2 Chapter 1

Ziv woke up immediately taking off the helmet part of his hazmat suit. He coughed up everything that was in his stomach. His ribs still hurt from the fall and going through the portal turned that pain all the way up to eleven. He wanted to scream, but he was still expelling everything in his stomach. He couldn't see, but it was blinding white light and his ears were ringing. He felt cold, but he could feel he was sweating. Ziv's stomach wouldn't calm down and the pain didn't stop.

---

Ziv opened his eyes later. He could smell the stench around him, but it didn't bother him as much as his ribs. He sat up looking around him.

The stars were out, but they were difficult to see due to the lights around him. There were garbage bins around him and brick buildings to either side of him. He had read many stories before so realized he was in an alleyway. It wasn't run down or covered in dust so that was a plus. He tried to stand up, finding it difficult to walk around. He was in so much pain that he didn't want to move, but he had to. He needed to figure things out and finding out where he was on the top of that list. Then he can find a safe place.

He leaned on the walls as he walked forward. He had put his helmet back on. Thankfully the suit was still functional, but more than likely he was already infected if the atmosphere was like the earths.

'Am I even on earth?'

He turned to the left seeing that the alleyway continued on out on the street. Actually that was the first real street he had ever seen, not just the buildings. Cars and people passed by. He creeped closer to the road, but his vision was getting darker. He turned on the hazmat suit's external lights, but everything was getting darker. He fell on his knees and then he fell face first on the ground again.

---

As he opened his eyes this time he was in a building, a room. It was small and a single bed. He didn't focus on the rest, but he noticed the pain in his side wasn't as bad as it had been since he had woken up. He moved his hands over his eyes as the sun was shining in them.

He sat up, finding that he was out of his hazmat suit and the clothes he was wearing weren't the same. A red shirt and some sweatpants. He was really thankful that he read all those stories. It helped him make sense of everything around him. He needed to find his hazmat suit, his parents gave it to him. Well at least he still had his techpad

"Four days? Or perhaps just one and the trip here was three. Perhaps I'm already dead and this is just my brain firing my last neurons. Doesn't matter."

He needed to find out where he was and his suit. So he stood up and wobbled over to the mirror. He looked the same. He lifted up his shirt to see the bandages going across his torso. He noticed that the white bandages around the side of his ribs were starting to turn red.

"Tore my stitches? Were there stitches to begin with?" He shook his head. "Focus. Yes I need to focus."

Ziv opened the door. There were noises coming from down the hall to his right. He slowly started walking towards them, while leaning on the wall. He could hear children giggling, other kids talking and something that smelled tasty. It made his mouth water.

He was about to turn the corner, but two kids were coming so he hid up against the wall. They opened the door nearby laughing with each other. Once inside they closed the door. Ziv noticed it was a bathroom, with a sink, toilet and shower. He peeked around the corner to his left and saw a bunch of kids sitting down at a table and a couple adults giving them food. It was like his mother's cooking, but it smelled different from the usual vegetables, beans and nuts.

He slowly made his way over. He grit his teeth in pain as the kids that were in the bathroom bumped into him. He buckled over on his knees, not wanting to cry out. When he fell on the ground one of the adults saw him and hurried over to him.

"Are you ok?"

"I'm… I'm fine."

His right side burned and his hand on his side felt wet. He looked at it and saw that blood was coming out of the bandage and shirt. The woman saw that.

"I'm going to pick you up and bring you into another room to put some new bandages on you. Is that okay with you?"

"I…" Did he really want her to pick him up? "No, I… I will walk. Please show me to that room."

"Oh… okay."

The pain started to gnaw at him and it was the only thing he could focus on. He heard voices as he walked, but he couldn't distinguish them. He just followed that woman in front of him. Eventually he was led into a room.

---

She gave him a pill to help with the pain. It didn't help at all. She took off his bandages and saw that his wound was looking decent. It wasn't infected, but the cut in his side seemed greater than before he went through the portal.

"…h… hear me… Can you hear me?"

Ziv focused on her voice. The pain seemed to be going down. It was hard to think properly and he had expected that pill to work right away. It wasn't much, but he could focus and pay attention to the woman in front of him.

"Yea… yes…"

"How is the pain from one to ten?"

"Umm… it is like a seven now."

"That is good to hear."

"Do you feel alright to talk right now?"

"Ah sure, it just feels a little difficult to talk for long."

"I'll try to keep this short then. My name is Rin, what is your name?"

"Ziv."

Ziv looked down. Now that he got a look at her she had the same eyes as his mother. The same eyes that cared for him. It made him teary eyed.

"Ziv that is an amazing name. How old are you?"

"Ten."

"Where are you from Ziv? You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

"I'm from earth?"

He asked that as a question rather than a statement. He wasn't sure if this was earth or not. If he was, he didn't want to seem too weird. Different planet? Different universe? Different time?

"Earth?"

"Is it not?"

"I know someone you should talk to. Her name is Kear. She might be able to answer your questions. I will lead you back to the room where you were in and bring you some food."

---

Ziv ate some of his food. He wasn't all that hungry and there was something on the plate he had no idea what it could be. He just stuck with the vegetables he knew about. While he knew not to waste food, he just didn't really care. His family was gone and this might not even be the same planet. It sounded like she knew about what happened to him. He would have to wait for 'Kear' to show up. Whoever she was.

Thankfully he was able to have his hazmat suit next to him. Rin brought that in with a fresh shirt for him to wear. She was able to clean it thankfully.

Later while Ziv was laying on the bed trying to figure things out, there was a knock on the door.

"Come in."

As Zive slowly sat up, a young man walked in the room. Possibly late teens, early twenties. He had brown eyes and black hair with a white streak over his right eye. Well it was a little difficult to say that he was a man, but there were enough masculine features there to make it an accurate statement.

"Hello, your name is Ziv?"

"Yes."

"My name is Veno."

"Hello Veno."

"Ah well, nice to meet you. So I guess you have some questions?"

"I do, but I don't really understand what is going on."

"Well…uhm… let me tell you something about me first as that might help get you started. One day a woman came from the future. She was confused and didn't know where she was. She walked around trying to find her way, until me and her met. I was just a boy in school, but she was a military translator. I know it sounds kind of crazy, but she was. This woman, her name is Kear."

"That Rin lady said that I should talk to Kear. So she is from your future?"

"She is, uhm was… well she didn't come here with a body though."

Ziv was confused. 'She didn't have a body?"

"What do you mean?"

"Uhm well, Kear and I, we inhabit the same body. Does that make sense to you?"

"Body sharing? I had read books like that."

"Well then let me introduce you. Ziv I would like you to meet Kear."

"Hello my name is Kear!"

Kear gives Ziv a small wave.

Ziv awkwardly gives a small wave back.

"So I came from the future, at least that is what I believe. Do you know where you came from?"

Ziv looks away and down. It seems so weird that there was someone else like him. Different, but the same.

"Same."

He mumbled that, because he wasn't sure. It made sense, but perhaps it wasn't.

"I should tell you. I am reading your lips, because Veno and I cannot hear anything. He is deaf and so am I. I don't know what you said, I'm sorry could you say that again."

Ziv looked astonished.

"Oh… I'm sorry. I didn't know."

She gestured to him a small wave telling him it was fine.

"I think I'm from the future too. It could be anything really. This is earth right?"

"It is."

"Did you go through a portal too?"

"No. I ugh… died."

"Oh."

Ziv looked down at the floor. His parents were dead too. Maybe they went back in time or something like that. Could he meet them too? He needed to ask, maybe they were still alive.

"Have you met anyone else from the future or where ever?"

"No, you are the first."

"I see."

Kear looked around deciding it was best to change the subject.

"I see you didn't eat any of your chicken."

"So that was chicken?"

"You haven't eaten chicken before?"

"No, we didn't have any meat where I was from. We just ate vegetables we grew in the basement. My mom and dad told me that they always wished to eat chicken because we all read that a lot of meat tasted like it. I wish I could tell them it tasted gross."

Ziv gave a small chuckle and he watched Kear laughing with him.

"I never really had chicken either before coming here either. Though I really like the stuff. When I first came here I was eating all kinds of food, but later Veno got angry at me because it was his body that was gaining weight."

Kear and Ziv started laughing, but that was until the pain from his ribs started to take control of his focus once again. He winced in pain.

"Your still hurt. Sorry. Let's talk tomorrow then, get some rest ok?"

Ziv just nodded. He was getting tired and he needed to sleep.

"Goodnight Ziv."

"Goodnight Mom."