1 The only thing eternal is yellow

The ceiling was, unfortunately, yellow.

So was the wall, the floor and every surface visible. Anywhere he looked, all he could see was yellowness. It was so yellow that his eyes started to hurt from all that brightness.

Where was he? And what was up with the person who designed this place? Was he obsessed with yellow or something?

The last thing he remembered was his call with Adelia and then falling asleep in his tent.

What was he doing before that?

Oh yeah, he was warming his hands with a fire he painstakingly started after so many attempts.

Getting up, he looked down at himself to see that his body was completely fine. His clothes were the same he remembered but looked a lot cleaner. Don't judge him, he isn't someone who wears dirty clothes. You try rolling around in a forest to search for dry sticks first. Not to mention, he tripped 3 times over the same tree branch. This left him in a very sorry state with his clothes dirty, hair disheveled and some cuts and bruises. But all that was gone, as if it never existed.

A ripping sound came from right above his head. Willow snapped his head upwards to see a hole ripped in the ceiling. It didn't look like a crack you would expect in a ceiling. No, it seemed something else.....kind of like a portal.

Even beyond the hole, there was an expanse of even yellow yellowness. Willow didn't know there can be a surface even more yellow that the room, but here we are. After seeing so much yellow, he swore that after he gets out of this place, he's going to remove every yellow thing in his sight.

Anyway, back to the situation. We can see Willow lament about his hate for yellow later.

From that portal, a figure fell right towards the spot where he was standing. Wide eyed, he stared at the thing freefalling towards him, rooted on the stop. His brain froze for a second and he didn't know what to do.

By the time he recovered from the shock, it was already too late and a person landed on him with a loud 'Thud'.

"Huh, where am I?" The girl wondered as she looked around the room. There was something soft and squishy under her. Looking down, she saw that this something was in fact, a person. Her useless idiot brother to be exact.

"Will? Willow, what are you doing here? What am I doing here? Heck, where the hell is even this? And why is this so yellow? Hey, answer me-"

"Can't...Breathe...get...o-off" A weak voice sounded from below.

Adelia leaped off him. With obvious difficulty, Willow somehow got up in a sitting situation. Even after falling from such a height, Adelia was all right but sadly, the same couldn't be said for Willow.

"You're so heavy!"

Since Adelia was feeling a little guilty about smothering him, she didn't hit him. That comment was false anyway. She was a slim, and well proportioned attractive girl. Who else but this fool will dare call the school flower heavy?

If anything was to blame for his state, it was his lean and short physique. Not her attractive body.

"Where are we? And why is this so yellow?"

Willow seemed to have recovered a little as he stood up and brushed the dust off his clothes. He answered, "Who knows? I only arrived here too. Maybe we go kidnapped or something. Then, I must say that the abductor is quite considerate. See, he even cleaned me."

"..."

He walked towards the wall, only to see that there was a transparent boundary separating them. Even after walking towards the walls as much as he can with the boundary, he noticed that the distance didn't reduce one bit. It was like chasing a cloud. No matter how near you go, in the end you see you're as far as before.

Adelia was choppily combing them by running her fingers through them. Although the fall didn't break her limbs, it did make her usually styled hair a rat's nest. She'd rather die than spotted like this by someone else! Her reputation as school flower was at stake, after all.

Just as her hair was somewhat getting into shape, misfortune struck again. One of her long nails, which had a splinter, got stuck in her head. "What the hell!!" Even after many attempts, her hair was still stuck.

"T-this.." Her voice sounded half angered and half miserable. The nail was not untangling even after many attempts.

Frustrated, she yanked her hand trying to untangle them forcefully.

"AAH!!!!" Adelia shrieked as a sharp pain spread around her scalp. Horrified, she stared at the brown locks on her finger.

Her scream attracted willow's attention. Abandoning his futile task of breaking through the wall, he came over to see what happened. "What happened, Adel ? Why are you making a ruckus like that? Can't you see that I'm trying to get us out of here?"

That was the final straw as Adelia lost it. "I'm bothering you ?! YOU IDIOT!!! First, I'm dragged to a unknown place and god knows what's going to happen to us! As if it wasn't enough, the kidnapper didn't even have the manners to at least get me here in a proper way. Making me fall from the ceiling? Seriously... Even so, I didn't lose hope. BUT THIS!?"

Holding out her finger, she showed him the hair on her nail. "Still, I tried to be sensible. But now you're saying I'm bothering you ?!"

Willow also screamed back, "You think I'm not suffering? Adelia, I'm also in the same situation as you! And why are you making it sound like it's my fault anyway, huh?"

"THIS IS YOUR FAULT!! Who was the one who ran away from home? Had you not run away and just had a sleepover with my friends, none of this would have happened! Then, I wouldn't have been frustrated and insulted that goddamn street killer who shot me!"

Willow was about to retort when he realized something. "W-wait...Adel, you got shot? Like, by a bullet?"

Adelia also caught on that something wasn't quite right. She clearly remembered that after insulting a running man's fashion sense and blocking his way, he had shot her. Adelia was sure that she had taken the bullet as she still remembered the sharp pain in her chest. She had seen her beige top stain red with her own eyes before losing consciousness. That was the last thing she remembered before falling here.

Due to the shock of being in such a weird place, she placed that issue in the back her mind. Adelia inwardly hoped that it all was a dream and in reality, she's still alive.

But she knew that she couldn't lie to herself any further. The pain, the wound and the blood, all had been real.

Dazedly, she touched the spot on her chest and looked down at herself. She was still in that beige top, completely clean, without a single trace of crimson. It's like it never happened. But it did, and she was sure of that. It can't...merely be a hallucination.

Willow saw her movements and nodded, "I'll take that as a yes. Is that the last thing you remember before falling here?"

She nodded weakly, still shocked. Willow, the smarter one of the two, pondered as he tried to recall the memories before he woke up here. He remembered the call, warming hands in the fire and then laying down to sleep.

All he could remember after that is that he was feeling hot, very hot. In terms of temperature, of course. Not anything else you're thinking of.

When Adelia looked at him questioningly, Willow explained, "The last thing I remember is that I was feeling hot. After our call, I just warmed my hand in the fire for a while and slept in my tent..."He trailed off, lost in thought.

Adelia also looked deep in thought and suddenly exclaimed, "Oh! You started a fire, right? Did you put it out?"

"Umm, no.....Not that I remember anyway. Won't it put itself out with the wind?"

"It's autumn, Willow. A forest fire can easily start with a moment of carelessness....That's it! You feeling hot, not putting out fire, it all fits! Maybe you started a forest fire and that's why the last thing you remember is feeling hot!" Adelia smiled smugly, proud at herself.

Willow nodded along her statements and found that it was the most probable option right now. He was a little surprised by her unexpected wisdom. Maybe the saying that even a broken clock shows the correct time twice a day is true after all.

"So, the thing in common is that we both suffered from something fatal before being transported here. Maybe we died too.....Is this the afterlife?" Willow asked, even though he knew that there would be no answer.

He dazedly looked around. It was like he was in a trance, a mere dream....What did the philosophers spend their whole life researching? Why did they make so many assumptions about what happens after death if all there was going to be is yellowness?

Willow couldn't help but sigh, "Is this how it all ends?"