《Between Space》


 Introductory Chapter

    Zander''s life had always been a little off. He would constantly find himself in locations that he shouldn''t have feasibly been able to get to. When he was seven he ended up in the next town over. When he was 9 he was found 3 states away from his foster care home. As he got older he would end up in random building with no recollection of how he got there. By the time he was 17 he had gotten used to it. He had stopped by a convenience store on his way home from work to grab a drink and some snacks. It was when he was about to be home that it happened, he fell unconscious for a moment and when he opened his eyes he was elsewhere.


    Zander stood up surveying the surroundings. A vast field of slightly luminescent scarlet colored glass. A few trees scattered about broke up the monotonous red of the grass, though there wasn''t much else to see. The glowing red fields were a sight to behold for him, albeit confusing. These weren''t sights he was used to in the states, but he was used to ending up in weird places and just figured he was in some natural wonder. The only thing that confused him was the lack of any human presence. There were no roads, nor buildings around for as far as he could see. The only reason a landscape as beautiful as this one wouldn''t be monetized would be because of dangers.


    Doing a quick 360 to see if there was a direction that would be better to head towards he saw saw a forest densely packed with trees. It appeared to be around a 2 hour walk from where he was standing, and he quickly made his way towards it. He luckily still had his grocery bag from the store which had 3 bottles of water, a package of teriyaki beef jerky, and a chocolate covered granola bar. It wasn''t much but at the very least he should have enough to find a nearby human settlement to bring him home.


    ~2 hours later


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    Zander felt exhausted. The sun beat down on him unrelentingly. He was still only halfway on what should''ve been a roughly 2 hour walk. He felt like he had been walking forever, but his phone told him it was still under 2 hours, just at the 1:50 mark. He had eaten the granola bar as a snack earlier, but it wasn''t enough and he was seriously regretting skipping lunch today. He vowed that once he got back he would never skip lunch again.


    ~1hr30m later


    He had managed to arrive at the start of the forest. The sky had begun to darken around 30 minutes prior, and there wasn''t much light left. He checked his phone, Only 56% battery, and still no reception. The possibility that he was not even on earth had crossed his mind a few times and was growing even more likely. The trees grew an odd hue of blue, and the grass grew red. The lack of cell reception when most places on earth now had it was another red flag. The fear of that shook him greatly, if he was no longer on earth there was a very slim chance he would survive with the materials he had. He was running on an empty stomach and only had a pack of beef jerky to eat, not to mention he was down to one and a half bottles of water. He thought, and he thought and he thought, but it didn''t help so he pulled himself together because he didn''t have much light left and he at least needed a shelter before dark. He gathered up as many sticks as he could, weaving them in a basket pattern as a sort of makeshift wall. By the time he had finished this one there was only the dim light of the moon, which turned out to be green. Definitely not Earth. Propping his phone up against a tree with the flashlight on he continued to work. He didn''t want to waste his battery this early, by it was necessary. Constructing two more makeshift walls he placed the corners against the other wall corners and leaned them against a tree. Getting underneath his creating, he realized that he had wasted the last few hours and these did nothing for protection against wind, water, or anything for that matter. He was immensely hungry though, so he ate half the bag of jerky and fell into a deep sleep.

 Chapter 1

    When Zander awoke in the dead of night he felt cold penetrating deep into his body and was shivering heavily. He shot up immediately forgetting about the makeshift walls and accidentally knocked one over, bringing all the walls down. He groaned thinking about having to fix it, he would need to make it better as well.


    Setting his walls back up he checked his phone, about 30% left, and used his phone''s flashlight to search around for any decent sticks, and managed to find a few small armfuls worth of useable sticks. making intertwining basket pattern walls again, he stacked them on his current walls.


    On some video he had watched before about nature survival he had seen a guy use mud to make makeshift shelters more wind proof, and Zander thought it was worth a shot. He would need to find some source of water to be able to do it, since he could not use his drinking water as it was limited in quantity.


    After about 2 hours he had setup an extra layer of intertwined stick walls and crawled back inside to try and sleep again. Laying down, cold permeating his body, he wished that he was home with all his being. He shut his eyes and fell asleep...


    His eyes burst open, the sound of an air conditioner next to him, he was back in his room in his house. His eyes were wide, wondering if he had just dreamt that all, but the dirt on his clothes and the empty feeling in his stomach told him otherwise. Rushing to the bathroom he took a nice long warm shower, and proceeded to make himself toast with grape jam. A light snack to fill up his stomach a bit. As he began to bite into the toast the sweet taste of grape jam flourished inside of his mouth, and the world faded to black.


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    Back inside the forest he had found himself. This greatly upset him, but at the very least he still had his toast in hand. Quickly scarfing it down, he got to work as the sun had risen in the time he had been gone. The forest needed to be explored to try and find any material sources such as easy access to water or food.


    ~4 hours


    After hours of walking, he finally ran into a water source. He was now officially out of food as the beef jerky had been consumed on the walk here. Down to one bottle of water as well, although this river should be able to fix that. He decided to set up camp here, as walking back would be a waste of time.


    ~5 hours


    It was on the brink of the deep night, he had gotten quite a bit done. He had gathered a lot of sticks and wood he could find nearby, and had managed to find some sort of berries. He feared that they might be poisonous, but soon he would have no other choice but to eat them, unless he could catch some fish in the river. He had made a primitive cone fish trap by taking sticks he ripped off trees and weaving them like a basket to the shape of a cone., and he would check to see if he had caught anything in the morning. In addition to that he had added mud to the stick walls of his tiny house, hoping that at least it could shield him from the wind.


    He was pretty tired after he had done all this, and set to sleep for the night...