Kota jolted awake to sunlight blazing through the glass-like window, the twin suns of this alien world painting his face in harsh yellow-white light. For a moment he didn't know where he was—the light was wrong, the air smelled wrong, everything was wrong—and then it all came rushing back.
The gateway. The creature with two faces. This world.
His stomach cramped violently, a deep hollow ache that made him curl forward with a groan. Beside him, Aisha stirred, her own stomach answering his with a loud, desperate growl that would have been funny under different circumstances.
"God," she mumbled, one hand pressed to her abdomen. "I've never been this hungry in my life."
That wasn't true. They'd both gone hungry plenty of times in the outskirts. But this was different. This was two days of nothing but that strange water, two days of their bodies burning through whatever reserves they had left. Kota's head felt light, disconnected, and when he tried to sit up the room tilted sickeningly.
Then he heard it.
A rustling sound outside. Soft, rhythmic, like something moving through the luminescent grass.
His arm throbbed—a dull, persistent ache that radiated from the gash the creature had left. But it was better than yesterday. Better than the day before. The strange water had done something, eased the worst of it, and when he carefully flexed his fingers the pain was manageable. Healing, slowly but surely.
The rustling came again, closer this time.
Fear shot through him, sharp and cold, cutting through the fog of hunger. His heart hammered against his ribs. After everything they'd been through, after barely escaping those creatures in the forest, the thought of something else finding them here—
"Kota?" Aisha's voice was barely a whisper. "What is that?"
"I don't know." He pushed himself up slowly, every muscle protesting. His left arm screamed but he gritted his teeth and ignored it. "Stay here."
"Like hell." She was already moving, getting to her feet with the same careful deliberation. They were both weak, both running on empty, but neither of them was going to hide while the other investigated.
Kota grabbed the branch he'd kept near the doorway—his makeshift weapon, worn smooth where his hands had gripped it during their flight through the forest. It wasn't much, but it was something.
"Don't go out there," Aisha said, but her tone said she knew he would anyway.
"Just going to look."
He moved to the entrance, pressing himself against the wall beside the opening. The sunlight was almost blinding after the dim interior, and he had to squint as he carefully leaned forward to peer outside.
At first he didn't see anything. Just the luminescent grass swaying gently, the ruins stretching out in all directions, the alien sky with its twin suns climbing toward midday.
Then something moved.
Kota's breath caught.
It was small—maybe the size of a large cat, though the comparison felt wrong the moment he made it. The creature was like nothing he'd ever seen, nothing that could have existed on Earth or in any of the gateway-touched zones he'd heard about.
Its body was plump and soft-looking, almost gelatinous, rippling slightly with each movement like it was made of something between flesh and jelly. The skin—if it was skin—had an opalescent quality, shifting through subtle shades of pale blue and green as it caught the light.
But it was the creature's head that held Kota's attention.
It had no eyes. No eyes at all. Just a long, narrow mouth that protruded from the front of its body, moving independently like a trunk or proboscis, sweeping back and forth across the ground. And around that mouth, arranged in a rough circle, were dozens of small antennae—thin, delicate things that quivered and twitched constantly, reaching out to touch the air, the grass, everything around it.
The creature moved on what had to be twenty legs. Maybe thirty. Kota couldn't count them all—they were too numerous, too small, rippling along the underside of its body in waves that propelled it forward with surprising grace despite its bulk.
It was alien. Completely, utterly alien. And yet there was something almost... peaceful about it. The way it moved through the grass, its antennae exploring, its mouth sweeping gently across the ground. It didn't seem aggressive. Didn't seem dangerous.
"What is it?" Aisha whispered from behind him.
Kota gestured for her to come closer, to look. She pressed against his side, peering around the doorframe, and he felt her tense.
"Is it... is it safe?"
"I don't know. But it's not attacking. It's just... looking for something, I think."
They watched as the creature continued its methodical search, its antennae brushing across the luminescent grass, its mouth occasionally dipping down to touch something before moving on. It seemed to be following some kind of pattern, some logic they couldn't understand.
Then it stopped.
The antennae all focused on a single point—a cluster of small plants growing near the base of a ruined wall. Even from here, Kota could see the berries, dark purple and glistening in the sunlight.
The creature's mouth extended, the antennae quivering as they explored the berries from every angle. It spent a long moment there, clearly interested, clearly examining them.
Then it moved on without eating a single one.
"Did you see that?" Aisha breathed. "It didn't eat them."
"Yeah." Kota's mind was racing. "It smelled them or sensed them or whatever it does with those antennae. And it decided not to eat them."
"So they might be poisonous. Or just not food."
"Either way, we should remember that. Those berries are a no."
The creature continued its wandering path through the ruins, and without discussing it, Kota and Aisha began to follow. They moved carefully, quietly, keeping their distance. The creature seemed oblivious to their presence, or at least unconcerned by it.
Kota's arm throbbed with each step, and his stomach continued its desperate protests, but he pushed it all aside. This creature knew this world. It knew what was safe to eat and what wasn't. If they could just follow it long enough—
The creature stopped again, this time at a different plant. This one had broad, flat leaves that seemed to shimmer with an internal light. Again the antennae explored, the mouth extended, and again the creature moved on without eating.
"It's being picky," Aisha murmured. "That's good, right? It means it knows what it's looking for."
They followed for what felt like an hour, maybe more. The creature led them through the ruins in a winding path that seemed random but probably wasn't. It stopped to investigate dozens of different plants, different growths, different things that might have been food. Each time, it rejected them.
Kota's legs were shaking by the time the creature finally changed direction, heading toward a part of the ruins they hadn't explored yet. Two massive towers had collapsed here, falling toward each other to create a narrow alley between the rubble. The space was dark, shadowed, the kind of place that screamed danger in Kota's mind.
The alley looked like it led to doom. Like something out of a nightmare, all sharp angles and deep shadows and the promise of things lurking just out of sight.
But the creature waddled forward without hesitation, its many legs carrying it into that darkness.
"Should we follow?" Aisha asked, doubt clear in her voice.
Kota's every instinct said no. Said to turn around, find food somewhere else, anywhere else. But they'd been following this creature for so long, and it clearly knew where it was going, and they were so hungry—
"Yeah," he said. "But carefully."
They entered the alley.
The temperature dropped immediately, the twin suns blocked by the collapsed towers. The walls pressed in on either side, covered in more of those luminescent vines, their soft glow the only light in the gloom. Kota's grip tightened on his branch, his heart hammering.
The creature continued forward, unbothered, its antennae sweeping the walls and ground. And then, suddenly, the alley opened up.
Light flooded in from above where the towers had fallen in just the right way to create a small courtyard, open to the sky. And in the center of that courtyard, growing from a crack in the ancient stone, was a tree.
It was small—barely taller than Kota—with a twisted trunk that seemed to spiral as it grew. The bark was smooth and dark, almost black, and the leaves were a deep crimson that seemed to pulse with their own internal rhythm. But it was the fruit that caught Kota's attention.
Dozens of them hung from the branches, each one perfectly disk-shaped, about the size of his palm. They were a pale golden color, almost glowing in the sunlight, and even from here he could see the way they seemed to shimmer, like they were made of something more than just ordinary matter.
The creature reached the base of the tree and began to climb.
Kota watched in fascination as those many legs found purchase on the smooth bark, the gelatinous body flowing upward with surprising agility. The creature reached one of the lower branches and its mouth extended, wrapping around one of the disk-shaped fruits.
There was a soft sound—almost like a sigh—and the fruit came free. The creature's mouth retracted, pulling the fruit into what Kota assumed was its body, and for a moment it just sat there, motionless.
Then it reached for another fruit.
"It's eating them," Aisha whispered. "It's actually eating them."
"And it's not dead." Kota felt a surge of hope so intense it made him dizzy. "That means they're safe. That means we can eat them."
They moved forward together, approaching the tree slowly. The creature paused in its feeding, its antennae all swiveling toward them, quivering. For a moment Kota thought it might attack, might defend its food source.
But then Aisha reached up, her hand closing around one of the lower fruits, and the creature simply backed away. Not aggressive. Just... cautious. Afraid, maybe, of these strange two-legged things that had followed it here.
The fruit came away from the branch easily, almost eagerly, and Kota grabbed one for himself. It was warm in his hand, delicate, the surface smooth and slightly yielding like the skin of a ripe peach.
He looked at Aisha. She looked back at him. They'd survived this long by being careful, by thinking things through. But they were also starving, and this creature had just eaten three of these fruits without any apparent ill effects.
"Together?" Aisha said.
"Together."
They bit into the fruits at the same time.
The taste exploded across Kota's tongue—sweet but not cloying, with hints of something citrus and something else he couldn't name, something that tasted like sunlight felt. The flesh was soft, almost melting, and as he swallowed he felt warmth spread through his chest.
But it was more than just taste. More than just food.
Energy flooded through him, sudden and intense, like someone had plugged him directly into a power source. The weakness in his legs vanished. The fog in his head cleared. Even the pain in his arm seemed to recede, becoming a distant thing he could acknowledge without being consumed by it.
"Oh my god," Aisha breathed, her eyes wide. "Kota, what is this?"
"I don't know. But it's incredible."
They ate the rest of their fruits quickly, desperately, and then reached for more. The creature watched them from its perch higher in the tree, its antennae tracking their movements, but it made no move to stop them.
Kota ate three more fruits. Four. Five. Each one filled him with that same incredible energy, that same sense of vitality. His body, which had been running on empty for days, suddenly felt alive again. Strong again.
"We should take some back," Aisha said, already pulling fruits from the branches and cradling them in the makeshift basket she'd formed with the bottom of Kota's shirt. "As many as we can carry."
They picked until they couldn't hold any more, until Aisha's makeshift basket was overflowing and Kota had stuffed his pockets full. The creature watched them the entire time, and when they finally turned to leave, it made a soft sound—something between a chirp and a whistle—that might have been goodbye.
The walk back to their shelter felt different. Easier. Kota's legs didn't shake. His arm still hurt but it was manageable, distant. And his mind, freed from the constant fog of hunger and exhaustion, was finally able to think clearly.
They had food now. And water. And shelter.
The three basics of survival, secured.
"We need to talk about what happens next," Aisha said as they entered their shelter and carefully deposited their haul of fruit in the coolest corner of the room. "We can't just stay here forever."
"I know." Kota sat down heavily, his back against the wall. The energy from the fruit was incredible, but his body was still recovering from everything they'd been through. "We should go back to the gateway. See if we can get through."
"You think it'll work?"
"I don't know. But we have to try."
They rested for a while, eating one more fruit each and drinking from the pool. The water still tasted strange but Kota was getting used to it, and combined with the fruit it was almost pleasant.
Then they set out.
The walk to the gateway took longer than Kota remembered, but that might have been because they were being more careful now, more aware of their surroundings. The forest where they'd emerged was visible in the distance, the trees twisted and wrong even from here.
As they got closer, Kota felt something change in the air. A pressure, subtle at first but growing stronger with each step. It wasn't painful, exactly, but it was uncomfortable. Like walking into a strong wind, except the wind was pushing from all directions at once.
"Do you feel that?" Aisha asked, her voice strained.
"Yeah."
They kept walking. The pressure increased. Kota's ears popped. His skin prickled. It felt like the air itself was trying to push them back, trying to keep them away from the gateway.
They were still fifty feet away when Kota had to stop. The pressure was too much, pressing against his chest, making it hard to breathe. Beside him, Aisha was bent forward, her hands on her knees, gasping.
"I can't," she said. "Kota, I can't get any closer."
He tried. Took one more step, then another, fighting against the invisible force. But it was like trying to walk through a wall. The pressure built and built until his vision started to gray at the edges and he had to stumble backward, gasping.
They retreated to a safe distance and stood there, staring at the gateway they couldn't reach.
"We're trapped," Aisha said quietly. "We can't go home."
The words hung in the air between them, heavy and final. Kota wanted to argue, wanted to say they'd find another way, but the evidence was right there in front of them. The gateway was closed to them. Sealed. Whatever had let them through in one direction wasn't going to let them through in the other.
They walked back toward their shelter in silence, both lost in their own thoughts. The alien world continued around them—the luminescent grass swaying, the floating lights drifting past, the ruins standing silent and empty under the twin suns.
"So what do we do?" Aisha finally asked. "Do we look for another gateway? There has to be more than one, right?"
"Maybe. Probably." Kota's mind was racing, trying to process everything. "But we don't know where they are. We don't know how big this world is. We could search for years and never find one."
"So we just... stay here? Live here?"
The question made something twist in Kota's chest. Live here. The two of them, alone, in this alien world. No one else. Just them.
He glanced at Aisha and found her looking at him, and he knew she was thinking the same thing. They'd grown up together, been best friends for six years, but they were also fourteen and alone and the thought of it being just the two of them, indefinitely, made his face heat in a way that had nothing to do with the twin suns.
"I don't—" he started, then stopped. "We should probably—"
"Yeah," Aisha said quickly, looking away. "We should."
They walked in awkward silence for a while, both very carefully not looking at each other.
"We need to wait anyway," Kota finally said, grateful for something practical to focus on. "My arm needs to heal more. We need to build up our strength, figure out this world better. And then we can explore. Map the area. Look for other gateways or... or other people, maybe. Someone has to live here, right? Someone built all this."
"Built it and left," Aisha pointed out. "Or died."
"Or left," Kota insisted. "Which means there might be a way off this world. A way that doesn't involve gateways."
It was a thin hope, but it was something. Better than just accepting that they were trapped here forever.
"Okay," Aisha said. "So we wait for you to heal. We gather supplies. We learn what we can about this place. And then we explore."
"And we survive," Kota added. "Whatever it takes."
"Whatever it takes," Aisha echoed.
They reached their shelter as the first sun began to set, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple that Earth had never seen. The luminescent vines were already starting to glow brighter, preparing for the night, and somewhere in the distance one of those floating lights drifted past, serene and beautiful.
Kota looked at the pile of fruit they'd gathered, at the pool of strange water, at the shelter that was slowly starting to feel less alien and more like... not home, exactly, but something close to it.
They were trapped in an alien world. Cut off from everything they'd known. Marcus and Yuki probably thought they were dead. They had no idea how to get back, or if getting back was even possible.
But they had food. They had water. They had shelter.
And they had each other.
"We're going to be okay," Kota said, not sure if he was trying to convince Aisha or himself. "We've survived worse."
Aisha looked at him, and despite everything—despite the fear and the uncertainty and the sheer impossibility of their situation—she smiled.
"Yeah," she said. "We have."
They sat together as the second sun set and the alien night fell around them, two kids from the outskirts of Okala, alone in a world that wasn't theirs, making plans to survive one more day.
It wasn't much.
But it was enough.