I lay there thinking, am I dead? Is this really what the afterlife is, confusion or misery, or is it just me waking up with a knot on my head?

"Ow, owowow! What the-" I looked on the ground and I see apples everywhere on the ground, they must have fallen from the tree. I sit up and look at the tree, as I get up I hear rustling in the trees like a bird messing in its nest. I began to look closely then suddenly a girls face comes down right in front of mine.

"Hello!" said the girl as I nearly fall to the ground nearly soiled myself from how scared I was. I look up to see a girl about my age but she seems a bit older. She has brown funky hair that looks like it was never combed, dirt on her face, and, oh yeah she was hanging from a branch with her legs.

"You get scared easily, hahaha." says the girl as she grabs an apple from the tree and takes a bite.

"What the...who are you-ow!" I asked her as I forgotten about the large knot on my head.

"Where'd you get that knot on your forehead?" said the girl as she takes another bite.

"Probably from you moving in that tree and causing all those apples to fall on me while i was napping."

"You were napping here? Huh, guess I didn't see you." She takes one more bite and throws the apple, then she swings from the branch and does a front flip right in front of me and flips her hair back. I got a good look at her face, she has multicolored eyes, on the left is a blue eye, and on the right is a green eye. She also has a scar coming from her bottom lip. As I was looking at her she stands straight up and holds out her hand in a fast motion.

"Hi there, the names uh . . . for get my real name, just call me Terity."

"Terity huh........uh...na . . . names Kodath." I reach out to shake her hand as she grabs mine and shakes it violently.

“Weird, Kodath sounds like a name for a lion cub.”

“Uh okay….” Ive never seen her in the village before, was she new, was she in the meeting in the old house and I just didn’t see her.

“C’mon I want you to meet my brother!”

“Your brothe-whoa!” She jerked me forward and started running which made me start to run really fast and soon I fell and started falling down a hill. I roll into a field of morning glory. I get up and brush off the grass and observe the stains on me. I look around and see Terity holding my aviator hat.

“What’s this doohickey?” she asked as she puts in on her head.

“That’s my grandpa’s aviator hat, give it back!”

“Tee-hee, here.” She handed it back and looks around the field.

“So where’s your brother?” she looks at me and then whistles with two of her fingers. Then I heard a rustling in the grass and when I went to check a kid about a few years younger than me jumps out and scares me.

“Ta-da!” says Terity as she looks at me on the ground. “Man Kodath you’re a scaredy cat! Ha, funny, Kodath sounds like a lion and your scared like a cat, humor amuses me.”

“Shut up.” As I get up and I see a boy who has very spiky hair like I’ve never seen before. He also has a messed up looking eye, it has no color, its all white like an albino.

“Hallo! My names Odysseus, but pretty much everyone calls me Odd.”

“I can see why.” I stare at them with confusion and with an impressed feeling, but something in me feels lightened and excited, but I try to ignore it and begin to wonder who they are.

“Where did you guys come from?”

“Uh from the village silly!” said Terity but she’s the kind of girl where you can tell if she’s lying, she is. Big time.

“No your not, I know and recognize almost everyone in the village and I would believe to at least suspect to recognize a couple of zig zags like you two.”

Terity has a guilty look on her face and then faces to her brother who then just speaks out loud.

“Oh lets just tell him, what could happen, sorry that my sister is causing you trouble, um how should I say this…we come from…the city….heh.”

The city. The city. The city. That’s all I could think about when he said that. All sorts of questions went through my mind, who are they, are they spies, how did they get here, how did they…? Then I thought to myself, I’m done with asking myself questions, its now time for answers.

“Who are you, how did you get here?”

“Calm down alright were not here to kill anyone, we just broke out of the city and decided to see what the outside world is like.” Explained Odd as he pulls out a stick and starts carving shapes into the dirt.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I and my brother here are just peasants inside the city, we didn’t even know there was a village outside here until a few weeks ago.

“Wait….you didn’t?”

“No, were cut off from the outside world, I don’t think almost everyone knew you guys are out here.”

“But bu-u what uh I mean, wha….what’s it like inside…” I hesitated and started to sweat.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean what’s in there, is there cool stuff like machines, better flying airships?”

“Well we do have Coal burning turbine carts that hover.” said Terity.

“What’s that?”

“You don’t know what a Hover cart is?” said Odd.

“No, I never used any equipment the I.P.L. uses.”

They look confused and shocked, like me right now.

“Really? Wow I guess the rumors were right, you are an out of date village.”

“Only because of rich people like you take away our resources and take away our people!” I blurted out as they look at me with a questionable face.

“Hahaha were not rich, I could barely afford clothes.” said Terity.

“Yeah were just uh . . . orphans living within the city, yeah. Who got bored and just left, until we discovered your village, we thought we could start a new life here, and it feels amazing!” shouted Odd.

Then when Kodath sits down in the grass Odd grabs a pair of goggles from a bag on his back and puts them on, they look like regular goggles you'd wear on a plane to not get dust in your eye but when he flipped a latch on the side a pair of magnifying glasses came out from the side as Odd grabbed a piece of rock from his back. When I sat up to get a good look at it, it was just a plain rock, but a very shiny one. It had cuts on it and it looked like a sapphire, but the blueness of it looked like it was glowing in the sunlight, like an aura was inside of it moving, like a raincloud brewing up a storm.

“Aint she a pretty.” says Odd as he examines it.

“What is it?” I asked without taking my eyes off of it.

“The I.P.L. calls it Shrimstone. Its the same rock that keeps coming from the ground and causing all these earthquakes.”

Then I blink a couple of times to finally realize that this is the stuff Tayler was talking about, the same material the I.P.L was sucking out of that mine with that contraption they had. Something tells me that we are being withheld information that could help us with this situation. I imagine my father talking to me, telling me to keep calm and to not worry about what will happen, as long as I have my mother nothing is wrong.

But I cant hear him. He's so far away for me to hear.

Then Odd puts the rock back in his bag and pulls out a piece of food that looks like bark from a tree. He then puts it in his mouth and starts to suck on it.

“Um.....what are you eating?” I say

“Itsth a peicth of candthy barkth.” says Odd with his mouth full. So I turn and stare at Terity and ask the same question again.

“Its candy bark they sell in Tretopolis, they coat it in honey suckle then mix it with sugar and cocoa bean syrup.”

“Sounds tasty.” I say

“Its quite addicting, here have a piece.”

She hand me a piece as I pop one in my mouth, at first it tasted like ashes from a fire pit then when the aftertaste kicked in, the sweet taste of honey cocoa when my grandma used to make kicked in. My grandma made the best cocoa in the village, she had a shop where Aunt Calla’s bread shop is. Then when I turned nine she passed away at the age of 76.

After about ten minutes of sucking on the bark Odd pulls out 2 containers, he then puts his piece of bark in the container. When he closes the container it collapsed itself around the bark sealing it.

“Whoa what is that?” I say.

“It’s a sealer, you put food in it, seal the top off, then crush it in your hands and it lets all the air out so it doesn’t get spoiled.”

“That’s real neat.”

“What you don’t have anything like that?”

“No we don’t, we don’t have any of that candy bark, we don’t have any of your cool contraptions you have in the city either.”

“Really, wow.” Says Terity as she fixes her hair with her hands but all she does is makes it more messy.

“What’s it like in the city.” I say

“We’ll talk about it later, do you think we can stay with you for tonight.” Says Odd taking off his goggles.

“I have no idea, my mom never really turned down someone in need but I have no idea how she’ll react to a couple of kids who are from the city. Cause she basically knows everyone and their children.”

“Oh don't exaggerate, I'm sure she’ll be a sweetheart.” says Terity as she fixes her clothes as I get done sucking on the bark and toss it in the field. We start to walk up the field and back into the village I realize that its almost sunset, so I’ll have to go grab some bread and money from the bread shop, when I went to turn around and tell Odd and Terity, they disappeared. These events have made me delirious and sick to my stomach.

I went and got my money and when I went to walk home I see the I.P.L. with tons of those things on wheels carrying metal scraps into the mine. Along with tools and supplies, they seemed to have the whole area surrounded and doesn’t want anyone to interfere, so I keep walking to my house to see my mom at the window so I know she's home tonight, but I still don't see those two weirdoes anywhere so I just keep walking home.

As I walk into my home I set my things plus my aviator goggles on the table and I take off my shoes. As I walk into the main room I start to hear chatter thinking mom has company over, when I come into the room I see my mom talking to Odd and Terity. My heart immediately started to race but I remained cool.

“Hey mom” I say as she kissed me on the cheek.

“Hey sweetie, how come you never introduced me to your new friends?

“Well you see I just met them cause their from the ci-”

“Were from the small part of the village,” says Terity interrupting me. “its just our parents didn't want us and we just ran away a long time ago so we just wanted to ask if we cant stay here until its time to go.”

“I don't see a problem, sure why not.” says my mother as she takes the cups of tea from Odd and Terity and walks to the kitchen. I look at Terity who just has this grin on her face.

“How come you didn't want me to say you were from the city?”

“Because we don't want to be called ‘Those city folk’ around here cause we just want to start off in a new place like this village.”

Then Odd yawns and gets up to stretch.

“I don’t know ‘bout you two, but I want to catch the sandman’s storm and sleep.”

“Yeah its pretty late.” I say