Fortuna

3

I couldn't stop worrying about Sally even as we exited the hospital into the unknown. I saw her being dragged out against her own will and I couldn't do anything about it. I barely knew her but I couldn't help but feel like it was my fault that she was taken away. 

"Umbrella up!"

I snapped out of my guilt and saw that the young man with blue hair was glowering at me and pointing to my umbrella. He was holding his own above his head. I hurriedly lifted the umbrella and kept it hovered over my own. It was rather cold now. The hospital must have had heating because I felt the goosebumps start to form even only seconds after the transition in setting. 

Clunk!

I almost dropped the umbrella as I felt a heavy chunk of solid fall on it. It bounced off the material and hit the black, paved ground. My eyes grew wide as I saw what had fallen from the sky: an aqua-colored, semi-opaque piece of crystal about the size of an adult fist. What in the world? More pieces continued to drop as we walked and I gripped the handle of the umbrella firmly, making sure it wouldn't fall out of my hands.

The sky was still purple but it was now darker and more ominous. Man, this gave a whole new definition to storm. 

"Keep it up! We'll be there soon," he turned to me and managed a smile as he saw my concerned expression. 

"Don't you guys have cars or something? Buses? Spaceships?" I ran up to him until we were side by side - as close as we could stand before our umbrellas got caught with one another. "Seeing that your technology here seems to be pretty superior?"

"Resources are scarce here so we don't waste energy on short trips," he glanced at me helplessly. "We got these nice umbrellas though, right?" 

I managed a smile back. 

Now that I had calmed down a bit and adapted to my surroundings, I felt it was weird how friendly he was to me. Considering how his two accomplices had just dragged Sally forcefully away, he was surprisingly dapper when talking to me like everything was alright. It didn't add up but before I had a chance to question his motives, he started to talk again.

"So what did you do on Earth that brings you here?" he blurted out casually, like he wanted to get the thought off his mind quickly.

I shrugged. "I honestly have no idea. I'm just a regular teen trying to survive high school. One minute I'm cursing at my horrible week and the next, I appear on the hospital bed."

"High school..." he squinted his eyes, seemingly flipping through the pages of his brain to try to figure out what it was.

"Secondary school?" I tried again to see if a light-bulb had turned on but his expression was still blank. After a few seconds, he began to speak again.

"At Fortuna, we learn at home until we reach ten years of age. When we turn ten, we get assigned different jobs in the city - very different than Earth I suppose."

I almost snorted; I couldn't believe what I was hearing. This sounded like it was taken completely out of a teen dystopian fiction novel. Job assignment? I suppose stories like those had a certain truth behind it. Curious, I was about to ask more about life on Fortuna when he interrupted me again.

"So um...I also noticed that you're quite young. If you don't mind me asking, what crime did you even commit on Earth?"

"Well, wait. Hold up. Crime?" I stopped walking and my stomach dropped as he asked the question so inadvertently. "Buddy, I have no idea what you're talking about...is that why I'm here? Unless you mean the time I wrote equations on my shirt sleeve for my math exam but I mean, come on. Who hasn't cheated on a test at least once?"