First Impressions

     "Alright, Liz, cough it up. Who is he?"

     "And how'd he get past our soldier boy!? Dude, nobody messes with our mini monster truck!"

     "Hey!! You! Goose! You're the soldier here, I'm your captian!! Now zip that beak of yours!!"

     "Hah! Right, Goose! Take that!"

     "Ow!! What was that for!?"

     "You deserved it, blockhead!"

     "...Liz, we're not kidding. Nobody brings in a recruit without asking Crawna first."

     "Well..."

     I open my eyes. I shut them again immediately, desperately wiping the image from my now scalded eyeballs.

     The voices go silent. All six of them. My ears can practically see their critical stares, boring straight through me like mouse holes in cheese. I try to die by sheer force of will.

     "...So," the first voice begins. "First things first. What's your name?"

     There's an awkward silence. It stretches painfully on, and on, and on. I think I feel my face turning blue.

     "Liz, d'you think your snail killed him?" she asks.

     "What? Oh, no, of course not! Nobody's ever come out dead. If Charice suffocates someone, she never lets them out again."

     "Oh. Go figure."

     There's another silence. At least a dozen feet shuffle uncomfortably as they wait for something to happen, suddenly shy with a stranger listening in. Then someone jabs my cheek and bursts out laughing.

     I can't help it. I open my eyes.

     Yup, there's Elizabeth Marcomb, a dazzling smile of sunshine flaying my retinas until my brain goes up in smoke. This alone would be bad enough. But there's also her giant cyborg snail, and the Dwarf [Bren], and a scattered group of teenagers with eccentric punk written in capital letters on their foreheads [metaphorically, of course]. There's a wooden table that's somehow growing leaves, and a couple suspiciously knotty chairs. Beneath us is a bed of dried oak leaves, shaded by the overhanging branches of an ancient tree.

     Hold on. I had been caught under an ancient tree before being interrogated by a dwarf, rescued by a damsel and kidnapped by a giant snail (in that order). Of this, strange as it sounds, I'm pretty sure. I remember the tree branches splaying out in a perfect circle and touching all the way to the ground, like a tightly woven cage with its trunk at the center. The tree I'm staring at now is exactly the same...but much more spacious. Before, I could touch the trunk and the tips of the branches at the same time. Now it's twice the length. And besides, since when were all the people and furniture there?

     I risk a harder look at the tree trunk. It looks like the wood had once been inspired by Gothic art and decided to grow a giant throne for fun.

     Okaaaaay, so I don't know where I am or how I got here. At least it's a start.

     A gangsterly girl's face swoops by inches from mine. I flinch and stare up at her in shocked silence.

     "Heya," she says casually. She stabs my cheek again with a long green fingernail. "So I just brought you back from the dead. Wanna thank me?"

     "I told you, he wasn't dead!" Elizabeth chimes.

     "Let the chico talk, will ya? Cool." The girl turns back to me, her breath hot in my ear. I take in her face with a hasty glance: narrowed eyes that stab people's souls by default, green streeks dyed in her dirty blonde hair, a face like an insect. "I'm still waiting..." she sings.

     "Oh - uh - thank you."

     I start to lift my head, but her leer pushes me back down.

     "Your name, lone stranger," she hisses. "Spit. It. Out."

     There isn't a sword this time, but somehow her words cut sharper than steel ever could.

     "C-c-clay Guo," I gasp.

     "Oh, really?" she says, raising an eyebrow. "Bren said you were River Muck or something another."

     I can only gaze at her like an idiot, my flow of thought tripping over itself in its mad scramble for words. That was the Dwarf's fault, I start to say.

     "That...sorry," I finish.

     She stares at me so hard I think my hair will catch on fire. So this is the club president, I decide. The one named Crawna. I get the feeling that my life depends on her passing whims.

     I picture the calculations clinking through her mind: scrawny 14-year-old boy, really pale for an Asian, major stage/crowd-fright, unathletic, unbrainy, the epitome of uselessness. Why would anyone want to keep me?

     But finally she shrugs, ruffles my hair, and laughs. I hear a giggle from the group.

     "Alright, mah Clan!" she proclaims, rising. "We've got ourselves a replacement for The Prince! Everyone, say 'hi' to our newest member, Cuh-laaaay!!"

     The

     I can describe all I want about ink blots turning into a jack-o-lantern with four eyes, or clouds turning into a tyrannisoar. It won't convey that feeling of complete disaster. It's not the shape that changes, you see; it's my point of view. Or in this case, my entire concept of how the world works.

     The trunk is, and always has been, a giant wooden throne. All trees have it in them, I realize. It's just that nobody takes long enough to find it.

     Justavia