A sunny day is the best days to start a story, but sunny days can be a common occurrence. So, for Kateb, a normal teen in a normal city in the southern hemisphere, a day trip into the main city of your state would be a very normal day. Their parents worked all the time, and they are a single child with no other requirements of them.

A normal weekend meant that Kateb waited at the bus stop as they would normally do, they were heading into the city and things was all normal and without problems. Once their bus came along, they got on and let the large bus carry them along its normal route. Kateb looked out the window to their boring world as cars drove pass on the road and others walked by on the footpaths. Robots of all sorts walked with humans in crowds that headed in their own directions, things that Kateb was used to seeing since they were a child. There stop came up for them and they got off slowly, making sure to be one of the last to get off so they didn’t get pushed off in the days rush. Once on the crowded bus stop, they quickly made their way though and towards a less populated area to take a break before starting on their walk. It wasn’t like they had a destination in mind, they just wanted to walk around as they had nothing better to do at home. 

Eventually, they got to the quieter part of the city; there were still plenty of people and bots that walked around, but it was quieter. This led them to a stop at a park and they couldn’t help but to look over at the skyscrapers that stretched on all around, it wasn’t quite like the famed park of New York. It was a national park, one that was hugged by the river that ran through the city itself.

It wasn’t the first time that Kateb had been there, laying on the grass lawns and looking upwards with no one around for a good stone throw but they had always been there with a good book and some food. One last look to the sky before going to move to stand up and Kateb paused.

Movement had flashed by, far above. When Kateb looked up again, they expected a crow or similar.

A large black feather fell towards them and when Kateb had looked up it slapped them across the face.

Kateb was stunned and blinked before looking for it, in the grass next to them it sat. Moving slightly in the breeze. It looked like no feather they had seen before; the size was of a crow itself and it had no shine to it. It looked dusty, old but as Kateb picked it up then there was a moment where they were scared to break it.

It felt like a feather, looked like one but there was something about it. Kateb looked to the skies again, in hopes of a large bird just there. When nothing immediately showed up then they started to move, pulling out their phone and starting to look up searches on the internet.

“Big black feathers” only came up with craft feathers. “birds with black features” only confirmed crows and ravens, adding in ostriches and much smaller black birds.

As Kateb moved then they weaved between people going about their day, heading in a familiar direction.

The library, that had no bought ad space or popular websites.

Yes, the library isn’t for everyone, and reading is also not for everyone. It was however, how Kateb managed to spend hours of their time.

The smell of the older books hit their nose when they entered the air-conditioned place; normally they headed for a random direction and wander through the high shelves. Kateb always managed to find something that they were interested in and normally it was to the myths and leagues area. This time it was towards the animal sections, looking for bird identification by the feathers.

Kateb slowly looked through several book, most not helping or there wasn’t enough on feathers themselves.

They ran their eyes over the countless spines in front of them, their eyes stopping at one. “The general overview of the Scape”

Kateb couldn’t help but stare at this, not only was it greatly out of place, but it was also very old looking. Kateb pulled it out and looked it over. The leather was stretched and terribly cared for, with a noticeable darker stain that Kateb wasn’t sure if they wanted to know what it was.

It was missing the library tag, title or author. Looking at the feather in their left hand’s fingers, they went ahead and opened the book right up. Surprisingly the pages where clean and looked as if it had never even touched or even read. 

On the random page they opened it to, had handwritten notes and small drawings of a flower. Kateb flipped to the front in hopes of an index, their hope squashed with a few pages of writing. A quick scan told of a big city, its location above the sea level and a sort of people that lived on it. Hardy, strong, stubborn with thick fur for the cold.

Fur?

Kateb went back to the sentence, it spoke of a species that lived in abundance, spoke the common language of a place called the east Cepilla but that they were unaware of the lower regions that share their langrage. It continued with a few sentences on how the scapes people had to have become disconnected from their homelands, most likely from the disconnect events.

What this disconnect event that the book mentioned, Kateb had no idea and there was nothing in the next few pages that Kateb had skimmed through.

There was a choice to be made, put the book back where they had found it or continue reading. Kateb went with reading, they didn’t have anything else to do.

After a few minutes of reading, they were left wanting to read the book faster and get to the end, it spoke of a world that was nothing like their own and it was something straight out of fantasy.

Dark monsters that attacked anyone good, floating islands that stayed in the air just because of the power of some crystals, and there was even talk of beings that would have traits from animals in this world.

There where even some sketches of all of these as well and it was the people that interested Kateb the most. The people looked human, some however had scales on their skin, feathers on their arms, and fur with tails or ears. Something that they noticed about the book was that it had to have been someone’s journal. Kateb thought that it was odd with no author; then again, the whole book itself was odd as well.

They came to an odd page that had a warning up top. Kateb ran a hand over the circle and symbols before reading the warning: ‘Warning: only touch the summoning circle below to get to the closest link of the world you are in.’ Kateb realised that their body was tingling, and they looked down to find that the circle was glowing, they quickly took their hand off before getting the light feeling of energy run through their body. They closed their eyes in fright and then they fell back onto hard cold stone, Kateb opened their eyes in surprise and found a ceiling above their head. It was a normal sight to any building, except the problem is that they had been in a library. They sat up straight when they heard the running of feet, it sounded like it was coming towards them and before long two people slid to a stop from around a corner with Kateb frozen on the ground.