Tip, tit, tat.
Like the grating shrills of chalk against a chalkboard, the inscriptions of pencils reverberate.
"Yes, I feel it... language is speaking to me!"
As my pencil flew out and about to write at the speed of light, my mind began to recall my circumstances.
My room was plastered from top to bottom with piles of balled up paper, dried up pens and used up pencils scattered amidst the chaos.
I was currently situated at the back of my room where my desk was, the only thing left untouched--including my bed--.
"After years, I've finally begun to do it. The words... they're perfect. The ultimate poem, It's finally here--"
Spontaneously, a light began to flash, drowning out my pencil's inscriptions when it had begun to etch the last stanza.
"No... no... no!"
...
Rubbing my head, I open my eyes in anticipation to light burying into and burning the deepest depths of my skull but was met with only darkness.
"Where am I... or, rather, where are we?"
Violently, I recoil, the sudden voice knocking me off guard.
This was the first time I'd heard a human voice in months, yet strangely, it hadn't really felt as if I missed it.
"It seems that something flung us into this dark, cramped room."
Another voice resounded from the opposite direction, prompting me to pull myself up off the ground.
This time, I'd paid more attention, taking note that the voice sounded male, but not of one who was an adult. Sixteen or seventeen, maybe.
"Whatever that thing was, it seems that we're trapped with these creepy men."
Another voice directly next to me emanated, this time sounding like that of a female.
As the girl spoke, the prevailing darkness in the room began to dissipate, my pupils dilating as I again was able to see.
Below us was an almost satanic inscription on the floor, a pentagram with red coloration reaching out to touch me at one of its corners.
Along the other four corners were four other individuals, all with their own distinctive traits.
The one who just spoke was a girl with fiery red hair, her stature broad and her demeanor strong. She had an upright, rock-hard aura to her that made approaching her an extremely uncomfortable notion.
"I mean... how else could we have gotten here?"
Standing to the left of her was a purple haired girl, standing at perhaps 5' on the dot with a rather... salacious constitution, her petiteness just barely concealing the features that I would imagine draws more attention than she would care to acknowledge.
"Yes... perhaps these men surrounding us might know."
To her left and my right were two other guys, both standing at roughly 5'11''--Just a hair taller than me--while adopting calm, placid demeanors.
The source of the voice had black hair that extended just a little past the lower extremity of his neck, the dull color so deep that it was almost as if the night sky were balled up and put into a single streak.
"I say we make a break for it!"
The other's hair jutted out every which way, a deep yellow hue electrifying it and offering it a rather eccentric disposition, almost as if tiny lightning bolts were captured and frozen in midair.
"I-I-it worked!"
The first to speak out was one of the dozens robed men scattered across the ends of the dark room.
Fwish, fwoohhh!
Spontaneously, all the men fell to the floor as the collective thudding and swishing of their bodies and robes echoed.
Some had their movements stilled, seemingly unconscious as the others squirmed around a bit, attempting to posture themselves back upright.
"Hey, wait, damn it! Tell us why we're here!"
The redhead snapped with boiling indignation; her fists pumped into the air.
"The way she's acting by no means contradicts my first impression of her..." I muse under my breath, making sure I can't be heard.
Thoom!
She picked up and slammed one of the still conscious men into the wall, the power of her strike so enormous that it sounded as if a wrecking ball had just demolished a building.
Cracks began to form behind the man as the woman maintained her hold over the man before, eventually, the brick material broke, light simmering into the room in an all too sudden fashion.
Covering my eyes to protect me from the blaring change in ambient light, I just barely hear little gasps of air release from the other three summoned, obviously surprised by her sudden display of strength.
But what most stuck out was the redhead's own reaction, her grip on the man's collar emasculated by her monstrous power.
She looked on at her palms with a bright fervor, the biggest of smiles etched in her face as she gritted her teeth, exhilarated.
"You... have been summoned to this world..."
The man just barely opened his mouth as a trickle of blood went from his nose to the floor, bubbling his words out while fighting a gurgle from the pool of blood in his mouth.
Wait, 'to this world'?
Are you telling me this is exactly like those Isekai stories I always enjoyed reading in adolescence?
"Huh!?!"
Four of us summoned yelled out, on the same wavelength with the impossibility of such a statement.
I mean, who could even believe such a blatant lie? While it's fun to envision a life of fantastical and whimsical adventures, one must be able to make the distinction that that's purely fiction.
"Well, if you think about it, it makes sense."
The black-haired teen--the only one who hadn't yelled--made his remark, arousing the attention of our vying eyes as we looked on for elaboration.
"I mean, you all saw it, right? These men were able to transport us in an instant with that magical circle there, and as seen with the redhead's monstrous strength, our physical attributes are not normal right now."
"Yeah, to be honest, since I got transported here, I've felt some type of... energy empowering me. My limbs feel strong and agile, like I can do anything right now."
The yellow-haired fellow spoke out in response, looking down at his body and holding his hands out, eventually grasping them and swinging them around a little bit.
"Very perceptive of you, to be able to sense magica mere moments after being summoned. To be expected of this kingdom's soon-to-be saviors."
Unexpectedly, a man donned in grand garnishments of gold and platinum made his approach, strength exuding from him in such quantities that a cold shudder began to run across me, stilling my movements.