At first, all that was able to be seen was the warm green surrounding them, but as everyone's vision cleared, the area was soon recognizable as a forest, with flowers and ivies of types unfamiliar to any of them, like nothing they'd seen before. Alex picked up his glasses, Kyle clutched his backpack and sucked on his sucker, Hailey sat up from where she had fallen on her back, Maria rubbed her head, and Sebastian was the first to stand out of all of them.

"Whoa...I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore, Toto," mumbled Alex as he collected himself and stood up from where he fell. Kyle chuckled quietly.

Maria stood, surveying the area as she spoke. "We've got to figure out where we are, though. This isn't right." Hailey nodded in agreement.

"Can't you tell?" remarked Sebastian, snidely, "We're in a fantasy world, like one of the nerd's little books, obviously." He rolled his eyes, not really believing a word he said.

Alex frowned, his brows furrowing thoughtfully. "Well, it could be. How else would you explain us just suddenly getting teleported from high school to do...whatever it is we're doing here?"

Sebastian scoffed, picking up a stone and throwing it at a tree behind Kyle. "Yeah, right. So we just assume magic exists when it never has before and it brought us here for some reason? Dimwit." Kyle flinched out of the stone's path.

Alex glared. "Do you have some genius explanation for how we got here?"

Sebastian rolled his eyes. "Yeah, we're on a bad trip, hotshot. Somebody must've put something in the food."

Alex's lips tightened into a line. "Then why don't we see the rest of the school here with us?" That shut Sebastian up.

Hailey shook her head. "Everyone, shut up and stop fighting. We're somewhere we don't recognize and all we have is what we brought for school today. We have to stick together and figure something out. Find civilization, talk to people, something." Everyone looked at her.

Maria smiled. "She's right, you know. We've got to stick together in an unfamiliar environment. and that means stop fighting." The two boys stayed quiet at that.

Kyle stood up with the others, clutching his sketchbook and backpack. "Uhm...do you think...we should...you know...figure out what everyone has?" He spoke in a timid, quiet voice, but Hailey heard him.

"That's a smart idea. Who still has their bags? We should all tell each other what we have so we know if it becomes useful." Hailey acted strong, self-assured. They all checked and found their bags, which they had brought with them to lunch, strewn across the grass as they had been. As they looked through their bags, each one said what they had.

"I only have my books, schoolwork, and some candy in here." Hailey started, going through her backpack.

"You keep candy in your backpack?" Sebastian almost sneered.

"And what do you have, know-it-all Sebastian?" Hailey said in a dry tone.

"Let's see...some cash, a knife, my condoms, homework I've blown off for a few weeks, and...that's it." Sebastian listed as he went through his bag.

Maria scoffed. "A knife and condoms?"

Sebastian shrugged. "Gotta stay prepared." He winked suggestively at her.

Maria rolled her eyes and went through her bag. "My grades, a study book, my training weights, spare shoelaces, and my lunchbox."

Hailey's eyebrows raised. "You keep training weights in your bag? Must be heavy..."

Maria smiled and shook her head. "Not that bad."

To everyone's surprise, Alex spoke up, taking his turn to list out what was in his bag. "I only have my work and my notebooks." He returned to his silence after that. Kyle looked through his bag with shaky hands.

"Uhm, I have four granola bars, three packs of peanut butter cracker sandwiches, a bunch of suckers and caramels, some graham crackers, my sketch pencils, and my sketchbook." He mumbled off everything he had shyly.

Hailey smiled. "That seems like a lot of food, but you know what? We're in an unfamiliar environment, a lot of food could end up saving us."

Kyle shrugged. "I...snack a lot..."

"Anyway, we should get going. We have to find some sort of civilization." Hailey said, zipping her bag and facing in a random direction, acting like she knew what she was doing. With no objections from anyone else, not even Sebastian, they headed off in the direction that Hailey chose, no one seeing any better options.

The group reached a road fairly quickly after wandering the wilderness for a little while, everyone tacitly following the road. They walked in silence for a time, Sebastian kicking pebbles on the road, Kyle hunched over his backpack, Alex taking notes on plants as they walked, Maria almost marching alongside Hailey, who led the group with a confidence she couldn't quite find true in herself.

Luckily, they found a village after about an hour of walking, but something was wrong. The streets were all dirt, the houses wood and stone with straw roofs and the only tall buildings being only two stories - and there were only two of those buildings. Children played in the streets and people bustled to and fro in the center of town. Not a cellphone tower or paved street in sight. Kyle caught sight of something strange - a man hobbling along the side of the road, dark wisps of something like smoke coming off his clothing. 

Before Kyle could say anything, the man went rabid, lunging with the ferocity of a starved wolf at the nearest person, biting and clawing like a feral animal. The one he tackled down was a woman, and she screamed loudly and tried her best to fight the man off, but she wasn't strong enough to make a difference. The man's eyes glowed a toxic violet, unnatural and intense in their pigment.

The group had only moments to react. Maria ran forward and swung her bag into the man's head, the weight of her training weights knocking him off the woman. Hailey ran and helped the woman up, taking her out of the line of fire. The man tried to tackle Maria, but she had plenty of football practice, so she sidestepped out of the way. Sebastian moved forward and kicked the man's knees out from under him, slamming his own knee into the man's face as he went down. Alex went over to the woman, checking for wounds or lasting damage. Kyle stood frozen, observing the scene with wide, wary eyes.

The man was on the ground, and Maria pinned him down just in time for the town's leader to come down. "Another one?" He said incredulously, shaking his head. The group all looked at him.

"What do you mean...another one? Has this happened before?" Alex cocked his head to the side, furrowing his brows as he watched the leader with suspicion. Kyle had his sketchbook out, but no one saw what exactly he was drawing.

Sebastian scoffed. "If this has happened before, you'd think they'd have solved the problem by now - or at least gotten some guards to deal with it."

The leader scowls. "Don't got the funds for guards, boy, and this sickness ain't normal. It's magic. We can't get a solution ourselves."

Hailey observed the scene, the still-struggling man. "This isn't...an isolated incident, is it?"

The leader shook his head. "Happening all over the empire. Haven't you heard?"

Maria, still holding the feral man down, shook her head and gritted her teeth. "No, we're...new to the area. Don't know much of anything."

The leader raised an eyebrow, but didn't question it. "Well, it's a plague. People are calling it the Insanity Plague. We don't know the cause of it. People just...go all crazy-eyed and start attacking everything in sight." Kyle quietly continued sketching, flipping through pages.

Alex paused. "Well, if it's a magical plague, there has to be a magical solution. Who's working on the cure? There has to be someone trying if it's as widespread as you say."

The town leader nodded. "Aye, there's people at the Mage's College who'd know more about it. You headed there?"

Kyle held his pencil still for a moment, looking up from his sketchbook. "Uh, w-we don't know where we're going yet."

"Well, when you do, let me know and I'll give you directions." The leader said kindly. The group nodded their thanks and after Maria handed the feral man off to the town leader, regrouped to figure out their next move.