Lying there on the green grass, on top of a hill that was in the middle of an orange fog, was a small boy named ‘Alphor’. His eyes opened sluggishly, revealing the dark yellow iris’ behind the lids. He sat up slowly, both hands pushing against the grass below as he did. Alphor yawned, taking in a bit of the scentless orange fog carelessly. It didn’t occur to him that said fog may be poisonous. He was relieved when there weren’t any negative effects. At least, for now, there weren’t any. One of his pale hands moved from the grass below to his head, scratching his head as he pondered-… Wait, grass?

    Alphor looked down to see, turning so fast that his black hair nearly slapped itself against his eyes. Indeed, there was grass. But how could this be? He fell while inside the basement of his grandma’s home. The boy looked up, his hair falling back as he did. The orange fog made it hard to see, but there was a ceiling with large stalactites hanging. As he stared, he took note of a creature flying overhead. Then, there was another. These creatures were the same colors as each other, pink, resembling large butterflies. Unlike the normal butterflies that he was used to seeing, these were as big as the stalactites on the ceiling, and had two lengthy purple ribbons attached to the ends of their wings. Perhaps there was something growing on the stone spikes since he noticed that these two butterflies joined an innumerable amount in clinging onto or around the ceiling.

    Another few minutes passed as he watched them, finally deciding to lower his head to survey the area around him. When he came to a stand, however,

    Blip.

    There was a sudden sound, a sound that would typically come from an electronic of sorts. He turned to his left, hearing it come from that direction. Alphor waited to hear the sound again, but it never came. Thus, he took a step forward with his right foot.

    Blip.

    He turned to his right, hearing the ‘beep’ again. This time, he saw a soft blue glow coming from the grass around his right foot, tiny light particles rising and floating around it as well.

    “What is-…?” he asked. Alphor took another step forward into the grass with his left foot.

    Blip.

    Just as he expected, the grass lit up with the electronic sound, and light particles started to flutter about. He checked his right foot to see if the glow had faded. It had not. Then, the boy turned to look behind himself, remembering that he heard this sound more than twice. He had expected to see another patch of glowing grass, which he did see. What he hadn’t expected to see was a glowing outline of his body, where he was lying. Something about that caused him to smile a bit.

    Blip. Blip. Blip.

    Alphor took many steps forward, but at a cautious speed. The ground was starting to curve downwards, typical of a hill. He eventually reached the point where one more step may cause him to roll down it. So, he decided to try and see if he could make anything out. Thanks to the fog, however, that proved to be more difficult than it should. What he did notice was a purple river flowing through the grass which continued from the hill he was on. Unbeknownst to him, the hill continued to curve further from where he stood, forming a straight drop into the water below. In the middle of said ‘hill’ was an opening with water pouring out. Alphor scratched his head again.

    “Well, dad always said to follow the river if I’m lost,” he said.

    Blip.

    Alphor turned, hearing the grass make a sound.

    Blip. Blip.

    His heart started to increase in tempo, knowing that he wasn’t the one making the sounds.

    Blip. Blip.

    The boy looked from side to side. The sound had stopped. Maybe whatever caused it was walking away from him. Or maybe it was-

    Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip!

    The beeping increased in rate and volume, Alphor understanding that this meant whatever was making said ‘beeps’ were coming closer.

    Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip! Blip!

    The child instinctively closed his eyes, tensing his body. The beeping had stopped. This alone would have been enough for him to open his eyes. But on the surface of his face, he felt hot wind puffing. He was too scared to open his eyes, but eventually did. In front of him was a white furred creature, resembling a goat. It was chewing something, staring at Alphor with large blue eyes. Alphor was about to reach out to pet it, but was shocked when he saw the animal…blow a gum bubble.

    Pop!

    Alphor stared in surprise. Were animals allowed to chew bubble gum? He sniffed the air, smelling…banana? This goat had banana chewing gum in its mouth, and was blowing bubbles? Alphor leaned to the side, noticing something on top of the goat’s back. It was a yellow box with green and blue ribbons tied to secure the lid. The goat turned so that Alphor could receive the box easily. When he did, he tried undoing the ribbons. He failed, the ribbons refusing to be untied. Defeated, Alphor sat on the grass with the box in hand, an audible ‘blip’ filling the silent area. He turned the box to check all the sides to at least see who it was from. On the bottom, there was a white card with gold trimming.

    On the card, there was a message. All it said was, ‘Take this box to the end of the river, fellow!’. Ah, there was also a weird symbol in the corner of the card. It was a diamond shape, with the letter ‘S’ inside of it. What made it weird was that the letter had a hollow circle in the middle of it. After staring at the card for some time, Alphor noticed ‘over’ in tiny letters. Shrugging, the boy flipped the card over, but then rotated it when the text was upside down. The text read, ‘Also, get away from the gum-chewing goat named “Billy”.’. ‘Billy’? Alphor looked at the goat.

    “So, your name is Billy, huh?” he smiled to the animal.

    In response, Billy blew a bubble.

    Pop!

    “Does that make you a…billy goat then?” Alphor almost laughed at his pun.

    “Nah, my name’s Billy,” the goat spoke, watching Alphor’s smile fade into a look of shock. “I’m a bully goat though.”

+++

    Sitting on a stone ledge behind a waterfall was a green frill-necked lizard. Lazily, it ate what looked to be an orange cookie. It stared at its reflection in the water as it did.

    “What’re you doing with your life?” he asked himself, shaking his head as he chewed the cookie.

    Popping through the water was another green frill-necked lizard. “Oh, there you are-!”

    The orange cookie was thrown at the intruding lizard’s face, the seated reptile casually catching it as it flew back.

    “Still got it,” it commented, scratching at its red tinted frill.

    The intruding lizard peeped back in. “You know, if that’s your way of getting people to try your food-”

    “It’s not.”

    “Ah, good, because that’s a really aggressive sales approach,” the intruding lizard said, brushing water off its yellow tinted frill. “So, I came by to let you know that Blooey and I are about to have some dinner, and were wondering if-?”

    A scream came from a falling boy just outside the waterfall. He seemed to be holding some sort of yellow box.

    “Well, you don’t see that every day,” the lizard with the yellow frill spoke.

    “Nope,” responded the reptile with the cookie.

    “We should-… We should help ‘em out.” The intruding lizard watched as the other stood up, cookie in its mouth. “You know, good karma and all that!”

    The cookie-holding lizard started kicking against a nearby stone wall, looking up while doing so.

    “Avalanche!” shouted the intruding lizard. “Avalanche! Oh goodness, an avala-!”

    “Avalaaaanche!” cried out a large blue goldfish falling from the hill’s opening above.
Multiple other fishes fell as well, same size and color, saying the same thing.
The lizard finished its cookie. “Now no one can say I hadn’t done nothin’ for anyone.”
The intruding reptile snapped its fingers, pointing at the lizard who had the cookie. “There ya go.”

+++

Alphor screamed, hugging the box tightly. He didn’t want to think about it, but it couldn’t be helped. This probably was where he would die. That is, if it wasn’t for a large fish screaming ‘avalanche’. The fish fell faster than he did, Alphor watching as it passed. Then, another fell, and then one more. When the fourth blue fish fell, he decided to grab onto its side fin. He wasn’t sure how this would help, but he was thankful that…it did. He had survived the fall, but clung for dear life as the fish rose out of the water, and plunged back into it. With every leap out of the water, Alphor took a gasped, and then held his breath for when he hit the water. The constant cries of ‘avalanche’ caused him to finally try to speak.

    “H-hey!” Alphor shouted.

    “Avalaaaanche!” replied the blue goldfishes.

    “G-guys?”

    “Avalaaaanche!”

    Finally, he screamed, mostly out of fear. “Stop!” His voice echoed into the distance.

    The fish…did just that, the one that he was clinging onto still in the water. It eventually rose to the surface with the others.

    “Avalanche?” asked a fish.

    Alphor shook his head, taking several breaths. Then, he started to climb the side of the sea creature he clung to.

    “Avalanche?!” replied another.

    “Avalaaaan-!”

    “No!” Alphor screamed, now seated on top of the fish. “There is no avalanche! You can’t have an avalanche without snow!”

    The blue fish were silent, turning to look at each other.

    “What is this…’snow’?” asked one of them, their voice deep.

    “Snow?” replied Alphor. “Well, snow is-… Snow is when-…” He surveyed the aquatic audience, taking note of their genuine curiosity and confusion. “S-snow is something that isn’t here right now!” he finally said.

    The fish looked at one another again.

    “When do we know it's here?” asked another blue goldfish, this one’s voice high.

    “When it…gets cold, cloudy, and-… And it's white! Snow is white!” Alphor pointed to the sky. “It comes from there! A-and it-”

    Without saying another word, the fish submerged, swimming back to the waterfall. They mumbled words to each other, Alphor left to float down the flowing river. They must have lost interest in what he had to say, something else gaining their attention.

    “W-wait a second, can you guys help me b-back to the-?!” Alphor’s head dove under the purple water, the boy losing his rhythm for keeping afloat for a moment, “…to the shore at least?!” the boy cried out, having had risen above water level.

    With luck, Alphor spotted land close enough to swim to. He managed to do so, slowly stepping into the grass with soaked clothes.

    Blip. Blip. Blip.

    Each step lit the grass below him, until one loud ‘blip’ echoed in the air as he fell onto his side. The boy rolled onto his back, looking up at the ceiling of this bizarre area. Still, there were the butterflies, huddling against the ceiling. However, he noticed something else. There was a hole with cyan light pouring through. That’s right! Right before he fell through his grandma’s basement, he remembered being surrounded by the same colored light!

    “Is that where I fell from?” he asked himself. His golden eyes stared. “But how will I get back up there?”

    It then hit the child. He was still clinging onto the yellow box, which seemed to be waterproof, it dry as paper.

    “Take this to the end of the river,” he repeated what the card said.

    His eyes looked down to see how far said river went. Thanks to the fog, it was pretty hard to tell. With no other choice, Alphor shrugged and came to a stand. Before he started walking, however, he saw a large smiling stone head staring at him from the grass. On its forehead, he saw a plaque that said, ‘Ask me anything!’. Well, there was no harm in doing so. Plus, Alphor could go for something to eat.

    “Um,” the child started, “which way is food?”

    The stone head stared, still smiling.

    Alphor carefully stepped forward, the grass still beeping as he did. Maybe it didn’t hear him.

    “Which way to-?”

    Something suddenly shot out of the ground in front of him, large clumps of dirt falling around the boy, along with a new type of ‘beep’ that came from the dirt clumps. These sounded like the source’s batteries were dying. When the dirt hit the ground, healthier sounding tones came from the grass. What came out of the ground was a large stone hand, pointing upwards. The stone head gave off a deep, relieving grunt as the wrist twisted, letting the finger point further down the river.

    “Theeeere,” replied the head under its ‘breath’.

    “A-ah, gee,” Alphor nodded, “th-thanks.”

    The boy took a few steps away from the head, moving in the direction of the river. As he did, the eyes of the smiling head stayed on him. When he took his eyes off the statue to continue walking, he heard…something. It sounded like two stones were rubbing against each other. He turned to see the head statue still where it was. At least, he thought it was. Looking away, Alphor started down the path again, but stopped when he heard the sound. He turned to see the stone head closer to him, but the hand still where it was, pointing. Instinctively, Alphor maintained eye contact while coiling the box’s ribbons around his left arm. He didn’t want to lose it during what he was about to do next. Luckily for him, he ran track back at his middle school. He just hoped his wet clothes wouldn’t slow him down.