"You're a weird one," the childish voice sounded again.

I froze, not expecting to find a pet.i.te girl with a simple white-dress. She studied me curiously with her glimmering green eyes, hands clasped behind her back. Most importantly, she had the same color-scheme as me. Noticing the color of her eyes, I recalled the story of how Bastion's daughter went missing in the woods. Her age seems about right too, a.s.suming one didn't age within the Spiritual Plane.

"Diana?" I croaked.

"Who's that?" she tilted her head innocently, her light gray hairs hung loosely past her waist. Yeah, right. As if his long lost daughter would conveniently appear in front of me.

I cleared my throat, "I'm Mike. And you are?" I asked, dismissing my soulblade. But I didn't immediately let my guard down just because the other party looked like a little girl. She did, after all, snuck up on me without me realizing. Appearances shouldn't be underestimated. Just take cats for example. You wouldn't believe that those adorable fuzzb.a.l.l.s are in fact hardened predators, product of million years of evolution in order to achieve the perfect ratio of cuteness, deadliness, and cunningness.

"Me?" she pointed a finger at herself, "I'm Adelrinthia."

"Adel-what?"

"Adelrinthia!" she frowned and pouted her lips.

"Right, Adelrinthia," I successfully p.r.o.nounced her name right, which earned a smile from her.

"Anyway, what were you doing back then? I saw you wandering around and kicking leaves, then staring at them. What's so interesting about it, mister? Why did you make those strange moves? Tell me," she barraged me with questions.

I was at a loss for words. I kinda entered here with the expectations of mowing down through spirits to get to Bastion. Who knew I would've encountered such a strange girl. I guess I should try to build some trust and hope that she might be able to help. So explained to her what I did.

"An experiment?" she c.o.c.ked her head in confusion.

"An experiment is an action where we put multiple a.s.sumptions to the test in order to prove the properties of something," I gave the simplest explanation I could pull-off. I didn't want to use any complex words such as "science" or "hypothesis" in fear that I would have to spend more time elaborating about it, potentially leading to more lengthy conversation or worse - something I didn't know how to explain.

"Cool! I wanna do an experiment too!"

I grinned. As I predicted. I guided her as we conducted the same experiment together.

"You're smart, mister. I like you," she said with glee. Too easy! Under normal circ.u.mstances, I would've tell a girl like her not to trust strangers so easily. But right now I'm one of those strangers, so I'll keep my advice to myself for now.

"So, Adelrinthi"

"You can call me Adel."

"Okay, Adel. Could you please help me find my friend? He accidentally gotten himself lost somewhere around here and doesn't know how to come home."

"Sure thing!" she replied enthusiastically.

At that moment, I heard a distorted howl coming from a distance. Adel grabbed the sleeve of my s.h.i.+rt and pulled me to hide behind the trees frantically. "Hide, mister," she whispered. Soon after, I heard the rustling of leaves and whatever it is we're hiding from making some sort of chittering noises. Holding my breath, I peeked out a little to see what it is I might potentially need to fight. There, I saw a few creatures patrolling the area around the rift and another few around the place where I summoned my soulblade. Their colors were of stark white, matching palate of the inverted scene. Each of them were about twice the size of a person, looking like a lump of meat connected to four muscular limbs. Kinda like a meaty version of the Boston Robotic dogs. Trotting around to sniff the area. One of them turned their body towards the tree where we hid and I hastily pulled my head back in response. I heard it walked closer. If I had a heartbeat, it would be beating so fast that it could replace the drums of some heavy metal songs. I prepared to materialize my soulblade, ready to plunge my blade through it the moment it comes to sight. But then, one of them made a complicated noise and I heard the creature's step receding I almost heaved a sigh of relief, and peeked out again.

"What in the world are those?" I said lowly.

"Hoppers," Adel said warily.

"Hoppers? Don't you think they should be called Crawlers instead?"

They all gathered, centering around the distortion of s.p.a.ce where I came from. Some of them started making a crouching motion and my eyes widened in panic. The gate to the Spiritual Plane goes both ways! d.a.m.n it! Before I could react, the first one leapt through - disappearing from sight, then the second. I sucked a breath of air and prepared to draw their attention in order to lessen the burden on the other side. But as the third tried to cross through, the rift destabilize and imploded, leaving half of the Hopper's body squirming around in pain. Huh, I guess Ellariel really didn't send me here alone out of spite. The portal itself doesn't have enough strength to support multiple crossing. Seeing as the rift have disappeared and having no other reason to linger, they hopped away like rabbits and I noted their direction as they did. Soon after confirming they're all gone, we came out of our cover. I looked at the spot where the gateway used to be. Well, sh*t. Now how do I get home?