"Bruce?" Xavier glanced over, still holding his own copy. "You look like you just saw a ghost. Which, given our week, wouldn't even be that surprising."
Bruce took the second scripture from Stephan's hand, slowly, like it might bite him. He ran his thumb over the signed name. "That's... that's not possible."
"What isn't?"
"This is a coincidence. It has to be a coincidence. There's no way—" Bruce cut himself off, opening the cover with visibly unsteady hands.
There was no author's introduction inside. No scholarly commentary, no illustrated frontispiece, nothing befitting something sold to them as a "scripture." Just a single cramped scrawl of handwriting, ink smudged in places like whoever wrote it had been in a hurry to get the words down before they escaped him.
-- Day 1
Of the great roswell's adventures
Dear future me please get better handwriting
So first of all, finally making my first diary to document this new journey and stuff. Well i guess we should go back to the when it all started (always wanted to say that) so i don't forget my name is mitchell martin born in north carolina raised in pennsylvania i am mixed and have a brother this sounds like an about me but like what if another dude gets isekied and needs like info and shit kinda like in lotm so like basically i was about to go on my first ever date and i was preparing my clothes when i think i heard a pipe burst or something doesn't really matter cause in the next few moments im pretty sure i died
now you might be wondering if i died how am i writing this diary well the funny thing is i got teleported (i think) to this massive fucking hall and talked to some dude name god or the god idrk but he's like become the strongest blah blah blah and he said he was gonna isekei me and im all like isekei. I love iskeis and shit bro am i gonna get like a harem or something and a op cheat skill.
The god just laughed at me then beat my ass called me weak and pathetic and shit that shit hurt my feelings man so he gave me no super op cheat skill, no harem, nothing at all and shit then tossed me out to some random ass location in this new world with nothing but the book and pen i asked for and a sack filled with survival shits.
When i looked around all i saw was a giant ass tree bigger than anything i've ever seen it looked like it reached the heavens prob because the top of the tree was higher then the fucking clouds. There was a forest surrounding this tree which i'm calling the world tree cause sao if ykyk and well other then the giant tower i was on kinda looked like the ones from breath of the wild but wooden it was forest all around so with my daylight dwindling I started to head towards the tree, i hope there aren't like big ass creatures waiting to kill me,
and so if anyone in the future is reading this please either fucking help me or tell my parents i love em cause i aint built for all this for my final line i will write my goal to further my conviction
Goal : get back to my world and don't die in the process --
Silence.
Xavier's hand, holding the book steady for Bruce to read, had gone rigid.
"...Mitchell." Bruce's voice cracked on the single syllable.
"Mitchell Martin," Xavier said it slowly, like saying it too fast might make it untrue. "North Carolina. Pennsylvania. He's got a brother. Bruce, this is—"
"I know who it is." Bruce's hands were shaking badly enough that Xavier had to reach over and help hold the book steady. "This is him. This is actually him."
Stephan, who had gone unusually quiet through the entire reading, finally spoke, his voice smaller than either of them had ever heard it. "...He's alive."
None of them said anything for a long moment. The noise of the square outside — vendors, footsteps, distant laughter — felt like it belonged to some other world entirely.
"He's been here this whole time," Xavier said finally, staring down at the cramped, half-legible handwriting like it might rearrange itself into something less impossible. "Writing this down. Hoping someone like us would find it."
Bruce swallowed hard and reached for the second scripture still resting untouched in Stephan's hands. "There's more."