Ryn of Avonside

The two larger guys took point without a word, just grim expressions as they made a path through the terrified crowd. We pushed through the arguing masses, and I was alarmed, but not surprised, to see more fists flying as a group of frat guys got physical with each other. Shit, I really hoped the university could get this under control or people were going to get hurt.

A security guard who was bleeding from a broken nose tried to stumble into our path, but Duncan just shook his head and gently but firmly moved the smaller, older man out of the way. I felt a small flicker of a smile as I saw the move, happy that Duncan hadn’t hurt the man. He could have done a hell of a lot of damage— even his hands were huge.

We all breathed a sigh of relief as soon as we made it out of the gym. Seeing so many people arguing and fighting like that made me all kinds of uncomfortable. Bray noticed my reaction to getting out of that place, and gave me a knowing smile and a pat on the arm.

Moving forward past the two big guys, he waved his hand forward. “This way guys.”

Bray's chosen path to our dorm took us down a few dark side corridors that if memory served, would lead out into a different courtyard.  I was confused for a moment, because these hallways had always been brightly lit, but if Avonside was cut off, then all they had were backup generators and power couldn't be wasted on useless lights. Darkness in a place that should have been well lit added to the atmosphere of crisis— that feeling you get when things have gone strange and normality has been thrown out the window.

“Didn’t like it back in there huh?” Grace asked, sidling up next to me. She gave a wry snort. “More than is normal, I mean. That was pretty hectic.”

“No, I didn’t,” I replied, giving her an appraising look, wondering if she’d laugh at me. I felt like I could trust her though, so I explained further. “I get really anxious around people who are fighting. Verbally or physically. It’s just, I don’t know. I hate it. I start to shut down.”

“That’s kinda sweet,” she replied, giving me an odd look. “Too many people relish conflict for the sake of conflict these days.”

“Maybe, but it seems like I’m definitely the odd one out,” I grimaced. “Guys aren’t meant to be… well, weak like I am, I guess.”

“Guys who act how guys are ‘supposed’ to act are kinda shit, so no harm done there,” she chuckled, giving me a playful nudge with her elbow.

I was surprised when my subconscious mind didn’t flinch away from the touch. That was odd— there weren’t many people who I could be casually physical with. I had my father to thank for that idiosyncrasy, along with the fear of conflict. It’s hard not to flinch around raised voices when that used to mean pain or worse.

“Holy shit,” one of the girls said from up ahead, and both Grace and I glanced up to see we were approaching the exit.

Just outside the doors everyone had stopped to stare up into the sky, so I had to push around them to get a good look. What I saw took my breath away. It wasn’t just a line— the thing I saw in the sky earlier— it was… I couldn't parse it.

High above us in the night sky was a strip of land, entire continents were visible, it was that vast. Oceans and seas glittered with distant sunlight, while the rim on either side of the ‘line’ was encrusted with brilliantly white ice-sheets.

The opposite side must have been thousands, or hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, given the barely visible snow capped mountains. Seeing all of that, combined with the gently twinkling starscape that framed it, was an utterly alien experience.

The strange line of foreign world wasn't just hanging above us, though. As it descended towards the horizon, it curved and began to widen until eventually, it was hidden in its own shadow. Past that point, it was just barely visible as it connected with the darkened land we now stood on.

“Are we … are we on a fucking ring world?” Kelsey asked, her tone confused and incredulous.

“This is totally a ring world! We just got schwooped up onto a damn ring world…” Melody answered excitedly, her hand reaching out to grasp at Kelsey's arm.

I wasn’t making the mental leap to acceptance as well as they were. I was stuck on a pair of words— how and why. How and why had we been … schwooped onto this world? The entire university, too! What were we going to do? The chances of us being able to even eat the plants on this world were slim, and what about predators, and the people who built this place?

“Why?” I asked finally, my voice dry with anxiety. “Who did this, and what are they going to do with us?”

The girl’s excitement dimmed drastically with my words, and we all exchanged worried looks. Anyone who just abducted an entire university probably didn’t have the best of intentions for us. Were we lab rats, were they going to study us, or were they simply collecting us?

“Definitely time for that dorm room,” Bray muttered, his eyes downcast like he didn’t want to look up.

“Yeah, let’s go,” Grace agreed, motioning for Bray to keep leading the way.

We all began moving again towards the dorm room, but much more slowly as everyone kept glancing up into the sky. The girl’s excitement was resilient and began to slowly return, and despite my fearful questions, I found myself enjoying it. It was nice to hear excited voices rather than worried, scared, and angry voices like back in the gym hall.

“I don’t see a sun, so this isn’t like, a Niven ring or whatever. I think it’s more of a halo style one, and we’re orbiting a normal star,” Melody said thoughtfully, staring up into the sky and almost walking into a bollard in the process. Luckily Kelsey was paying attention and pulled her friend out of the way of the impact.

“We could figure it out, Avonside has the tools to do it easy, and the people who know how,” Kelsey said, giggling at her friend’s clumsiness as she continued to steer her.

“I like that it’s a ringworld with a sunset! We’re going to get a sunset! Wait, unless it doesn’t rotate and we’re stuck on the night side of the world forever,” Melody said, looking suddenly worried again.

Wait, how were we going to get a sunset— huh, I guess if the ring spun on its edge like a coin and the sun was directly on the edgeward horizon, it might… Unless… like she said, it didn't spin. That would be… bad…

I grimaced and took a few even breaths before trying to smile. “That’s a worrying thought, I’d better mentally add it to the growing list of shit titled, ‘Things that will keep me from sleeping tonight.’ ”

“Oh, I have no hopes of sleeping tonight,” Grace muttered, her gaze finding that glowing blue and green arch of land above us again.

“Neither, but my sleeping pattern is fucked from playing games all night,” Bray said with a self-deprecating grin. I rolled my eyes. Damn, what a bunch of jokers we were.

The walk continued in silence for everyone except Melody and Kelsey, who got increasingly wild with their speculation. I had to raise an eyebrow when they got into eldritch gods and tuned them out.

Avonside University was massive, one of the largest tertiary education establishments in the region by total enrollment, although not one of the most prestigious. Because of the large number of people who went here, it also had one of the physically largest campuses around. Built in what had originally been a small town, Avonside still dominated the central city. It was even ringed by botanical gardens, surrounding it on all sides in a way that further solidified its prominent place within the city.

I had a feeling that the cut to take us out and put us here had been made somewhere in those gardens and sports fields, where the ground could be cut out without taking any half buildings or streets with it. Which raised the alarming idea that yes, the heist of thousands of people and over half a square mile of land had been calculated and intentional.

Rounding the corner towards our dorm, which was on the edge of campus, we again slowed because of what we saw. Which was nothing. No city lights beyond the parks and sports fields, no haze of light pollution, and definitely no city buildings. I’d been right. Barely visible in the darkness beyond was a dense temperate looking forest, the trees swaying in a light breeze. It was odd how calm the scene was, given what it meant for us.

“They just cut the uni out of the city with a giant cookie cutter!” Adam said, giving a slightly manic laugh. “They cut a circle out of the Earth and dumped it here.”

Kelsey noticed something else, saying, “Those trees look like trees from Earth.”

“Wait, you’re right! They do … ” Melody replied, her voice slowing down as she began to think furiously.

“Hopefully we can survive here, then, as long as the alien space bats don’t kill us all first,” Grace remarked from next to me.

“Maybe the alien space bats are nice, you never know,” I joked, glancing sideways down at her.

“What, like fuzzy fruit bats or something?” she laughed, and I idly noticed that her smile was almost always lopsided, one corner of her lips always higher than the other. It was a nice smile.

“We should call them like, alien space flying puppies or something if they’re nice,” I nodded, feeling a smile of my own tugging at my mouth.

“Batronauts,” she offered back.

“Fuzzy Batronauts,” I agreed.

“Come on you two, let’s go inside,” Bray grumbled, making shooing motions towards the door of the building.

The building itself was fairly new, having been constructed only a few years prior in order to meet the rising demand for student housing. As with most of the western world, finding a place to rent off campus was getting harder and harder as housing prices and rent rose. Originally, Bray and I had wanted to find an apartment off the campus grounds after having boarded in a dorm during our first year, but we hadn’t been able to find anywhere we could even hope to afford.

The dorm itself was nice, although the keycard reader wasn’t working so we had to punch the code into the side door that had a mechanical lock rather than a powered one. That was another thing, how were we going to generate power? The backup generators could only have so much fuel after all, and they were clearly already struggling to meet the demand of the whole uni.

The side door put us in the main foyer area, but as the lifts were quite clearly dead, we took the stairs. I was a big fan of the modern architecture of this place, except for one important detail. Why in the hell were all the accents in the place bright orange? It looked hideous! Nothing was more jarring than stumbling out of your room at some awful hour of the morning into a hallway painted orange. Especially for a lecture that no one was going to remember because it was so damnes early, but of course, you had to turn up so you'd get the attendance credits.

“We’re on the fourth floor,” Bray said to the group at large, and we stopped when we got there and spilled out into that floor’s common room.

Each floor in the building had a common room with a basic kitchen, a TV that only had shitty channels, and a bunch of tables, chairs, and sofas. Well, I guess the TV wouldn’t have the shitty channels anymore, and I couldn’t say I was too upset about that. Boy was I glad that students were movie and TV show hoarders, those hard drives were going to be worth their weight in gold.

“Alright, now no judging us for the mess,” Bray said with a grin, pushing open the door to our dorm.