"Humanwood: ch. 2" by Erin N. Conley

The silence went unbroken. Wil's peripheral vision took in the obvious human characteristics--the rounded ears, the strange clothing, and some things that surprised him like peculiarly long arms and legs--but he could not tear his eyes away from the human's. They were blue, just a shade more gray than dragon blue, a color he had never seen eyes before. Elves surely did not have eyes that color. How old was this creature? Wil thought he looked about his own age, but it was difficult to tell with humans. They were supposed to be immortal, able to be killed only by sword. This one could be hundreds of years old for all he knew. The first sound was the swish, which seemed a roar to Wil's ears, of one of his painting fluttering from the bed to the floor.

"What. . .What year is this?" The human spoke first. He moved his mouth only barely and not a muscle twitched, as though he were afraid of scaring the elf away. Wil's brain riled at such a strange question. He forced himself to think--he couldn't pass up this chance to be the first to ever speak to a human.

"It's um. . ." Wil found thinking difficult, as though his thoughts were slogging through mud. "It's 2032 A.S."

"So I've traveled into the future then? I meant for the past, but this is even better!" The human looked pleased and surprised for a moment, raising his head and looking out the window as though to glimpse the futuristic landscape, but his face fell as he took in the simple thatched-roof cottages and penned, grazing animals. "No, no, it's all wrong. That's only a few decades ahead, surely we couldn't have all been reduced to farmers in that time. . ."

Wil had no idea what the human was talking about. Some human gibberish, he supposed. He needed to find a way to make the human stop talking to himself and notice him, but his mind was strangely blank.

"You're a human," he finally stated brilliantly.

The human slowly turned back to him with an equally blank expression on his face, as though seeing him for the first time. Which in a way he was, for instead of looking at an ancestor like he had assumed, he was seeing something. . .well, inhuman.

"You're a. . ." He seemed to be searching for some clue as to what he was looking at. His eyes widened to dragon-size when he noticed for the first time the delicately pointed ears. "You're a. . .an eh. . .el. . ." He stepped backwards toward the window, as though recoiling in horror. Wil spared a quick glance down at himself; no he looked like a perfectly normal elf. Not strange, like this human.

"An elf," he supplied helpfully, stepping forward and spreading his arms apart in his best friendly gesture.

At that the human backed himself right out the window, flailing his arms and legs as he nearly pitched right into the unicorn pen below. Wil ran forward and grabbed hold of his strangely protruding ankle and pulled him back in, pushing his shoulders down for him to sit on the ground while he reoriented himself. The human's face was pale; Wil was afraid he would pass out.

"It's okay," he said awkwardly, not knowing what the human was so upset about. "I. . .I won't hurt."

The human looked up at him as some small amount of color returned to his face, just looking him up and down. Feeling he was under inspection, Wil put his hands behind his back and stood still.

"Where am I?" the human asked meekly.

Wil frowned. "You're. . .here." He gestured out the window as though it were obvious. "In our village. I'm Wilthuvienolas." He offered a hand to help the human stand up again.

The human took it shakily, wincing as he felt the hand against his, as though he'd expected it to go right through him. They regarded each other, the elf curious and the human suspicious as they stood, again in silence.

"Wilthuh. . .vuwel.. . .I'm Bob," he said abruptly.

"Bob." Wil stared at him incredulously. What a peculiar name. "Bob?"

"Bob." The human looked almost defensive now, and Wil hastened to make peace, whatever he'd done."

"You can call me Wil," he said.

Reassured by these common courtesies, Bob started pacing the floor to and fro, obviously deep in thought. He talked to himself, and Wil half-listened politely even though he hadn't the foggiest idea what the human was talking about.

"The years. . .no, the years must have been right. Ooooh what's happened to me?" He groaned and put a hand up to his forehead. He went back to the window and looked down at the penned animals below him, shaking his head in disbelief. "Unicorns. Elves. What next?"

As if on cue, the amorous green and orange dragons darted across the sky in front of the window, shrieking their joy of flying. Bob tumbled backward but shook his head again, unalarmed.

"It's obvious what's happened . . ." He said slowly, and paused.

"I've left the real world and entered the fantasy world."

"You've left the fantasy world and entered the real world," Wil said simultaneously.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment. Bob opened his mouth again as though to begin speaking, when Wil heard the sound of footsteps up the stairs. He cupped his hand over the human's mouth, ushering him to the wardrobe, shushing the muffled protests as he stuffed the human in and slammed the door. He dreaded the sound of the human pounding against the doors; he hadn't had time to explain. But to his surprise, it was silent as soon as Mum opened the door.

"Who are you talking to, Wil?" she asked curiously, looking around the room as if scanning for fairies. It wouldn't have been the first time Wil brought home an illegal pet.

"Um. . .no one. I mean, I was talking to myself," he added as Mum's look got even more suspicious. "I mean, I'm practicing what I'm going to say. . .At Humanwood tomorrow." He gave her a weak smile, which, thankfully, she mistook for a nervous one. Her face softened and she looked at him sympathetically.

"Well, you better get in bed, or you'll be too sleepy to remember anything you've practiced," she ordered gently. "Go on now, you'll be fine. Sleep tight. I'll see you bright and early in the morning." She left nearly as quickly as she'd come.

Wil stood there breathing heavily for a moment before he remembered just where the human was. He hastily turned and opened the wardrobe doors, giving the very frightened-looking human a hand at stepping out of it.

Clinging to his shoulder was a pair of slightly pointed ear muffs, Wil's best with blue-dyed unicorn hide and werewolf fur. Bob gingerly picked it off his shoulder with two fingers around the bridge, as though afraid they would be enchanted. He stared at them, with his expressions changing so quickly that Wil was unable to decipher them, until finally he burst out laughing, dropping the earmuffs to the floor. But it was not amused laughter or even cruel laughter, Wil realized with dismay. The man was positively hysterical.

Wil cringed as he heard Mum stirring in her sleep downstairs, and hastily grabbed a unicorn-fur pillow and covered the human's mouth with it. Bob obeyed agreeably, holding the pillow against his mouth to muffle his laughter, which, if anything, doubled when he felt the unfamiliar fur against his face. Wil stared blankly at him a moment, then quietly slipped out the door, hesitating a moment to make sure everyone else was in bed; then he crept down the stairs and into the kitchen where he dug around in the cabinets, compulsively looking over his shoulder, expecting to see Mum towering over him with the human clenched in her fist. He returned to his bedroom with two cups and a bottle of unicorn milk laced with dragon venom, just the sort of spirits that would relax the human's brain until he was past caring. He silently latched the door behind him and offered a filled cup to Bob, who was still chuckling in spite of himself, occasionally breaking into another gale of laughter as his eyes caught sight of another unexpected item of the fantasy world. He accepted gratefully and gulped, wincing and making a gurgling noise as the venom burned at his throat, but took heart as the liquid warmed his belly, just sipping quietly until his cup was refilled three times.

Wil began to feel incredibly lethargic as the night wore on, but he could hardly afford to go to sleep now. He himself had never felt any more than a slight buzz from the venom milk, but it was obvious that it was far stronger than anything this human was accustomed to; it wasn't long before Bob was both legless and tongueless. He drawled on with a slightly slurred accent, explaining his appearance in the real world with all the concern that a mother might in reading a bedtime story to a child.

"So there I wasth. . .with the biggest paying job of a lithe. . .lift. . .lifetime." He stuttered, breathing heavily but talking quietly under Wil's direction (a command he frequently had to repeat). "I wasth supposed to make a time machine, you know. Go back in time. . .bring America into complete power. . .by shanging histhtory. American is the country I come from, lad." he added with an imperious look at the rapt face of the elf.

"Why would you want to do that?" Wil asked, frowning as he looked out the window, trying to imagine his town and all the ones around it being under of the power of just one person.

"Stho we could control the world," Bob answered matter-of-factly, though this cleared nothing up for Wil. However, he went quiet, still unsure of how the human had gotten where he was now.

"But it didn't happen. Duh," Bob added with a rude noise. "I made a mirror. Totally inconspicuous. No one would ever notice the dials in the back. Make some bizarre-looking contraption to attract all the terrorists and spies. They would never suspect the fancy mirror standing in the hallway." He sighed with a misty-eyed proud look at his obvious ingenuity, but Wil was still having trouble following what he was saying. Terrorists? Spies? There were more creatures in this fantasy world than he had ever dreamed. He imagined hideous large-fanged monsters, and wondered what they would want with a time machine.

"But. . .but it took me here. . ." Bob said, looking around the room again, this time with a forlorn expression on his face and not a hint of laughter. "To this. . .this fantasy world. Who knows, maybe it killed me and I'm in Heaven. Or maybe Hell," he amended with a frown at the empty bottle.

These, too, were unfamiliar names to Wil, but he hastened to reassure the man. "Oh, you're not dead. I'm alive, and I'm with you."

Bob looked up at him, slowly trying to process what he had just said, before looking down at him and giving his own arm a poke, cringing as though the action pained him. "Yeah, you're right. I'm as alive as ever." He straightened up suddenly, looking formally at a band on his wrist with a circle in the middle, frowning as the sticks in the middle of the circle turned every which way. He shrugged and stood up and strode toward the door. "Well then, that must mean I'm in a magical fantasy la-la land. So I'll just go find someone here to magic me back to my world, and then . . ."

Wil jumped in front of the door, blocking it from the human. Eyes slightly unfocused, Bob glowered at him and put his fists on his hip. "What now?" he asked in an irritated voice.

"You can't do that," Wil said firmly.

"And why not?" The scowl deepened.

"Because. . .because no one would believe you exist!" Wil's voice took on a more panicked tone, and now the human looked more confused than angry.

"Of course I exist, I'm right here!" He shouted.

"No! No." Wil put his hand over the man's mouth, and the glower returned. "I mean, no one's ever seen a human before. And most people probably wouldn't believe it if they did see one. And besides. . ." he went on slowly, looking at the human with growing pity. "No one here know where the human world is, or how to get there, even if they do believe it exists. Even magic can't locate a world that no one's ever seen." He took in a deep breath and closed his eyes. "I'm afraid. . .no one here can take you home."

The conversation ended much like it began. Bob looked at him in a stunned, sober silence, not moving except for his irregular, ragged breathing, before collapsing onto the floor, burying his head in his hands, and sobbing quietly to himself.