First Discoveries

There is a little girl sleeping in the grass. A tattered piece of white fabric barely covers her fair complexion. The glimmer I saw earlier was her hair. Long, silky, golden strands flow out of her head into the grass beside her.

Her face is in a peaceful slumber, as her chest gently rises and drops. She looks around the age of ten, and there are no signs of her parents, or another person, anywhere nearby.

"Aww," Cisca says, "She is so adorable."

"Cisca, now is not the time. What is a little girl doing all the way out here?"

"Why are you asking me? At least we now confirmed the existence of humans," Cisca says and notes it down in the computer in front of her.

"Right. Should I wake her up and maybe… ask some questions?" I ask.

"Sure, but the chances that civilization here also happens to speak English is not very high."

"That's true," I say, but it can't hurt. I reach for the girl's shoulder and softly rock her.

She shows no response.

"Hello?" I ask and shake a little harder, but there is still no response.

"Hey!" I use to hands and try even harder. Absolute no movement.

"Is she… alive?" I ask.

"Scan shows that her vitals are normal. You can clearly see that she is breathing," Cisca says, "Maybe she somehow became unconscious?"

"Strange. I don't see anything that can cause that around here," I glance around again while scratching the back of my head. There doesn't look to be any injuries on the girl, either.

"You know, Kris. She looks awfully a lot like you," Cisca says.

"Really?"

I take a closer look, and indeed, we do share a lot of similar features, but it's not like I am particularly exotic-looking. I am sure there are plenty of people who look similar to me. It is weird how much she resembles me, though. Looking at her is like looking at a childhood photo of my mother.

"I guess I can see it," I say.

"You might have already found your doppelganger."

"That's not a real thing, is it?"

"No, it's not, but she might as well be."

"Whatever," I say, "What were you saying before?"

"Oh, right. Let's go do a little expl-"

BOOM!

Cisca's sentence is once again interrupted, this time, by thunder. Following that is a deep growl in the distance, then a seismic shake that almost knocks me off my feet.

"Whoa! What the hell?" I exclaim as I try to keep my balance.

"What was that?" Cisca asks.

"I don't know." I snap my head over to where the growl originated. It came from the depth of one of the coniferous forests.

Above the trees far off is a tall cliff, over which, there is a single small, dark cloud in the otherwise completely clear blue sky. I do not remember seeing that when I first got here.

Growls, from what type of creature I can't even guess, continue to be heard.

"What is going on there?" I ask.

Cisca leans in to get a closer look and says, "I don't know, but it looks to be within the signal range of your UAV. You can send that in to scout."

"Okay."

I take the drone out from my belt.

"What do I do with this?" I ask.

"I will establish a connection with it now," Cisca says and types on her keyboard.

The drone beeps in my hand and a green light turns on.

"Connected," Cisca says, "Now all you need to do is throw it up into the sky."

"Alright."

I toss the drone straight up. While airborne, it unfolds itself and extends out four propellers.

VRRR. The drone hums and spins its blades to stay in the air.

"Rerouting video feed," Cisca says, and another square pops up in my view below the video of her.

I am now looking through the camera of the drone. From up here, I can see a lot more, but there is still nothing but green.

"Are you controlling the drone?" I ask.

"Yeah," Cisca answers, "And now I will fly it to where the sound came from."

The view of the drone begins rapidly heading toward the cloud that is very out of place.

BOOM!

Another thunder accompanies the lightning striking from the cloud.

"That is… not normal. What on Earth is happening?" Cisca mumbles to herself.

As we get closer to the site, more details are revealed to us.

There is a patch of forest on the other side of the cliff under the thundercloud, and it is on fire. Flames blaze over the top of the trees, as more mini earthquakes try to knock me off balance.

The drone finally flies over the cliff and the aflame site comes into view.

"What the… is that a dinosaur… wait, no, dragon?" Cisca says.

"What?"

The video is too small for me to see the details, but within the scorching leaves, there is a brown mass as tall as the trees moving around in the flames.

"Fly closer," I tell Cisca.

"Alright."

It is fully in view now. There is a fifty-meter-tall lizard with wings roaring at the ground and spraying fire out of its mouth, sending vibrations through the land as it stomps.

"Oh my God," I say with a surprised laugh, "Do dragons exist in this world?"

"I-I guess so. What is it shooting fire at?"

"Fly closer," I say again.

"But there is a dragon in front of us."

"So? It's not going to care about a little flying thing. Come on, let us get a closer look."

Cisca thinks about it for a second. "Okay, then," she says and brings the drone even lower.

"Ahh!" A sound comes from under the trees.

Cisca also notices it. "Was that a human's scream?" She asks.

"It sounded like it," I say.

"Oh, look at that!" Cisca yells.

Through the branches, I can see a man clad in iron armor and helmet with his leg crushed under a fallen tree.

He isn't the only one. There is a group of them in front of the dragon shooting arrows out of their crossbows at it.

"Are they… knights?" I ask.

"Maybe."

The injured man reaches his hand out toward his comrades and scream, "I need help!"

"They are speaking English," I point out.

"Yeah," Cisca doesn't seem all that surprised.

"But, how? Didn't you say the chance of that isn't high?" I ask.

"It's not that low, either. Eden and Earth were once on the same path, until inconsistencies big enough broke Eden off into its own parallel branch, so we should share quite a few things in common," Cisca says.

Well, the dragon is definitely not one of those things.

"Do we help?" I ask.

"You are way too far away to get there in time," Cisca says, "Let's see what these people do."

"Okay."