Far from Home

The Evergreen was once a living meadow, a sanctuary for small flying insects and tiny birds who nested peacefully in the tall grass. Food was plentiful and the sunlight always seemed to shine a little brighter overhead, bringing a warm glow to the thousands of wildflowers that swayed in an almost permanent summer breeze.

Unfortunately, it's beauty and peace was tarnished with the overnight appearance of a quarter mile wide circle of heat, scorching the grass and turning any flower it touched into a dry, ashen mess. Dead in the centre of this perfect circle, sat a barn. Dilapidated and old. This occurrence was rare, but not unheard of.

Several other circles had been spotted across the continent, each one turning the ground around it to ruin. All came with it's own seemingly random building right in the middle. Andrea and Isaac had been visiting each one, learning little but gaining new questions every time. In their heavy duty boots, they crunched over the dried wildlife and approached the barn.

From a distance, it looked almost brown in the setting sun, but getting close revealed it was once painted a probably very beautiful, deep red. Andrea reached his hand out and dragged a gloved fingertip down the doorframe. "Have you ever seen a building like this one?"

"No. Looks like it was used to house animals though." Isaac peered in through a window frame, no glass, just two wooden shutters, both hanging off by their hinges. "There's areas in there separated by gates, tools, looks like a saddle or two in the back."

"Is it safe? Not going to fall down on us if we camp out?" Andrea used a small scalpel to scrape some paint chips into a small dish.

"Seems sturdy enough, let me head inside though, check it out first."

After half an hour of testing wooden beams, opening and closing gates and having an impromptu (and careful) pitchfork fight, the two settled into the centre of the barn and used wood they'd broken off from the door to start a small fire. The barn, not that they knew it was called that, had plenty of ventilation, including a large hole in the roof that was definitely not supposed to be there. It somewhat explained the crater they were sat in though, something heavy must have fallen through the roof, at quite a considerable speed to leave such damage. They speared some meat and veg onto skewers, roasting them whilst taking in their surroundings.

"If only we could see the places these came from. First that giant glass building that appeared on the beach, then... what was it, the tiny wooden outhouse type thing on the moors near your house?" Andrea turned the skewers on the fire, "they all looked familiar, but also like nothing I've seen before."

Isaac pondered for a moment, "Well, we know they're not from here. That's as good a start as any." He took a bite of meat, "Each one has also had a decent amount of damage done to it. I do wonder if that's got something to do with them showing up here."

"Like, they're leaving their world and coming here to escape?"

"If buildings had sentience, yes. But, it's gonna take a long time to figure out how a house for animals turned up in the middle of a meadow, let alone the others."

"Hmm."

They ate in comfortable silence. Taking in the beams above them, the remnants of straw in the pens, the ladder leading to a loft space that looked way too unstable to climb up to. It was comfortable, Andrea had to admit, there was something very cosy about being in these walls, but able to see so clearly into the night sky.

The two moons above were bright, beautiful. Even the split one. That one was actually Andreas favourite, the larger of the two with a giant crack down the middle - sure, he didn't support the war that caused it, he was a man of peace - but the result left the sky looking lived in. His people had an impact on the vastness of space. His moon, split though it was, now illuminated this... animal keep? Farm house? He may not know what it was yet, or where it had come from. But his sky welcomed it into his world. He caught Isaac looking at him and smiled, "We'll figure it all out. Maybe they've all come from the same place, maybe they just want to visit our world and they'll go back when they're done."

Isaac scoffed, and began playing with a dried up piece of hay by his fingers. "Again, I'm not sure in the sentience of old buildings." He rolled his eyes at Andreas comically pouty expression, "but, they're welcome to visit, if it means we get to explore them together."

The next morning, they took more scrapings, a two foot piece of door wood and a small baggie full of hay. Someone out there had to know something, these places weren't dangerous, no harm had come to anyone who visited one. No enemies lurked within their shadows. They were just there where once they weren't. And sure, this meadow was beautiful without the barns intrusion, but under the two moons, Andrea wasn't sure he'd ever seen a sight more wondrous.