Derek used his hands to brace himself as he crept up the rising embankment through the fog. He proceeded very slowly, exercising extreme caution within the incredibly low visibility.
Janus emulated Derek’s tactic and followed close behind. Their visibility had shrunk considerably again, which did little to allay Janus’ worries.
After a brief, albeit steep, incline, the ground leveled out again and allowed for them both to stand up.
“Where do we go from here? We can’t see anything,” Derek commented, as Janus took a step forward to stand beside him.
The boat and the lakeside were no longer visible behind them. They were enveloped fully in the mist again, a world of gray with a patch of grass directly underfoot.
“Kent!” Janus called out one more time, the query proving naught in eliciting any clue as to Kent’s whereabouts or condition. He turned towards Derek, “Let’s go on.”
He took a slow step forward, followed by another, as he proceeded cautiously through the fog. After he had taken several more steps, he noticed that his visibility was increasing again. The fog appeared to be thinning, and he wondered if the bulk of its density was concentrated closer to the water.
Ahead, there was a brighter luminescence that seemed to beckon to Janus. It increased in intensity with each and every step forward that he took.
With the rising visibility, he picked his pace up more confidently. He felt relieved that he could see for at least a few steps, just as the first shards of broad daylight burst suddenly through the last vestiges of the fog; daylight that came from a stunning, greenish-blue sky.
Janus halted immediately, standing in a maelstrom of astonishment and wonder at the edge of the fog bank. He did not so much as move or speak, even as Derek drew up next to him a moment later.
Derek was equally speechless as he perceived the extraordinary sight. A remarkable and unexpected view was spread to the far horizons before them.
The land that was brilliantly revealed to their eyes flowed in a harmony of gently rising and falling contours, consisting of broad swathes of higher grasses that were broken up here and there by a few thick copses of trees. Off in the distance, towards the east, was a blurry, continuous line that signaled the beginnings of a vast forest that stretched beyond sight.
The strange hue of the sky compounded the shock of the unexpected scene unraveling before them. Janus finally turned about, the last wisps of fog vanishing at the edges of a modest river, gliding by along soft currents a few strides behind them.
The lake and the boat were nowhere to be seen.
“Janus! Derek!” cried out a very familiar voice to their right.
A couple of hundred yards off, running hurriedly towards them, was Kent. He closed the distance quickly, nearly tripping over his own feet in his fervent haste to get to where the other two were standing.
Janus’ heart leaped as he saw Kent suddenly jump off to the side, as a loud, piercing screech erupted from the ground level.
A small lizard-like creature leapt up, startled from its hiding spot. Janus’ eyes caught a brief flash of its greenish exterior as its scaly body caught the sunlight. Its powerful legs pumped desperately as it bounded away from Kent.
Janus watched the strange creature race into the distance, moving with incredible speed and agility. He had seen nothing like it in his life.
Janus looked back quickly to Kent. His expression was of outright fear, mingled with a wave of consummate relief at having found them. He stumbled forward again, quickly covering the last stretch of ground that still remained between them.
“You came out of nowhere, I thought I’d lost you guys forever,” he stammered, wide-eyed and dangerously close to hyperventilation.
He looked to be on the cusp of hysteria. His eyes looked back in the direction where the lizard-creature had run, returning his attention a moment later towards Janus and Derek.
“You couldn’t hear us calling for you?” Janus asked him.
Kent appeared perplexed, as his brow furrowed. “I didn’t hear one word from you. I looked back, and I couldn’t see you or the boat either. Then the fog had thinned enough so that I could see the river that’s there now. You two were nowhere to be seen.”
“Impossible. This is impossible,” Derek said pointedly, pacing around in a circle and shaking his head. He opened and closed his eyes several times, as he stared around at the sights around them.
A soft breeze tossed some strands of hair into Janus’ face, as he looked up into the teal sky in absolute incredulity. He had no inkling regarding an explanation for had just happened, his mind spinning as it tried to come up with a rationale.
“Where are we? What is this?” Kent asked Janus hurriedly, panic manifest in his tone and face.
Janus gave a pained smile, as he lowered his gaze towards Kent. He spoke gently to his friend, “Kent, can we all have just lost our minds? I don’t think so, but I don’t have any idea what this all is, or means.”
“We are in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing out here, nothing at all! Wherever you look, nothing!” Kent declared.
He gave a wide, dramatic sweep of his hand as he spoke, the gesture taking in the full immensity of their unfamiliar environment. Janus’ eyes followed Kent’s gesture, and he could not deny that there was not one singular sign of any human presence or activity. It was a totality of open wilderness, beautiful and daunting at the same time.
“What is this place?” Kent prodded again, as if the others might actually know the answer. “Where are we?”
“I don’t know, and Janus doesn’t know!” Derek declared tersely.
Janus had never before seen Derek looking so exasperated, but like himself he knew that Derek was entirely devoid of answers. That cognizance alone was enough to add further to Janus’ own increasing trepidation.
“I don’t know either, Kent,” Janus added quietly.
His nerves had already been frayed, and his emotions had long been spent, so there was little left within him to cope with the inherent shock of the moment.
There was no other way around it. Unless they were all suffering from a homogenous, mass hallucination, the impossible had become possible. His first inclination was that they had literally stepped right out of their own world, potentially into a world of a different time and place. The scope of that notion was at once overwhelming, and mind-boggling. It also seemed totally absurd, and a part of Janus immediately dismissed the thought as a momentary shred of hysteria present within himself.
It was ridiculous to think that the stuff of dreams and fantastical tales had somehow manifested into a bold new existence, but there was a hard and undeniable reality to everything around them. Janus knew that whatever the case might be, they were at the mercy of something far beyond his comprehension.
“I’m going crazy… man, I am going crazy!” Kent said, his eyes gleaming with fear, moistening as tears of helplessness came into them.
He looked as if he were about to come apart at every seam.
Without a word, Derek walked with quick, purposeful strides over towards Kent. Derek reached out and grabbed him forcefully by the shoulders, bringing Kent around to face him directly as he waited for Kent to look back up.
“Come on Kent! Get a grip on yourself!” he said firmly. His gaze seemed composed of iron, as if compelling Kent to take some strength from it. Though he spoke to Kent with a commanding tone, Janus heard the strong sympathy and compassion underlying the words. “I don’t blame you for feeling what you are feeling. But whatever all of this is, we are all in it together right now. And we have to work with what we’ve got.”
Janus had nothing to add to Derek’s statement, and he did not want to do anything to rattle Kent. He decided to demonstrate calmness while Kent’s faculties swayed on the edge. Janus lowered himself down on the ground into a sitting position near to the other two.