ʀ ʏ ᴀ ɴ  ᴍ ᴀ ʏ ᴇ ᴢ : 

[indent][indent] ᴛ ʜ ᴇ  ᴅ ɪ ɢ ɪ ᴛ ᴀ ʟ  ᴡ ᴏ ʀ ʟ ᴅ :  [sub][b]T H I E V E S[/b][/sub][/indent][/indent][hr]
The other bodies arose from their unconscious state; one after the other; and Ryan eased her shoulders inside her jacket upon the knowledge of them not being corpses.  Her small breaths quickly submitting in between her lips relinquished their nature with familiarity of confusion in the other humans’ questioning voices.  The rest of her body relaxed as the surrealness of the scenario settled in her mind.  Fears of this thing—this situation—being a permanent fixture pushed to the back of her mind.  She could figure this out, like a puzzle.  There was no reason to be so emotional, like a [i]girl[/i].  Again, she kicked herself mentality.  The trifling reminder of her inborn tendencies hardened her thoughts with lips pressing together, but her body was quick to wince in the sudden jerk of one of the newly awakened as he stretched his muscles and hurdling his feet into a  chase after the omen creatures.  

After the initial shock, her body shifted, and her hands pressed against the ground, smudging with the dirt and grass while pushing her body firmly, upwards.  Her own question had been lost in the moments of action with a boot stepping backwards and digging a heel into the ground upon seeing the small monster turn and blast the male with some sort of ‘bubble blast.’  This thing was getting weirder, and she had to keep it together. She wasn’t some flaky girl who couldn’t handle a little danger nor adventure.  It-it just wasn’t fair that she was being put into this position. Like, who else in the world would have to go through this?  

Regardless of tendencies, necessity of the moment pulled her forward briskly and towards the boy, now unable to reach the small monsters who were floating away in the ski.  While she watched them drift off, her movements slowed as the monsters began to address them.  Her stage of bravery halted briefly into a slow jog until she was standing only an arms length away from the boy. She could feel her eyebrows tightening in anticipation, “If I may, to answer some of your questions - uh, no, you’re not dreaming, and you’re not dead.”

“Dumbasses.”

“Sister!”

Ryan swallowed at the sound of their voices.  Heat flushed her cheeks in response.  The deep seated need for the boy to chase after his stolen belonging was the same desire that caused Ryan to react in anger, “Who are you calling dumbass?”  Her voice rose and nipped sharply at the plush, pink creature.  Her own green eyes threw daggers into the large, dark eyes of the monster.  Rashness taking over her emotions with fists clenched.  She was wearing her good boots.  One kick to the face an—Ryan cut her thoughts from going so far.  There was no way she could kick that high, let alone jump that high.  Her eyes narrowed and her stance moved into something less aggressive as the words of the monster’s halfhearted explanation of basically nothing sunk into her mind and the image of her keychain watch dangled in front of her—verily out of her reach.

Her head whipped around to look at the other two humans; eyes scanning the conditions of them as if she had some idea to join forces and take back what belonged to the boy and her.  No, was she out of her mind?  That was obviously impossible. She turned her attention back to the monsters. An adolescent demand and attempt at sounding authoritative sprang from her mouth as she called to them, “Hey! That stuff doesn’t belong to you! A-and, what do you mean you have other things to do, you thieves?” Her fist flung higher than she had expected, knocking it against the gray atmosphere in an unconscious attempt to show her threatened annoyance. 

Swallowing again and biting down on her bottom lip to keep herself contained, Ryan could still feel the tingling sensation of frustration rosying her cheeks.  She wanted to chase after them and try to see where they landed, but something held her back.  Instead, she concentrated on calming her tightened chest while her once clenched fist, lowers and allowed her fingers to now fiddle at the place on her purse where her locket would have been had it not been stolen.  Insecure thoughts of whether she was doing the right thing circled her mind.  A lack of control over her bearings was maddening enough.  However, She hadn’t the slightest idea what was happening; where she was; how she got here.  She wanted answers, but all she was getting was a stupidly vague response about some ‘Digital World.’

At least, she wasn’t dead. Unless, those [i]things[/i] were lying.  B-but why would they need her watch?  And where were they going?  She was fuming on the outside but pouting on the inside.  She never minded a good puzzle or mystery, but this was even worse than watching her sisters’ piece together which outfits to let their dolls wear.  With her sisters, there were hundreds of outfit combinations, but at least, she could see all the pieces and predict some sort of potential combinations.  Right now, though, she had nothing but a stolen key chain watch and her fragmented memories of reading [i]The Chronicles of Narnia[/i] and the [i]Time Quintet[/i].  Bizarreness was clearly not her forte.