2 Chapter-2:In the middle of the sea
BACK TO THE PRESENT,
Liam could see that the man lying down was no longer asleep. The man sat up and then opened his eyes,
"Liam, where are we?", the unknown man enquired.
"You know me?"Liam who was utterly shocked blurted out. But after hearing his voice, he touched his throat and realised that his voice had matured as well. Now he looked up at the man wanting an answer,
"You smell like Liam", the unknown man replied.
That one sentence was enough for Liam to know who that was,
"Ryan?"
"Yeah. So where are we, Liam? It smells like sea, books and rustic wood"
At this point, Liam was fairly convinced that Ryan is an animal- and a nocturnal one as well. Since Ryan looked straight at Liam, Liam knew that Ryan didn't need time to adjust himself to the dark.
Ryan felt that his senses were sharper than before. He wondered if it was because of the sudden growth in his body.
Liam put the book down now that he knew he no longer needed it.
Liam explained what he knew.
"We must have ended up here after that push since you too remember the strange occurrence in the middle of the night, it must have not been a dream after all", Liam sighed.
As he looked in the direction of the window, he could see that that the sun began to rise.
"Let us try to get someone to see us", Liam told and then both of them walked over to the window. An endless amount of water and waves hitting the place made it clear where they were. But Liam didn't want to agree with it. As he was caught up in trying to accept the reality and not wanting to accept it,
"So we are in the middle of the sea in an unknown library and have aged by approximately five years, huh"Ryan broke down all the facts.
As he turned to look at Liam, he saw that Liam was on the ground."What happened? Are you having seasickness?"Ryan inquired worriedly.
Liam felt like punching Ryan straight in the face. But he just sighed and convinced himself that at least they got the unbelievable bunch of facts straight.
"I am fine, Ryan. Don't worry. But this means that either we were unconscious here for five years or we aged because we were transported here. And the travel caused our body to age. Well, some theories do state that travelling through universes could cause you to age significantly. Maybe that's why we are older"
"So do u think that we might have been transported into a brand new world?"Ryan asked with a look of seriousness. But Liam knew that Ryan was very excited about this but he was trying his best to match Liam's mood.
"Yeah most likely."
Liam stood up again and now that light was making its way into the library, he wanted to take a clear look at everything surrounding them.
The library was not very old, just about 20-30 years he guessed. There were many books from fantasy novels to scientific theories and the books looked like they were cared for deeply. He noticed that there were four windows, facing all four directions and a desk with few newspapers in it. He took some of the books out and checked their publish date, they were all before 2021.
"At least we did not time travel, Ryan", Liam commented.
Ryan nodded fervently.
Liam wanted to read it but something else took priority, the all-important door which was currently nowhere to be found.
Maybe the door is on the floor, Liam thought. And he was right about that, the door was indeed on the floor near the desk. Liam picked up the newspaper from the desk, it was dated 5 days before. There was no special news, the paper was filled with rebels calling themselves werewolf riders. It was about people asking for more protection from the government from the beasts.
"Beasts? I wonder if it is about wild animals crossing into urban cities" Liam wondered.
He then kept the newspaper down. He saw that Ryan was now paying attention to the door. It did not have any bolts but the door was a little bit on the heavier side.
Ryan lifted the door. There were spiral stairs to go down.
"Ryan, do you smell any other human beings?"Liam whispered.
"I can smell two human beings' scent but it is mostly gone, all I can smell now is rotten blood stench. It smells like the blood of a dead person"
"What?"This was too much for Liam. After so many things that had happened in the last seven hours, things still were not ending. Ryan gave a look of whether he should go and check it out by himself or Liam would accompany him.
"It's fine. I'll come"
They went down the stairs. The place was something like a living room, it even had a television. Since no one was there alive and kicking to get permission from and he needed to know the current news, he switched it on. The channel which had good reception was in the language of Juni and the people who spoke them were Kinans. So they must be near Kinan, Liam deduced.
By this time Ryan had gone to the dining room and there he saw a skeleton lying on the chair with a book on its thigh bones.
"Poor guy died while reading the book. I wonder if he finished it", Liam who followed after Ryan commented. Liam was solid sure that nothing would faze him anymore, even if the skeleton started walking he wouldn't be surprised. But thankfully it didn't.
Liam could say that the man was probably in his 30s. And a researcher too perhaps. He must have been with his wife and child or with his colleagues rather than his parents. He thought that the spiral stairs would be a burden on elderly people to use. And the door could only be lifted by an adult.
****
The room which was filled with blood stench severely affected Ryan who felt nauseated and ran into the kitchen and puked on the sink.
****
Liam walked towards the skeleton man and saw that he had been reading a book called "Mitler's golden period".
"Mitler's golden period?"As he turned the pages and started reading it, he saw that Mitler was mentioned as a generous and brave king who stood his ground and provided peace for his country. The Mitler he studied in history was a Tyrant well known for his cruel punishments and craze for war but this Mitler had promoted peace instead.
"How absurd", Liam mumbled. But even the dates matched with the Mitler he had known. And so that was all the evidence he needed to know.
"This is a parallel universe, Ryan", Liam informed as he entered the kitchen. The author of the book was a credible one known for his works. He saw many more of his books in the library. He didn't want to think that there would be a person who would be mentally sick enough to play a joke on them by doing so much work.
"I am going back to the library and gather information, Ryan. So until then you check the house and tell me if you find anything useful", as Liam was speaking, he searched for some meds for the stomach in the kitchen and then gave it to Ryan.
"Rest for some time before going around the house, Ryan."
Ryan went to a nearby room. It had a bed, Ryan jumped into it forgetting the fact that he was five years older now. He was no longer a child.
He laid there to get some rest as he was advised to by Liam.
When Ryan had come to his senses, it was almost evening and the sun looked like it would set in three more hours.
Ryan heard his stomach grumble. He was hungry.
It had been a long time since he woke up in the morning and he had nothing to eat from then. He walked out of the room and went to the kitchen. He then went searching for food and saw a storage room for food. It was a frozen room to keep the meat fresh. He took some ingredients to the kitchen enough for two people instinctively knowing that Liam wouldn't have eaten.
He often cooked at home for his family since both of his parents were busy working and his brother hated take-outs and he himself had grown tired of them. And so he learned to cook.
At first, it was just for avoiding outside food, but as he saw his family gulping down the food he made happily, he started to enjoy cooking and ended up learning a variety of dishes. The sudden thought of his family made a lot of emotions swell up from inside him but he pushed them back deep down.
He knew that he can't be weak. He and Liam would find a way back to their world. Ryan knew that they would.
"Just be patient mom, dad and ....little weasel"Ryan mumbled. As he was distracted by the many thoughts which normally he had no reason to think, he didn't notice that the food was turning black until his nose pushed the smell down deep into his lungs.
"For someone with a sensitive nose, I made a huge mistake", Ryan chuckled as he looked at the inedible food.
Ryan started coughing due to the smoke and went back to look for ingredients to cook again.
****
Liam was going through history books. As he believed in the saying
"Know the past to know the future"
It was not like all of the histories was changed-wars did happen and people did die. He did expect that. If some people had lost their greed then others would nurture it for their gains. After all, humans were born selfish. And if this was the parallel world, there needs to be a balance that cannot be broken so that both worlds don't fall too apart from each other.
****
He cooked the food and kept the food in the living room avoiding the dining room with a skeleton. He then went to search for some candles in case the light does go out. After finding them, he went to bring Liam.
Ryan went up the spiral staircase and brought Liam back. He was right about the fact that his friend engrossed with books might not have eaten anything. So both boys started to eat. Their extreme hunger and the aroma of the food resulted in the plate being crystal clear.
As Ryan had predicted, power did get cut.
"Well let's just sleep for the day," Liam said.
Ryan who originally thought he may not get any sleep fell asleep quietly.
Three days had gone by.
Liam spent most of his time on books. Ryan started training himself and also started fishing to stock up more food in case the food supply ever ran out. The only peculiar thing was powercut continued every night around 11'0 clock.
It was like a curfew for them. And they went to bed at that time after talking to each other about anything new they ended up finding out.
But that day both of them were awakened by a noise
