was, he definitely wasn’t in Arizona anymore (he would say this aloud if he had a dog in a basket to say it to).

       He stopped to backtrack. If he was on another planet, then he had made a brand new scientific discovery. His eyes lit up. He had only one thought on his mind: collecting data. Dirt samples, plant samples…probably just samples- and maybe some notes too. All of his stuff was in his backpack, which he always carried around in case of any logical emergencies- for example, the inevitable zombie apocalypse.

        Maxwell was taking out his sample tubes when he heard a rustling behind him. He immediately turned around, but the rustling had stopped. It must have been an animal, something he had still to see. Only a second or two later, just when he was directing his attention back to his work, the sound resumed. He quickly looked up and his eyes locked on the source of the noise, a bush. 

        A figure suddenly stumbled out with a yelp. It looked human, but it had alien features. He looked the same as Max’s age. His eyes, hair, and skin were all shades of green, and green slime appeared to be dripping from his as if part of him. His clothes were normal and rather plain as if the tailor who made it was just introduced to the concept of t-shirts.

        When the figure had regained his balance, he looked up, and his eyes and met Max’s. They seemed to hold each other’s gaze for a while before Max decided to don a friendly smile and strike up a conversation.

        “Um, hi. I’m Maxwell. I’m from Earth…unless I’m still on Earth.”

        “Er-Earth?” the boy stuttered, his expression one of helpless terror, “I-I-I…”

        Max quickly blocked his path, attempting to maybe figure out where he was. “Hey, I’m not going to hurt you.”

        The green humanoid didn’t seem to like this. He whimpered and frantically backed away right to where the portal was standing. Hitting the metal, he tripped and fell, not forward but backward, in the direction of the portal. He landed on the machine, but instead of it crashing under him, it slowly went right through him, a thick slimy substance leaving in its wake. Sparks flew from it and it began to catch fire. This, of course, only caused the figure to grow more frightened. He quickly stood up and ran out of the clearing, not looking back, taking some screws and scraps with him.

        Maxwell gaped at his invention which was now crumpled, distorted, and covered in slime. Small flames were licking the metal and electricity crackled from split wires poking out from cracks like a cactus. It was completely ruined. How would he get back? He can’t be stuck here forever. There were people who cared about him. His mother would be worried sick about him when she found out that he never came back from summer camp. And worse, his sister would transform his bedroom into her personal living room. But- what if he was just dreaming? Yeah, that was possible.

        He closed his eyes hoping to be in the closet with his faulty invention safe and sound, waiting to be bullied by Spark and his gang, but when he opened his eyes, he was still in the forest. He pinched himself, rubbed his eyes, everything. It didn’t work. With a frustrated cry, he slammed his fist into a tree trunk. Pain shot through his arm. Shaking his hand in an attempt to shake off the discomfort, Max decided that the best thing to do was to find shelter. And so, taking a sample of the slime, he zipped up his bag and began to hike through the woods.

        After a few minutes, he felt a water droplet on his nose. He wiped it off then felt another one. He looked up and noticed that it was raining. With the crummy luck he had, of course it was. Except…the water was sticky? He stuck out his tongue and tasted something sugary and sweet. It almost tasted like…vanilla ice cream! Raining vanilla ice cream? It wasn’t possible. But still, here he was, sticky vanilla liquid catching in his mouth…as well as everywhere else. When he realized this, he immediately broke into a run desperate to find shelter. Water was fine, but not this sticky not-water. Sure the trees gave him some coverage, but not enough to shield him from the downpour of dessert.

        Then, the trees thinned out, and in front of him stood a large reddish-purple mahogany mansion. Shelter! Would the owners mind if he went in? Nah! It was raining they’ll understand.

        He walked up to the house. It had an awning. That was good. There wasn’t a doorbell though and instead, one of those old-fashioned door knockers held by the mouth of a perfectly carved skull. Not creepy at all.

        Anxiously, he knocked on the door. No response. So, he knocked again. Still nothing. So then, he did the next logical thing, knock a whole bunch and shouted “Hello!? Anyone home!?!” Even so, no dice. 

       Well then, there was only one option left: barge right in. With zero hesitation, he opened the door- which was surprisingly unlocked -and put a foot in the doorway. When it didn’t find solid ground, he lost balance and fell face first a whole two stories, hitting the ground hard. 

       He sat up with a groan. How was he still alive? It should’ve killed him. He didn’t even break anything. Heck, he barely felt any pain now! Was this how cartoon characters felt?

       He looked up from where he fell to see the door. Why was the door up there? It was almost as if the house had flipped around and everything on the floor had been transported to the ceiling. Maybe he was underground and the house was built to trick others…and maybe the actual house was just fake to give the illusion that it turned upside down. No, but there were windows. Reluctantly, he dismissed the strange occurrence and he began to look around.

        The floor was a dark polished stone, and there was only a coat rack where the door was supposed to be. The windows were an opaque black and framed with dark curtains. In the room stood a small mahogany table and next to it a couch and rug underneath. In front was a black-framed fireplace. On the other side of the room was another small table with flowers unlike anything he had seen, a desk with a pinkish glow illuminating from the lamp, and a chair in front of the desk. Half the wall was dark wood while the other was a fancy purple wallpaper and on the wallpaper, multiple framed pictures were hung; there weren’t people in them though, just scenery and flora and animals. Everything made of wood was dark black ebony while almost everything else was purple. Whoever the owner was seemed to like those two colors.

        He only took one step before there was a whir and a blue light flickered like dim headlights. Like the dopey deer he was, he turned to it, and out from the dark far corner of the room came a metal being with bright blue eyes. It had a human form plated with metal and buttons, but its face wasn’t as human, more machine-like. Its head was a round oval with no mouth and large square panes for eyes.

        “State your name,” it said in the iconic android voice.

        Max’s jaw practically fell to the floor. “Oh my gosh! Are you a robot?” he asked, paying little to no attention to the demand for his name.

        The robot just stared at him and repeated, “State your name.”

        “Umm…Maxwell Silvers,” he answered. Hopefully, his compliance would allow him to study it more.

        “Name not in database.” Its blue eyes flickered grey then turned red. “Intruder.”

        Max’s eyes widened. “Wait, what?!”

        The robot held out his hand, and it began to pulse red. Max ducked as a scalding hot laser shot out of the robot’s hand and onto the wall. Strangely, the wall wasn’t affected by the blast. This only distracted Max for a second before he snapped out of his thoughts and ran behind a couch which he flipped over as a barricade. Hopefully, that was blast-proof as well. Taking out his heat blaster (which he created himself. It probably wasn’t legal though…), he aimed it at the robot ready to press the trigger. He saw as the robot charged another blast, and he braced himself. But then he heard a booming voice that rang out across the room.

        “Trespasser!!”

        Out of the shadows of the hallway, a figure stepped out into the light of the entryway. She was a girl, Max’s age, with violet hair, and blue eyes under horn-rimmed glasses. She wore a black cloak that covered her entire body. 

        Her glower almost immediately popped into a smile. “Welcome to my home.”

[Just barely 6 pages]