Breaking The Boundaries Of Our Worlds

Chapter 1: Into The Rabbit Hole

I was floating accrues a sea of tranquillity, nothing to disturb me and noting I had to worry about. It was blissful.
I knew full well that I was asleep, but after the rough week I had been through a good sleep in was what I deserved. I kept dipping in and out of conscience, and whenever I did I would glace towards the clock in my room. I knew there was something I had to get up for, but whatever it was It could wait.

Ring, Ring!

“Ah Jesus!” I shouted as my body jerked forwards, you see this would be fine if my body was lying flat but as I was sleeping at an angle my head quickly collided with my bedside table, resulting in the rest of my body falling off the bed and being covered by my quilt. The phone went off again but sounded much worse than it actually was due to the rapidly developing headache I was getting. I reached over to the phone without looking and held it against my ear “hello” I said.
“Dude where the hell are you?” the voice on the other side said.
The voice was familiar to me but my sleep deprived brain wouldn’t connect the dots fast enough “Uh I am in my room.” I replied.
“kyle its half ten you were supposed to be here half an hour ago get your ass here now” and with that the phone call disconnected I glimpsed at the screen to see who it was to see in bold letters my friends name James on the screen, along with around fifteen un replied texted. All with the same basic principle of him asking where the hell I was.
Shit there was something I was supposed to do today but what the hell was it? I thought to myself as I got up. The world around me was a slight blur due to the developing head ace, I reached over to my bedside table to grab the paracetamol I usually left on there, and walked out the room as I swallowed a few.
Inside my bathroom I had a good look at the red mark that was on my head, I was able to hide it under some dark brown hair “I seriously need to get that cut sometime next week” I said to myself before taking a good at myself. My usually green eyes were bloodshot, along with some dark rings under them due to lack of sleep. The rest of me was in order the spots on my face were going slowly now that pubery has had its run, which is something I am very proud of to be done with. The hormones and mood swings were no problem, it was mostly the voice breaks, they were fucking annoying.
Re-entering my room, I proceeded to get myself dressed and ready for whatever I was going to be doing today, some memories returned to me about James planning something, but I still couldn’t fully remember what I was supposed to be doing today. Walking out of my room I put on an old pendent while brushing my hand across a similarly old photo.
Walking down my stairs I heard a thump in my mother’s bedroom.
Dam she’s drunk again, guess I should tell her where I’m going to cover all basses.
“yea mum I’m spending the day with James, I will probably be back before dark.”
I waited on the stairs for a response, just before I turned around to enter her room before I heard
What sounded like a muffled ok.
Right not drunk, just hungover I guess it’s a step up. Oh well at least I don’t have to put up with it.
I continued on downstairs walking towards the dining room putting on some shoes and my coat, feeling across my pockets I felt all the usual items I keep with me. Grabbing an apple as I walked out my front door, on a day that would change my life.

Around ten minutes later I finally rounded a corner that put James house into view. And there was James, standing outside. Walking up to him “hey, wadup freckles’ I said as I threw the now apple core into a bush. As you know its bio-degradable.
He looked over to me, scanning up and down he said “you’ve completely forgotten what where doing today haven’t you.” I nodded. “Right well I guess I can bring you up speed. Last week while you were drunk you said that we should do something together. After thinking hard, and throwing up you then came up with the plan of us three going hiking together, you then proceeded to attempt to set fire to a tree while singing I don’t want to set the world on fire, before promptly passing out after realising the so called lighter you were using was your phone.”
So that’s the reason my phone smells like birch.
James then continued, “Right seeming as you walked here you have also forgotten how we were getting to our destination.”
“well I was goanna go with the eagles.” I replied, knowing exactly what he meant
“look let’s just walk to your house, I will text Ryan saying were goanna be late.”
We continued walking towards my house, each of us making idle conversation until we both returned to my house and jumped in my car.
“kyle are you sober you look kinda out there?” James asked
“Uh yea I believe I’m sober, I haven’t had a drink since Sunday I believe, I just didn’t get much sleep last night.” Or the one before that, and the one before that, and the one before that.

Driving to Ryan’s house was uneventful with barely any traffic. The weather was nice but I was getting a feeling it was going to go south later.
“well here we are, I don’t understand why Ryan had to move away it just made things difficult for everyone.” I said
James looked over to me after putting his phone in his coat, “well his old house was rented, and the lease on it had ran out, and his neighbours went the best to live with.
I rolled my eyes looking over to his house as he had just walked out his house. Rolling down my winnow I called out “what’s up ginger nut.”
Comically in our old tradition he replied “Shut up you vegetarian pitiful excuse for a human.”
That chant had been our meeting call of years now. Me and Ryan had a passive aggressive friendship with each other, it never got too bad it was just normal for both of us. James on the other hand found it childish and that we should have dropped said childish names when we finished school, but then I would always reply to his argument by saying “well I will have you know that some of the strongest bonds out there are bound by violence, and our violence towards each other is just strengthening our bond as a whole.” He would then call me childish.
Even though I was the oldest of us three.

“you guys do know I’m not actually ginger just blond” Ryan said pulling me out of my nostalgia trip, before I hastily replied, “yea and what’s next, the moon isn’t made out of cheese.”
Ryan was now in the back seat of the car and I had just started pulling off as he put some headphones on “I’m just goanna take a quick nap, had a really bad night’s sleep.” He said before leaning back down.
I looked over to my left to see James pondering over his phone. “so, going to be telling me were going?”
“K and B woods, here I got the route on my phone.” James said showing me the list of directions to get there from where we are.
“James that’s like two hours away from here, I’m certain that there are plenty of woods with hiking routs in-between here and there.”
“well yea there are, but if you had paid more attention in geography you would know that these are some of the oldest woods in England, that are open to the public. To think we would be walking past trees that could have been around at the same time as the most influential people that have ever lived on this planet. I mean who wouldn’t want to see those trees.”
“I have no idea who wouldunt want to see that.” I sarcastically replied.
“just drive.” James said
The drive to the site was uneventful. The chat in the car was just idle ramblings’ about how we were doing. I kept telling James it looked like it was going to rain later, but he reassured me by showing the weather reports for the day were clear and the absolute worst we were going to have was a slight drizzle. But I still believed it would heavy rain. James then started to ramble on about the history of the forest, but I just blocked him out and resisted swinging all of us into a oncoming lorry or something of the same magnitude.
“all right now that we are here you get Ryan up and I will go and get some route maps from the ranger.” James said as he walked out the car.
I took a minuet to click my back and stretch and look over to Ryan, whom was fully out of it. And had a small amount of drool over my seat. “ah seriously man, you know what just for that.” I said as I pressed my hand on the car horn, resulting in a loud noise, making Ryan jump up only to wind himself against the seatbelt.
“ah seriously, that bloody hurt.” Ryan said in-between breaths.
“come on sleeping beauty, we got some dirt so see.” I said exiting the car.
Taking a look at my surroundings the trees surrounded the semi-gravel car park we had entered. The entire area looked like a mixture of green and brown, giving the entire area an olden vibe and a freshening feel to it. Taking some deep berths’ even the air seemed to be cleaner and freshening, making me happy as it was certainly an improvement to the constant greys of town, and the metal smell that was always constant at work. Looking over I saw James returning form a small wooden kiosk holding some folded maps in his hands.
He then proceeded to unfold one of the maps. “right I talked to the guy, there are six main routes we can take, all being roughly the same distance, but going in different directions before leading back here. He said route five has a temporary change to it due to some archaeological dig going on. I personally recommend route four as it takes us into some of the oldest parts of these woods.” James informed us wile tracing the different coloured lines on map symbolising the routes.
“eh whatever let’s just do route four then, it looks interesting enough.” I said with Ryan grunting in agreement while eating some crisps.
James then led us to the post that started the route into the woods. And so we started our journey.

An hour or so later we were still walking. “so Ryan how’s life been, haven’t been able to talk to you much over the last months.” I asked to try and relive the even increasing boredom from seeing nothing but trees and the occasional rock. Even the sky was gone now, covered over by the thick canopy.
“eh good I guess, I’ve been trying to get a small part time job, to help with paying for traveling in-between home and collage. Unfortunately, I just can’t seem to find a job that suits me, I know if money ever does become a problem I will just have to see work as a necessity and no matter how much I hate it I will just have to git my teeth, But for now, I just don’t want to get stuck in some desk job were every day is the same as the last. How about you, I never saw you as the engineer type.”
I understood where he was coming from, it was quite different from what I was expecting. “well its going better than I expected, it makes me happy to use my skills to help create. Rather than what the rest of my family wanted me to do.”
“What was that?” James asked, listening in on the conversation.
“well its apparently tradition in my family to join the army, everyone wanted me to sign strait up when I was old enough, just as my dad and brother had. That’s not to say I don’t think what the army does is evil or something, I fully understand the responsibility, but it just wasn’t for me, I don’t think I could ever actually kill let alone face someone, unless I had no other choice, but whenever I think about it I just cannot see myself living with the knowledge that I have killed. And I’ve always been into creating things, so when I did some work experience at a workshop I knew that being an engineer was for me. What about you James I remember you saying what courses you took but I don’t think you ever said what you were going to do after finishing them.”
James seemed to think of a response for a while before replying “well I’ve never really thought it fully through, I have narrowed my choses to, being a teacher but I don’t know what I would be teaching or studying a subject but once again I don’t know what I would research.”
“wow defiantly living an interesting life there James.” I sarcastically said. Ryan then jabbed me in the side “I mean just think about it this way your options are still open; you can do anything you want really.”
“yea I guess.” James answered. Killing the conversation.

The walk continued in silence for a while, until we had to avoid a massive amount of mud that had collected. I was thinking about how much all of us had changed the last few years, it used to be Ryan and James who had everything figured out in high school and I was just kinda getting along, but now times had changed. And I didn’t know if it was for the better.
An hour later and I had started to notice something, the path we were following didn’t seem to have any footprints on it. “uh James are we still on the path there isn’t any footprints in the dirt.”
We all stopped to inspect the ground below us until James said. “yea we must be, we’ve been following the arrows on the posts and we haven’t strayed from the path so I don’t think so, well unless you count the time we went round that massive pool of mud but remember we used your compass to redirect us back to the path.”
I put my hand against the inside pocket of my coat felling said compass, I also felt my phone next to it, I then realised something
Oh crap phones can mess with a compass.
“uh James, just thought I should tell you something about my compass, it may or may not be offset, due to having it next to my phone.” I said.
“What here let me have a look, and Ryan pass me your keychain compass.” We both did.
They were pointing in separate directions “well now that we know that can’t we just use the compass on my keys to return ourselves to the route?”
James shook his head “in a town or open field’s yes, but in the woods with no noticeable land marks we don’t know how far we’ve deviated, or were we are on the map.”
I started to reach into my pocket while saying “well we will have to use our phones then, they all have GPS we can just use that to find where we are.” I looked at my phone before realising. “dam no signal how about you guys, any luck.”
“nope, nothing.” James said.
“Same here.” Ryan added
“well it can’t all be that bad, I mean it’s not like were in the middle of the rain forest or anything, all we got to do is pick a direction and walk. Even if we don’t find the route well eventually find some parts of civilisation. And we these woods are not too big, give it a few hours and we will either be on one of the routes or be somewhere where we can get help. And hell it’s not like it’s raining or anything.” Ryan said.
Whatever god or god-like being listening in on our conversation, decided to than create a massive thunderous clap to eco around us, making all three of us jump.
“Good job Ryan, anything else you want to add, I don’t know how about a pack of wolves or even a bear to round it off.” I said.
“there aren’t any bears in England, and the weather for today reported it would only be a small drizzle, so noting to worry about.
It wasn’t a drizzle; it was an absolute downpour. And it had been going for hours, we were getting cold, hungry and tired
“D,d,d,dam this is cold, we need to find somewhere dry and soon.” I said stuttering now that the water had seeped through my coat drenching all of the layers I was wearing.
“I think o can see an over crop over there, hopefully the rock formation is on the map then we can find were we are.” James said wile pointing towards a small over crop, that went into the earth creating a small cave.
We walked inside of it looking around at the strange structure. James instantly got the map out and stared pondering over it trying to find were we are.
“I got a bad feeling about this” Ryan said.
“well keep it to yourself, you’ve already jinxed us enough.” I replied.
Ryan rolled his eyes while taking a swig from his water bottle before placing it on the grass outside to let it collect water.
James grunted and scrunched up the now soaked map, stuffing it in his pocket, then saying “Brilliant were still lost and now it’s getting dark, looks like were stuck. My phone died ages ago, and I’m hungry.”
“hey come on its not so bad just think It as camping, just without a tent, or food, or a proper bed, ok it’s not really camping but people have survived trough worse. All we got to do is either wait for it to stop raining so we can continue walking, or we can wait for it to get fully dark then one of us can climb a tree and look for any lights from a nearby town or something.” I said trying to help keep morale up, sly jokes aside, the one thing we don’t need to be doing right now is fighting.
I then continued with, “anyway James if this cave isn’t on the map that could possibly mean it hasn’t ever been recorded before, I mean just look at these strange markings here.” The strange markings were on one of the sides of the caves wall I had noticed.
“Markings where?” James asked, before basically pushing me out the way while getting out a small notepad to scribble down stuff.
I looked over to Ryan who was watching the rain on the ever decreasing light, so I just sat down on a mostly dry patch of ground pulling out a bene from my pocket and pulling it over my head and eyes to try and get some rest while waiting for the rain to pass.
I must have stumbled out of concise a few of times while sitting there. I fully awoke when James released a “ugh” sound, folding up my bene so I could see James slide down the rock wall next to me.
“it’s Fake, must be part of a new route with loads of history stuff, I mean look here” he pulled out his notepad with a few drawings and notes on it, “look here these drawings are in the style of the iron age, you know around the time of the stone age. however, it then has Greek mythological creatures on it. Finally, it uses a paint that didn’t arrive in England until the beginnings of the British empire. I mean seriously do your research.” James said before returning his notepad back in his pocket and slouching himself down.
“hey come one it’s not that bad, so what if it’s not some massive find, at least now we know that were near one route, all we have to do is look around and we will probably find some path dug out or something.” I said.
“Yea I guess” James replied.
I looked over to Ryan trying to see if he could help me cheer James up. He seemed to notice me and stood up brushing himself off, “hey It has gotten fully dark now I’m goanna fine a tree or something to climb up and have a look.” He said before starting to walk into the night. It also seemed to get jams attention.
“hey wait its pitch black outside, even if you do find something how will you find your way back.” He Said.
Ryan chuckled to himself, and said “easy I’m just goanna tie my light to a tree nearby so all I have to do Is look for the light.”
“fine but if you do find a way out and don’t come back for us, I will haunt the shit out of you.” I replied.
Ryan then walked out of the cave, tying a torch to a tree branch and walking to find some city lights. I returned to my sitting position to conserve warmth.

A while later I was sitting thinking to myself, when the loudest thunder clap I have ever lit up the entire forest sending a wave of static energy trough the ground making all the hair on my body stand on edge. Me and James both jumped up looking outside for the source of the noise.
We started shouting Ryan’s name with no response until James said “Look Kyle something is wrong Ryan wouldunt of gone that far and with that bang, something bad has happened, we need to find him.”
I looked over to him and nodded before saying “fine but don’t lose sight of me we don’t want to spend all night looking for each other.” We then both nodded before stepping back into the rain walking straight to the torch he had tied to a branch. A cold feeling rushed over me as we both noticed the batteries had died.
We continued walking along looking for Ryan with no success, I was following James, when I heard something to my left stopping I looked over, I shined the torch over hoping to see Ryan and that he fallen over some deadwood or something. I couldn’t properly see from where I was so I walked over to the source of the noise.
After walking around a small bush I found the source of the noise. It was a small woodland fox biting down on a very unlucky rabbit, it saw me and hastily ran away. Smiling to myself I slowly turned around saying “Just A fox James.” I then realised I had never told James to stop.
Franticly looking around and shouting both Ryan’s and James names I had now gotten myself lost. Panic had now started to overcome me, trying to remain calm I continued my search.
I was about to go into full blown panic mode when I saw the woods in front of myself light up in a light blue hue, I turned around expecting to see James or Ryan standing there, but instead I found something far beyond my realm of comprehension.
It was light blue around the edges with an off white core, floating a few feet above the ground the thing stood small blue arcs struck the area around it. It had a primary round structure, but the entire thing seemed unstable. It gave of a small humming sound as the very ground around seemed to resonate with it.
Even though I had no idea what it was I was captivated by it. The warmth it emitted felt like it was drying all the rain off me, I involuntary found myself walking towards it. The brightness of it felt like it was blinding me after my eyes being in the low light for so long. Yet I now found myself reaching towards it, I was now almost touching it, my hand just kept getting closer and closer to it.
Kyle stop now, Kyle stop you don’t know what this thing is it could kill you please just sto. AHAHAHAaA.
The pain was unfathomable my entire being was pulled into the light, my eyes slammed shut against the now burring light. I started to scream as my entire skin felt like it was burning off, so much that my voice box raised my voice a few octaves. My fingers went numb, as so did my toes, cramping my entre leg and forcing it upwards, I tried stretching it back down but they wouldn’t go back. My ankle twitched straight and a pulling sensation in my foot just added to the massive amount of pain I was going through. Then there was a pulling sensation against the base of my spine it continued until I thought my spine had now increased in length.
Then the pain focused on my back a stabbing sensation went along both my shoulder blades but instead of stabbing inwards it pulled outwards until a strange feeling came over me, I almost fought through the pain and opened my eyes until it came. The worst pain I had ever experienced in my life.
My entire skull crushed itself along with my jaw each pushing in different directions, forcing my mouth shut, then my entire hearing went as my ears pulled themselves up my scull, then my eyes started burning again even though they were still closed.
As what I saw as the ultimate mercy, my brain gave in. pulling me unto sweet sweet unconsciousness.

Shadows were around me blowing in a strong in-existent wind, in front of me was a mirror, but I didn't have a reflection, instead there was a shadow, I watched in horror as it shrunk down and changed shape into something unknown. I reached to touch the mirror but when it did it smashed. And I awoke.

Gasping for air my body jerked awake, I opened my eyes only to be greeted with a blinding light, I hastily shut them again I reached my hand out to rub against them to find my hand was numb, I tried feeling my other hand but that too was numb. “what the hell happ.” I stopped what I was saying when I noticed something.
That’s not my voice.
It wasn't the voice that had come out my mouth was more suited to a girl than me. Now in full blown panic I opened my eyes reeling against the light I tried to focus on something, anything. Looking down at my hand all I saw was a red blur.
Oh shit I'm bleeding, crap where is the blood coming from I need to. Wait I don’t feel like I'm bleeding.
Now trying harder than ever my eyes focused in on my hand. But there was a problem. My hand wasn't covered in blood, this was worse, it was dark red fur. And it wasn’t a hand either, this was more akin to a horses’ hoof than anything.
Shaking my head to try and remove the fog over my mind only brought my hair all over my vision making it all blue and green. I quickly brushed it out of the way before looking at what used to be my hand.
“wait my hair isn’t that long” I said, my ears twitching away, with my still feminine voice. I then realised ears aren't supposed to twitch, shutting my eyes, my breath started to quicken, everything was wrong, very wrong.
Come on now. Inhale count to ten, exhale, repeat.
I repeated the steps until I had managed to settle myself.
Right now let’s assess the situation, I mean everything. Then we can get all the panic all over in one, and then work on fixing this.
I nodded to myself feeling a massive amount of hair on my head move with it. I grit my teeth, that were also feeling off. Turning my head gave me the sensation of that my neck had also changed, I then knew I was facing the rest of my body.
I then slowly opened my eyes wincing at the brightness. Everything was red. My entire body had changed my body had barrelled out into a more circular shape, my legs were further upwards and my ankle had moved upward next to my kneecap, my toes had gone and in their place, just like my hands, they were too hooves. I now had a tail made out of a mixture of dark blue and green, just like my hair. And then for the final nail in this coffin, I had wings. On my back there was two wings just jutting out there, with feathers the same colour as my fur.
My heart stared to race, this wasn’t my body at all, but how this was un fathomable.
Then I heard a twig snap behind me. “h-hello is somepony hurt out here.” A gentle voice came from the same area as the sapping twig, but I paid it no attention until it stuck me.
What the fuck is happening, wait what was that, somepony, ya know what fuck this I'm out.
I collapsed again due to my brain trying to make reason behind the massive amount of information it was trying to understand. I only cached a glimpse of what made the noise.
It was yellow.