• In an alternate universe... things are very different.

    Our story begins in the small planet known as Talcutavoos. It is the only planet in the universe with life on it. Three lives in particular will make up our beginning cast, three lives that I knew very well....

    The sky was blue that day, from this angle, on this part of the world. Mr. Chambers, Shadow, and I were spending time in one of our favorite places: Origin Field. None of us had known that its name until we had met Mr. Chambers. The field was not made up of grass or flowers, like fields usually are in this universe, but rather it was filled with seemingly endless amounts of fuzzy fluff, of various colors of pink. Some of it was in balls, and some of it was larger and more like a blanket. It was however in pieces, and you could walk through it, and throw it up in the air, and roll in it, such as we were doing. One could almost describe it as, magical, but to us, it was very normal.... We had been visiting here every day for a very, very, very long time. There wasn't much talking going on. We basked in our frolicking as one would the light from the sun, accompanied by each other and the occasional breeze. It was rarely windy here; the breeze was just enough to rustle everything, perhaps flow through someone's hair a bit, and then move on.

    A dim, warmly orange light bulb emerged from the fluff as I got up and looked around. It was on top of my head. Everyone here had something on top of their head, as plainly as we had arms and legs, though each was different. Amidst the fluff, I noticed something, and my light bulb suddenly turned into a very light blue. It expressed my surprise. "What's that?" I asked, pointing. The others immediately stopped and looked over.

    Mr. Chambers, with his dark skin and top hat, took a moment to sit up properly and straighten his glasses. He squinted. Shadow, his MUCH paler counterpart, responded before he could. "It's a cloud!" And so I knew that it wasn’t.

    Here I will take a moment to explain some quirks that my companions had. Shadow was incapable of telling the truth. Everything she said was a complete lie, and sometimes the opposite of what was real, and other times simply not what was real. We had a hard time communicating sometimes, but she was always accompanied by Mr. Chambers, who was incapable of telling a lie. He was free to withhold information and was much more reserved than Shadow. He also had a strange otherworldly knowledge of things, which is how a lot of us had learned our names, and really learned a lot about our world. He had very useful information about the things we encountered, though this information was as new to him as it was to us each time. They made quite a pair when standing next to each other, with Mr. Chambers's top hat, Shadow's fedora, his glasses, her eye patch, his taller height, and her more average. They both wore darker themed clothes, lightly "Victorian", as he had described it. I had never seen one without the other. Though we three made a group, they had their own unique partnership.

    I looked towards Mr. Chambers, awaiting an answer. "I believe it is a flower," he stated calmly, after glancing at Shadow. We had yet to see a flower in this world, and none of us knew what it was (except for Mr. Chambers, obviously).

    I looked back towards the object. I started to get up, and the others followed suit. I took the few steps required to get closer to it, and then plopped down in the fluff surrounding the new object. "What's a flower?" They joined me, but stayed behind me. It seemed that they only had interest in it because I had interest in it. The light bulb on my head would fade into a darker, warmer blue the more I learned about it, and the more I admired it.

    This "flower" was very, very beautiful.... There was a small blue circle in the middle, and things similar to red leaves coming out all around it. It had emerged from the fluff and was sitting very nicely on top of it.

    "It's a terrible monster that eats toenails~," chimed in Shadow's voice, as she hugged Mr. Chambers's arm and leaned on him. I was not fazed by the gruesome thought; she had said worse. I reached out and lightly touched one of the leaf-like things with my index finger. It was so soft.... If it was dangerous, I was sure that Mr. Chambers wouldn't have let me get this close.

    "It looks pretty," Mr. Chambers began, and I knew I already liked and agreed with the truth, "sits around, absorbs energy from sunlight, and turns carbon dioxide into oxygen. It's a type of plant. What you're touching, those are petals." I had no idea what carbon dioxide or oxygen was, but I took his word for it.

    "Petals..." I repeated, completely entranced, still for no reason that I could discern. I reached out a little more and lightly took one in between my index finger and thumb. However, the flower began to shake a bit, and I immediately let go. My light bulb perked back up to a light blue. The ground beneath us began to shift, and my color turned a light red. We all began to frantically back away. Soft, warm dirt gave way, and I, along with a small sea of fluff, poured into the new hole. At first it was just my feet going in, but somewhere along the way I fell forward. I landed on something... very pleasantly soft, and warm, but I was still very alarmed.

    The ground settled and I tried to get my bearings. I parted the fluff around me, and moved the dirt, and saw... flowers.

    Well, okay, they weren't flowers, but they were just as enchanting as them. I was looking into a pair of eyes. They were blue like the center of the flower, and my light bulb quickly matched their color. These masterpieces were framed by a very pretty, smooth, and slender face, and I couldn't quite decide if the skin was an attractive pale or a cozy warm. I got up a bit, but I could feel from their body that they were a girl. I propped myself up so I wasn't so close to her, but had yet to get off of her.... I couldn't stop looking at those eyes. She looked just as surprised as me. This lasted for a second or two before she blinked, and then we were both snapped out of our trances. I scrambled backwards to get off of her. She paused for a moment, and then sat up to continue looking at me. I saw that the flower from earlier was on top of her head. It had a black stick thing coming out of the bottom of it, with radiant white leaves that matched the whites of her eyes.

    For some reason, I felt a feeling that I had never experienced before. I would later learn that it was called "flustered." It was why I had scrambled backwards when I had never scrambled to do anything before in my life. "Wh-who are you?" I stammered. Shadow and Mr. Chambers came to look into the newly formed hole, carefully. We weren't too far down; it would be easy to climb out.

    The girl blinked again, and then started to get up. "Who are you?" she repeated back. It was more stated than asked, and it was clear that she was just repeating what I said without reason.... She didn't seem to understand the meaning behind it. I followed her cue and also started to stand up. I discovered that she was slightly taller than me.

    As I stood up I took in the rest of her appearance, and started to get mesmerized again. She was barefoot, like the rest of us. The majority of her legs were exposed. She could have been wearing shorts, but I couldn't tell; she was wearing a very oversized green hoodie that came down to the middle of her thighs. Her sleeves were really long too. Her face was the best part, though, framed by her very soft and fluffy looking short brown hair.... I started to get trapped in her eyes again. She was looking right at me, and it didn't make any of it easier. My light bulb turned a hypnotic shade of deep purple. We simply marveled at each other until Shadow cut in a few moments later.

    "Clearly this is a bomb."

    Since she always said ridiculous things, the statement itself didn't snap me out of it; the realization that there was still the rest of the world out there did. I looked to the side, and then up at Mr. Chambers and Shadow. I felt that she did the same. I wanted to say something, but... I was speechless -- another entirely new experience. My mouth opened but nothing came out.

    Mr. Chambers however seemed to realize what I was going through. He got in a bit closer, and offered me a hand. "Need some help?"

    I abruptly closed my mouth, paused, and then gave a hesitant nod. I grabbed his hand and headed out. As if on autopilot, I turned around to offer the newcomer the same service. I noticed how pleasantly warm her hand was. This entire time, my light bulb went through various shades of purple. I pulled her up, and then finally figured out what I wanted to say.

    "Who is she?" I asked Mr. Chambers, almost in a rush. For some reason I felt like I should look at him and not her; I felt... strange, looking at her, and I didn't want to.

    He looked her over, and answered--

    "Rasputin." Shadow had interjected again. We weren't fazed.

    "Mattie. Her name is Mattie."

    He... had said it in a normal tone, I was sure, but... the name... was so....

    My light bulb flickered, and I felt a shiver through my whole body. The purple got much warmer. I looked over at Mattie again, finally.

    She seemed to have the blankest of expressions as she looked all of us over. I couldn't read her at all. It didn't detract from the strange enjoyment I got from looking at her, but it was, again, an entirely new experience, to see someone with no facial expression or really any expression at all.... I wondered briefly if she had anything to express....

    And then, suddenly, Mr. Chambers said something very unusual, behind me:

    "She's hungry."