First Day

I flopped down on my bed, feeling discouraged. The code kept on flashing in my mind. I grabbed my pillow covering my face, trying to forget about it. Suddenly the bed was trembling. I could hear the fiction between my bed and the ground. I sat up, looking around me. Earthquake?! As soon as I wanted to get out of my bed, I was dropped into darkness, twirling. I was dizzy. Could this be a dream? I closed my eyes, demanding my brain to wake up. However, it did not work. Very soon, I was landed on a conference room. I took a deep breath, looking around. There was a white man standing in front of me: average normal looking, not very tall, around 35 years old, almost bald, glasses, tuxedo. He must be a businessman who might be rather high class. That was how I categorize people. Do not judge. I was sure all of us did categorize people. 

“Welcome. This is Welcome Island. You have successfully enter into a brand new world, and we are glad to have you join us. I am Mr. Linden, the so called creator of this world.” He smiled warmly at me. 

I was speechless. Just like that I was into another world. 

“I know what you are thinking. Yes. Whenever we sense that you need to escape from the other world or you are bored, you will be teleported to here.” He walked to the enormous screen that was beside me. “Now let's create a new identity for you. Choose a last name from all of them and create your own first name.”

I looked at the screen, Robertson, Jackson, Mackenzie, Frenzy... so many last names. Let's think of a first name..Kelsey was my name, I would get a name which started with K too. Kelsey Frenzy sounds about right. I smiled, “I would be Kayla Frenzy.”

Mr Linden turned and looked at me, “Kayla Frenzy. Alright. Now you have a new name, so it is time for you to get a new look. This look will be what you start with, but once you explore the different places, you can change your look whenever you want. Plastic surgery is very cheap over here, and there isn't a world called failure in this world.”

After entering some data, he clicked onto another screen. There were many buttons on top of the screen: head, face, height, shape, etc. There were many choices in each one, and honestly, I did have a hard time choosing. I did want to shape myself into this perfect person that I had ever dreamt of.

Spending some time matching and changing, I had shaped myself into what I wanted. A girl with white skin who had rather big greenish eyes but remained short. I always had a feeling that I was meant to be short. In that way, I would be less likely to breath in the secondhand smoke. Oh, and tall guys did have a thing for short girls. I looked at Mr Linden for signals.

Mr Linden pointed at the cylinder machine at the right corner. “Please enter.”
“Wait. So when I go back to the 24-hour-world, will I look like my original self or what?” There were many questions in my head, and I was a little bit scared now.

He nodded, “yes. We cannot really change your real identity in the 24-hour-world. After all, there is where you and I belong. This is just for fun, Kayla. Just treat this as a way for you to relax.” He adjusted his glasses a bit.

 “Everything will remain the same after you get out from this world, except you are really spending your time in both of these worlds.”

After listening to his explanation, I felt relieved. I did not want my parents not being able to recognize me. I took a deep breath and stepped into the machine. I closed my eyes, feeling a cold freezing steam just flushed over through my body. 

“Take a look of the new you, Kayla.” He grinned, grabbing my hand to pull me over to the mirror. 

I looked at myself. I could barely know who I was actually starring at. So unreal. Just a few seconds, I transformed into this person I dreamt to become. I did not like the hair, but everything else just was what I would love myself to look like. I grinned, shaking my head.

Mr Linden could probably sense my satisfactory. He broke the silence by saying, “very well, so Kelsey, I do need to explain some basic things to you. In this world, you would not get old unless you want to; however, you cannot stay in this world for long. Eventually, you do need to go back to the world where you have come from. Get it?”

I nodded, trying to make sense of things. I was still very overwhelmed by this whole process.

“This world works different from the other one. We just have six hours per day, so time passes extra quickly in here.”

I smiled, nodding again. With this body, I would like to spend all my 24 hours here. 

Mr. Linden then held out his hand, “good luck. I hope you enjoyed being in here. Do not be afraid to be yourself, free yourself and explore. This world is all about achieving the dreams that you want. Now you will need to go through this door, get the materials you need and go through some instructions. We will see again if you are lucky!” 

I shook his hand and walked towards the door. Before I walked out, I turned back and said, “thank you!”

I sighed in satisfactory. I walked over to this box which had a sign called grab me. I opened it and discovered some electronic devices. I grabbed one, examining it. It was sorta like a gps and a phone. However, I was still not sure how this worked. Meh...I would figure it out later. 

Standing in front of the world map, I just realized how big it really was. So many small islands, so many interesting places. Let's start off with an island that looked like a heart shape. It was called Heartland. I was already in love with the name. 

Now it was time for me to apply what I just learnt. I closed my eyes, thinking of the name Heartland. After a few seconds, I was up in the air. Then, I was dropped on a beach. It was a rather embarrassing landing, but at least I arrived at my destination. I looked around, wondering whether anyone saw my awful teleport. 

“Are you alright, my dear?” A woman must be standing behind me.
I stood up, turning around. “I was fine.” I nodded, wiping the sand off my bum. 

“Are you a newbie?” She asked politely.

I paused. Does a newbie equal to a new baby or it is a term in this world? I frowned, looking up at her. I realized she looked like a Barbie doll. She was toned, skinny and tall. She had this wavy blonde hair and a pink low cut dress with her b***s almost popping out. Her figure was just not a normal person could possibly have. She was wearing a pair of white high heels, and her legs are like branches thick. How could she even walk?

She patted on my shoulder, “my dear...are you okay?”

I giggled, nodding. “I am sorry. What does newbie mean?”

She laughed softly. As soon as she did that, I felt bad for myself. I blushed slightly as she told me that newbie meant a new comer. 

“How could you tell?” I looked down at myself. Well... comparing myself to her, there was a difference, but I did not think it was that obvious.

“Hun, you just know when you live here for longer.” She smiled. “Now, let me lead you to this party that is about to start.” 

When she was about to walk, another person appeared right beside us. His name was Brandon, and he was a newbie just like me. Because of that, it just seemed to me that we had this natural bond. After some basic introduction, the Barbie doll, who I had already forgot her name, led us to this building. She asked us to walk up to the stairs to start the party going. The music was already rather loud. In the 24-hour-world, I had never really been into a club or a disco, so I was not really used to this “beating-to-heart” music. 

There was a huge dance floor on the second floor, and a few people were dancing under this shiny spinning disco-ball. This was all very fascinating to me, and I saw all these cages and poles at the side of the room, wondering what were they. Of course, I did not ask just to be embarrassed in front of this group of people. 

Brandon and I were just standing there, not knowing what to do. Therefore, we decided to just chill around. He asked me how old I was, and where I was originally come from. I told him the truth that I was just 19 and lived in Canada. He did not seem very surprised by my answer since he was 20 and from the States. After a few more questions and answers, the group of people finally noticed us. They invited us to join them to dance, and we did.

They also taught us a lot of things about this world, such as not giving out personal information about the 24-hour-world easily because we could never know whether people would use it against us. It was important to protect ourselves just like in the 24-hour-world. 

Mackenzie and I got along especially well together. She was like a mother figure for me in this world, always looking out for me. She gave me some landmarks on where to buy some pretty clothes. Just like what a mother would do to her daughter: she gave me some money to dress myself up. It was not a huge amount, but it should be enough to buy many new lovely clothes. 

Apparently, the electronic device that I just randomly grabbed after the training was very useful because it allowed me to save all the landmarks, aka locations, which Mackenzie gave me. It was also a device to contact people who were around me. This world encouraged people to text strangers to widen the social network. From Sociology, I did learn that weak ties were better than strong ties which gave me more opportunities and new information. 

Talking about Mackenzie for so long, I should describe what she looked like. She had a mother like personality, but she did not look like one. In fact, she was sexy. She was a fiery with a thick hairy brick red tail and two pointed triangular ears. She was tanned and very fit. She did not look like she had two children before. 

“My dear, are you surprised that I have children?” She smiled, looking at my surprised face.

What could I say. I laughed, nodding. “Don't you need to take care of your kids? How do you manage to come to this world then?”

She laughed softly and wiggled her hips while she was dancing. “I just spend a few hours here and there while the children are asleep. Mothers do need time to relax, you know. When you are at this stage, you will understand the hard work mothers gotta do to take care of the kids.”

I shrugged. “It will take me a while to get there.” I laughed.

Before Brandon invited me to dance, Mackenzie suggested me to save her contact information on the electronic device that I had. She was my first friend in this world. 

Brandon held onto my waist when we danced. My heart was leaping rather quickly inside the ribcage. In fact, I felt like I could hear the leaping " so loud inside my body. This was my first time to really let someone held me like this. I was scared but excited. I was not sure whether Brandon could feel my body tensed up, but he probably could because he asked me was everything alright. I just nodded with my blushing face. 

After a several hours of dancing and chilling with Brandon, I started to feel tired. I yawned, wanting to get out of this world. As soon as I had that thought, I was back into the 24-hour-world. How amazing was that?! My night ended with a spark with Brandon, but that was also the last time I had ever seen him. He never came back.

Reviews

[Laughing-Bear]

Miss Unknown, I would first like to state that I am far from a writing expert and feel under qualified to evaluate your story that begins with the chapter titled “A Beginning Without an End”. I have never read fiction and come from a background of sociology and counseling. As well I have just enough psychology to get me into trouble. With this said I look at things different than most. So remember that my thoughts are just mine only, they should in no way distract you from the very flavorful imagination that you are blessed with as you write, and please feel free to disregard them.
I liked your introduction of your main character. Your word pictures made it very easy to feel and see the setting at the Granville Street buss stop. As I used to visit Vancouver your description of the surroundings reminded me of my past visits to your beautiful city.
But I thought an explanation could be more in-depth on Mr. Linden. Where and how did you make the contact with this man? Will this come fourth in future chapters? I thought it very wonderful that your imagination led you to write the description of the whole computer registration episode. The way you character finds her self feeling like she was just set up and made the fool helped me find a pleasant surprise in chapter two when she vanished into the new world.
I like the first chapter and it made me very curious about chapter two.
In chapter two titled “First Day” your introduction Welcome island and its entrance was a surprise I would not have seen coming, I wondered were there any smells that one would expect to find on an island, like salt water spray of palm trees?
The transformation into Kayla Frenzy was interesting but I wondered why she changed her skin color as Asian people are a very wonderful part of our world. Then I wondered could this machine change a person into something other than a human, a butterfly as an example. Could it change gender so a person could come back as an historical figure like King Author or St. Joan of Arc?
What would happen if Kayla stayed longer than six hours? This was not brought to light; will you be doing this later in upcoming chapters? I thought it interesting that Mr. Linden stated, “We will see again if you are lucky”. It made me wonder will Kayla be able to come back? You character descriptions of Mackenzie and Brandon were good, I could visualize them. In the end you wrote that you never were to see Brandon there again, which from that I concluded you were one of the lucky ones that was able to come back. I thought the over all schemas of the first two chapters were well laid out. The read stimulated my synapse. I would read more of this book. Good job and a pleasant first fiction for this reader.

Blessings, Laughing-Bear