Since I'm getting ready to re-release this story, I've removed the old chapters from Fictionpress. If you read them before, please refer to my website, where you will find a download link until the end of May. (Find my website through my profile, click on blog. ) Meanwhile, I'll offer you the first chapter of the rewrite.

Chapter 1 - The New World

Both smoke detectors in Asher's room went off as if announcing the god damn apocalypse.

As they were going to alert his mom, they might as well have been. Quickly, Asher waved the burning post card to put the fire out and pocketed the half-burned thing. It had been stupid to light it, but whenever he got mail from his dad, his brain just stopped.

Asher stepped over the dozens of broken and empty lighters strewn across the floor and grabbed a chair from his desk. The smoke detectors were installed on the high ceiling, so he had to stand on top of the chair to shut them off. He hated doing that.

It wasn't like he was scared of heights or anything, no, but it was stupid to stand on chairs. Chairs were meant for sitting. And what he felt as he unscrewed the lid of the first detector wasn't vertigo. No way.

"Asher!" His mom's voice rang through the apartment—and probably over into the next two apartments. By now, everybody had to know his name. "What the fuck are you doing?"

The door to his room flew open. Asher didn't look at his mom. He had to focus on getting the second smoke detector to shut up before he tumbled off the chair and broke his neck.

"I put it out again," he said. "Nothing happened."

He turned the alarm off, and the room went quiet. Until his mother started up again. "What the hell makes you think you can start a fire in here? I've told you time and time again, if you have to act on your insane obsessions then take them out the house. Burn yourself for all I care! But do not play with fire in my apartment!"

Asher looked away from his mom as the world seemed to pulse. That was the only word he had for it. Adrenaline kicked up in Asher's blood. It felt like the first shock of an earthquake but without the noise. Then nothing. Asher blinked. He must have imagined it.

Carefully, he stepped off the chair and turned to face his mother. Anger carved deep lines into her face, making her look ten years older than she was.

"Screaming makes you ugly."

Her mouth stood wide open. Asher felt for the lighters in his pockets, readying himself for another round of her screaming. She went off again. Asher couldn't listen. A pain stabbed through his head that had nothing to do with the volume of his mom's voice. It felt like something was trying to tear his brain out of his scalp.

"Fuck, what…" Asher clutched his head as the weird sensation brought him to his knees. He didn't feel sick, but the pain didn't pass. Something was pulling him out of his body, and he curled in on himself as if he could block it out that way.

"Oh, you really think I'm falling for that?" His mother's voice seemed to reach him from behind a wall of glass.

"Shut up," he groaned. He had to focus on keeping his shit together, but his grip slipped, and his vision darkened.

He woke up somewhere that, at first glance, reminded him of the beach outside town. A warm breeze blew over his skin, carrying the salty smell of the sea with it as he sat up in the sand. His head didn't hurt anymore. He felt fine, actually. Maybe a little confused. How the hell had he gotten to the beach? How was he going to get all that sand out of his hair? And why was the sky purple?

Seriously, the sky was a bright violet. Asher jumped to his feet. Had he been hit on the head too hard? Carefully, he stroked a hand through his hair. Sand stuck to his fingers, but he found no blood. Something funny on his arm caught his eyes. He raised it to get a better look.

What the actual fuck…

He scratched at a weird red patch on his skin. Had he fucking grown scales or something?

So yeah, maybe he put a lot of product on his skin, but damn, if he found out what caused this, he'd sue the hell out of that company.

He looked at his other arm.

Oh God, no…

And then someone screamed.

Asher whirled around, following the high pitched sound. There was a woman, standing just a few feet behind him. Only it wasn't really a woman. At least, no woman should have that many snakes on her head where other people had hair. If that was where fashion was going, Asher wanted no part of it. The woman seemed freaked out by the snakes too, staring at the slithering things wide-eyed. Asher took a step back toward the water.

Looking around, he found another member of the freak brigade to his right. Maybe Asher had stumbled into a video shoot for some pop band, but there were no cameras.

The newcomer was a boy who looked to be around Asher's age, maybe a little younger. Honestly, it was hard to judge when someone looked that ugly. The kid's entire body seemed to be made from dirt and stones.

Maybe Asher was high on something. Only he didn't take drugs. Maybe he was dreaming. Yeah, he was probably dreaming. He often dreamed of beaches anyway. But he had no idea why his brain was making up ugly people.

"Who the fuck are you?"

Stone Kid stopped inspecting his own body and faced him. "I'm… whoa, are those scales?" He came closer. "I'm Jonas. And I don't, I mean I don't normally look like this."

"You're not normally a freak?" Asher took another step back, searching his pockets for his lighters. Whatever that kid had could be contagious, you never knew. Even if this was all just one weird dream, there was no need to take the risk.

Stone Kid glared at him. "No. Are you?"

"Dude. I have a few scales. You're made out of freaking stone." At least the red on Asher's arms was kind of pretty. Even if the color didn't go well with his blue eyes.

Snake Woman interrupted his thoughts. "Hello?" she threw her arms up. "Lady with snake hairs here. I clearly win the freak prize."

"Yeah, that is pretty fucked up," Asher admitted. His fingers closed around the lighters in his pocket, and a sense of calm filled him. At least he still had those.

"I'm Maya." The woman came a little closer. She seemed to have cooled down a bit since the snakes weren't attacking her. Her skin tone was dark, and the reptiles might have suited her if they hadn't been so disgustingly real.

"I'm Asher," Asher offered, although he made no effort to remember either Stone Kid's or Snake Woman's names. He didn't plan on sticking around with them. He only wanted to know where he was, what had happened, and where he would find fire wood. Now that he thought of it, where had the town gone? Riverside should have been visible from here. But all he saw were sand dunes with a couple of large rocks mixed in. A forest stretched out to the far right, and he couldn't remember that ever being there before.

"Where the fuck did Riverside go?"

"Riverside's a whole world away." A new voice spoke and Asher turned around to the stranger who'd approached them from behind. He must have come from the seaside. His long black-red hair was still wet and drops of water ran down in thin lines over the tanned skin of his neck. Drenched pants clung to his hips in a way that made Asher forget, just for a moment, everything else. Now this was dream material.

"I thought I heard someone scream," the stranger said. Asher let his gaze trail back up to the stranger's face. His ears were pointy and his eyes were hidden behind a blindfold.

"That was me," Snake Woman said. "I was a little shocked to find snakes on my head. Very sorry for breaking out the alarm."

"Snakes? Well, that does sound a bit scary." The stranger tilted his head to the left. A small ball of fire was floating in the air next to him. Asher had to squint his eyes to see a small person with wings contained inside. She looked like a tiny fairy he had seen in a picture book once.

"What did you mean about Riverside being a world away?" Stone Kid said. "I was just there. Where are we? Who are you? What happened to my skin? What happened to her hair? How—"

"Calm down," the blindfolded stranger said. "I still don't know that much about this world myself."

The little fairy fluttered over their group and Asher's eyes stuck to her. What was that?

"This world?" Snake Woman asked.

"Well, yes. I believe this country is called Altasia."

Only half-focused on the conversation, Asher looked around for something to poke the fairy with but couldn't find any sticks in the sand. There was some driftwood, though. Driftwood burned pretty.

"You expect me to believe…" Snake Woman's voice trailed off, and Asher looked up to see what had stunned her. Flames shot out of the stranger's hand up into the sky.

"What the fuck kind of freak are you?" Asher asked, staring.

The stranger frowned at his tone, but Asher didn't care. That there warranted cursing.

"José Rodriguez, honorary fire elf," Blindfold-Guy said eventually. A little flame appeared above the flat of his palm, like magic. "Nice to meet you," he added. "And you are?"

"Asher, full-time pyromaniac," Asher said, staring at the fire. He didn't listen as Stone Kid and Snake Woman introduced themselves again. His attention was on the fire elf. "What's that there?" he asked, pointing to the little fairy. Without waiting for a reply, he picked up a small piece of driftwood and held it to the burning creature.

"What do you—" José said as the wood came in contact with the fairy and caught on blue and lavender fire. Asher threw it away before it could burn his hand. "Oh, you shouldn't annoy her."

Too late. The little fairy fluttered up and down and embers sparked off her, making Asher take a step back.

"Congratulations, you pissed her off," José said.

"That's what I do." Asher ducked away as the little creature rained tiny flames down over his head. He clasped his hands over his hair. "You stupid little—"

"Stop it, both of you!" José said. The fairy flew back to his side, glaring down at Asher like a stuck-up diva. "Listen," he said to all of them, "the lavalight here," he pointed to the ball of flame, "has been helping me out for the last couple days and she says she knows someone who can help us. I figure we should all stick together and—"

"Why doesn't she tell us herself?" Asher interrupted him.

José stiffened while the others shot Asher annoyed looks.

"You're kinda rude," the walking talking stone statue said. Asher proved his rudeness by making a hand gesture at him.

"She says she's not talking to you," José said then.

"Bitch."

"Anyway," José went on, ignoring him, "I figure if we stick together we have a better chance at getting out of here and back home. We can combine our powers and—"

"Powers?" This time it wasn't Asher who interrupted, but the one who'd called him rude for doing so earlier.

"Yeah, like what I do with the fire. You all can do something, too. You're not just human anymore, that's why your appearances changed. I don't know how it works, but that's what happens."

Asher checked himself over again. He was still wearing the same pair of jeans as before, and no shirt. Luckily he couldn't find any more scales aside from those patches on his arms. He opened his belt to pull his pants down and check his legs. Nothing there. Maybe he should check inside his boxers, too.

"Asher!" He looked up at Snake Woman's voice.

"What?"

"Put your pants back on."

Asher rolled his eyes at her. Women…

José went on talking: "The lavalight tells me you're an earth elemental, Jonas. And Maya, you're a medusa. Asher's a… dragon."

"I'm not a dragon." Asher looked up as he fiddled with his belt. "Do I look like an overgrown reptile to you?"

"Honestly, I have no idea what you look like. You sound like an idiot with attitude problems."

"Yeah, maybe you should take off that blindfold and take a look around yourself."

"I still wouldn't see a thing."

Asher quieted, churning the answer over in his head.

"So you are blind," Snake Woman said into the silence. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Yeah, me too," Stone Kid added.

"Wow," Asher said finally, "sucks to be you, huh?" Just thinking of all the beautiful things he couldn't see almost made Asher feel sorry for him. Almost. With their useless eyes, blind people ruined all the effort he put into his looks.

"I think I'm just fine the way I am, thank you."

Asher shrugged. "If I was you I'd want to be someone else." Well, apart from the fire abilities. Those were cool.

"I don't think so," Blind Guy said.

"You do look like an overgrown reptile, by the way," Snake Woman said.

"Fuck you," Asher said. At least his hair wasn't as messed up as hers. "How do we get home?"

"We start by walking," Blind Guy said, then paused for a second. "That direction," he added, pointing his arm right.

"The little bitch tell you that?"

"The lavalight told me, yes," José said with a patience that seemed forced. There was something amusing about his politeness. Asher was itching to find out whether he could make him freak before this dream was over.

His thoughts were interrupted when trampling noises thundered from the other side of the beach. A group of freaks was running up to them along the coast. At the front Asher saw a woman with green hair and skin, and beside her, a guy with blue scales all over his rather scrawny body, almost floating over the ground. It looked as if they were running away from the people behind them, the woman pulling on the man's arm.

"To the forest!" she shouted.

The other freaks were catching up to them, though. Small lizard-like creatures with disgustingly green skin on small horses. Only one of the horses didn't have a rider. That was because it was half man itself—and horse from the waist down.

Asher had time to think that he didn't want to know what that guy's parents looked like, or how they'd done it, before José cursed beside him.

Blind Guy could curse. Wow.

"Everyone back!" he said as if he'd somehow become their boss over the last few minutes. "Get to the forest."

Asher couldn't rip his eyes off the horse guy, though. Horsey had almost caught up to the strange couple, who'd almost caught up with them. The guy and the girl ran past Asher, and damn, they were fast. Unnaturally so.

A wall of fire shot out of the ground and erected itself between the couple and their pursuers.

"What's going on?" Stone Kid asked.

No one replied. The half horse man stopped just in front of the flames, and turned to spot them. Someone was pissed.

Asher glanced from the fire, to the horse guy to José, who had a concentrated look on his face. "I told you to run!" he bellowed as more flames appeared in front of the other horses.

The sounds of half a dozen horses nickering in panic rang in Asher's ears. Some horses threw off their riders. Still rooted to the spot, Asher watched as one tumbled to the ground not too far away. Its large pupil-less eyes glowed red.

"Asher!" an impatient voice called his name. He turned to see the others already running. He sprinted to catch up as they headed for the woods. This would have been a good time to wake up. Why the fuck wasn't he waking up?

"Criminals!" The half horse guy's voice boomed through the air. His hooves thundered on the ground behind them.

Asher ran into the shadow of the first trees behind his companions. He wasn't going to make it, the freak was too close and way faster. Four legs against two was really unfair. Asher risked a glance back. Branches grew and moved themselves into the gaps he'd just run through, forming a solid wall behind him.

Asher's eyes widened as he watched. The horse guy growled outside the woods. A voice in the wind whispered, "Thank you."