[center][u][b][color=518EDC]Alec Xu, Lapis Lazuli of Water
A coastal town, noon.[/color][/b][/u][/center]

	Alec grabbed his scuba bag and put it onto his back, he owned his own wetsuit and goggles, and preferred to use his own spare air emergency air tanks. A lesson from his eldest brother, get your own stuff and maintain it yourself, that way someone else's mess up won't be your death. If your gear was wrong, it was on you. A good lesson, Alec thought. He was about to go on a dive with a few others to measure the sea urchin population in the nearby kelp forest. If the sea urchins got too numerous, there would be a problem. It was an important dive and Alec felt the need to be there. He glanced over at the pile of chainmail on the table in front of him, and the empty box next to it. He smiled a little, next week he was shark diving to see shark behavior with his own eyes. Once his brothers caught wind of the trip, they bought him a sharksuit. A full body chainmail suit priced at seven and a half grand. Alec was just going to rent a suit, but apparently his brothers wouldn't have any of that and apparently they had enough money to just send him a suit of armor. Later today he'd try it on, air tank harness and all, see if it all came together well. But for right now, he slipped his canvas shoes on, sea urchin dive. He popped a piece of hardcandy into his mouth and walked towards his front door, gripped the handle and... felt something on his eye, a piece of dust probably. With his other hand he rubbed his eyes, swinging the door open and stepping through.

[center][color=518EDC][u][b]Forest Clearing[/b][/u][/color][/center]
	It was warmer than it was supposed to be. Alec finished rubbing his eyes and opened them, readjusting his glasses at the same time. He expected to see his apartment complex, a road, cars, more buildings around. A pizza place across the street. Instead he was in the middle of a forest clearing, the trees were dense and too natural, and he saw wisps of unnatural green smoke in the middle of the clearing. Alec's eyes widened and he instinctively pulled his t-shirt collar over his nose and buried his nose and mouth into the crook of his right arm. Off the top of his head, nothing in nature produced green smoke, it had to be man made of some sort but he didn't see a canister or container. He watched it dissipate into the air. He stood there for a few seconds more, staring where it had been. What was that gas? He let his arm fall to his side and let his shirt collar fall off his face, hoping that the small amount of green gas that he had seen wasn't lethal. He glanced around, this was not his city. He felt his heart rate go up and his breathing speed up. Alec turned around slowly, seeing his door frame, but through the door was the treeline... upside down. Alec blinked twice and then a third time, hard. Opening his eyes it was still his door frame, and through the opening the upside down treeline. He leaned to the right to see beyond it. Nothing, normal right side up trees.

He looked the frame over, it was his door that was flipping the image. Alec stepped closer to the door frame, not willing to go through it. Instead he pulled a pen from out of his pocket and held it up. He reached around the frame with the pen gripped in his hand, facing upwards. He saw the pen and his fist facing down.
[color=518EDC][b]"W-what the...?"[/b][/color] He muttered, this was no natural phenomenon, but he couldn't think of any technology that could do something like this. Transport him to a forest and have the perfect imitation of his door frame flip whatever was seen through it. A million questions raced through his head, but he had one important question to answer first. He placed the pen back into his pocket and gripped the frame. It was solid, wood, and cool. So it was real, no illusion. Then the flipped world through the door frame began to blur. It got blurrier and blurrier, quickly. Alec blinked, glanced left and saw clear images of grass, trees and sky. It was the door. He raised his glasses with his other hand and dropped them onto his nose again, it was definitely the door. He noticed the frame slowly fading.
[color=518EDC][b]"Wait, no-"[/b][/color] he said, gripping the frame harder. The image blurred to such a degree that he could see the color of the grass, shadows, trees and sky blending together... then they started getting sharper. The image through the door was right way up, but the door was fading still. He saw it, felt it, fade into thin air. Then the door was gone.

[color=518EDC][b]"You're shitting me."[/b][/color] Alec said to himself, he waved his hand where the door frame was, but nothing. He rubbed his fingers together, no residual... anything. Just the feeling of his fingers. He glanced around, he was alone in this clearing. He cursed over and over, someone or something must have pulled him here. But for what purpose? Who, what and why? The why especially concerned him, if this was a person with technology advanced though to just yank him from his town and drop him into some unknown part of the world... if this even was his world... he didn't finish the train of thought. He felt frustration boil within him.

[color=518EDC][b]"Goddamnit I'm supposed to be looking at fucking [i]sea urchins[/i] right now!"[/b][/color] He yelled at nobody in particular. No. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, doing his best to control his breathing. No use getting mad at the why, he was here now. He needed to figure out what to do now. Stay in the now. He took one more deep breath, holding it in, then he opened his eyes and exhaled. He took a knee and took off his scuba bag. He thought about what his eldest brother would do, the soldier. Probably raise his rifle and secure the area. Well Alec had no guns, instead he looked around, searching for threats but found none. Okay. He placed his scuba bag onto the ground and he pulled some grass from out of the ground. He smelled it, felt it. It was grass alright. He dug into the dirt with his fingers and did the same. Dirt. This place real, so far as he was concerned. He shook his head. Inventory. That sharksuit would be real goddamn useful right now, any sort of protective equipment in this unknown environment. Instead he had his neoprene wetsuit, three emergency air tanks, some granola bars he tucked away into the bag, various belts, his diving fins, harnesses and goggles. Not much was useful there. 

He pulled out the contents of his pockets on his jeans. Wallet, nothing much useful there. He placed it into the backpack. Phone, he pressed the power button and it flicked on. So the transportation didn't kill his electronics, but there was no connection of any sort. He shut the phone off, better to conserve the battery. He placed it into the backpack. Keychain, into the backpack. He held his pocket knife and took out the blade, examining it for a quick second. He sheathed the blade and placed the pocket knife into his pocket, where he could easily grab it. Then his pen and his pen light, he flicked the pen light on and off to check if it worked, it did and it went into his other pocket along with the writing pen. He glanced at his watch, then up at the sun above. More or less noon still. He exhaled audibly, with only a small flashlight and a pocket knife, he didn't feel very well equipped. He patted his black jeans, a good enough pants for survival, a little restrictive, but not easily torn. Grey canvas shoes, not good. He was wearing a blue t-shirt, a long sleeved shirt would have been better. Finally, he had a black and grey hoodie, fairly thick and warm. Good, that extra thickness will definitely help during the night. 

Now that he did inventory, he zipped up the backpack and looked around. Where was he exactly? The grass wasn't trimmed, it was wild, but it wasn't tall. He looked at the trees, it was definitely a forest, with roots exposed in some places, boulders visible. Alec was studying to be a marine biologist not a dendrologist, he couldn't identify what part of the world he was in by tree alone. He peered beyond the trees. He couldn't see any trails, no matter how hard he looked. That did not bode well. If this forest was not well traveled, it was not well traveled for a reason. Either unexplored or there wasn't any civilization nearby, he concluded. He took a deep breath through his nose with his eyes closed, crisp, fresh, clean air the likes of which he had never breathed before. He took another deep breath just to enjoy it, having lived in cities and towns his whole life. Then he noticed something. This was a forest. His eyes shot open, he heard the wind rustle the leaves on the trees and the grass, that gentle rustle and nothing else. His breathing sped up. There wasn't any sound of cars or jets, no trains, just the sounds of a forest. Alec slowly moved his hand to hover over his knife. He heard another gust of wind rustle the trees. He slowly looked up towards the sky and only saw the blue, dotted with white clouds. Alec felt his mouth become dry and he swallowed. If this was a forest, nowhere near civilization, where were the birds and animals?