Realms of infinity: Chapter 2

Instructions

Wake up, Milo. Where… am I? I wasn’t in the water anymore. I wasn’t on sand either. I was on a… bed? “Oh! You’re awake! Finally,” a voice from across the room said. “Who… who are you?” I looked toward the voice and froze. A… shark? Sharks only lived in the Water Nation. “What is this place?” I asked. “The Water Nation, obviously.” “WHAT?” I shot upright. I wasn’t supposed to be here. The Water Nation was incredibly far from Electric Nation territory. How did I even get here? “Whoa,” she said. “I know it’s not normal to wake up in another nation, but I didn’t think you’d react like that.” “It’s not that,” I said quickly. “I got a message telling me to go to Tolta Island. A storm must’ve dragged me here.” I pulled out the note again and stared at it. “You need help?” she asked. “I’ve been here my whole life,” she continued. “Never left once. Not because I didn’t want to.” “Then why didn’t you?” “Leaving the nation isn’t exactly easy when your mom helps run it.” Oh. That explained a lot. “But now I finally have a chance,” she said. “So start packing. We need to leave soon.” “Wait!” “Yeah?” “What’s your name?” “Kaia.” Wow. Way better than mine. --- While packing, I noticed something strange. On the back of a cereal box was a children’s activity page for Water Tribe kids. It had a maze printed on it. At the top, it read: *Help Ray Ahrist find the crystal!* Weird. That was my last name. --- When we first left, I was surprised to see we weren’t underwater. Most of the Water Nation was, from what I’d heard. Then again, we were trying to avoid the majority of the population. Our first idea was simple: Find a boat. “We can use the one I arrived in!” I said. We returned to the place where Kaia had found me. But something was wrong. “Milo?” Kaia asked. “Where’s the boat?” Crap. The tide must’ve carried it away. “Any other ideas?” I asked, lowering the hand I’d been using to facepalm. “There *is* another way…” Kaia said slowly. “But it’s illegal.” “I don’t care,” I replied. “I’ve already broken the law just by being here.” Kaia looked at me for a moment, then shrugged. “Fair enough.” --- Eventually, we arrived at what looked like a Water Nation government base. I already knew where this was going. “Let me guess,” I said. “We’re stealing one of those boats.” “Ding ding ding!” Kaia said. Before I could question the plan, she tossed a grenade toward the guards to distract them, and we slipped inside. The interior looked like a Frutiger Aero building had survived a war. Which, honestly, it probably had. We searched through rows of machinery: massive drills, war machines, oversized cannons—basically every dangerous thing imaginable. At first, I was excited. Then I saw the submarine we were taking. It looked like the coleslaw of submarines. “Okay,” Kaia admitted, “I know it looks like a fishbowl that went through an emo phase and became an overweight single mom—” Which it absolutely did. “—but from what I know, this is the fastest one here.” “Yeah. Sure it is,” I muttered. “Please just get in,” Kaia said, giving me exaggerated puppy eyes. “Fine,” I sighed reluctantly. --- Turns out, she wasn’t kidding. This thing was *fast.* Unfortunately, so was the entire Water Nation military chasing us. We must’ve triggered an alarm somehow, because only minutes after leaving the base, dozens of vehicles started pursuing us. At least they probably didn’t know who we were. Eventually, though, the pursuit stopped. At first, I wondered why. Then we slammed directly into what felt like solid ground. The enemy subs immediately turned around and retreated. I looked out the cracked front window. We had reached the Air Nation. --- *To be continued…*