[The Chronicles of Colton]
Colton yeeted through the portal and into a puddle of muck, soaking his Adidas through and barely managing to stop before he faceplanted. The confusion on the boy's face was evident, pale eyes blinking as they took in the dismal - yet stunning - sight before him, a wetland vista far more primal than any he'd ever seen in his life.
That would be none. He had seen none wetlands before this, at least not in person. But was this a marsh? A bog? A swamp? A moor? A fen? Colton did not know, for he had not paid much attention in his environmental biology classes, scraping by - as in all cases - with a participatory C.
"WTF," he whispered, enunciating each letter individually. Doubleyou Tee Eff indeed.
He turned back to the portal from which he'd come and found it sealed, inert. There would be no returning to his world of being terminally online from this boggy wetland.
It occurred to him that he'd never see his family again.
It occurred to him that there was no one to erase his browser history.
A cold gnawing dread formed in the pit of Colton's stomach. Clearly he could never go home again. But so what? "So what," he echoed, hands brushing down the sides of his bright yellow crew-neck T-shirt, already damp from the humidity. "So what?"
He felt his jaw unclench, his shoulders slacken, his spine straighten as if a great existential dread of having lived in the end of days had suddenly been lifted. Yes, there was always the chance that this wasn't some iseki deal and he'd been transported to, say, Florida, instead of another world, but there was no reason to be negative. Best to assume a clean slate, a new chance, a new life in a world that hadn't been doomed before he was born.
He turned to the portal and gave his old life two middle-fingers. "See you in hell, trash fire!" Then turned boldly back towards the swamp and started walking away towards a new life of adventure, excitement, and possibly a lonesome death alone and unmourned.