Prologue

 

“Mom, how come Arlitica doesn’t rise and set like our old sun did?” Alice asked her mother, twisting her ponytail in her hands.

“Alicia, my little girl, the Earth doesn’t turn anymore. That’s why the sun doesn’t rise and set,” Harriet smiled warmly at her daughter.

“Adam, did you get that?” Alice asked her twin.

“Give me a sec, I’m working on it,” Adam said, pushing his glasses up. The clipboard he was holding was crammed with papers, all holding information taken in his perfect handwriting.

“You guys are both so smart! I can’t wait to see the dimension that you are creating!” Harriet pulled her kids in for a hug.

“Well, Mom, the sun was our last asset that we needed. We even have it set up so that the time will pass quickly!”

“That’s great, guys! I love you both so much.” She kissed them on their heads and shooed them away. “I’ve got work to do, now.”

The kids ran off, leaving their mother behind them.

“Mommy’s so proud of us!” The nine-year-old girl smiled at her brother. “But when we actually succeed, she’ll be even more proud.”

“Yeah, whatever. Let’s just enter this information and finish Sortryn,” Adam shrugged. Alice shot her brother a look, but followed him to the lab. Without saying a word, Adam plopped onto the chair in front of The Computer.

The Computer was a huge device that was five-thousand-times-more-helpful than the average computer. Consisting of three glass panels, it had over two hundred different buttons on the keyboard, five computer mice, and wireless connections to everything.

Adam flipped through a couple hundred sites within seconds, until coming to a stop on our program that they made to help upload info to their Dimension Creator.

After entering the coordinates of the sun, Adam set the moon and Earth to revolve around the sun. He set the correct heat, size, and other details. Finally, he saved it.

Alice’s jaw fell open as the D.C. started whirring and clicking. A holographic image of the sun appeared, and the image zoomed out until the earth and moon were shown spinning around the sun.

“It’s working!” Alice cried. She hugged her brother. “Time is going so quick. See how fast the Earth is moving? Each lap it makes around the sun is a year!”

“Yeah, I know,” Adam smirked. “We’re awesome, aren’t we?”

“Duh!” They watched before their eyes as their lifelong project was created. Suddenly, Alice had an idea.

“Adam, if my calculations are correct, we are about to be born. Let’s go meet }ourselves!”

“How do we do that? Make a portal?”

“Exactly!” Alice ran around the lab, grabbing spare parts. She twisted wire together, screwed in sheets of metal, and torched glass. Adam stood still, watching her while she worked.

Just minutes later, a circle the height of a person was glowing orange, and when Adam tried to look through it, the image was hazy.

“You actually did it?” He shrieked. “I thought you were joking.”

Alice smiled, the gap between her teeth flashing. “Am I ever joking? Follow me.” She stuck her hand through the circle and instantly it disappeared. She stepped the rest of the way in.

Adam watched in shock as his sister rippled, then disappeared. Quickly, he pushed up his glasses and jumped through.

He smacked face-first into a wall. “Ow!” He cried, rubbing his head.

“You were supposed to step through, not jump through. This is our house, but we need to stay out of sight. C’mon!”

She tested the door, which was unlocked, and walked in. Voices were coming from upstairs, and a steady wail.

“Why is there only one baby crying?” Adam asked.

“Probably because I’m always the mature one, even as a baby.”

“But this wasn’t what our house looked like!”

“How do you know what the house looked like when you were born? We probably moved before we were old enough to remember things.” Quietly, Alice motioned to her twin, and they tip-toed up the stairs.

They peeked around the edge of the doorway of which the voices were coming from. Standing there were a young couple holding a baby.

“What!?” Adam mouthed at his sister. “Those aren’t our parents!”

“I know,” Alice mouthed back. She motioned for him to follow her. The carefully walked back down the stairs and sat on the couch.

Keeping her voice low, Alice said, “I think what happened was we put in the starting components to create Earth, but we didn’t follow it up all the way until we were born. We just assumed everything would work out perfectly, exactly like it did in Inaecia. But instead, I was born to different parents, and you weren’t born at all!”

“I guess that makes sense,” Adam said following along.

“But if I have to exist without you, none of the things that happened to our family will happen. So, I’m going to remove myself from this dimension.”

“Like, kill yourself!”

“Sort of. I will need to clone the baby me, then pace that clone in this world. It may not make sense to you, but trust me, it’ll work.”

 

* * * * *

 

The next day a babysitter had come to watch baby Alice. The babysitter had put Alice down for a nap, then taken one herself.

After snatching a piece of hair of the baby, which resulted in lots of crying, Alice and Adam went through the portal to get back home. Their parent already had made a machine to clone people, so they put the hair in, and watched as an exact replica of the baby was formed.

The conveyer belt turned on, and the baby squealed as she moved closer to Alice. Alice bent over and picked up herself.

“Wow, she’s...I’m...heavy!” She huffed.

“Now it’s back to Sortryn!” Adam said, ignoring his sister. He lifted the baby out of her arms and stepped into the portal.

Instantly, he was back in the other dimension, right next to the house. Almost immediately, before the older Alice even came through the baby Alice started shimmering. Adam knew that the original baby was probably shimmering, too.

A few seconds later, Alice came through, her right hand shiny blue.

“Sorry, I accidentally knocked over a beaker.” Without another word, she pulled out a different beaker from behind her back and poured it on the baby. The baby Alice disappeared.

And judging by the horrified shriek coming from the babysitter, who had woken up, so did the other Alice.

Sirens wailed in the distance.

“We’ve got to get out of here!” Alice grabbed her brother’s hand and pulled him through the portal. Once they were safely in Inaecia, Alice said, “Quick! We must disassemble the portal, or they will see it in Sortryn.”

Wiping away a tear for her creation, she grabbed a hammer and brought it down on her portal. The shimmering in the circle faded. As the portal fell, Alice did, too.

“Are you okay?” Adam asked worriedly.

“Yes, just very tired. I’m going to bed.” She stood back up, dropping the hammer, and shuffled off to her bedroom.

A few hours later, Alice was awoken by noise.

“Honey, wake up! You’ve got to go!” Her mother was shaking Alice.

“What’s going on?” Alice asked sleepily.

“The air supply is shortening! You, your brother, and Grandpa are going to live in Sortryn so you’ll be safe.”

“What?!” Alice was awake now. “But I can’t! I’ll miss you and Daddy!”

“I knew this would happen,” Alice’s mother smiled sadly. “So I’m doing this.”

She poured half a cup of bubbling orange liquid on Alice’s face, and the other half on a picture.

As Alice’s eyes went blank, her mom’s hands loosened, and the picture fell out of her hand.

Laying on the ground, the faces of Alice’s family looked up at the sky.

 

I

“Alicia Hillman?” Mrs. Whitney, my homeroom instructor called.

“Here, and I go by Alice,” I replied, hoping she wouldn’t ask me to tell a little bit about myself. After all, it was high school. I might get lucky, for once.

“Everyone, we have a new student. Alice, would you mind telling everybody a bit about yourself, please?” I tried to refrain myself from palming my forehead. As I stood up, I felt the class’ eyes burning into my skin.

“Um...I’m Alice Hillman, and I come from a small town in Kentucky called Doe Valley. I lived on a farm there, so yeah,” I finished. I pushed a lock of my brown hair, which was in a ponytail, behind my ear and sat down. Well, I tried to sit down.

I was lowering myself to my seat, which was attached to my desk, when my Vera Bradley messenger bag caught on the back of my chair. I tried shaking it loose, but it was caught on an uneven section of the wooden stool. I yanked hard, and the bag finally came loose.

Suddenly, I was flying through the air. I heard screeches, and then my face banged against something solid. It got quiet, and I raised, my hand pressed against my eye. With my good eye, I could see that the neat arrangement of desks was disorderly, and my bag lay on the ground.

“Are you alright?” Mrs. Whitney asked.

“Yes,” I mumbled. My cheeks felt like they were on fire, I was blushing so furiously. I picked up my messenger back and continued to stand in the center of the classroom, the other student’s eyes boring into me.

“Why don’t you go to the restroom and clean up real quick, honey,” my teacher said sympathetically. I nodded, my eyes filling with tears. Grasping my messenger bag with a death grip, I stalked out of the room.

I didn’t blink until I was touching the swinging door to the girls’ restroom. I pushed my way through, and finally let the tears fall.

So much for making a good first impression, I scolded myself, my mascara running. Sitting down in one of the bathroom stalls, I held up my messenger bag, which I had brought with me. I began to sob even harder when I saw that it had a huge rip down the back.

The bag had cost me two years worth of savings, because I was an orphan. My mom had died while giving birth to me, and my dad was so distraught that he didn’t eat for weeks, which led to his death of starvation. Of the few people I have told my parents about, all of them have given me their regards. I don’t care too much about it, though, because I never knew them.

I stood up and walked to the mirrors. I gasped when I saw my reflection. My right eye was already swelling, a huge purple and black bruise. Luckily, I couldn’t feel anything-I was still numb from the humiliation.

I rinsed my face off with water from the sink, reapplied my mascara, and walked out, pretending nothing had ever happened. I was surprised to see a guy (who I was pretty sure was in my homeroom) standing there.

“Hey, um, you were taking a while, and Mrs. Whitney sent me to make sure you were okay. So...are you okay? That’s a pretty bad bruise,” he winced. He talked kind of quickly, and I got the feeling he was nervous. Obviously. I would be nervous, too, if I was standing next to the klutz of the century.

“Yeah, I’m great, um…”

“Bryce. My name is Bryce.” He ran his fingers through his hair in an adorable way. I suddenly noticed that a lot about him was adorable, from his bright green eyes to his awkward stance.

“I’m Alice,” I say shyly, aware of how close we are. My hand is still pressed against the bathroom door, so I let it finish swinging shut. I turn my other arm sideways and grab hold of my right arm, shifting into a comfortable position.

“I know.” I had forgotten I had said something, I was so focused on looking natural, so his voice made me jump.

“Forgot me already?” Bryce teased.

“No, I...I mean you’re very hard to forget…” I stammered.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” He smiled. Was he...flirting with me? After everything that I’d done to make a fool out myself? I started wondering if he was making fun of me.

“Was that a compliment or an insult?” I chose a wisecrack as my response, because I didn’t want to hurt his feelings if he wasn’t making fun of me. He smiled, then told me we probably needed to get back. I nodded and followed him down the hallway.

For some reason, Bryce made me feel more embarrassed, but less embarrassed at the same time. But, by the time we reached the class, I had forgotten all about the “incident” that had occurred and was ready to start my new life.

Bryce held the door for me and I entered the room. Other than a few snickers, I was given no hard time about what had happened. The class seemed distracted, though. They were all staring at my face. Which I guess, was no surprise.

I smiled at anyone who dared look me in the eye, pretending it hadn’t bothered me at all, even though deep down I felt stings of mental pain. I turned to face the front as Mrs. Whitney called everyone’s attention.

“Please take out a book and read until the end of class. You may leave as soon as the bell rings.” I had a feeling I was going to like her. I pulled out my book, The Giver, and buried myself deep in its pages.

I was just getting to the part where Jonas was transmitting memories to Gabe to help make him relaxed, when the bell rang. My heart practically leapt out of my chest, and I scrambled to collect my belongings.

I yanked my schedule out of my pocket and checked my next class-social studies, room 104. I trailed out behind the rest of my homeroom class and stepped out into the crowded hall.

Within my first five steps, I was nearly tackled by a football player, tripped by a goth kid, and smacked by a popular. I could tell this was going to be a rough year. Surprisingly, though, nobody looked at my face weirdly. I guess everyone was used to people looking strange, so they didn’t pay attention anymore.

I walked down the hallway, finally spotting the 100’s. Feeling relieved, I found 103 and looked around for 104. It wasn’t there. I suddenly became aware of the dispersing crowd behind me. A locker slammed, and then everything was quiet. Everybody had gone to class. I could feel little beads of perspiration forming at the top of my forehead.

It was then that I spotted a girl who looked to be a junior, just like me.

“Hi,” I said walking over to her. She froze and spun around, and I caught a glimpse of
her face. She was gorgeous, except for a big pimple planted right in the middle of her forehead. The girl must’ve felt my eyes on it, and said, “You should see your face!” I blushed.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare. I was just wondering if you could help me find room 104. I’m new here, and it wasn’t next to 103.” Her face softened.

“Oh. Well, the odds are all grouped on this side of the building, and the evens are all on the other side. It makes it really confusing, but you get used to it. Actually, I was just heading to 106 myself. I’ll walk you there,” she smiled. I followed her, happy that someone was willing to help me.

“Um, I didn’t seem to catch your name,” I told her.

“That’s because I didn’t give it,” she winked. “I’m Claire. Nice to meet you. And just between you and me, the only reason I’m still out here is because of this.” She gestures to her forehead. “Hey, do you want to sit with me at lunch? I normally sit with my friend Sophie, but she’s drifting towards the Dark Side, if you know what I mean.”

I try to smile knowingly, and respond, “I’d love to, thanks.” Claire started walking, and within minutes we were in the other half of the building.

“Here you are,” Claire told me, stopping in front of room 104.

“Thanks so much!” I gushed.

“No prob.” She gave me a little half-smile and jogged to her class. I opened the door just as the bell rang.

“Late, miss. Do you have a tardy slip?” The teacher asked.

“No, sorry, I just-this is my first day here,” I flushed.

“That’s no excuse. Here is a detention slip. You will be serving one hour.” I jerked back. This was the first day! Detention already?

“Sorry, it won’t happen again,” I said glumly, taking the paper from him. I went to the only empty seat at the back of the class.

“I apologize for the interruption, class,” the teacher said, his eyes shooting daggers at me. “I am Mr. Snat. Today we will be talking about the earth, and what we have done to it over the last century.”

Like a lightbulb, an idea lit up in my brain. Mr. Snot. His last name was practically begging for me to nickname it. Maybe this class wouldn’t be horrible, after all. I watched as Mr. Snot shuffled his papers, and prepared to talk. Hunkering down in my seat, I closed my eyes.

“2034. That is the year, as you all should know. Cars. Artificial flavoring. Drones. Technology that no other country has discovered. 1805. The year that Lewis and Clark started their journey. The year that they met the Indians who grew their own food. The Indians planted plants as seeds and watered them through their growth and harvested them with their own two hands. And here we are, with plants that can carry electricity through their stems.” My eyes snapped open, and I began listening intently. Mr. Snot continued.

“Our world has changed over the years. People have changed, customs have changed, technology has changed. But I can’t say this change has been for the better. Look at our skies-they used to be a lovely blue, but now most of them are light grey. Not a good thing. And what are we doing about this? Nothing. We have a room full of brains and people with power, but has any of us tried to stop this? No. Now, if you’ll open your textbooks to page 273.”

I stared in awe at Mr. Snot. I was forming a new respect for him. That was an emotional speech. An inspiring speech. Maybe I could change the world.

 

* * * * *

 

“So how’s your day been?” Claire asked me as she opened her paper lunch sack. I opened my Walmart sack that was filled with apples, carrots, and a PB and J. A little childish, but no one was watching.

“Good! Other than this,” I said, gesturing to my face.

“Wait, that happened today?” She asked.

“Yeah. Homeroom.” I took a bite into my sandwich.

“Ouch,” she winced. “Yeah, my fault has been there for almost a week. I was hoping it would be gone by today, but no.” Claire shrugs. “Want a cookie?” She held out a chocolate chip cookie.

“Sure! Thanks!” I said, snatching the cookie. “For everything,” I added.

She smiled warmly. “You’re absolutely welcome.”

 

II

School was boring. Life was boring. Everything was boring in Missouri. In Kentucky, we went to horse derbies every weekend. But in Missouri, I sat at home reading books and doing homework.

The most interesting thing that had happened to me so far was applying for a job at

Le Sapphire Café, the coffee shop in Kansas City that sells blue-dyed coffee. It’s weird, but the coffee was good and I assumed it payed well.

I had just received an email stating that my resume was exceptional and  no interview would be needed for my admittance.

I found this strange, because my resume consisted of an internship for a company called Jone & Joan and a job at McDonald’s. However, I took the news with ecstasy, and headed downtown to pick up my uniform and to learn about my tasks.

The small shop was painted dark blue on the outside, teal on the inside. Everything was blue, and when I walked in, blues music played. I felt like I was inside of a Smurf. I walked up to the counter.

“Hello! I’m Alicia Hillman. I applied for the waitress job?” I smiled and tried to be super polite. The boy at the register glanced up.

“Kim will see you in back,” he said in a flat voice. Before I walked past, I caught a glimpse of his face. His eyes were sunken in and he looked very sad. I shuddered and pushed the door open to the office.

At the desk sat a plump woman in blue coveralls-the same outfit the boy had been wearing.

“Hello! I’m Alic-”

“I know. Sit.” The woman who I guessed was Kim glared at me and pointed to a chair. I sat down and looked around the room. It reminded me of a principal’s office, with file cabinets, food awards, and an office desk. “So you applied for the job? I see. Well, have Jake get you a uniform get to work. Paychecks will be given weekly, so don’t ask when you’ll be receiving them.”

“Okay…thanks?” I stood up to leave but Kim grabbed my arm.

“One more thing-you screw up, your fired. Have a nice day!” She flashed me a fake smile and unclenched her hand. I hurried out of the room, my arm throbbing where she had touched me.

It wasn’t until the door was fully shut that I slowed down. I was standing behind the front counter, and blue decorations blocked my view of the front door. I didn’t know who Jake was, so I decided to look around for the coveralls.

Without even turning a full 360, I saw them hanging from a hook next to the coffee creamers. I lifted them slowly off the hook, sniffed them, and when I had proof they didn’t smell, put them on.

I looked at my reflection in a blue-framed mirror and smiled-I looked cute. I went back behind the counter and searched for recipes. Kim hadn’t given me any instructions as how to make the coffee, but I found a huge book of different types of coffee in a cabinet. Just as I walked up to the register (the other boy was gone), my first customer arrived.

It was a tall boy with-wait, that was Bryce, the guy who I met after my incident!

“Hey!” He said, snapping me out of my thoughts. “Didn’t think I’d see you here! How’s your eye?”
“Good,” I said, absentmindedly rubbing the fading bruise. “Yeah, and this is literally my first day here.”

“Oh, yeah? How are you liking it?”

“Um, well, you’re my first customer, so I really don’t know.” I lowered my voice. “The boss is really rude though.”

“Found that out, did you? I worked here for one day a couple of years ago, and quit after she lowered my paycheck for not asking customers for tips. Kim’s nice to her customers, but never her employees.”

“Oh. Well, what can I get for you?” I said, straightening up.

“Hm. How about the Triple Chocolate Chunk Mocha, no whipped cream?” Bryce decided after studying the menu.

“One Triple Chocolate Mocha, coming right up!” I flipped open the book and looked for the recipe I found it on page 15. I turned on the coffee maker and watched in fascination as, along with coffee, blue drops of food coloring dripped into the cup. Suddenly self-conscious with Bryce watching me, I turned away to find the chocolate.

I found a chocolate creamer that the recipe called for, the chocolate chips, and the chocolate syrup. By the time I had gathered the ingredients, the cup had filled.

I measured out the amounts of chocolate and added them in, finally, I popped the lid on and brought it over to Bryce.

“Your total cost will be $9.32!” I exclaimed, frowning. “Man, this place is expensive!”

“Yeah, but it’s worth the money.” He handed me a credit card, then took a sip. “Delicious! Are you sure this is your first time making a Triple Chocolate Mocha?”

“Positive. Well, there was this one time…” I joked.

He laughed. “I guess I’ll see you at school tomorrow. Have a good rest of your weekend!” Bryce walked out the door, and I sighed as blues filled the air. I wish he had stayed. Just then, the door flew back open. It was Bryce. “Sorry, forgot to tell you-those coveralls look great!”

 

* * * * *

 

When I was safely in the hall, I checked my watch to see what time it was. 9:45. I had one more class to go, then lunch. That meant I would eat at around 11:00, which was early for me.

I looked up just in time to run into a guy. He was pretty sturdy, so while I flew backwards, he just lost his balance a tiny bit. My face stung from the impact. I raised my head to glare at him, but then I saw who it was-Bryce. He suddenly seemed to be everywhere these days.

“Oh wow, Alice, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.” He held up his phone, proof of what he was doing. “I was just texting my girlfriend.” Immediately, my heart sank. He had a girlfriend.

“We both have been so busy that we haven’t gotten to hang out with each other at all. I’m breaking up with her,” Bryce explained. Just like that, my day suddenly got better.

“Okay,” I said casually. “Sorry I ran into you.”

“It’s fine. Besides, it was basically my fault.”

“No, I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t pay attention.”

“What were your thoughts about? Me?” Bryce teased me. I wanted to say, Yes, actually, but instead I said, “No, I was thinking about Spanish. Mrs. Uber gave us this huge project that we have to finish before Thursday.”

“Oh, yeah. I’ve heard that’s a tough class. Well, I can’t help you with that. I’d suck at trying to speak Spanish. Heck, I can barely even speak English!”

It was then that I realized we had been standing in the middle of the hall for the past two minutes, and people were swerving to avoid running into us. Ah. That felt so good, saying us.

“Hey, we better move,” I suggest.

“Good idea. What’s your next class?” I checked my schedule, not having memorized it yet.

“Advanced Algebra with Mr. Little. We have it together.” I tell him.

“Duh! Sorry. Do you want me to carry your stuff?” Bryce asked kindly. I blushed.

“No, thanks. I got it.” We started walking.

 

* * * * *

 

“Okay, so if the cubed root of 125 is five, and the square root of pi, which is about 1.77, added together are supposed to equal x, then x = 6.77?” I relay.

“Exactly!” Bryce smiled. We had been paired together in Algebra (pure luck that we were partners), and were currently doing a review unit. However, even though I had already learned this stuff, I didn’t remember a thing, and I’d already sucked at Algebra before.

“Okay, next question…” I was suddenly entrance by a piece of hair that was sticking up on Bryce’s head. It was kind of annoying me, but more than that, I thought it was adorable. “Alice, are you listening?”

“What?” My head snapped up. “Oh, sorry.”

“That’s alright,” he said gently. “How about this-class is almost over, and you still haven’t gotten this down, so why don’t we study a little bit in the school library this afternoon?”

Me? Be alone with him? That would be nerve-wracking.

“Sure!” I blurted before I could think anything else.

“Cool!” The bell rung, and we scrambled to grab our things. As I reached for my math notebook, his hand brushed mine. At the exact same time, we both looked up, blushed, then looked back down.

“S-sorry,” I mumbled. My heart was beating rapidly and my cheeks were still warm. It was a good feeling, and I suddenly realized that he had blushed, too. Was it possible he liked me? The thought made me happy, and I hugged my notebook to my chest.

“See ya, Alice!”

The day flew by quickly after that. I was on Cloud Nine waiting for my ‘study date’, as I called it, with Bryce.

Soon, it was eighth period. Having art for last hour was awesome, because it was always a great way to end my day. Today I was painting my clay model of the Eiffel Tower. I had to say, it looked amazing.

I put the finishing touches on my Eiffel Tower just as class was ended. I quickly washed my paintbrush and put my clay sculpture in the kiln, which was currently turned off.

I grabbed my things and hurried to the library, where Bryce was waiting.

“Hi, Ali’.” My heart sped up when he said my nickname.

“Hi!” I said. The librarian glared at me.

“Quiet in the library!” She whisper-shouted.
“Sorry!” I winced. I turned to Bryce. “So should we get started?”

“Sure. Hey, I’ve been wanting to ask you something...so, the fall dance is coming up, and I was wondering if you were going.”

“Dancing?” I scoffed. “I can’t dance, so I probably won’t go.”

“Oh,” he said quietly. My eyes widened as I realized he probably was going to ask me to go with him.

“Not that I wouldn’t go!” I tried to say, but it was too late.

“It’s fine-I don’t like dancing, either.”

Suddenly, he spoke up.

“I was wondering, even though I just met you, like three weeks ago, and we’re just friends...well, would you like to maybe go watch a movie or something sometime?” My heart fluttered. Was he asking me out? And did he...break up with his girlfriend for me?

“Of course. I’d love to! It’ll be nice to not just sit around anymore,” I exclaim. I was thrilled that he hadn’t given up and on me, and he looked relieved, like a heavy weight had just been lifted off his chest. “But wait-are you sure you don’t need to time to get over your girlfriend?”

“Nah. I was over her weeks ago, I just never got around to dumping her.” I grinned.

“I get what you mean.”

“Okay, how about Friday, then. I’ll pick you up at 7:00, and we can go see whatever you want. Speaking of picking you up, where do you live?” I raise an eyebrow.

“Stalker, much?” Then I smile. “Just kidding. I live on 4532 Daily Street. It’s by that one Walgreens that has a blow-up water bottle in the front. I go to Walgreens to get all my family’s groceries.” I don’t know why I added the last bit. Maybe I wanted to give him proof that I had a family. A foster family, but still a family.

“Sounds great!” We traded phone numbers, and picked up our things.

“See you Friday!”

* * * * *

 

“So, new topic-boys. Do you like anyone?” It was the next day in E.L.A., and we were supposed to be reading silently.

“Maybe,” Claire said mysteriously, wiggling her eyebrows. I laughed.

“Come on. You have to tell me. I know we haven’t been friends long, but you can trust me.

“Promise not to tell anyone?”

“Promise.”

“Okay...Bryce Manchester,” she whispered. I gasped.

“What?”

“Um, nothing. I just...thought of something really awesome! What if we hung out on Friday?” I asked, trying to cover up my surprise.

“Sure, I guess. I have dance from 3:00-4:00, but then I’m free the rest of the night. You can come to my house,” Claire told me. Then I remembered about my “date” with Bryce. I opened my mouth to take it back, but it was too late. Now, I would have to choose between Bryce and Claire. I couldn’t tell Claire because then she would be crushed that her newfound friend was going on a date with the guy that she liked the same day as we were supposed to hang out.

I finished the rest of my lunch in silence.

III

 At 5:00 a.m. on Friday morning, I woke up with a headache. But, I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I had a busy day today. I had to be at Le Sapphire Café by 6:00, and had to meet the early birds with their coffee until 8:00, at which point I would rush to school and hope I made it in time to homeroom, which started at 8:15.

Then, during lunch break and study hall, I would go back to Le Sapphire Café again for an hour, then back to school. Finally, after school I would go to Le Sapphire Café for the third time, work, for two hours, to Claire’s, then somehow manage to meet Bryce at 7:00.

I yawned, got dressed, and headed to work. Much to my enjoyment, Kim was not there, and neither was Jake (whom I had learned was the sunken-eyed boy), so I had the whole place to myself.

I grabbed my coveralls and stood at the counter. After twenty minutes, still nobody had come in, so I busied myself with making a blueberry scone for me. I figured that if I had to get up at five and fit my job into my school schedule, the least Kim could do was let me eat a free scone.

I had to agree with Bryce-I was good at making things when I hadn’t even worked here before. The scone I had made melted on my tongue, and blueberry mixed perfectly with the flaky dough.

It was amazing. I opened my mouth to take another bite, when suddenly blues music blared. I jumped up, ready for a customer.

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE LORD IS GOING ON!?” It was Kim. I was holding the scone inches from my mouth, ready to take a bite, as Kim came up and smacked it out of my hand. “DID YOU PAY FOR THIS!?”

“Um, no, but I should get employee advantages.”

“Did I say you got employee advantages? NO! And while you were in here, eating breakfast that I payed for, customers are trying to get in, but they can’t because you LOCKED THE DOOR!”

“Well maybe if the windows weren’t painted blue, I could see them!” How was this my fault.

“You know what? I’m done with you! You’re FIRED!”

“You can’t fire me! Because I quit!” I stormed out the door.

 

* * * * *

 

When I pulled into Claire’s driveway that evening, I had butterflies in my stomach. My plan was to hangout for two hours, then fake a stomach ache. At that point, though, the stomach ache might not end up being fake. Then, I would go to my new house and put on my outfit I had picked out and be ready for Bryce by 7:00.

I was also nervous because my foster parents didn’t want me dating until I was 18, and sadly, I was only 17. This meant that I would have to lie to them, which I hated doing, because they were the nicest parents I’d ever had. The plan was to tell them I was meeting with a study group to finish up a little Spanish homework.

I pushed open my car door, taking a deep breath. My footsteps are muffled by my cloth flats as I walked to the door.

I took one look at it and turned around. My stomach protested as I ran to my car. I climbed in.

I slammed the door shut and started the engine. Suddenly, I panicked when I saw Claire’s face in what I assumed to be her bedroom window, staring out at me. She smiled sadly and the curtain fell. No! She must think that I’m blowing her off! But, it was too late to do anything.

Pulling the car out of the driveway, I thought about how badly I’d screwed things up. I scolded myself under my breath as I drove. I had no idea where I was going-I’d only been in this foster home for the summer. At this point, it looked like I wasn’t going to be staying there much longer.

For a while I just drove. I started thinking about Bryce’s messy hair that cropped his face… Omigod, Bryce! I had completely forgotten about my date with him. I looked at my watch. It was 8:07. Oh, great!

Suddenly, my stomach felt like it was full of water balloons, and vomit crawled up my throat. I pulled over as quickly as I could and watched my lunch come up. I felt horrible, but I had no idea why! Rarely did I ever get sick.

Feeling exhausted, I plopped onto the dirt ground, being careful to avoid my puke, and wiped my mouth. Looking around, I saw that I was in a cul-de-sac that had no houses surrounding it, just trash. Other than that, it was empty. Just then, a heard a voice coming from beneath me.

“Calling...Bryce Manchester.” Talking mushrooms! Oh, crap. I had accidentally butt-dialed Bryce! I removed my phone from my pocket as fast as I could, forgetting about my stomach.

Acting like the phone was a bomb, I shakily entered my password, trying to hang up. All of a sudden, a terrific pain shot through my head. And everything went black.

 

* * * * *

 

“Where am I?” I sat up rubbing my head. I winced, my fingers brushing over a large bump. I was surprised to find Bryce worriedly peering over me.

“Thank God you’re awake! I thought he had killed you!”

“Um...who’s he?” I asked, confused.

“When I found you, you were being robbed. God, you scared me so much!” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Now, we need to get you to the hospital.” He picked me up, and I whacked his arm.

“Put me down! I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what happened!” I felt so angry and confused.

“I just saved you! Is this the thanks I get?” Bryce dropped me on the ground. Immediately, I stood up and shoved him. Instead of getting mad, like I had expected him to, he grabbed my arm and kissed me.

When I didn’t pull away, he burrowed his fingers in my hair and kissed me deeper. It felt so amazing, but it didn’t last long enough. We broke apart and without a word he led me to his car. Bryce cleared the passenger seat of trash and gestured to it. Taking his hand, I sat down and let him put a blanket over me.

When he started the car, I looked down. Stared. Swallowed.

“Are we...a couple now?” I question him, feeling giddy.

“I don’t know. Maybe? Yes? No? I don’t know!”  Bryce looked overwhelmed.

“Subject change?”

“Yes, please.”
“Okay. What happened?” I asked.

“Brace yourself for a long story. So, you called me, I hope you know. It was a good thing we gave each other our numbers on Monday.” I nodded urging him to continue. “I answered and heard a scream. I freaked out.” Oh. I didn’t remember doing that.

“So, I tracked the phone signal to here and drove like heck. When I showed up, a guy was holding a gun to your head and you were passed out. He was sifting through your car, looking for valuables. I went up to him and punched his lights out.” Bryce lifted up his hands, and I could see bruises developing.

“What about my car? Is it still back there?” I wondered.

“No, sadly. He had an accomplice hiding down the road. The ally grabbed his unconscious buddy and hotwired your car. It’s gone. Sorry.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said, tears filling my eyes. The car had been my parents’, and it was very important to me, as it was the only thing that hadn’t been taken by the government. “Let’s just get to the hospital.”

I could tell that Bryce felt bad and that made me feel bad.

“Bryce, seriously. Don’t worry about it,” I persuaded. He grimaced and helped me into his car.

“Try to get some sleep. You may have been unconscious, but sleep is the best remedy for any health issue.” Upon his words, I fell asleep.

 

* * * * *

 

When I finally opened my eyes, sunlight was shining through the white aluminum blinds of a hospital room. My foster dad was sitting on a plastic chair right next to the bed, but Bryce was nowhere to be seen. Almost immediately, my dad jumped up.

“You’re awake! I’ll go get the doctor and he can look you over.”

“No need,” a low voice sounded. I looked up to see an official-looking man wearing a lab coat enter the room with a clipboard in hand. The average, stereotypical doctor.

“Let’s see, Miss Morgenstern,” he said, looking over his papers. “Concussion due to physical street assault, mild cuts and bruises, and a dislocated wrist bone.”

Well that explained why my wrist had been throbbing so much!

“What do we need to do, Dr. McKenny?” My father asked.

“Well, to get her fixed up, we will need to sterilize her cuts, some of which might require a couple stitches, relocate her wrist, and she will need to stay home from school at least three days. It should only take about two hours. ” He adjusted his glasses. Dad looked worried.

“And...how much will this cost?”

“Well, depending on whether or not she needs stitches, and if she decides to stay the night again, it will probably cost about, oh, 120 dollars. Not much,” Dr. McKenny provided. My dad paled.

“But, Doctor, that is a much as our monthly bill!” He sat back down on the chair. Just then, my foster mom walked in.

“Did I miss something?” She asked, noting my dad’s stressed face and the doctor’s annoyed posture.

“No, nothing at all, Mrs. Morgenstern.” The doctor plastered a fake smile on his face. “I’ll just go bring in the nurses and we can start the relocation.” The thought of that made me shudder. It was then that my mom noticed I was awake, and she looked at me pointedly and raised a brown bag. I broke into a grin when I saw the Starbucks symbol decorating the front of it.

She walked over to me and set on my lap, kissing my forehead. Dad and Dr. McKenny walked into the hall to continue their discussion. Mom sat down beside me and stroked my hand.  

Sometimes, my foster parents made it easy to forget that they weren’t my real parents. We even looked pretty similar. All three of us had the same dark brown hair, the same thin figure. But, unlike them, I had grey eyes, whereas they had green eyes. Just like Bryce.

Without realizing it, I blushed.

“What?” My mom asked, suddenly hostile. “Is that blush about that one boy? What’s his name...Bruce?” My eyebrows raised in surprise.

“What did he tell you? And his name is Bryce, by the way.”

“Oh, nothing much. Just introduced himself to me and your father as your boyfriend,” my mom scolded. She was getting angry. But-Bryce considered us...dating?

“You know how your dad does not want you dating until you are 18. It is unlike you to disobey us, and there will be repercussions. But, I talked to him a little bit-that was what I was doing out there, besides getting you Starbucks-and he seems like a nice guy. Blake and I have decided to let you “go out” with him, but keep in mind that there will be no kissing until you have gone on at least three dates, and you are not allowed to go to his house or come to our house if parents aren’t home.”

“Really? Wow, Mom, this is amazing! I can’t believe I can date Bryce Manchester!” She didn’t need to know that I had already kissed him.

Instead of smiling with me, my mom said, “Oh, my little girl is growing up!” My smiled falter.

“Mom, you know I’m not really your daughter, right?” I asked. She sighed.

“Why do you keep bringing this up, sweetie? You know I know that, but I just like to think otherwise. When I found out I couldn’t have children, and you came along, it felt like a miracle. It felt like you were my own daughter. And I love you and treat you like you are.” A tear slid down my cheek.

This is what it feels like to have real parents, I thought. I moved around in the crisp sheets of the bed, and the IV in my arm tickled my vein. I didn’t know how that was possible, but it happened.

“Well, honey, better get some rest. I’ll come by in a few hours, whenever they bring you your food.” Mom smiled sadly, squeezed my arm, and left the room.

Then, with nothing else to do, I turned on the small TV to the channel 41, the news channel. On the screen, a woman wearing too much makeup looked straight at the camera smiled.

“Today we have breaking news on the process of the world undoing itself. Coming live to you from Saudi Arabia, I’m with the world’s top seven scientists. They’ve been conducting research on why and how the world is ending. Thomas, would you care to tell us about your findings?” The wind picked up as Thomas took the bulky microphone.

“Well, I’d just like you to notice these brown skies above me!” The camera tilted upwards, making Thomas have to shout even louder. “As you can see, the sky is very polluted. What with electric cars and solar power, you would think our earth would be sterile. But, after two months out here in the desert, we have come to the conclusion that the skies are being affected by the electrolytes from discarded batteries combining with photons in the air. This makes the photons become clogged up, thus eventually blocking out the sun.

There is nothing that we can do to stop this process now, as it has been happening for over a millenia. But we can try to slow it down, therefore eliminating the use of all batteries. My team of scientists and I have created a new type of battery, one that does not use electrolytes, and hopefully Earth will survive for another month,” Thomas concluded.

“Thank you, Thomas Reuters. Now, over to you with the weather, Gary.”

At that, I clicked the TV off. I had a little over a month to live! This could not be happening! What if the scientists had made some sort of mistake? Their explanation did sound strange-I mean, electrolytes and photons?

But, the truth was, deep down inside, I knew this was actually happening. I just didn’t want to accept it. So much for Bryce and I having a happy ending!

What I wanted to know was how the world was going to end. Was the world just going to plunge into darkness and be wiped away from the face of the universe? Or was it going to go into an “apocalyptic mode”, where the world is in chaos and there is little air and water? I needed answers!

Therefore, with nothing left to do, I decided to call my friend Ben from my old school, who was a sixteen-year-old genius.

I punched his number into my Nokia, which was the only type of phone my family could afford. I hummed a popular song while it dialed. After thirty seconds, his voicemail picked up, asking me to leave a message.

“Hey, Ben. It’s Alice. I’m sure you’ve seen and heard about all of the end-of-the-world stuff, and I was just wondering if you could tell me-how is this going to happen?” I went in to explain my theories, then hung up after asking him to call me back.

I need to know this. What was going to happen to the world when it ended?

 

IV

 Two weeks after the accident, my parents and I were preparing for “doomsday”. So far, we’d rounded up seventy-two bottles of water, thirty flashlights, and bought three of those buckets that are supposed to supply you with thirty days worth of food. We didn’t have much, but it was all we could afford.

The apocalypse was the only thing people were talking about at school. I was for once able to join in the discussion, because Ben had finally called me back. He explained that the world would slowly go into darkness, and it would be extremely cold. Typical. My family and I were worried about food, and the apocalypse was affecting the temperature.

The sky got a little darker everyday, and I was starting to slack off of school. I’d skipped two days already, and instead went to an amusement park with Bryce. My parents were quitting their jobs the next week, and Bryce had just dropped out of school.

Basically, my whole world was falling apart. All of those dreams I’d had about becoming rich and having lots of kids were washed down the drain. All I had to look forward to were my moments with Bryce, Claire, and my parents.

But, I wouldn’t be spending much with Claire after I revealed to her that I was dating Bryce. We had to keep quiet at school and not show any PDA. It was hard on me, but I knew what would happen if Claire found out.

I thought about all of these things as I set up a bed in the cellar with my foster dad. We laid sheets on it, then a comforter. I smoothed it over and stepped back to look at our work.

“Good job, Alice. You can go to school now if you want,” he said. My parents were fine with me not going to school, and that day we had cut into half of it so we could prepare. But I didn’t want to go to school. I wanted to make-up that date that Bryce and I were supposed to have fourteen days ago.

Saying nothing, I left the basement. I headed to my room to call Bryce. He picked up immediately.

“Hey. What’s up?”

“Were you waiting by the phone for me to call?” I asked.

“Maybe. Are you going to school today?”

“Nah, it’s too late in the day now. Besides, I have another idea,” I smiled.

“And?” Bryce wondered.

“You know that first ‘date’ that we had?” I absentmindedly stroked a strand of my hair and looked at myself from different angles in the mirror.

“Yes. The one where you got mugged?”

“That’s the one. I want to fix that and make it a better date.”

“Got it. Be there in ten.”

 

* * * * *

 

“How are you feeling about this whole ‘doomsday’ thing?” Bryce asked me gently, squeezing my knee.

“Well, it’s just really overwhelming. I had big plans for my life. I was going to become a scientist.”

“I wanted to be a graphic designer. But I guess that’s not happening.” He was silent for a minute. Then he spoke again. “Does Claire like me?”

I gasped. “How did you know? She’s not that obvious, is she?”

“I have my ways,” Bryce grinned. “New subject. What movie are we going to watch?”

“I was thinking The Zookeeper. I don’t want to watch a scary movie, because I’m just tired of life itself being so scary all the time.”
      “The Zookeeper it is, then.” Just then, we pulled into the parking lot. I stuffed some snacks from my purse inside my jacket to conceal them. We walked inside, hands intertwined.

While Bryce bought popcorn, my mind immediately went to the fact that this was our third date, counting the amusement park and our first "date". That meant that I wouldn’t be breaking my mom’s rules if I kissed him. I had a feeling that it would happen again.

Bryce handed the cashier a ten and told her to keep the change. Then, he motioned me to follow him and walked into the theater. The ads were already playing, but the theater was empty except for an elderly couple with a little kid, who I assumed was their grandchild.

We sat down in the middle of the middle row. A small drone flew overhead, probably looking for anyone from the last movie who might have stayed to watch The Zookeeper again.

Our world had died down with new technological innovations since Google was shut down after being sued by a powerful Russian leader for three trillion dollars. But, drones were not uncommon after they’d been made legal in the U.S. A few people owned hoverboards, but they were rare and expensive.

Bryce was entranced by the ad playing on the screen, which was for post-apocalypse supplies. So, I fixed myself in studying the little kid in front of us.

Her blonde hair was pulled into two pigtails, which we flopping around as she turned her head from left to right, scanning the theater. She was wearing a dress that looked like something Minnie Mouse would wear, with white polka-dots on a hot pink fabric. The girl’s eyes were a beautiful shade of blu-

“What are you thinking about?” Bryce asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“The little girl up there. I was thinking about how she’s so young, and she’s not going to get to live life to the fullest. There must be some way...some way to stop everything. I just don’t know how!” I yelled, frustrated. The old lady in front of me turned around and gave me a glare that could have sent Chuck Norris screaming for his parents.

Bryce put a gentle arm around my shoulder and turned me towards him.

“It’s not over yet, Alice. It’s not over until you stop trying. You can do something about it. You just have to stay strong and hold on.” He leaned in towards me.

This is the moment you’ve been waiting for for two weeks! I screamed in my head. I tilted my head the slightest bit, ready to greet him. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something that made me jerk my head away.

Claire. She was standing there, popcorn in hand, mouth open wide.

“You!” She tried to say viciously, but it came out more like a warbled squeak. I blushed and looked at Bryce. He started to raise his eyebrows in apology, but then, just like that, disappeared.

“What the heck!” I screamed. The old people in front of me irritatedly picked up their granddaughter and walked out of the room. Claire’s mouth was still open, and it was even wider now. Suddenly, she spun around and took off running. I jumped up, spilling popcorn into my lap.

“Claire, wait!” I had no time to think about what had happened to Bryce before I gave chase to her.

I followed her all the way to the movie theater bathroom before she finally stopped running. She’d had mascara on eyes, but now it was all on her cheeks, courtesy of the tears streaming down her face.

“Why? Why, Alice? I thought we were friends!” She shouted.

“I’m really sorry, Claire.” She turned away.

“You could have told me. I would have understood,” she whispered.

“Would you?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Just shut up!” Claire grabbed the nearest item-which happened to be a paper towel. Lucky, in my case-and threw it at me.

“Claire, you’re overreacting!” I tried to soothe.

“‘You’re overreacting,’ she says,” Claire mimicked. “Well, how would you act in my place; you just caught your so-called ‘best friend’ about to make out with the guy that you liked, and then he just disappears out of thin air and the world is ending and-” She sobbed and collapsed on the floor. “I’m just so confused!”

I said nothing, just sat down on the floor also and gave her a big hug, ignoring the fact that I was touching the bathroom floor.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered in her ear, and hugged her tighter. “I’m a horrible friend. And frankly, I would act the same way if I was in your shoes.”

 

* * * * *

 

Claire wiped her face with the towel that I had provided her with. We were sitting in Bryce’s car, which he had left unlocked, cleaning her up and trying to figure out what had happened to Bryce.

She was still sniffling a bit, but she wasn’t as mad at me anymore, and she had gotten most of her tears out.

“So was I the only one who saw him disappear out of thin air?” Claire asked me.

“No, I saw that, too.”

“Should we call the police then?”

“Oh, sure. Like they’d believe two seniors that the boy they were fighting over randomly vanished,” I sulked. I must’ve looked pretty pouty, because Claire smiled weakly.

“If only it were that easy.”

“How are we going to get him back if we don’t know what happened to him? And what about his parents?” All of this was giving me a headache. I just wanted Bryce back, and for everything to be normal again.

“Wait: let me do a re-cap. So, you were dating the guy I liked-” At this she shot me a tiny glare. “-and he suddenly disappeared. Not like he ran out of the room, but like he was just sitting there, and, ‘poof!’, he’s gone. We have no idea where he went, no idea what happened to him, and absolutely no idea if we’ve gone crazy or not,” Claire recalled.

“Pretty much, “ I shrugged. “I feel like we should be more worried. I mean, it’s not everyday that someone is zapped out of the room, or who knows, maybe even the world. And I won’t let myself believe that this is magic. There has to be some scientific reasoning behind it.

I put my hands to my forehead and gave my temples a good massage. Then, I pulled off the cover in front of the ignition. I pressed the two wires together, and just like it did in Girl Scouts, the car started.

I sighed deeply and pulled onto the road. Claire said nothing, knowing I needed a bit of peace. Finally, in my head, I decided how to handle our problem.

“Claire, we’re going to have to tell everyone that Bryce died. It’s the only way for us not to end up in a mental hospital.” Just the thought of it brought tears to my eyes.

“But we can convince the-” Claire tried to say, but I interrupted.

“No,” I said, keeping my eyes on the road, locked in a glare. Claire stopped talking. “I already don’t have a great social life. What really matters is that we know Bryce is alive.”

“But how did he die?” Claire questioned.

“He didn’t die, Claire! Don’t say that!” I slammed on the brakes and started crying. Luckily, we were on a road that was rarely used, and no one was around to rear-end us. Still, the airbags went off, and the snot produced from my tears smeared everywhere.

“Calm down, Alice. I know he didn’t die. I’m just asking what the story is that we are going tell people about how he ‘died’,” she explained.

“Good. I guess we can tell them that...he ran out of the theater while the movie was playing and jumped off the Bay Bridge, hitting his head on a rock. We can say his body was washed away by the river.” The story made me cry even harder.

“I guess that works. Now I feel bad about throwing a fit about you dating him, because I can see how much you need and care for him. I’m sorry, Alice.” She gave me a hug, and I gave a watery smile.

I started the car again and drove to Bryce’s house. I checked the time and saw that it was 6:30. We were late. Very late.

“Act like you’ve seen a ghost and cry a lot,” Claire instructed.

“I don’t even need to act,” I replied truthfully. Bryce’s parents ran out the front door, and I let the sadness I was feeling seep into my appearance. Bryce’s mom took one look at my face and asked where he was.

It was then that the seriousness of the situation swept over me. Spots floated in front of my eyes, and I collapsed.

 

* * * * *

 

I awoke to the sound of heavy crying. I opened my eyes and saw Bryce’s mom sobbing into his dad’s shoulder. I was laying on their living room couch, and ice pack on my head and my feet raised on a pillow.

I guess Claire told them. Bryce was gone. Not dead, but gone. Without a word, I grabbed Claire by the arm and led her out the door, leaving Mr. and Mrs. Manchester in peace to mourn their son. I really hoped they didn’t blame me.

Claire herself was wiping her eyes on her sleeve. I couldn’t tell if she was faking or actually crying. She opened the door for me just as it began to rain. I hurried into the truck when the rain turned acidic, stinging the few cuts that hadn’t healed from the accident.

The rain only reminded me more of the apocalypse. The world was ending, and I wouldn’t be with Bryce for the last few days of my life.

Tears started rolling down my face, similar to the steaming black rain rolling off Bryce’s Chevy. I had been such an emotional wreck lately. It was just that, with Bryce and Claire, I thought I had finally found happiness. But, of course, I can’t be happy.

I focused on the road, pushing away my feelings, though tears blurred my sight. I turned on the headlights so I could see through the rain. It was then that I saw the deer. Claire screamed, soon followed my me. A loud thud sounded and the truck slid off the slick and steaming road. My head smacked against the dashboard.

I heard another scream, but I couldn’t tell if it was me or Claire. I shuddered when we finally came to a stop in the ditch on the side of the road. That made two times today that we almost killed ourselves.

I looked over at Claire to make sure that she was alright, and I immediately saw that she was unconscious and had a huge chunk of glass from the windshield stuck in her forehead.

My first thought was, No! Not you, too! But then, I drew in a  long shaky breath and unbuckled her seatbelt. I got out of the car and, moving as fast as I could, took two broken posts from the fence beside me, pulled a blanket out of the bed of Bryce’s truck, and laid it halfway on the roof of the car, halfway on the the two fence posts.

Now that I had a makeshift shelter, I brought Claire out of the car and gently laid her on the ground, grunting despite her light weight. The blanket mostly protected her from the rain that was still coming down hard.

Again, I took a deep breath. This wasn’t pretend. I had to be a real doctor here, or else Claire would suffer. First, I rubbed my hands off with a napkin I found in the glovebox. I was far away from being sterilized, but it would have to do. I smoothed Claire’s hair back, careful to avoid her cut.

Next, I used an opened water bottle I found rolling around on the floorboards to rinse the blood off her face. Not wanting her to get hurt anymore, I decided to remove only the big piece of glass, none of the little shards.

However, I did not have any proper equipment, so I had to settle with my hand. Trying not to squeeze my eyes shut, I reached down and grasped the the piece of glass. I fought to keep my hand from shaking, and luckily, the glass slid right out. Claire’s face visibly relaxed, though she stayed unconscious.

Blood was still trickling out of her forehead, but it was coming a lot slower now. I sighed and gave her forehead one last cleansing. Then, I lifted Claire back into the truck and buckled her up.

I then got in on the driver’s side and turned on the radio. I drove to the nearest emergency room.

When I walked up to the help desk alone, the secretary scanned me for injuries and asked how she could help me.

“We hit a deer on Bluestear Lane. My friend, who is in the car right now, hit the windshield and took some glass to the head. I removed what I could then decided I should have a professional help me,” I explained. She looked shocked.

“Why didn’t you call an ambulance?”

“I didn’t think it was that serious,” I told her.

“Well, you go get her and I will set up a room for her. Do you know her parents’ phone numbers?” Knowing that the lady would probably ask this, I had brought Claire’s phone with me. I handed it over to her.
“You’ll be able to find her parents’ numbers, and I also took some pictures of the immediate damage and sent them to her.” The lady beamed.

“Thank you! That was very smart of you!” I smiled back, but inside I was still really worried for Claire. The secretary hurried off to a room, and I took that as my cue to go get Claire.

When I reached the car, she was still sound asleep. But, when I opened the door, she woke with a start.

“What happened? My head hurts,” she groaned, only half-awake.

“Come with me,” I directed her. She groggily got out of the car and walked with me back inside. The lady was standing there waiting, only this time she was pale.

“Those...pictures,” she gasped. I grimaced.

“I know.” She shook her shoulders and sweetly ushered Claire into the emergency room. Surprisingly, there was no one else there, and a doctor immediately came to bring us to her room.

The doctor assured me that Claire’s parents had been called, and then she pushed me out of the room and shut the door in my face.

I don’t know why, but I panicked. Claire was trapped in there-and she was hurt-with a doctor who had lots of sharp tools with her. I felt like something fishy was going on. So, I went with my instincts; which told me to pound on the door with my fists.

The hairs on my arms rose when I heard a scream coming from inside. After that, I didn’t remember much.

I recalled grabbing a chair and ramming the door, and the thin wooden door broke under the pressure. I also remembered that when I came into the room, Claire wasn’t there. Another person was in the room with the doctor instead.

The last thing that I remembered was a black bag being tossed over my head.

 

V

When I came to, a pair of large brown eyes were peering over me. At first, I thought; Bryce. But then it all came back to me. So instead, my arm shot up and knocked the person in the chin-hard.

“Ow! What was that for?” The boy in front of me clutched his chin, yelling things that would have earned me a severe punishment. He looked about my age, and had hair similar to my own. Shorter, but it came below his shoulders.

“Where’s Claire!?” I shouted, trying to stand up. It was then that I realized that my legs we strapped down to a dental chair, along with my waist. “And where am I? What are you doing to me? Who are-”

“Calm down, sweetie,” he said, interrupting me.

“Answer my questions, or I’ll hit you again!” I spat in his face.

“Now, sweetie, all you questions will be answered in time. But you gotta be patient.”

“Do not call me that, you...you…” I trailed off.

“What? What am I?”

“You kidnapper!” I sat back and smiled, pleased with my work.

He looked shocked. “Me? A kidnapper? Ha!” He stepped aside, revealing a much larger man. “This is the man who took you. And he will be the one to answer your questions. Introducing, Dr. Melkins!” The boy left the room after ushering the man-Dr. Melkins-forward.

I turned my attention toward him as he pulled up a stool and sat down beside me.

“You are comfortable, yes?” The doctor had a thick French accent, but his English was very good.

“Yes, thank you.” I would be nice to this man if he treated me kindly.

“So you are, ah, wondering where this place is?” His “t’s” sounded more like “z’s”, and his “i’s” were stressed so much that they sounded like the letter “e”. Still, I could understand him. He continued, not waiting for a response. “We are in Los Angeles. L.A., as you might call it.”

“But-but,” I stammered, “that’s so far away from Missouri! How did you get me here so fast?”

“Well, you were unconscious for a very long time, you see. I brought you here, with the help of the boy you just met, Adam. We are waiting for the cue to go into the next stage.”

“The next stage? What am I, some kind of science experiment?”

“You must understand, Miz Alicia. I can explain things in time.”

“How do you know my name? And you want to talk about time? How about we discuss how much time the world has left to live, and how much of my remaining time you’ve wasted?” I shouted. But it got the wrong reaction. Instead of Dr. Melkins yelling at me, he broke into a grin.

“You don’t know? The president has resigned, and now you can save the world!” Okay, obviously this guy was a little not right in the head.

So, I tried out some of the French I learned while taking a course on Rosetta Stone, and asked him, “Quelle?”

He mistook this, too.

“Le président a démissionné, et maintenant vous pouvez sauver le monde!” Great. Now Dr. Mental Issues thought I spoke French.

“Listen, buddy,” I sighed. “I have no idea what’s going on, and I just like for you to give me back Claire and let me leave.” His grin faded.

“You don’t speak French, I see? I cannot let you leave, though, Miz Alicia. You have a destiny. I must help you fulfill it. And this, Claire, you talk about, she is, ah, gone. You have made her disappear!” Dr. Melkins flicked his hand and walked out of the room. The door slammed.

“Wait, no!” I screeched. How could he leave me alone in here? But, with no more distractions, I was finally able to study the room I was in.

The walls were bare, and were painted an ugly shade of purple. The floor was made of black tile, and it clashed with the white trim outlining the walls. The only thing in the room was the chair I was sitting on.

Next I looked at my waist. Thin black Velcro was all that was holding me down. I smiled and peeled it off. After glancing around to check for security cameras, and finding none, I dashed for the door.

It was locked. Typical. I slumped to the floor defeated, when I saw a vent. It was a big one, too. Big enough for me to fit through. The only issues were the fact that it was screwed shut, and it was on the ceiling.

As I stood up to get a better look, the door slammed open, knocking me back down. Adam came in, carrying a tray.

“Oh. You tried to a escape, didn’t you? Naughty, naughty, naughty, sis. Did you find the ventilation shaft? Trust me, you aren’t getting out through that,” he said, clucking his tongue and shaking his head.

Ignoring the fact that he’d called me “sis”, I retorted, “Doesn’t mean that I won’t try!”

“Try all you want, sweetheart. It ain’t gonna work. Now, here’s your lunch. Eat it.” Adam dropped the tray so it was aligned with my feet.

“See ya’!” He grinned, then left and slammed the door.

Now for my plan. I inspected the room from every angle, and quickly noticed that the chair was directly underneath the vent.

How convenient! I thought. Shortly after, I found that if I stood on the very top of the dental chair, keeping my balance, my head would brush the vent. However, it would require a lot of upper body strength to pull myself up inside of it.

But how to unscrew the cover. That was my real issue.

When hunger began to claw at my stomach, I went back over to my food and started eating. My lunch consisted of a small bowl of soup, off-brand string cheese, crackers, a cookie, and carrots. How old did they think I was? Five?

I ate the food despite the fact that it was cold. Once my stomach was full, it would be a lot easier to think.

I pondered the how to open the vent. I did not have any tools, and no extra supplies. Maybe I could try to break the bolts?

Then it hit me. The spoon. Adam had been stupid to give it to me, because now I knew exactly how I would escape. The tip of the spoon would fit easily into the screws, and then I could twist it and unlock the cover.

However, I needed to work fast. I had no clue what time it was, but I figured it was sometime around noon. I also didn’t know when Dr. Melkins or Adam was going to come back.

I finished off the rest of my food and headed towards the dental chair. I climbed up on top, spoon in hand. Just like I had predicted, the spoon fit the screw perfectly. I twisted the spoon, and, surprisingly, the screw loosened. With a few more turns, it fell to the floor.

One down, three to go, I spoke in my mind. I worked for a few more minutes, until all the screws were on the floor. Tentatively, I removed the cover. With one cautious hand, I felt the inside of the shaft. Thankfully, the heat was not on.

After groping around the inside, I found that, to my delight, there was a little metal ledge outcropping the edges of the vent. I positioned my hands on the ledge, and hoisted myself up.

My arms shook from the effort. At only 160 pounds, I was light for my age. But lifting my whole body up by my arms was no easy feat. Somehow, I managed to do it. Once I was up high enough, I was able to put my feet down on the ledge.

Now I was standing. I could see that the shaft went up a good ten feet, but then it turned at a horizontal angle. Working quickly, I pressed my back to one side of the vent, and my feet on the other side. Slowly, I moved one foot up, scooted my back, then moved another foot, scooted, and so on.

The task was tedious, but within a minute I had moved almost three feet. I repeated the movements over and over, until finally I reached the horizontal section. I pulled myself on top of it, breathing heavily, sweat dripping down my arms. From this point on, I would have to crawl. The thought of it made me feel claustrophobic. It didn’t help that I had no idea where the ventilation shaft would let out.

Swallowing down saliva, I started crawling. I didn’t know how long I’d been in the tunnel-five minutes, twenty minutes, an hour? I looked at my watch to see exactly how long, but then realized I didn't know when I had gone in.

Heat beneath my palms shook me out of my thoughts. The metal I was crawling on was getting warmer, and that could only mean one thing; they’d turned on the heat.

I didn’t know if they knew I had escaped, or if they just got cold, but I did know that I needed to hurry. Soon a big wave of hot air was going to blast me in the face, and then I would have minutes left to live.

I gave a strangled cry and went thundering down the tunnel. My hands were burning, and heat was beginning to seep through my jeans.

At last, a faint light illuminated the shaft. I could see the next opening of the vent. Just then, steaming hot air whooshed past me, and I cried out. I felt like I was the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz-melting.

I crawled up to the vent cover, and with all of my energy left, kicked it. The cover broke off, and I tumbled out with it.

I screamed as my shoulder banged against the corner of a cabinet, but immediately regretted it. Now they would know where to find me. I glanced quickly at the room I was in. Papers were strewn everywhere, and the walls were completely lined with file cabinets. Strange equipment sat on the desks, and the cabinets were all labeled with words I didn’t know how to pronounce.

But the main thing that drew my attention was the bulletin board on the left wall. It had what looked like a star chart, and one of the stars had Bryce’s and Claire’s faces on it. I was so confused. Were these people stalkers or something?

Curiosity go the best of me, and I went to explore. I quickly found a desk calendar and flipped through it.

Three years worth of pages. One for every day. As I took a closer look, a saw that each page was filled with writing, some days with words spilling over the lines. I selected a random page and began to read the messy, scrawled handwriting.

 

08-01-32

7:02 am: When Alice woke up this morning, she put on a white cami with a chevron sweater jacket over top. She put on jeans to finish the look. Instead of showering, Alice just brushed her hair and teeth and left, skipping breakfast.

Louis business went bankrupt, so Alice is going to have to take her lunch today.

 

6:37 pm: Alice had her first soccer game today. After days of practice, she thought she is ready for it. It  is the first sport she has ever played, and she didn’t do very good.

Her first pass went to the other team, and they took the ball and scored immediately. She is currently crying in her room as we watch from the tiny cameras embedded into her ceiling lights.

Megan is coming over for dinner tonight to cheer her up, but right now Alice wants to be alone. She is going to take a bath and go to bed early.

 

-M

 

I sank into a chair that was facing me. I remembered this day. But they had more of my life than I could recall in their clutches. I flipped through a few more of the days and saw that they all looked pretty similar.

The pages mostly talked about me; Megan, who was my former best friend; Louis, my dad; and Jackie, my mom. They were all signed with the same letter-M.

I assumed that it was written by Dr. Melkins, but I could be wrong. However, what scared me the most was that they had cameras in my room. That meant that they’d seen me...changing? I blanched at the thought.

Pounding above me caused me to freeze. Quickly, I slid under the desk and flattened myself to the floor. Once it quieted again, I pulled myself back out and walked over to the file cabinets.

I gasped when I saw that one of the drawers was labeled “family”. With an excited squeal, I yanked the drawer open and peered in at it’s contents. There, sitting on top of everything, was a family tree.

I studied it closely. Me and Adam were at the bottom. But, that wasn’t possible! I had no siblings! And the images above us were not the pictures that my foster parents had showed me. The pictures of my real parents looked completely different!

Also, according to the picture, Dr. Melkins was my mom’s dad, which meant he was my grandpa! I refused to believe that this was true. I had not been lied to my whole life. I couldn’t have been!

But the closer I looked, the more and more I saw the resemblances that I beared to my “parents” and “brother”. We both had the same brown hair as our so-called dad, and Adam’s brown eyes matched Dr. Melkins and my mom’s. Unlike the rest of my family, I had grey eyes.

So there. That was my evidence. Then, I looked at the chart one more time and saw that my grandma, titled with the name of Amelia, had the exact same shade of grey as I did.

Suddenly, a wave of nausea rolled over me. I fell to the ground and coughed. In a split second, millions of images passed through my mind. I groaned and ended up in a choking fit.

My head felt like it was splitting into two pieces, and I couldn’t see anything but black. I was still conscious, but right now I wished I was dead.

And then, just like that, my vision cleared and my headache lifted. I felt just like I had before, but something was different. I remembered. I remembered what happened before this world had been created. And I was the creator.

VI

Truth swam before me, causing my gaze to stumble. Images passed through my mind once again, but this time there was no pain. This time, there were just memories. The memories in my head were of my mom, dad, grandpa, and brother, Adam. Of Doomsday and how the world undid itself, and how I was there to fix everything with my huge brain.

I was no longer that dumb girl who sat at the back of the classroom with no answers to give. I could feel my intelligence radiating through my body.

A sudden slam behind me caused me to turn around and throw the thing I was holding-a piece of paper. But in the instant before I threw it, I quickly calculated the amount of force and the angle of which I would throw the paper, and it scraped the person that stood in front of me on the face.

“Jeez, Alice!” Adam exclaimed. “Why ya’ gotta hate me, bruh?” Then he broke into a grin. “So you remember now? The other you wouldn’t have been able to make a slice that good.”

“Yeah, I remember. Bro,” I added, just for the sake of it.

“Don’t,” Adam ordered. “I’m the cool one. You’re my genius baby sis’.”

“I thought we were twins? I did say I remember my past, you know.”

“I’m older by thirty seconds. If you actually remembered, you would know that I never let you forget that,” my brother teased. Just then, Dr. Melkins (or should I say, Grandpa) skidded into the room. He was out of breath, and his face was very red.

“You found her?” Grandpa asked. I immediately noticed that his accent was gone. Must’ve been fake. “Does she remember?”

I scowled. “She  is right here. And yes, I remember.” I sighed. “I just...don’t get it.”

“Ah. I see. Well, let old Gramps here tell you a story.” He chuckled. “On a rainy September day, not unlike this one, the world ended. Now, it wasn’t as bad as you’d think. Sure, there were the catastrophic apocalyptic natural disaster and everything, but nothing that us Forgie’s couldn’t handle. We’d already built a Doomsday cellar, and thanks to your brains, immediate access to almost infinite food, water, and air.

So, we rounded up the few survivors close to us, and waited for the world to stop ending. It wasn’t until summer that all the volcanoes had stopped erupting, the earthquakes had stopped shaking, the fires had stopped burning.

However, your “infinite” clean air supply wouldn’t last forever. Soon it would all be dirtied with ash and debris. It could last maybe ten people for the rest of their lives, but no more. So you did the only thing possible-created a new world.

Don’t ask me how you did it. I think you, like, took some DNA of the world and cloned it, except somehow you reset it from the beginning.” I nodded; this was all familiar to me, I just needed to connect all the pieces.

Grandpa continued. “The time in this world traveled a lot faster than Inaecia-that’s your home dimension, mind you-so before we knew it, you were born. But, you were born to different parents. You see, the world tried to create itself the exact same way as Inaecia, but little interferences made the outcomes slightly different. Each person still got born and died, but pieces of their life were different.

Your clone, as we like to call it, showed similarities to you, but you wanted to have her removed. So, you created another version of you, and then deleted it off the face of the planet, just like that. But, every force has an opposite and equal reaction, so your other clone disappeared, too. That was the plan.

However, your parents didn’t want you or Adam to stay in Inaecia any longer, because they knew how dangerous it was, so they had you create a portal and move to this world-you called it Sortryn, I think.

They sent me along, to watch over you and your brother. Adam got to keep his memories. You, on the other hand, were far too powerful to keep your knowledge, so we extracted it-we do still have some brainpower, you know-and kept it safely tucked into Amelia’s picture.” Grandpa Melkins paused to wipe a genuine tear off his cheek, crying over his deceased wife.

“It is possible to embed memories in an object, as you probably remember. You figured out how to do it yourself. That was why when you looked at that picture of my beautiful Amy you remembered. Great escape, by the way. You kept some of your know-how with you. And I think that’s it. I leave out anything, Adam?” Grandpa asked. He leaned back against the door.

“Nope. Dude, you just addressed Doomsday in, like, 400 words. And you think Ali’s the genius.” Adam high-fived Grandpa.

“Okay, let’s see how many words it takes you to deliver the plan to Alice,” Grandpa challenged.

“‘Kay, I got this.” He blew out a breath. Then talking extremely fast, he said, “We are going to convince the U.S. that you are the only person that can save them and then you will become president and have access to all the equipment and tools you need to save the world and then no one will die and then you won’t have to create another world.”

“Grandson, you were supposed to use few words, not few seconds!” Grandpa laughed. I stared at them blankly.

“I barely got any of that, but I think I got the gist. Basically, I take over the country and then save the world. Doesn’t that seem, I don’t know, impossible?!” I screeched. “Why can’t I go back to Inaecia and hang out with Mom and Dad, or something. Guys, the truth is-this makes no sense! My whole world was just turned around in a little over five minutes! Do you know what that can do to a girl?” I burst into tears. “I just want Claire and Bryce and everything to be normal!”

“Aw, darlin’, I know what will cheer you up. I can show you your favorite magic trick and then we can go get ice cream, right before we convince the country to follow you,” Adam said. It was supposed to be funny, but it just made me cry even harder.

“Adam, I don’t think that was the best time,” Grandpa scolded my brother gently. Then, he pulled me into a hug. “I know this is overwhelming, hon’. But trust me, you have the ability and willpower to accomplish anything. And I mean anything. We’ll figure out together, because we’re family, and that’s what family does. We’ll get your friends back and fix everything. A know I’m old and everthin’, but I still have some power left in my noggin’.”

I gave Grandpa a watery smile. Just like he could three years ago, Grandpa always cheered me up. His kindheartedness made it easy to remember that he was my grandpa, not just an awesome scientist.

“So when can we start?” I asked, breaking the silence. I think Adam was grateful, because I had noticed that he had started fidgeting uncomfortably while Gramps and I hugged.

“How about after we stop by McDonald’s? I’ll book us some tickets to D.C. on the way to the airport. Grandpa’s got a plan about how to win the country’s devotion. And let me tell, ya’, girl, it’s a doozy,” Adam said, clapping his hand on my shoulder.

“Follow me,” Grandpa addressed. He walked into the grey-walled hall and led the way to a door. I realized that the building we were in must’ve been an old office building.

“Grandpa, did you buy this building? And have you guys been living here?” I asked.

“No, sweetheart. This is an abandoned place that your brother and I fixed up with money we earned from working at McDonald’s,” he explained apologetically.

“So you guys work at McDonald’s?” I asked raising my eyebrows. “Not great pay there.”

Adam grinned. “But you get discounts, and it’s nearby!” He pushed the door open and walked out into the rain.

Grandpa stuck out his hand, motioning for me to go first like a proper gentleman. I stepped out the door and immediately shivered. The rain was as cold as ice!

Adam was already walking towards the fast food restaurant, which apparently was close by. It was on the corner straight across from the office building. The whole area around it was pretty run-down, and all the houses looked really dinky. Not a great area to live in.

But it was food, and compared to the watery soup I’d had a few hours ago, the greasy food would be both filling and delicious. I waited for Grandpa and together we walked into the restaurant.

The interior of the building looked as bad as the exterior had. The floor tiles were broken and the barstools had rips and tears on the cushions. Various papers were placed around the room, stating things like “soda machine out of order” and “sorry for the inconvenience. The ice cream has all melted”. The place was a mess.

Meanwhile, Adam was up at the counter yukking it up with an African American man who looked like he needed a nap. When Adam finally ceased to talk, the man asked us what we wanted.

“I’ll take large fries, a McDouble, and a Quarter Pounder, please,” I told him. He entered it into the register and looked blatantly at Grandpa Melkins.

“Um, just the same, I guess.” Grandpa obviously didn’t come here much, despite the convenience of it. The man-his nametag read Isaac-prepared our food and gave it to us.

“Thanks!” I smiled warmly. Adam just took his food without a word, dropped a five, and ushered us out the door. What had happened to his friendly manner that had been there just moments before?

Sighing, I trudged out the door, food in hand. I unwrapped my burger and sank my teeth into it. Instead of eating, Grandpa and Adam started to discuss how to get a car. I nearly spit out my food.

“You don’t have a car? How is this going to work, then? You guys live off of minimum wage, and you want me to take over the country?” Suddenly, a cab pulled up the street and slowed to a stop in front of us.

“Need a ride?” The cabbie asked after rolling down the window. I slowly nodded, feeling wary. “Hop in.”

Adam began to pull open the door, but the man driving the cab’s cold words stopped him.

“Not, you. The girl. I don’t help men. They can fend for themselves.” Grandpa started to interfere, but I had it covered.

“Oh, so I can’t fend for myself? Well, we’ll see about that, you, you, non-feminist!” I reached through the open window, grabbed him by the neck of his shirt, and punched him the face. “We’ll walk, thanks for asking!” With that, the man’s eyes widened and he sped off.

“Ha!” Adam laughed. “Just like you usta’ be!” Even Grandpa reached over to clap me on the back.

“Before, he showed up, your brother and I had figured out where we could get a car. I have a friend who’s wife just died, and he said that I could use his car anytime if I needed to, because he wouldn’t be using it.”

“How did you guys meet?” I asked.

“Irrelevant,” Adam broke in. He looked a little sheepish, and I wondered what he was hiding.

“Aw, come on, buddy,” I said, taunting him.

“Nope,” he grinned. Grandpa just stood there, trying to decide who to help. Finally, he just said, “Let’s go kiddos. We need to be in D.C. by tonight, and we still need to devise a plan for how we’re going to purchase the tickets.”

I groaned. “What have you figured out?” Suddenly, an idea hit me. “What if I created a portal to Virginia? Then we wouldn’t need any money and it would be a lot faster.”

“Great idea! Now, please explain to me how you’re going to get the supplies,” Adam said sarcastically.

“Well, I hadn’t really thought about that, but I bet I could make a portal out of that dentist chair, some duct tape, tweezers, a blowtorch, and a microscope.”

“Go for it.”

 

* * * * *

 

Three hours later, we were standing on the roof of Grandpa’s building with the dentist portal, as I liked to call it. I had accepted (and successfully completed) Adam’s challenge of using limited supplies.

While the portal was different, it still was functional. Basically, you sat down on the chair and pressed a button on the right arm, and within three seconds you would be in D.C. As soon as you pressed the button, another replica of the chair would end up someplace in Virginia or Maryland, and that would be where you stopped.

Now, we were about to leave for Washington D.C. Grandpa had packed us bags with almost all of the office building’s resources, and we were ready to go.

“Who first?” Grandpa asked. Adam and I must not have looked very voluntarily, because then Gramps said, “Fine, wimps,” he said in a grandfatherly way, “I’ll go first. I fully trust my granddaughter’s contraption.” Even as he said those words, he still looked reluctant to cross through my portal.

But, without another word, he sat down and pressed the button. Instantaneously, he disappeared. Adam went next. With a heavy sigh, he plopped into the chair, and with a press of the button, vanished.

Now it was my turn. I didn’t fully trust my make-shift transportation device either, but I had to get to Washington D.C. somehow. I completed the same process that my relatives had done, and then I was there. Just like that.

D.C. looked exactly like a city in chaos should. Litter blew around in the high winds, people lay sleeping on the ground, and cars were spewing fumes into the air. We needed to get to the Capitol immediately.

I searched for Grandpa and Adam with my eyes and immediately spied them sitting together on a park bench, laughing at a homeless person pushing a shopping cart down the street. I looked closer and saw that it was the president-or should I say, former president.

I joined in their mocking silently, then walked over to greet them.

“Yep, good job, baby sis’!” Adam high-fived me. “Truthfully, I’m surprised ya’ didn’t get us killed.”

“Great job, Alice!” Grandpa beamed.

“You’ll address me now as President Forgie!” I snapped. Grandpa looked taken aback; until I smiled. Then he grinned warily.

“Aw, you don’t get it!” Adam teased. Then he turned to me, laughing. “He don’t get it!”

“Adam, you don’t live in Alabama. You can cut the accent,” I said tiredly.

“You can’t tell me what ta’ do, little girl!” Adam exclaimed. “I like me just the way I am.” He stressed his country slang words just to get on my nerves.

“Let’s just work on the plan,” I sighed, giving up. “How are we going to do this?” Grandpa and Adam exchanged devious looks.

“You see…” Adam started. “For them to trust you, sis’, you need to be there to end a problem when it starts. But ya’ can’t end Doomsday yet, so you need something bigger, something solvable. Gramps?” Grandpa cleared his throat.

“Well, Adam used his noggin’ and came up with a good problem. We’ll steal all the cars in the city, and people will freak out. Then, you’ll be there with a solution-they can walk. You can also bring up the fact that this will save the environment. You will calm them down, and they will look up to you.”

“But I’m just a teenager!” I protested. “Nobody will look up to me!” Adam snapped his fingers and pointed at me.

“Exactly. So, we have a wonderful disguise.” My twin waggled his eyebrows and raised up a skin-tight bodysuit with a tree logo on it. “Introducing...Green Gal! The mysterious, super-human-”

“Wait, wait, wait. I’m going to be a superhero? Like they’re going to believe that!” I scoffed. Adam looked hurt.

“I would believe it. But besides, they’re gullible, stupid, average humans. They’ll believe anything if they know it will save them. Plus, you’re smart. Really smart. And you can play the part.” I noticed Adam’s “accent” was fading. He was cutting out his slang, too.

“And if I say no?”

“That ain’t an option.” There it was again. “Ready to put the plan into action?”

“I guess,” I say, with a heavy shrug of my shoulders. Grandpa stood up and patted his stomach.

He took a sniff of the air and said, “Wow, that greasy food doesn’t leave you feelin’ too great, now, does it?”

I grinned. “You get used to it. But, if you want, next time we could go to a Taco Bell. Their food is way healthier. Plus, they make a mean cheesy bean and rice burrito.”

It was then that I noticed that Adam was gone. Left without us, I assumed. But, as I investigated my surroundings again, I saw that the grass had no imprints to symbolize that he had walked away.

Grandpa seemed to be noticing the same thing. I slowly turned around, looking for any details that I had missed. And, there, behind the bench, was a shopping cart.

An image flashed in my mind, and I knew where Adam was.

“Grandpa! Run!” As fast as he could at his age, Grandpa Melkins ran after me. I dodged steaming cars and broken pavement chunks. Finally, I skidded to a stop in front of a grocery store. Checking the name with the one in my memory, I pushed through the doors.

Inside was not a pretty sight. A few ceiling lights flickered, but the others were out. Cans and premade food lay strewn in the aisles, and the place stunk of rotted meat. And just like I had predicted, shouts were coming from the back.

Sprinting down aisle five, I leapt over a fallen shopping cart. When I reached the back of the store, I saw him-the president. But he wasn’t alone. In his rags of clothes, the former president was holding a knife to my twin’s neck.

Something must’ve driven him crazy. He wouldn’t be acting like this if he was still sane. How was I going to take him down?

When I saw the hole in the roof above, I knew exactly what to do. Adam hadn’t seen me yet, so his facial expressions would not give me away. Perfect.

I ran back up the messy aisle. Grandpa stood at the entrance of the store, not knowing what to do, and I gave him a reassuring wink to let him know I had it under control. Quickly, I spotted a molding ceiling tile. Jumping from a check-out counter and into the air, I grabbed at it.

Just like I had predicted, my hand slid right through. I groped around for something to grab onto before I fell. When my hand landed on a metal pipe, I latched my hand to it and began to pull myself up.

This was crazy. I couldn’t believe that this stupid (but genius) plan was actually working. My body started to slice through the tile, but when it reached my lower back, the rest of it just crumbled. The pipe supported my weight, and in seconds, I was in the ceiling. I gently climbed across the non-moldy parts. I was having deja vu of this afternoon. My escape felt like a decade ago.

When I saw a faint light shining up, I knew where I was headed. Cobwebs brushed my face as I positioned myself over the hole. With one last deep breath, I dropped through.

The president went down.

VII

The knife flew through the air. I was sitting on top of the president with plaster surrounding us. Adam was still pressed against the wall, his face pale. And Grandpa was behind me. I could feel him breathing on my back.

“Well done, Ali’.” Grandpa rested his huge hand on my shoulder. “Well done.”

“Get off of me, you assasin!” The president hissed.

“Wow. That ain’t a way to speak to the president,” Adam scolded. He had gotten his voice back.

“P-president?” The president-I’m just gonna’ call him Jim-whimpered. “But I’m the president!” Jim looked confused.

“You really think that after resigning from the office, living like a homeless person, and almost killing my brother, you really still hold the title?” This guy was crazy. The people voted for him in the first place were nutjobs.

“But you aren’t the president!” He jammed his finger into my chest, and I gasped.

“Not yet, but I will be! So why don’t you and your sorry shopping cart go take a long walk off a short pier!” I face heated up.

“Alice. That’s not very nice.” Grandpa’s deep voice calmed me down. “You and Adam meet me at the White House. Adam knows the way. Meanwhile, I’ll deal with this brute.” Grandpa cracked his knuckles, and even I got a little scared.

I stood up and brushed plaster off my sweatpants, ‘accidently’ stepping on Jim’s hand in the process.

“Sucks to be you,” I smirked. I made it a point to sashay my hips as I left the store. I’d forgotten about my brother until he patted me on the back.

“Dude, good job! Ya’ saved my life. You were all like ‘ninja’ and then ‘super-top-secret-agent’!” Amazing!” He grinned. “Guess we better get to the House, huh?”

“Yeah.” Adam’s enthusiasm put me into a good mood. As we walked to the White House, I put a little skip in my step.

We walked up the steps and tried the door. Unlocked. Typical. I was surprised to find Grandpa waiting at the front desk in the entrance.

“Where’s Jim?” I asked.

“Who?”

“The president,” I sighed, exasperated.

“Oh. Let’s just say that he won’t be bothering us again,” Gramps responded with a wink.

Just then, Adam pushed something into my hands. I looked down and saw the outfit that he had made for me.

“Go get changed!” He ordered.

“Do I have to?” I pleaded.

“Yup!”

I groaned and walked down a hall, searching for the bathroom. At last, I spotted a door with the women’s logo on it, right next to a portrait of George Washington.

I pushed the door open and headed into one of the many elegant stalls. Within a minute, I was changed.

As I headed back out into the main area of the bathroom, I heard a quiet whimper. I froze, all except for my left hand, which was searching for a weapon.

I grabbed a bottle of soap and approached the place where the sound was coming from. I opened the stall...and dropped the soap bottle.

Standing in front of me was the world’s most tiniest, cutest puppy ever. Now, I will tell you, I’m not a dog person. But this dog was so vulnerable and fragile.

The worst part about it was that the puppy was missing one of it’s legs. All that was left was a bleeding, scabby stump. My heart contracted and I picked the poor thing up. It’s fur was missing in places and it’s whole body was shaking.

“Oh, you poor, poor thing! I’ve got you now. You’re okay,” I cooed. The dog settled in my arms. It was so light! “We’ll get you fixed up.”

The puppy closed it’s eyes and gave a tiny sigh. I cradled it in my arms.

“I think I’ll call you Shadow.” Shadow’s tiny ears perked up at the sound of his new name. “Let’s go show you to Adam and Gramps.” I rubbed his back and left the bathroom, still clutching him in my arms.

As I entered the hall, Adam raised his hand to shield his eyes from the faint light coming through the windows.

“Is that a...dog?”

“Yup!” I exclaimed proudly. “His name’s Shadow, and he’s mine.”

“Who told ya’ that, now, huh? His owner?” Adam asked rudely.

“No, if his old owner told me that, I would probably punch them in the face. Abandoning a puppy like that,” I muttered, “shame on them.”

“Well, think about it from both sides, Alice. The world is about to end, your city is in chaos, and you barely have enough money to pay for your own family, let alone a dog. Would you keep it?” Grandpa interfered, always the peacemaker.

“Yes,” I said stubbornly, snuggling Shadow to my chest.

“I see,” Grandpa responded, slowly nodding his head. I started to worry. Was he going to find some way to teach me a lesson?

I hope not. The last time Gramps taught me a lesson was when I was fourteen. I will say that I learned from it, but I don’t like to think about it.

As I said, I was fourteen. I was dating a guy named Christopher Walker, and we had been going steady for nearly two months. He had been my first boyfriend.

Grandpa had been giving me warnings about Chris, stating that ‘he didn’t trust him’ and ‘Chris seemed very weasel-like’.

Well, being the intransigent brat that I was, I told Grandpa to shut up and stay out of my life. He was acting like my dad, even though he wasn’t.

Anyways, one day, Chris and I were hanging out, and he received a phone call and stepped out of the room. When he came back in, he told me that he had to go home. I was a little suspicious, but I let him go.

Christopher never came back. For the next few weeks, I texted him, left messages on his phone, emailed him, tried to Skype him, went to his house, etc.

At first, I was hurt, but I eventually forgot about him. A year later, I was reading the newspaper, (my smarts had to come from somewhere) and I saw a headline that caught my attention:

 

MURDER

 

I had started reading further.

 

Yesterday, May 7, 2031, a boy the age of twelve was killed. After exploring

the crime scene, a body was found with knife incisions on the stomach.

Detectives swabbed the wounds and found DNA from the knife. The

DNA was then traced back to a fifteen-year-old of the name Chris-

topher Walker. When the teenager was located, he claimed he knew

Nothing of the subject, and then jumped off the roof of his house. His

neck broke, and he passed away shortly. An autopsy was performed

on Christopher’s body, and traces of alcohol were found in his blood-

stream. Officers have concluded that he was drunk and then killed

the young boy. Further research is being done.

 

I connected the dots and it all made sense. That day that Chris received the call, it was to go to the police station. He had been caught with alcohol in his possession, and a year later it had taken over his life.

Since that day, I had always taken Grandpa’s advice. Always.

I yawned.

“Somebody’s sleepy, yeah?” Adam observed.

“I haven’t slept in almost twenty-four hours. I’m tired,” I said pointedly. My arms were getting tired, so I let Shadow out of my arms. Grandpa smiled warmly, took off his jacket, and laid it on the floor.

“There. Now you have a makeshift bed.”

“Thanks, Gramps. You’re the best.” I gave him a hug and curled up on the jacket.

“We’ll get your dog some help while you sleep. ‘Night, Ali’.” With that, Adam and Grandpa left the White House. The calmness of the room lulled me to sleep.

 

* * * * *

 

I turned the shower on, expecting a blast of freezing water. But, instead, only a few slow drops trickled out. Drip, drip, drip. They splashed on my face in sticky, warm globs.

A dog barked. Just then, my chest grew heavy, like something was pressing me down. I couldn’t breathe!

My eyes flashed open. Shadow was licking my face and standing on my chest. I gently pushed him off and gave him a quick rub-down with my hands.

As I pet him, I noticed that his fur no longer had a greasy feel to it, and it shown in the morning sun. His hind leg-or where it used to be-was bandaged. Shadow’s bald spots had been shaved around more, revealing healing scars and cuts.

But the most important change was that his eyes now had a new sort of brightness to them, proving that he really was a young puppy.

His tail wagged as I wove my hand through his fur. Suddenly, I spun around, feeling eyes boring into me.

“Hey, sis’,” Adam greeted me.

“Adam! You nearly gave me a heart attack!” I slugged him in the shoulder, and he cried out.

“Grampy Wampy found a non-ransacked store, and managed to score us some donuts,” Adam told me, using the name he used to call Grandpa when he was a kid. He handed me a donut, fresh and wrapped up in a Dunkin’ Donuts napkin.

“Wow! Is somebody still running the store, or something?” The food looked delicious, and not the slightest bit stale.

“No. But they had fresh ingredients, and apparently, Grandpa knows how to make donuts. True story,” he grunted.

“Speaking of which, where is Gramps?” I asked.

“He’s straightening up the bedrooms upstairs. We’ll be able to sleep there tonight.” I realized that I could hear a faint hum coming from the ceiling.

“Is he...vacuuming?” Grandpa never vacuumed, and he rarely cleaned.

“I know, right? Crazy,” Adam muttered.

“I’m going to take Shadow for a walk, if he feels up to it. ‘Kay?”

“Sure, whatevs.” I called Shadow to me, and surprisingly, he came. He trailed after me as I walked out the doors. The sun was turning grey, and it was foggy.

Oh, well. I walked down the abandoned streets with Shadow following me. When I saw a Walmart, I headed inside to see if there was anything I could savage.

The store was like the one the president had been in, only much worse. If this was what the world was like before it ended, what would it be like when it actually ended?

Just then, my watch lit up. Strange. It only lit up when my alarm was going off.

“Alice.” The voice came from my watch. But that wasn’t the weirdest thing. The weirdest thing was that it was Bryce’s voice.

VIII

 

A glowing apparition of Bryce stood in front of me. Judging by Shadow’s yip, he could see Bryce, too. Well, it meant I wasn't hallucinating. That was reassuring.

Bryce’s hair was now shoulder-length and he had a slight stubble on his chin. Other than that, he looked no different-if you didn’t count his ghostly appearance.

“Alice,” he repeated. “I have come from the other world to give you a message. The world will end. There is nothing you can do to stop it. However, you can find me and start it again. I’m with Claire. We are in a good place. You must, must, believe me, Alice. I miss you.” Though the voice sounded computer generated, it filled my heart with warmth, and my eyes with tears.

“I miss you, too, Bryce,” I said, even though he couldn’t hear me. I plopped down on the steps. It was official. Bryce was dead. Somehow, though, he had managed to contact me from Heaven. He wanted me to join him.

But I couldn’t throw my life away like that. I needed to save the world first. Then I could join him and we could live together with Claire in peace.

Feeling determined, I beckoned Shadow and ran back to the White House, my jumpsuit squeezing my skin.

“It’s time to start the-” I began to call out, stopping short when I noticed Adam pulling at his hair. “What?”

“It’s the secretary!”

“What now?” I did not understand.

“The secretary! Grandpa was stupid enough to give her our actual contact info, so now she’s blowing up my phone and leaving voicemails ordering me to return you and Claire. She said something about parents suing.”

“Oh, god. My parents have no idea where I am. Let me call, them please?”

He pondered the idea. “I should say no, but okay. Just don’t give our location. And after that, I’m changing my number.” Adam handed over his phone. “Make it snappy.”

I smiled gratefully, then entered my mom’s number. Adam walked out of the room just as the phone picked up.

“I am going to SUE! Give me my daughter-”

“Mom. It’s me.” Silence.

I heard a strangled croak. “Alice? I’ve been worried sick. Don’t worry, baby, we’ll get you out of there.”
“You don’t understand, Mom. I want to be here. I’m saving the world. And I’m with my real family.”

“What? You’re right, I don’t understand. Alice, are they forcing you to say these things? I bet they’re holding a gun to your head right now. Oh, I’m so sorry, sweetie.” I felt bad for my mom, but I couldn’t tell her the whole truth. She wouldn’t believe me.

“Mom, I have to go.”

“They’re making you hang up? Just hang on, Alicia. We’ll find you.”

“They aren’t making me do anything. I love you.” With that, I hung up. Angry tears stung my eyes. Why couldn’t Mom just believe me?

I slammed Adam’s phone down on the table. Shadow whimpered quietly, and I jumped. I had forgotten he was there.

“AD-AM! GRAND-PA!” I called out. “WHEN ARE WE GOING TO START?” Adam came skidding into the room, giving me a glare.

“Will you shut up? You probably just let the whole city know where we are!”

“Sorry,” I shrugged. At that second, Grandpa came thundering down the stairs.

“Be quiet, Alice! Bad people will come in and hurt us if they know we’re here,” he warned.

“That’s exactly what I said.” I stuck my tongue out at Adam.

“So when are we going to put the plan into action?” I asked. “We don’t really have anytime to waste.”

“You’re right. We should get started right now,” Grandpa says. My jaw drops.

“As in, ‘Right. Now.’?”

“Yes, I believe that’s what I said.” He started giving out orders. “Adam, you find what heavy tools you can, and make sure they are durable enough to break the cars. Alice, you need to wire the intercom system in the White House to all of the electronic billboards in D.C., so that way you can broadcast your announcement all over the city. And I will be scaring off all the people in the road so that they can’t see who broke their cars. Let’s go!” Grandpa clapped his hands together, Shadow barked and sat down, and off I headed to the control room.

Of course, I had to stop by one of the many maps on the walls before I found my way there, but it was on the fifth floor, and had stairs leading directly to the roof.

How convenient. I plopped down in a rolly chair and spun towards the computers. All desktop, but still very modern. Five of the computers displayed a nine by five array of the front view of cameras. Over ten were just static, showing a screen of fuzzy blackness.

After hacking past the top-notch security system, I opened a new window and downloaded the app that I would use to broadcast the video. I then unwired one of the security cameras from down the hall, took off the virus that the government had put on it, and set it on the counter, facing me.

I already had known that security cameras could work just like a real camera, just there are special programs on them that block you from using it the right way. I positioned myself in front of the lens and pressed the record button.

“Hello. I am Green Girl, and I can fix your problem. Whoever broke your cars, shame on them. But I am a highly intelligent, undercover scientist, and I know what I’m doing. Which is exactly why I have come up with a solution for you.”

The gears were turning in my head. Instead of sticking with the walking idea, a new plan was forming in my head.

“I have invented what I like to call a ‘Bio Bus’. This is a biodegradable bus that runs on pollution. It takes the dirtied air from the sky and runs it through it’s engine. It does not clean the air, but it doesn’t pollute it further. If you follow me, we can save the Earth and everyone in it. Meet me on the front steps of the White House if you want my shelter and help.”

I ended the video and uploaded it on to a computer. I opened the broadcasting app and inserted the video. I’d done the work Grandpa had asked me to, but now I needed to build the Bio Bus.

In my mind, sketches were drawn and measurements were taken. My ability to do this, to think of the bigger picture, was part of why I was so smart.

I set off to collect my supplies.

 

* * * * *

 

The gleaming metal of my new contraption showed me my reflection. Currently, I looked horrible. I would have to get fixed up before I showed up on the White House steps.

It had been an hour since I had made the video, and I could hear car alarms going off in the city around me. I was sitting on the roof waiting for Grandpa and Adam to finish the dirty work. The video was set up and I could broadcast it with the press of a button. That button was sitting next to me.

Silence settled over the town. The sun-or what was left of it-slowly sank lower in the sky. Finally, at long last, someone came out of their house. And the shouting began.

The first person started yelling, causing others to come out and do the same. Soon the whole city was in chaos and panic. The streets were filled with little kids and elderly people and adults. I saw my cue.

I pressed my button, and for a split second, the crackling sound of static filled my ears. It went away, and then there was silence. I stared hard at a billboard, and suddenly my face was there.

I looked pretty good in my outfit, and I had the town’s attention. My message to everyone was playing through the air, and I could just picture Adam looking smug in some dark alley. I could imagine how far his jaw would drop when he heard about my invention.

And just like that, the video was over. The screens went black and the muttering of the citizens was so loud that I could hear it from my perch.

The mob started to move. Towards me. I had done it. I had the city in my hands, and soon that would be the country, and soon the world, and-

“Nice job,” a voice sneered from behind me. I know that voice! That was- “It’s Ben. And you are going to come with me, or I’ll shoot.” I spun around to see that the muzzle of a gun was aimed at my head.

“What? Why are you here, Ben?” This made no sense.

“You’ll find out soon enough. Move.” He stepped closer to me and bumped me in the arm. My nostrils flared, and my stubbornness kicked in.

“No!” A searing pain shot up my jaw. I gasped and realized that Ben had hit me with his gun. I had never thought of him as a violent person, but as blood spilled into my mouth, I knew I had thought wrong. “Fine. I’ll come.”

Ben shoved me roughly in front of him and I caught a glimpse of how shaky his arm was.

“Answer my question. Why are you here? And why are you doing this?”

“I don’t take orders from you!” He sneered.

“Then who do you take orders from? Who’s making you do this?”

“No one! I work by myself,” Ben shouted, a little too quickly. He seemed to realize it, too, because a clouded look passed over his face. It was easy to see that he was lying.

I smiled. I had some leverage. “You can either tell me who it is, or I won’t move. You can kill me if you want, but I won’t move.” I stopped walking.

“What?!” Ben’s jaw clenched, and he raised his arm.

“They want me alive. Just put down the gun, Ben, and I can help you escape them. They won’t be able to hurt you. Let me go,” I coaxed.

“No! I won’t let my family die for you!” He spat.

“That’s it, then! They have your family hostage! Just tell me who they are and what they want me for, and I will go with you. I’ll make sure they don’t find out.” My last effort worked. Ben visibly relaxed, and the gun slipped from his fingers.

“They’re called the N.E.W.S., which stands for Next End Wave Scientists. They’re collecting the smartest people in the world, and forcing them to create ‘battery bombs’, which are causing the sun to be blocked out.

They hold the scientists hostage and won’t let them leave. They stay there ‘till the end of the world making the battery bombs. N.E.W.S. came and tried to take me, and I wouldn’t go. So, they took my family instead. They said that if I don’t want to go with them, I have to find someone to go in their place. They’ll kill my family if I don’t do this, Alice.”

Then it hit me. Ben didn’t know I was super smart. Why would he be taking me? Unless…

“Get out of Ben!” I shouted.

“What?” Ben-or should I say the imposter-growled. “I am Ben. How can I get out of him?”

“I know what you are! I know you are lying!” I shove my finger in his face. “Get. Out. Of. BEN!”

“If I’m not Ben, then what am I? An imposter?” He smirked.

“Yes. But you are also a-” I repeated the top-secret series of numbers and letters. Imposter Ben’s eyes widened, then narrowed.

“How did you know that?”

“I am the daughter of the person who created them. And that means that I know they are illegal.”

“Fine,” he spat. “If you know, then I’ll go. But this won’t be the last of N.E.W.S. They will find you, and they will capture you.” With that, the life faded out of Ben’s eyes and he slumped to the ground.

“Ben?” I dropped to the floor and slapped his face, trying to wake him up. His eyes fluttered and I knew he was alive.

I turned around, and, with a shock, realized that we had never made it down the ladder. We were still on the roof, and very close to the edge. I leaned over to look below.

Suddenly, something slid off my neck.

“NO!” I yelled, trying to wrap my hand around it as it fell through the air. My skin brushed cold metal, but the item slipped through my fingers. It was gone. My foster mother’s necklace. The one that she had given to me so we could feel more like mother and daughter.

A sudden groan behind me caused me to spin around, quickly masking my grief.

“Alice?” Ben moaned, slowly sitting up. “Is that you? Where am I?”

“Yes, it’s me. And you’re in Washington D.C.” He blinked.

“I’m dreaming, right?”

“Um, no. Ben, you’re in for a long explanation, but right now, I have a city to meet. You can stay here or come with,” I told him. Ben gave me one of the most believable, completely innocent, confused looks I had ever seen. “I’m sorry, but there really is no time to explain.”

“I trust you. Just please, tell me what happened when you’re done.” He patted me affectionately on the shoulder. I smiled gratefully and ran over to the Bio Bus. I had no way to get down the ladder. I guess I would have to bring the citizens to it, instead of the other way around.

I threw Ben one last look that I hoped read ‘thank you’. My sight of him disappeared as I climbed down the ladder.

I could hear angry shouts coming from beneath me, letting me know that my audience was getting impatient. I broke into a sprint, stumbling down the heavily carpeted steps of the White House. My padded feet against the carpet reminded me of the day this all started, the day I was supposed to meet Claire at her house. The day I got mugged. And that night, in the hospital, watching the evening news. It made me realize that just a month ago, I was a normal girl. But most of all, it made me realize that this might be my last day on Earth.

            That man on the news had said we had maybe a month, and already, that short time had almost passed. I didn't have time to save these pedestrians. I needed to get me and my family members back to Inaceia, and then I could start over one last time with a new dimension. I would get there in time to save them from their destruction. I would get there before N.E.W.S. was made, and then the world would never end. Unless...N.E.W.S. was originally from Inaceia. What if the founder of the evil organization was born in Inaceia, and survived the first apocalypse?

            A sudden pounding on the glass door woke me from my thoughts. I quickly smoothed my hair down and eased the door open. A mob of terrified D.C. citizens surged through, physically pushing me backwards. My eyes widened and I tripped around, trying not to get trampled. A wave of calmness passed over me as I broke free from the crowd.

“Everyone, just calm down!” I shouted, trying to be heard over noise. Voices became hushed, and a sea of heads turned towards me. I gulped. Well, here goes nothing. “Um, I’d like to thank you all for coming.” I tugged at my bodysuit, aware of how tight it was. There was a moment of silence, and I swear an old man in the front shot me a rude look.

“We all know of the issue at stake, but as you have seen, I have a solution for it. If you’d all kindly follow me to the roof, I will show you the Bio Bus.” Excitement rippled through the crowd, and people began pushing and shoving to come up the stairs. One particularly rude woman shoved into me from behind, and I tripped over a stair.

Feet pounded past me, and I heard bones crunch as a fat kid stepped on my hand. I let out a scream of agony. Nobody stopped as I pulled my injured hand to my chest and laid down on the ground, legs and feet bruising my body.

I’d heard of people dying in large rampages, but I never had really thought that anyone could die. Suddenly, I was staring into the face of a handsome young man.

“Are you alright, Miss?” He asked worriedly. He put up his arms as a sort of shield, and the constant pain slowed down, though my hand still throbbed.

“Not really,” I sniffed. He helped me to my feet, and there, in the middle of the crowd, I forgot all about my hand and the task ahead, and the only thing I could think was, Wow. He was gorgeous. I’m talking, drop-dead, keel on the floor and die from a heart attack gorgeous. Though, thankfully, I did neither of the above.

“Well, you still managed to keep your appearance up despite your near-death experience,” he grinned. He was physic! He knew how hot I thought he was, and how he had almost given me a heart attack. Oh, wait. Never mind. He must’ve been talking about getting trampled. “Nice costume, by the way.” Heat rose to my cheeks.

“I’m blushing, aren’t I?” Stupid, Alice. Way to make it obvious. My mind suddenly flew to Bryce, and a wave of guilt crashed over me. But, I pushed his memory aside and tuned back into my conversation.

“Yeah, I guess you are.” We stood there awkwardly, and I realized that everybody had passed us.

“We should go,” I said quickly.

“Yeah,” the stranger conceded. “I’m Liam, by the way.” Introductions. That was how relationships always started.

“Alicia, but my friends call me Alice.”

“I hope this means I can call you Alice?” Liam played.

I blushed again. “Of course. Thank you, really, for helping me.”

“Anytime.” He started walking, and I took that as my cue to follow. Silence settled over us, the tension thick. I could almost hear my heart pounding-that was, until the sounds of yelling filled my head again.

When we reached the ladder, Liam stepped back, allowing me to go first, and making it all the more harder to feel sad about Bryce. Liam is just a distraction. You still care for Bryce. But soon, it will be time to move on. Like, right now.

My thoughts of encouragement allowed me to ignore the nagging shame at the back of my mind. I returned to the moment, and smiled at Liam. I climbed up the ladder, and was immediately overwhelmed by panicked voices.

I waited for Liam to climb up beside me, and feeling more brave with him a my side, told the crowd, “I need everyone to move out of my way. I am the only one who knows how the bus works, and therefore only I can make it start.”

The huge mass of people pressed backwards to the edge of the roof. Realizing too late what was going to happen, I shouted, “Wait!” My plea for them to stop moving was interrupted by a terrified scream and a faint smack.

My stomach churned and I ran over to where the scream had come from. There lying on the pavement, was a little girl, body splayed at impossible angles. Nausea rolled over me and I heaved. The donut that I had eaten, now partially digested, spewed across the roof.

I heard two voices shout my name at the same time. I shakily spun around to see Liam and Ben running towards me. Liam, being the stronger one, lifted me to my feet and allowed me to brace myself against him. Ben, on the other hand, just stared at me and Liam, looking back and forth.

The mob was quiet. I felt angry at them, for only caring about themselves, not caring about who died in the process of stopping everybody from dying. I opened my mouth to yell at them, but then Ben spoke up.

“Alice, I don’t know what’s going on, but I still need to tell you something. Ha-” Ben was cut off by a freezing chill that passed over the crowd.

“What the heck?” Liam said.

“Oh, no. Alice, this is stage one out of five in the process of the ending of the world-the chill. The stages happen over a period of twenty minutes, so we have approximately-” He looked at his watch. “-nineteen minutes and twenty-four seconds until the sky plunges into eternal darkness.”

“Crap,” was all I could say.

IX

 

“We need to go!” Liam shouted. “We need to take shelter!”

“Liam. Ben. This might all seem crazy to you, but you have to believe me. We are not going to die. I am going to go get my brother, grandpa, and dog, and us six are all going to go to my first dimension, Inaceia. The world has already ended there, and we will be safe.”

“Alice, you’re making no sense,” Ben’s voice cracked.

“Just, please, trust me,” I said, flustered. “You guys stay here and keep the citizens calm while I go find my family.”

“What about our families? You expect us to leave them behind? I barely know who you are, and you expect me to believe that you are from another dimension where the world has already ended?”

“Yes,” I said firmly. “Now stay here.” I spun around to leave and saw that my brother was coming up the ladder.

“We need to go!” Everyone in the crowd looked at him and moved towards him. “Not you guys!” Adam ordered them. I took Liam and Ben’s hand in each of my own and pulled them behind me.

As I reached Adam, he gave me a suspicious look. “I won’t ask now, but I’ll need an explanation later.”

At the bottom of the ladder, Grandpa was waiting, and he already had a portal open.

“When you made a portal here, I looked closely at what you did. Hopefully, I made no mistakes and this will get us to Inaceia alive and in one piece,” Grandpa explained. “I knew we would be short on time, so I thought ahead.”

Both my newfound acquaintance and Ben looked wary of the portal, but I trusted Grandpa’s skill.

“You may feel a little light-headed after entering the portal,” Adam told the boys. “Keep your eyes closed to avoid brain damage.” He gestured to Shadow, who was attached to a leash that Grandpa was holding. Shadow was wearing a blindfold over his eyes, and was trying to paw it off with no luck. Normally, I would’ve laughed, but right now, the situation was too dire.

“I’ll go first.” I took a deep breath, and stepped through the portal.

Now, it’s hard to explain what going through a cross-dimension portal is like. You feel like you’re made of water, and being made of water doesn’t feel good. Your head feels like your stomach does when you are going down a tall roller-coaster. And there is this super-bright, jagged light all around you. If you were to open your eyes, it is likely that you would go blind.

The portal took about what felt like thirty minutes, but was probably actually thirty seconds. It could’ve been two hours, for all I knew. When I was shot out of it, I smacked hard against the grayish dirt and puked again, my nausea returning.

Someone landed on top of me, crushing me to the ground. I heard a crack, and my ribs screamed in agony.

“Alice?” The pressure on my back lifted, and Liam’s voice filled the air. “Are you alright?”

“Not really,” I groaned. “My ribs might be broken.”

“Oh, wow. I’m so sorry.” Strong arms slid around my waist, and I noted how they carefully avoided my ribs. Liam pulled me up, and I gave him a painful grin.

Ben came flying through the portal next. Liam bravely shielded me with his body so I wouldn’t be knocked down again. Not that Ben would be able to cause much damage, anyways, being the pasty twig that he is.

Ben stood up shakily, but was shortly slammed into by Shadow, who was barking loudly and quivering in fear. Shadow landed awkwardly on his three legs, but he didn’t fall. Ben, however, plunged to the dirt.

Adam came through next. Unlike us newbies, he landed expertly on his feet and studied his nails. Show off.

Grandpa, too, landed on his feet. However, he was more modest about it. He assessed the group.

“Can I get an explanation now?” He asked.

“Yeah, me too!” Ben complained. “I don’t have a clue what’s going on!”

“An explanation would be good,” Liam conceded. “And also, who are these people?”

Everyone introduced themselves.

And I gave them the run-down.

 

* * * * *

 

“Woah, so you’re like, smarter than me? All those questions you asked me that I had to think about for days, you could’ve easily answered yourself?” Ben plopped to the ground, blowing air out of his mouth.

I blushed. “Correct.”

“And you’re, like, a genius? Wow. I was a C+ student in school.” He winced at the word was. “You are way out of my league. But,” he winked, “that won’t stop me from trying.”

“Oh, God,” I teased, though really my heart was pounding against my broken ribs. I forced myself to calm down-I was still dating Bryce, even though he was dead. Anyways, if I had let myself continue to be flattered, my ribs might get worse, due to the hard beating they had received from my heart.

Suddenly, a howl broke the air.

“What was that?” Liam asked. I detected fear in his voice.

“A gracher. It’s what we call the mutant animals that were born on Doomsday. Don’t know how they were made, just know that if you get in a fight with one, you won’t be the winner. They’re ruthless, and many survivors of Doomsday have been killed because of them. None of us Forgies, though,” Grandpa told us, a little proudly.

“We’ve gotta move, or we’ll be gracher supper t’ night,” Adam ordered. “We have ten miles to the Sanctuary. I hope everyone can run.”

With that, he turned around and started running. Reluctantly, Ben and Liam followed, while Grandpa and I brought up the rear. Every step I took hurt. I wrapped my arms around my chest, trying to stop my ribs from jostling around too much.

“The grachers are big, ugly creatures. They are equipped with two rows of forty-seven very sharp teeth. They each have ten claws per paw, and they are close to the size of a bear. Their fur is almost impenetrable, and they’re nearly impossible to kill.”

“They are attracted to two thing-blood and food. They can smell both from over five miles away. That’s why we need to be careful not to leave any food out or get cut outside,” Grandpa said.

A sharp pain cut up my leg.

“Uh, Grandpa?” He seemed to have noticed that I stopped and looked down at my foot. My eyes went there, too. I was standing in a bear trap. It had clamped around my leg and bit into my skin. It hurt like crazy, but that wasn’t what I was worried about.

Grandpa cursed. “Adam!” He called. “I need your help.” Adam looked back and froze, seeing me with my foot in a bear trap, face clenched together in pain.

Then he broke into a sprint. He was at my side in no time.

“Okay, don’t move your leg at all, or this will be much more painful than it has to be.” He quickly grabbed the sides and pushed down, grunting at the effort. I hissed as the trap opened up and the metal teeth slid out of my leg. Adam tore off a piece of his T-shirt and wound it tightly around my leg. “Can you walk?”

I shook my head. Meanwhile, Liam and Ben had spotted us and were making their way over.

“What happened?” Liam asked urgently.

“Bear trap,” Adam grunted.

“I can carry her,” Liam offered up. “I’ll still be able to run.”

Adam just nodded. Before I knew what was happening, I was laying comfortably in Liam’s well-muscled arms.

“We need to hurry,” I grimaced, my leg throbbing. “The grachers…” I trailed off. Standing at the brink of the discolored dirt was a massive figure. Another howl filled the air, and I screamed.

The gracher’s head snapped toward us.

“RUN!” Grandpa shrieked. Liam broke into a sprint. How he managed to do it with me in his arms, I had no idea.

I could hear the gracher’s pounding footsteps behind us as we tore through the night. My chest bounced against Liam’s arm, and I sucked in a breath as waves of pain racked over my body. Liam and I were at the back of the group, and the scent of my blood made us the target of the gracher. And I knew what had to be done.

“Liam. Put me down.”

“No! You’ll be killed!” He huffed between breaths.

“Better me than you,” I muttered. Then, louder, I said. “I have a plan. Just trust me!”

He clenched his jaw. “No.”

“Well, then, I guess...I’m sorry.” I brought my elbow up, and heard a crack as it connected with his chin. He yelled, and I tumbled out of his arms.

Sitting on the ground, I knew I had little time until the gracher would reach me. I clambered to my feet, shifting my weight to rest only on my good foot. The agony traveled up my body and made spots dance before my eyes. Ignoring it, I reached up to my hair and pulled out the ribbon tying back my dull brown locks.

Standing there, I knew that if this didn’t work, I would die. Liam, who was starting to run towards me, and my family, would also die. That’s why my plan would work.

I felt hot breath on my leg and knew it was time to put the plan into action. Everything else seemed to be in slow-mo all around me. I sprang high into the air, and landed on the back of the gracher, who’s mouth was about to clamp around my leg. I held the ends of my ribbon and forced it into the open mouth of the gracher.

Time sped back up. I was sitting there, on the bristly fur of a wild animal, with my ribbon in my hands. I gave it a swift yank, and the gracher tensed. I expected it to try to throw me off, but instead, it stood there, calmly, waiting for my command. I turned it’s head towards, Liam, using the ribbon like reins.

I, too, felt calm, but Liam was frozen in place, his mouth hanging open.

“You might want to close your mouth before you get a fly in it. Climb on.” This broke him out of his trance.

“No way am I getting on that thing.”

“Oh, come on. I’m pretty sure he’s just as tame a house cat.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Suit yourself. Have fun when the other grachers come to find you.” Liam started to say something, then thought better of it. Hesitantly,  he began walking towards me.

As he slid onto it’s back, I launched into an explanation.

“You see, when I saw the gracher’s silhouette, the resemblance he bore to a horse and a cat were quite obvious. I realized that he must’ve been the offspring of some sort of wild cat, which gave him the wild genes, and a horse, which gave him tame genes. I figured he would probably let me ride him, and who knows, maybe even become a pet.”

“You are the most crazy, stupid person that I have ever met. That is genius.” I grinned.

“Why, thank you,” I teased. “But on more serious measures, I really need to get us out of here before his friends arrive. They might not be as lenient as he is.” I squeezed his stomach between my legs, and wind rushed passed us.

It felt like we were flying. The gracher was moving impossibly fast across the rough terrain, and within seconds, we had passed the others. I guided the gracher back around and pulled up next to everyone.

While Liam was talking to the others, I gently rubbed the gracher. His stubby tail wagged slowly back and forth.

He was definitely big enough for everyone, including Shadow. He waited patiently as everyone climbed on, though one time he tried to lick the blood off of the makeshift bandage on my leg. It didn’t hurt, so I let him.

Grandpa shook his head in disbelief as they all settled onto the gracher. I looked back once, making sure everyone was seated, and whipped the reins lightly. Again, we raced across the ground.

Over the loud wind, I called out, “I’ve decided to give him a name! I’ll call him Bramble!”

Adam’s eyes widened. “You’re going to keep it?”

“Him! And yes, I am! I’ll need to train him to ignore blood and to be less ravenous, but other than that, he’s really just a big sweetheart! He’s also super fun to ride on!” Even Shadow looked like he was enjoying the ride, his tongue lolling happily out of his mouth.

Ben was the only one who looked scared. Paler than a piece of paper, he was visibly shaking. I wondered who had convinced him to get on.

My mind drifted to my parents. While I was very excited to see them, I was also nervous. I didn’t know how much might have changed in the years that I’d been gone. I’m sure they would still love me and everything, but what if… I didn’t know.

Bramble stopped abruptly in front of a trail, pawing at his nose.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “What’s wrong with him?”

Grandpa rubbed his grey hair. “We must be nearing home. Grachers hate to come near it, a we’ve set up a sort of...defense. You see ,while grachers love the smell of blood and food, they despise the smell of shoe polish. Something about the way it infiltrates their senses, making them temporarily blind, unable to taste things, and incapable of smelling anything but shoe polish.”

“I guess that’s smart, but how are we supposed to get in?”

“We’ll go the rest of the way on foot. We’ll have to leave Bramble here and hope he stays. As soon as we can, we’ll come back with some rope and tie him up while we make a shelter. Everybody off.”

I slid off Bramble’s back and turned to face him. “Stay,” I said sternly. I faced the trail once more and began to walk. Pain instantly shot up my leg and I fell to the ground.

“Alice!” Ben and Liam chorused together. Shadow came over to lick my face, and I smiled tensely. I had forgotten that I couldn’t walk.

“I’ll carry you again,” Liam said, not waiting for an answer. He delicately scooped me into his arms, and this time there was no pain in my chest. Grandpa gave me a quick, worried glance, then started off down the path.

As Liam paced behind him, I saw Ben sneak him a glare. It was probably not meant to be seen by me, but he wasn't discreet enough.

Time seemed to be passing in long increments, and I had nothing to do but stare at the ground. I tried looking at the view, but there wasn’t one. It was just wasteland as far as the eye could see. Until it wasn’t. As I stared ahead, bunches of shadows began to take place. After trudging a bit more, voices were distinctive, and there was a little light to be seen as well.

“Hurry, Liam! My family! They’re here!” Though he didn’t break into a sprint, Liam quickened his pace, sensing my anxiety. My ribs pulsed and pounded, but I ignored the hurt and focused on my parents.

At last, we reached the sanctuary. It was just like I had remembered-a circle of about twenty house, with a tall wall surrounding it. A guard was posted at the entrance of a thick fiberglass gate.

“Who’s there?” He questioned, his voice hard.

“Alice. Tell the Forgies that Alicia Hillman-Forgie has returned,” I said softly. The guard’s eyes widened.

“Is it really you, Alice? It’s me, Lol. Your dad’s best friend,” Lol said, shocked.

“I know, Lol.” I smiled as the gate slid open and I entered the Sanctuary. Eyes turned toward me as I walked through. My large group trailed behind me, though Shadow dutifully walked beside me.

Collective gasps rippled through the audience. Little kids ran forward to get a better view, and, (so cliche) their parents put out protective arms. I bowed my head. I completely understood. We were unknown, and in a place full of fear and danger.

And then the crowd parted. A couple with graying hair and perfect teeth stood fifteen feet away from me.

“Alice? Adam? Dad?” The woman’s voice broke, and her eyes shone. “Is that really you?” She gripped her husband’s arm so tightly that his skin was turning white around the area she was clutching.

“Harriet?” Grandpa said, as Adam and I chorused at the exact same time, “Mom?” I started running.

Everyone collided at once and we sank to the ground in one big, huge hug. Liam and Ben stood awkwardly behind us, while Shadow ran after us. Shadow licked me, then, hesitantly, everyone else.

“Who’s this?” Mom asked, bewildered.

“Shadow,” I replied. “I found him at the White House.”

“Sounds like you’ve had quite the journey,” Dad chimed in. “You’ll have to tell us about it.”

We broke apart, thought Mom’s eyes were still watering.

“And who are they?” Dad pointed at Liam and Ben.

“Acquaintances,” I smiled. I winked at the boys to let them know I was kidding.

“I can’t wait to hear all about it.”



X

I snuggled against Dad, a blanket draped around my shoulders. The blanket was grey, just like everything else at the camp.

But it couldn’t be helped. Things are different after an apocalypse. And this apocalypse was no different.

I wearily brought my spoon to my mouth, slurping up the clear soup. I barely had enough energy to keep my eyes open, let alone eat food. Still, I didn’t want to hurt my parents feelings, excited as they were.

So, I sat on the frozen ground, listening to the voices and laughter that surrounded me. I threw in my own comments now and then, but soon I was too tired to even think.

My half-eaten bowl fell to the ground as my hold on it loosened. My body collapsed, and as Liam’s arm shot out to catch me, I let my eyes finally fall closed.

 

* * * * *

 

I was standing on a hill. The sun was setting, and an ocean lay before me. I stood still for what felt like forever mesmerized by the rhythmic waves lapping against the bottom of the hill.

A voice suddenly broke the peace.

“Alice? Don’t forget me. I still love you.” The voice was drowned out by more voices rising.

“How could you, Alice! I trusted you!”

“Come home, baby. I won’t let them hurt you.”

“Why him? Why did you choose him?”

“Everyone you loved is dead. They are gone, Alicia.”

I screamed, unable to take it all at once. I sank to my knees and covered my ears. Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, faces appeared, too.

Heads were bobbing in the waves. Bodies may have been attached, but I couldn’t tell. I could see everyone. Everyone who I ever loved and knew. And the voices were coming from them.

There was Bryce. And Claire. My foster parents. Ben, even. Adam, Grandpa, and my biological parents. Everyone was there.

But at the same time, they weren’t. Because they were dead. Somehow, though they were there for me to see, and though they looked alive, I knew they were dead.

And when the vultures came, it was set in stone. The vultures flew in circles around me. There were hundreds. Thousands, even. When they swooped towards me, I screamed again.

One spoke. “Alicia Grace Forgie-Hillman. You have done this. You have brought death upon those you love. We bow down to you. As birds of death, you are our queen.” Shrieks of triumph filled the air. I shook my head, unable to believe it.

They flew closer and clutched me in their talons. The vultures flew me towards my friends and family. My dead friends and family.

Bryce floated forward, so close I could’ve kicked him.

And then, the vultures split. Half stayed to hold me above the waves, and the other half flew at Bryce, pecking his head with their hands. At first I screamed in protest, but then a wave of terror washed over me once, and just like that, my fears were gone.

In the place of my fear stood anger. Anger at everyone who had ever left me on my own. This time, as the vultures pecked at Bryce, I laughed maniacally.

Until the vultures finished him. Then they turned towards me. And the terror was back.

 

* * * * *

 

“Alice! Alice, wake up!” Somebody was shaking me.

“Bryce?” I asked groggily.

The shaking stopped. “What? No! It’s me, Liam! The Sanctuary is under attack!” That got me up.

Liam quickly explained that a gracher had gotten past the defenses and resisted the scent of the shoe polish.

“Now it’s trying-and currently failing-to jump the walls of the Sanctuary. We would kill it, but we can’t get a clear shot. Do you think you could try to tame it like you did Bramble?”

“I’m on it.” I grabbed a ponytail holder from the floor-somehow I had ended up in a bedroom-and quickly braided my medium-length hair. I tied it with the rubber band and looked up to see Liam staring at me. “What?”

He blushed and looked away. “Nothing.” We sat awkwardly until I was distracted by how his red plaid shirt both fit his chest very nicely and brought color to the grey environment. He looked back at me and we looked into eachother’s eyes.

Suddenly, I was leaning forward. My lips parted. Liam came closer. His hand reached up to brush a stray strand of hair out of my face. Then Liam closed the gap between. He lips touched mine for less than a second. He gave me a half-smile and walked out the door.

I wanted more. My first kiss with Bryce-I winced-was longer, but my first kiss with Liam was better. But he left me hanging.

Feeling angry, I pulled the covers off of my legs and stormed after him. However, when I reached the hall, Bryce was nowhere to be seen. Sighing, I weaved my way to the exit of the building.

I had forgotten all about the gracher until I walked outside. People were rushing around frantically, and gunshots were going off. I could tell by the frequency of the bangs that none of the shots were hitting their mark. Quickly, I ran towards the spot where the noise was coming from.

It wasn’t that hard to find, being that the Sanctuary was small. A group of men and women with crossbows and shotguns were crowded next to a spot on the wall. I could hear claws scratching against the bricks and knew that the gracher would be inside the Sanctuary soon.

Acting fast, I found some rope inside a storage shed. I picked a rock-grey, of course-off the ground and fastened the rope to it. Finally, I tossed the end with the rock over the wall, hanging on to the empty end.

The crew with the weapons looked at me strangely. I just winked and turned my attention toward the rope. The scrabbling on the other side of the wall stopped abruptly, and I felt a tug on my rope. I knew the rope wouldn’t hold the gracher’s attention for long, to I planted my feet against the wall and began to climb.

My weight pulled the rope down slightly, but the gracher tugged back on the other side. The jolt made me lose my firm plant on the wall. Suddenly, I was dangling ten feet off the ground by my arms.

My breath shortened, and gripped the rope tighter. I took a deep breath, replanted my feet, and started climbing again. With only three feet left, I easily was able to pull myself on top of the wall.

I took a second to steady myself, then looked out. Instead of dealing with the gracher, I became hypnotized by the view. It was nothing, but still something. It was dark, like always, now that the sun was gone, but I could see the forest of grey trees that we had come from. Grey dirt stretched in all the other directions as far as the eye could see. But what struck me most was a tiny speck of light in the sky.

It was a sun. I remembered it from my time in Inaceia before I left to go to Sortryn. This was the reason that we were still alive. The heat from this distant sun was three million times that of our old sun.

We had studied it profusely for over three years before I went to Sortryn. Though the sun had extreme heat radiation, it was at its farthest point, out by Uranus, and we were currently experiencing ‘winter’, where the highs were only about fifty degrees Fahrenheit.

A squeal beneath me caused me to look away. It was the gracher. I held my rope in my hand and prepared to jump onto the gracher’s back. Suddenly, I saw something hanging out of it’s mouth. As I looked closer, I realized that it was my ribbon, with the rope dangling next to it.

“Bramble?” I whispered. His ears perked up and he started running around in circles. “Hang on buddy. We’ll get you away from that shoe polish.” I calculated the speed at which I would fall, and how much pressure would be on Bramble’s back when I landed.

Once I knew I wouldn’t break his back, I scrambled to a good angle, inhaled quickly, and jumped.

I landed in the perfect center of his back. I slid the rope into place.

“Thanks for coming to me, Bramble.” He pawed at his nose. “Oh, yeah, sorry. Forgot about the polish.” I snapped the reins and guided Bramble to the glass entryway.

Like usual, Lol was there. His eyes widened.

“Is that...the gracher?” He pointed at Bramble through the glass.

I nodded. “He’s tame.”

“I’m trusting you on this, Alice,” Lol frowned as he pushed the button. I waited until the gate was fully raised before guiding Bramble inside. Murmurs rose I rode into the Sanctuary.

“Alice, I mean no offense, but what are you doing?” Dad asked me, walking up with Mom at his side.

I cleared my throat. “Everyone, I’d like you to meet Bramble. Yes, he is a gracher, but I tamed him. As I told you in my story last night grachers are very easy to domesticate. We don’t need to fear them anymore. And fact, I suggest that the constructors build stables for grachers. We won’t have to worry about transportation anymore!”

People stared at me blankly. Dad stepped forward.

“I agree entirely with my daughter. Chris, Jeff, Kiana, I would like one stall built in the stable by tomorrow. Bramble can sleep on the ground for tonight. Thank you, Alice, for solving yet another one of our problems.”

Then, just to me, Dad whispered, “They’ll warm up to the idea.”

“Thanks, Daddy.” I stood on my tiptoes and pecked his cheek. “I love you.”

 

* * * * *

 

“You’ve arrived just in time for our Collection day. It happens only once a month, and is when everyone except the guards leave the Sanctuary to collect what natural resources we can find,” a woman named Gina explained. “We’ll split up into groups of five and take different regions of our territory. Jason, care to divvy the groups?”

“Sure, G. Okay, let’s see…Sam, Liliana, and Kansas, with me. Yetta, Jynnifer, and Carly, with Gina.”

He rattled off about thirty more names, then sat down. I gaped at him.

“But you didn’t call any of our names!” I protested, motioning to my group.

“Of course not! Newcomers don’t get to come!” Jason scoffed. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like this guy.

“That’s not fair! I’m way smarter than you could ever be, you, you-”

“Alice, calm down.” Liam’s soothing voice stopped my tirade. “Let him get a word in.”

Jason sniffed. “I was going to say, if newcomers must go, then I’ll take everyone with me, including Shadow. Except for you. Obviously, a little girl such as yourself can not handle herself in a ‘situation’.”

I nearly screamed right there. But instead, I kept my cool, and calmly-well, angrily-stormed off to my room.

I wasn’t going to give up that easily. As soon as all of the talking faded away, I peeked out into the middle of the Sanctuary. Nobody was there, though the guards were circling the bottom of the wall.

I quickly slipped around a building, and without being seen, came to the place where Bramble was being kept. His tail wagged when he saw me, and I rubbed his ears as I untied the rope around his neck. I climbed onto his back and flipped the reins.

Bramble weaved in and out of the buildings and came to a stop in front of the glass gate. Lol was nowhere to be seen, so I hopped off of my gracher and pressed the button.

The gate lifted. I was grateful that our cutting-edge technology had supplied the wall with a silent elevator system. None of the guards noticed as I left the Sanctuary.

The outside was just as barren and lacking wildlife as I remembered. However, Bramble seemed perfectly at home. Without any notice, he suddenly let loose a howl. Now, I’m no animal expert, but if I were to guess, I would say that he sounded lonely.

“What’s wrong, boy?” I stopped him and patted him on the back. He whined and tugged his head to the right. “You want me to go right?” I swear, he dipped his head in a nod.

Sighing, I pulled the reins. Bramble ran faster than ever, his feet pounding against the ground at an unbelievable speed. I smiled as the wind whipped through my hair, caressing my skin and cooling me down.

A laugh bubbled up in my throat, escaping before I could stop myself. I hadn’t had this much fun since...well, since before I moved to Missouri. The last time I had had fun was when me and my closest friend, Abigail, went to Colorado and went skiing down Lynx Mountain. It was so cold that I had to wear three pairs of socks, but we still had lots of fun.

I shook my head snapping out of the memory. A few minutes had passed and in the distance I could see a hole in the ground. Within seconds we were upon it. Bramble skidded to a stop.

I climbed off his back and peered into the hole. It was about the width of him, maybe a bit wider. It was a tunnel that led underground.

“There’s no way I’m going in there! I’m claustrophobic!” Bramble whined and looked down at me with pleading eyes. “Oh, fine, but just know that I will never do this again!” Even though I had crawled through a vent, I still hated enclosed spaces. “You first.”

Bramble excitedly walked into the tunnel. I followed behind him. The tunnel wasn’t was about twenty feet in length, but I couldn’t see what was at the end because Bramble was blocking my view. He walked quicker, making me have to run to keep up with him.

He stopped, and I figured we had reached the end. I slid past him and gasped. Sitting on the ground was another gracher, and-gracher babies.

“You’re a father?” I asked Bramble, though he couldn’t understand me. I slowly approached the mom. She lifted her head and looked at me with wary eyes.

A loud sound suddenly broke the silence, and I instinctively dropped to the ground. My heart started racing. Then, I realized that the sound had come from Bramble. It must’ve been the way grachers communicated.

He brushed past me and nudged his wife with his muzzle. She licked him and wrapped her tail around the babies. Unlike Bramble, her tail was at least three feet long. It must’ve been a gender thing; the females have long tails, the males have short.

I studied the babies. There were three of them, and even though grachers are not very cute animals, these ones were adorable. There were two without short tails, and the smallest one had a long, flowing tail. She was the only one with her eyes closed.

I needed to name them, so I would know who was who. I pointed at the biggest.

“Jinx.” Then the other boy. “Kipp.” The mom. “Jen.” And finally, the daughter. “Carter.”

Jen looked at me with wide eyes. The wariness in them had been replaced by trust. I stretched out my hand and she nuzzled it. Then, keeping my eyes on her, I reached down to pet one of her babies. Carter.

I soon as my hand touched her, Carter’s eyes flew open. Staring back at me were the prettiest blue eyes I had ever seen. The color looked so strange. I had been used to seeing grey, grey, and more grey.

“I’ve got to get them to the Sanctuary,” I mumbled to myself. “They’ll starve out here!” I looked at Jen again.

Talking slowly, I said, “I’m are going to get you and your family to safety. I need you to stand up so I can put your babies on your back.”

I already knew that grachers were very intelligent creatures, but I was still shocked when Jen stood up right away. Reaching for Jinx first, I grunted at the weight of the newborn. Once he was settled comfortably on his mom’s back, I set Kipp up with him.

The I gently picked up Carter-she was a lot lighter than her brothers-and mounted Bramble. He licked my hand and then left exited the tunnel.

Now that I could see Jen standing, I saw that she was almost as big as Bramble. In the tunnel, she had looked small and fragile, but now she looked muscular and protective.

Bramble broke into a sprint, with Jen right beside him. Carter stood up and yipped. I held onto her so she wouldn’t fall off, but didn’t make her sit.

As we neared the Sanctuary, I heard shouts. I could see a big blob of people outside the gate. I pushed Bramble faster. Once we were closer, I could make out the faces of the workers in the Sanctuary. They were all circled around something laying on the ground.

Before Bramble had even had a chance to cringe from the shoe polish, I had jumped off. I hit the crowd at a sprint and shouldered through to get a better view.

Collapsed on the dirt was a little boy. His hair was long, probably due to the lack of scissors, and dirt caked every inch of his body. His eyes were closed.

“Who is that?” I whispered. All eyes lifted off the boy and looked at me.

“Alice? Why are you out here?” Liam’s worried eyes looked me over.

“Long story. Who is this boy?”

“A survivor,” my dad intervened. “He was laying here when we got back from the Collection.”

“Why haven’t the guards noticed him?”

“Not sure. Let’s get him inside,” Dad said grimly. Gently, more gentle than I’d ever seen him be, Dad scooped the boy up in his arms.

“Clear a path!” I commanded. “And someone get that gate open!” My voice rang with authority, and I was immediately obeyed. Dad waddled through, his walking affected by the weight of the boy.

Inside, the guards were sitting in the center of the Sanctuary playing cards. I blanched.

“What the heck are you doing!?” I yelled. They looked up startled. “You are supposed to be guarding our safe house from thieves and wild animals, not playing cards!”

“Alice, calm down,” Lol said.

“No! I will not calm down! A little boy was laying out there half-dead on the ground, and what were you doing? Playing cards!” For the second time that day, I stomped off to my room.

The world had ended, people were dying everyday, and the Sanctuary needed protection, and yet, those loons were sitting there playing cards. I was so angry, I punched my bedroom wall.

I shrieked as the dry wall fell through and my knuckles screamed in protest. I clutched my hand protectively to my chest and collapsed on my bed.

Tears rolled down my cheeks as I tried to move my hand. Bruises were forming, and my whole arm was throbbing. Suddenly, I heard footsteps in the hall. I wiped my tears off with my good hand and tried to act natural.

“Alice? What’s wrong?” It was Liam. Again, we were alone in my room, together. “Were you crying?” As as he sat beside me, his eyes flickered to my hand, which I was cradling. “What happened?” His fingers delicately reached for my hand, and I extended it.

“I may or may not have punched my wall,” I grimaced. Liam sighed, but didn’t say anything. He probed my hand in a way that kind of felt good.

“Four of your knuckles are definitely broken, but I think your thumb is fine. You’re lucky you didn’t tuck it under your fingers like most amateurs do, because then it definitely would’ve broken.”

“Yeah. But I’m not an amateur-I’ve punched before.”

“Wait, you’ve punched someone? I’ve always thought of you as more of a pacifist!”

“What? No! I used to take a boxing class. My parents wanted me to learn self-defense. Pacifist, though, would still not be my top choice of words to describe me,” I smiled.

He grinned back. “But I wanted to tell you-you need to learn to keep your cool. People like Jason and the guards might get on your nerves, but you can’t let them see that. No matter what you think, we aren’t safe here. Anyone in this Sanctuary could be a murderer, and we wouldn’t know it. Just-be careful. You don’t want to get on anyone’s bad side.”

XI

 

I reached my hand out and touched the water, watching in satisfaction as it rippled back and forth. My reflection shook, then steadied itself again. A small fish swam by brushing my hand.

I sat back on the lush green grass, and breathed in the rich summer air. Liam laid beside me, absentmindedly stroking my hair.

“If you could have anything, what would it be?” He asked me.

“You,” I whispered, and leaned in to kiss him. Suddenly, his eyes turned fiery, and he crumbled away into smoking ashes. The grass quickly caught fire from the heat of the ash, and it spread in a ring around me.

I screamed as the flames leapt at me, singing my hair and burning my hands. The grass I was sitting on stayed green, but past the ring of fire, flames flew across the ground, resulting everything to black.

Shadows flickered around me, but there was nothing to cast them. Flames surrounded me, and suddenly I was burning. I crumbled, melting into ash, when suddenly, the smoke cleared and sunlight broke through. My body reformed and I was wearing a white gown.

Tears spilled over my eyelids as I saw the ring of grass I was sitting on, and the blackness all around. All that was left faded away.

 

* * * * *

 

I cried out, sitting up in my bed. The sheets were twisted and drenched in sweat, and my arms were shaking. I struggled to untangle the sheets from my legs. Finally freeing myself, I got out of bed and jogged to the bathroom.

I undressed and got into the shower, turning it on. I sighed when I saw that the water was dirt brown. I locked my jaw so the water wouldn’t get into my mouth.

The cold water felt soothing on my steaming body, and massaged my sore hand, which was now bandaged tightly, so I stood there for a few minutes, just letting the water run down my shoulders. Knowing I needed to get back to sleep, I turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, grabbing a grey towel-like cloth to dry myself of with.

Suddenly, the door opened. I yelped and tried to cover myself with the cloth as Mom stepped in.

“Sweetie, you forgot to lock the door,” Mom said.

“Mom, you scared me half to death!” I kept the towel wrapped tight around my body

“I heard you cry out all the way from the lab. Are you okay? Did anybody else come in here? Did they-”

I sighed, cutting her off. “Mom, I’m alright. I just had a nightmare.”

“Oh.” Her body relaxed, then tensed again. “But guess what? We just discovered something-Bryce and Claire are actually alive!”

Shock, followed by disbelief flickered on my face. “Mom, that’s not funny. You know how much I cared about them. You don’t have to rub it in my face.” I thought for a second. “Seriously, why would you do something like this?” I started to brush past her, but she grabbed my shoulder.

“Alice, look at me.” I turned. “I’m serious. We found out that Bryce and Claire were put in another dimension, for reasons we aren’t quite sure of yet. This is no joke.” My eyes widen as I realized she actually was telling the truth.

“So they’re really alive?” I whispered.

“Yes.”

“Oh, Mom, this is so great!” I gushed, tears of happiness streaming from my eyes.

 

* * * * *

 

“We need to locate the dimension,” I said, clicking away on the keyboard. I plugged in a flash drive and pulled up the 3-D model of Sortryn. “To get to Sortryn, I just entered the coordinates at which I had planted it in the parallel universe, along with the name of the universe, which is Heslusal. That means that where Bryce and Claire are could either be a planet in the Heslusal solar system, or they might be in the completely separate dimension that was created to be Heslusal parallel universe.”

“I’m not following,” Ben said. I had woken him up to help me search for Bryce and Claire’s location. My mom and the other scientists had gone back to sleep.

“You don’t need to. Ugh, but this brings up another problem. If when Heslusal was created, another parallel universe was automatically created for it, that means that that parallel universe will have it’s own parallel universe, and so on. Which means that we have to go to each parallel universe and scan each entire one for Bryce or Claire’s DNA.”

“Sounds like a lot of work.” Tears sprung into my eyes.

“It could take the rest of my lifetime.” I buried my head in my hands. Ben awkwardly patted my back. I lifted my head. “Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. For now, we need some of Bryce’s and Claire’s DNA and need to make a sample, so in each dimension, all we have to do is put the sample into our DNA scanner and we’ll get feedback eventually.”

I hope they haven’t gotten rid of my clothes, I thought. The night we had gotten here, Dad had given us all new, grey clothes, and taken our old ones.

I stood up, grabbed Ben’s hand and pulled him out of the lab. “Go ask the night guards if they know where my old clothes are. I’ll wake up my Dad and ask him.” He nodded and squeezed my hand. I quickly yanked it out of his grasp and turned down the hall.

Dad’s bedroom was right next to the lab because of how often he went there, so I didn’t have to go far to find him.

I cracked open the door and tiptoed in, being careful not to wake up my mother. I gently tapped his shoulder, and his eyes flew open, his hand raised in defense.

“Oh, it’s just you Alice. I almost punched you. What do you need?” Dad said groggily, shielding his eyes from the light coming in from the door.

“What did you do with my clothes the night I got here?”

“Uh, well, let’s see,” he thought, scratching his head. “I think I gave em’ to Kansas, but I’m not sure what she did with them. You’ll have ask her. Now, I’m going back to sleep.” He rolled over and his breathing grew even.

“Thanks, Daddy. Love you,” I whispered. As I shut the door, I swear I heard a voice saying, “Love you, too, sweetheart.”

I smiled to myself and pressed my hand to the door for a few seconds, then skipped to the barracks.

Just as I had thought, Kansas was inside, scraping small shavings of a stick, fashioning it into a bow. She was our top protector, and when she wasn’t eating, sleeping, or on a mission, so I’d learned in a short few days, was always in the barracks.

“Can I help you?” I hadn’t even realized she had seen me until I heard her voice. Sitting by the fire, some of her hair falling in her face, she looked like a regal, warrior-like queen.

“Um, yeah. My dad just said that he gave you my clothes the night I got here. I was wondering if you still have them.”

“No. I took them to the woods and buried them. Any sign of our old life brings back to many painful memories. But if you need them, I can take you to them.”

“I need them. I know it’s late-well, early, but can we go now?” I asked, crossing my fingers behind my back.

“It would be unwise to travel at night. Besides, during the day it is still very dangerous, and you don’t know how to protect yourself.” Kansas frowned.

I glared at her. “I know how to fight!” She stood up.

“Punch me. Go on, I’ll be fine. Punch me right here,” she said, pointing at her chest. My eyes flickered uncertainly, but I drew my hand back and punched her. I cried out in pain as my uninjured hand hit her chest. It was like a tiny pinch compared to the pain I felt after punching the wall, but it still hurt.

“You see, your form was all wrong. Punching someone should only hurt the person on the other side of your fist, not you as well. The problems with your punching are that your legs are unbalanced, your thumb was tucked into your fist, you didn’t distribute your weight evenly, and you didn’t use the right amount of force.”

“Could you maybe repeat that, then explain it, please?” She sighed and moved around to my shoulder. Kansas bent over and moved my legs so they were parallel with my shoulders.

“Feel better?” I nodded. Then, she opened my fist, and reclosed it, this time my thumb on the outside. She made a few more small changes, and suddenly I felt very powerful. “Now punch me again.”

This time I did it without hesitation. Satisfaction burned inside of me when she winced.

“Nice job.”

“Now can we go into the woods?” I sounded like a little kid, but I didn’t care.

“No. You still aren’t ready,” Kansas said. She brushed by me and left the barracks, leaving me frowning in her wake.

I turned to follow after her. “Kansas, this isn’t about me wanting to be a big girl. This is about life or death, and being that it’s the life or death of my boyfriend and best friend, I’d say this is pretty serious!”

Kansas ignored me, but out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of moment. Liam was by the fire circle, stacking bowls. He had almost dropped one, and I was the only one to notice that and his shocked expression.

Dang it. I hadn’t even thought about Liam and what Bryce being alive would mean for him. In my mind, though, I knew what I would have to do. Bryce was my first boyfriend, and I would never be that unfaithful to him. As much as I liked Liam-loved, maybe even-I couldn’t be with him. It made things too complicated.

I stomped after Kansas, putting the boys out of my mind.

“You have to listen to me! I don’t care if I die, or get hurt, or anything as long as I get those clothes. No matter what I’d go up against, I would fight for the clothes, because I know if I get them, I can save two other innocent people.”

This time Kansas looked at me. And smiled. Actually smiled. “That’s what I wanted to hear. Now that I know you have bravery in here,” she said, touching my heart, “and brains up here,” this time touching my head, “I know you are ready for this.”

“Are you serious? This is great! We’ll find Bryce and Claire in no time!” I shouted, feeling elated.

“Gather a few things. We’ll leave at dawn, and won’t return until sundown. Oh, and bring one of those grachers. They’ll come in handy.”

“Alice!” I grinned at Kansas, who was already jogging away, and spun around. Ben was walking towards me quickly, as if he had somewhere to be and was late. “They told me to ask someone named Kansas where they were.”

“That’s alright. I already got it taken care of. You can go now.”

 

“So how long is it going to take us to get there?” I ask Kansas. We were flying down a grey dirt trail on the back of Bramble. We had left Jen behind so the pups wouldn’t be alone. Shadow, as well, stayed back.

“Only about an hour more. It’s way out here, the place that we like to call The Land of the Forgotten. It’s a lot quicker traveling by gracher, though.” I clung weakly to her stomach with my good arm, the one that I had not punched the wall with, and prayed I wouldn’t fall off of Bramble.

I wandered into my thoughts. I missed my foster parents tons, but all the love I’d had for my real parents returned when I saw my grandma’s eyes. It was better off this way.

Horror struck through me as I realized that my foster parents were probably dead. Everything we had built together as a family was crushed in an instant. But you can’t save everyone.

I shuddered. Those words had been going through my mind a lot lately, and it made me wonder if I was just being ignorant, if maybe I could’ve saved more lives.

“It’s not your fault,” Kansas whispered. “I used to belong to a modern Shoshone tribe when I was a girl. One day the village was bombed by Iraq, who we were currently at war with. When the planes flew over, I grabbed my sister, who was a baby at the time, and ran away. We were the only ones that survived. I can’t help but think that I could’ve saved more people if I hadn’t been such a coward.”

“But you were just a little girl!” I protested.

“So are you. I was only three years younger than you are now. Though my experience was devastating, your’s is far worse. Just don’t be too hard on yourself, is all I’m saying.”

“Thanks,” I said quietly. “It helps to know I’m not alone.” She smiled and grew quiet.

Before, the silences had been awkward. Now, the silence was comfortable. We didn’t talk again until Bramble slowed.

“Are we here?” I asked Kansas. She nodded,

“But wait for me to check the surroundings before dismounting. There could be anything lurking in these woods.” I began to panic as I lost sight of Kansas. The moderate grey clothing we were required to wear blended in with the dead grey trees. Just as I felt my blood pressure rise, Kansas reappeared.

“We’re good-for now. Stay close,” she warned. I hopped off Bramble and tied his reins to a tree. “Follow me.”

Hesitantly, I trailed after Kansas. I kicked the back of her foot, accidentally, when she stopped suddenly.

“Here we are.” I shuffled forward. Lying before be was a huge pit. Flashes of color stunned my eyes, being so abnormal in the vast world. Thousands of items laid in the pit, and all of them were symbols of the old world.

And sitting in the middle was a body, a piano, and a vulture. I sucked in a breath. Looking hurt, Ben gave me a sad smile and headed into the lab.

 

XII

“There’s more,” Kansas whispered in my ear. I scanned the rest of the pit. Thousands. Thousands of bodies. There was blood, limbs, and smoldered skin everywhere. And then the smell hit. A stench so strong and gross that I nearly passed out.

My throat tightened  and I gagged.

“Why is this here? Why haven’t you burnt these bodies by now?” I asked covering my nose.

“We’ve debated it. Part of the reason is that there are valuable things in the pit that will help us rebuild our world. And these things remind us of our old life. Though it only causes pain, sometimes longing for things is the only way we feel human,” Kansas smiled weakly, staring at something that only existed in her mind. “But the main reason is that this pit was created when the ground froze and split, sort of like what your skin might do when it gets dry. We’re worried that if we burn through it, the crack will spread closer to us and could ruin everything we’ve worked towards.”
“That’s incredible, but horrible. How can you stand to enter the pit with all these bodies?”

“Ignorance. And it helps if you move quickly and hold your breath.” Kansas pulled two handkerchiefs out of her satchel and handed me one. I immediately wrapped it around my mouth, just like a bandit would.

She then extracted a rope from her satchel, too, and fastened it around one of the grey trees. Tossing it into the pit, she began climbing down.

I bit my lip. I was smart, but I wasn’t the most athletic. I had little fear that I could get down, but I worried that I wouldn’t be able to climb back up. Sensing my hesitation, Kansas looked up at me, flashing a reassuring smile.

“You’ll be fine,” she persuaded. Her serenity took hold on me, and I joined her in climbing down.

The pit was about twenty feet deep, and when I touched down, I felt bones and useless items break beneath my feet. A squeak caused me to jump, and I realized I had stepped on an old chew toy.

“Careful,” Kansas said, “we don’t want to draw any unwanted attention to us.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled. My stomach turned as I spotted another rotting human carcass, similar to the one in the middle.

Kansas placed her arm around my shoulders, guiding me to the edge of the pit. “There are bad people lurking around here. The ones who survived alone, the broken ones. The most dangerous ones.” I nodded absently, staring at the destruction in front of me.

It really was incredible, the power the sun held over us. It was the mother of everything, the creator of our earth. I didn’t believe in a god, only science. To me, the sun was our god. Take it away, and everything else goes away, too.

“We need to get your clothes and get out of here,” Kansas nudged me, breaking me from my trance.

“Sorry,” I mumbled for the second time, “I just got lost in thought, I guess.” She patted me sympathetically on the shoulder.

“They’re just around here. Help me look,” she said, beginning to rummage through the burnt and broken items. I squirmed internally, wondering what I would do if I uncovered a body.

As my hands brushed various belongings, some sharp and some bulky, a feeling spread through my hands that could only be created by something soft. I grabbed the items resting on top of it and shoved them to the side. My clothes, looking a little dirty, but still in good shape, were lying underneath.

But what caught my attention the most was the pale purple corsage that sat next to the clothes. I picked it up sliding it onto my wrist. It was in perfect condition. I marveled at the thought of that, something from many years ago in our old world, but still so untainted by the destruction all around. It was beautiful.

Realizing Kansas was still searching, I turned around. “Found them,” I told her, straightening my back. She nodded and extended her hand. I placed the shirt and pants in it, and she brought them to her side, placed them in her pocket and turned to look at me.

“Thank you. Now, I’ll be seeing you later.” My head snapped up.

“What?”

“You’ve brought me what I need. And now you’re are no use to me.” Kansas turned to the rope and pulled out a knife. She cut through it, a whistling sound filling the air. I let out a strangled cry.

“How are we supposed to get out now? And what are you saying?”

“I have my own means. You, however, aren’t GOING to get out. You’ll starve down here, and the vultures will feed off your body. And everyone back at the village will never know what really happened. And soon, I will kill them all, too.”

My eyes widened. “But...I trusted you Kansas. We all did. You seemed like such a good person! Why are you doing this?”

She shook her head sadly. “You see, I am a good person. On my own planet.” She lifted her arm and from a hidden device I had not noticed, shot out a grappling hook. The hook retracted, and Kansas disappeared over the edge.

“NO! WAIT! KANSA DON’T-don’t leave me down here,” I whispered. I sank to my knees and rubbed the fake petals of the corsage between my fingers.

Tears streamed down my face. I always felt weak when I cried, like as the savior of our The Sanctuary, it entitled me to be strong. But still, the tears came.  So I sobbed. I let the impossible hopelessness of my situation sink in, and felt it throughout my entire body.

Then the scream sounded. It was definitely a woman, but what other woman would be out here besides-Kansas. Snarls and grunts coming from the edge of the pit were so loud that I could hear them from my sitting position on the rubble.

It snapped me out of my crying. I stood up. There must be SOME way to get out of here. Surely there were at least a few things I could use. I looked around frantically. Come on, Alice!  If there was ever a time for one of your genius ideas, now would be the time!  I was already being driven mad by this place, talking to myself.

Then, I spotted it. A ladder, held together by duct tape. Only the tips of it poked through the rubble, but it was easy to tell how big it was. I craned my head backward, looking at the severed end of the rope,  still dangling a good fifteen feet up.

Please let the ladder be tall enough, I thought. I stumbled across the bones and bodies, trying not to fall. But only a few feet away from the ladder, as I put my foot down, I landed on a corner of a toy truck. It slid out from underneath me and I went down.

The ground was surprisingly soft underneath my butt. I placed my hand down to steady myself, and suddenly realized why it was so soft-I was sitting on a fresh body. I screamed and scrambled off of it.

My heart beat fast in my chest as I saw it was a little girl, her hair in a dirty halo around her head. Her chest was caved in, right where I had been sitting on her. I shuddered and turned away.

Voices filled the air. They were hushed, like the owners of them were trying not to be heard. I glanced up. Vultures were circling above a group of men at the edge of the pit. They must have heard me scream!

The mutters turned to shouts as they spotted me. Then they turned and ran. Panicked, I spun around and looked for the ladder. It was right beside me, luckily. The group of men would be here soon. I brushed a few items off the top of it, and pulled it out.

It was surprisingly heavy, considering it was mostly made of duct tape, but I managed to drag it back to the edge of the pit without falling again.

Moving fast, I created a semi-flat platform from some old boards, balanced it on that, and secured it with some old twine. It’s now or never. I ascended the ladder, shaking as it wobbled beneath me, wishing to go fast but instead going very slow.

Hearing voices behind me, I looked down. Mistake. I lost my balance and shook wildly, causing my foot to slip. Better yet, the men were down below, one with a gun pointed at my head, and the other sprinting towards the ladder.

No, no, NO! I regained my balance and climbed the last few rungs. The man was ten feet away. If I fell from this height onto the even ground I would break my neck for sure. Thinking fast, I extended my hand to the still out of reach rope. Then, I jumped.

My hand clasped around the fraying brown rope just as the man reached the ladder and pushed it. I would’ve been relieved, but there was still a gun pointed at me and I was hanging over fifteen feet of open air.

Using all my upper-body strength, just as I had with the vent, I lifted one hand slightly higher on the rope, then the other.

That accomplished nothing. I was a foot higher, but still had the same issues. A gunshot sounded, and I lifted my feet just in time. Instead of shooting straight through my calf, the bullet grazed my ankle. Wet seeped into my socks.

I shook my head, taking my attention off my bleeding ankle. My arms were starting to shake from the effort of supporting my body weight. Knowing I only had a few seconds before they would have reloaded, I pulled myself up five more feet, to the edge of the pit.

My arms stopped shaking due to a boost of adrenaline, and I was able to lift myself up the edge. Safe at last, I laid on the ground, breathing hard.

1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10. After ten seconds of weakness, I pushed myself off the ground. I could hear shouts from the pit, and I knew the group would find another way to kill me. I needed to find Bramble.

I glanced around wildly, trying to recognize any landmark that could tell me where I was. All I saw were trees.

I stumbled through the forest, struggling to find something, anything, that could tell me where I was. Branches tore at my face and ripped through my hair, when suddenly, an acrid stench wafted up my nose.

I shoved through the limbs, following the scent. I gasped when I saw what was creating it. A bloody, mangled body was lying on the forest floor. I nearly cried out, but stopped myself just in time. I peered closer.

No! It couldn't be… I could barely make out the face through all the blood, but then I noticed a distinctive scar. It was Kansas. My eyes began to water, but I forced the tears down. Kansas was a traitor. She didn't deserve to be grieved. A loud shriek caused me to jump, fearful at first that the group of men had found me. Then a shadow passed overhead, and dread filled my stomach.

Vultures were circling above, slowly surrounding me and Kansas. Even though she betrayed me, I felt pathetic for leaving her to the vultures. But I backed away, calmly at first, then turning around, breaking into a sprint, running, running far away from the vultures and their presence of death. I was running so fast, flying through the dust, trees slapping and scratching my face.

I didn’t stop even once I broke out of the forest, onto the dried cracked ground. I continued across the desert-like plain, the sun hanging ominously above me, as it would continue to do forever.

It was then that it hit me, as I gazed up into the fiery blue star we called Arlitica, that Kansas and I had brought Bramble with us. And either those murderers had gotten him, too, or he had broken free. I would’ve seen him...wouldn’t I?

I sank to my knees and buried my fingers in my hair. I had no idea where the heck I was, and Bramble was missing, Kansas was dead, and there were vultures and murderers waiting for me back in the forest.

Tears slipped out yet again. I stared at the grey dirt and watched the water drip from my eyes, stain the ground for a split second, and disappear. I brushed my eyelashes with my pointer finger, scraping off a tear dangling in front pupil.

Suddenly, the sky shook. I don’t know how that was possible, but the air around me quivered, breaking its usual stillness. I lifted my head, looking around wildly.

A small sphere in the northeast corner of my vision was descending slowly.

What…I thought, trying to grasp what was happening. Aliens, maybe? Of course, to make everything worse. But the ball continued lowering, blue waves casting off of it from the reflection of the sun.

I shielded my eyes squinting to see as it landed on the ground. Now that it was closer, I could see it was huge. At least 100 feet by 100 feet, though it seemed slightly taller than wide. It was about thirty yards away, which I figured was a safe distance.

I watched in agonized silence as the roof of the sphere unfolded and rose, the floor inside lifting as well. Stairs fell down, and I could see bodies moving. The shadows were on the top of the orb, but when the things stepped into the sunlight, I could finally make out features.

I gasped, and my heart squeezed. I clutched my chest my breath shortening. Then I couldn’t breathe at all. My vision slowly faded out, the last image I saw being Claire and Bryce’s faces as they climbed out of the orb, looking as normal as ever.



 

Impressum

Texte: Maggie Morris
Lektorat: Alaina Fulkerson
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 15.04.2016

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Widmung:
I just want to say that this book is not finished yet, and that I'm still working on it. It is not abandoned. I also would like to thank Canva, which was the website I used to create my cover.