Banished

He awoke to the smell and familiar sound of crackling fire. Why was this familiar?
Trying to sit up and open his eyes, he quickly realized this to be a stupid idea, as the noonday sun combined its glaring rays with a splitting headache. Where was he? With an instinctive movement of his hand, he pulled his black-steel ricehat a bit deeper into his face, and tried again; more slowly. As his eyes focused on his surroundings he immediately recognized where he was: in the Hedge. But how had he gotten here?

With agonizingly slow movements he rose onto shaky feet, surveying the crater he had lain in and the burning vines and thorns of the Hedge around it. Crater? Why was he lying in a crater? He looked down and saw that he was wearing his royal Haori and Hakama pants. But why were these garments royal?
Another splitting headache wracked his body, forcing him onto his knees, his hands clutching his temples.
A few moments later the pain slowly subsided to a dull throbbing, but he was still unable to hold a coherent memory. He knew his name was Zuke. He knew he was 18 years old, and that he was in the Hedge. He also knew he was not supposed to linger here, having surely attracted all manners of creatures, and just as he formed this thought he felt it. A portal was nearby. He didn't know how he knew, but at least it would allow him to get out of the Hedge.
He rose back on to his feet and started walking, each step sending a jolt of pain straight to his head. When he finally reached the arch in the Hedge, which harbored the portal, the pain had subsided, or at the very least, he had gotten used to it, and a déjÃ*-vu came over him. The stone slab, the way the vines were growing around the archway. He had been here before. He was sure of it.

The portal opened by the force of his will and he stepped through.

He found himself in between two black structures, no more than a dozen feet apart. The air was warm and dry, and there was sunlight coming in from up ahead.
The portal he had just stepped through glimmered one last time then closed behind him as he started walking towards the sun.
Before he cleared the structures however, he heard something very noisy approaching at great speed. He moved up against the wall where the shadows were deepest just as an iron monstrosity rolled along a shallow, and dried out river, only a few feet outside.
When he was sure the thing was gone, he tentatively stepped out into the light of the noonday sun. He could see now that this man made river stretched in both directions, curving along high structures and that there was a riverbank where others appeared to walk.

He looked around to try and orient himself, but he immediately realized that this place was even more alien to him than the Hedge.

He was about to turn and walk back the way he came, when he saw something slightly off inside one of the buildings. It had a large sign over the top, designating it as some kind of shop for coffee. What was coffee?
But it wasn't the sign that had caught his attention, it was the people gathered outside. They looked different from the others he had seen.

He carefully walked towards the group, perhaps they could be of help.

((moved here: Running like the Wind))