I asked Aleck, “What’s wrong?”
Aleck answered, “What do you think?”
When an occasion as significant as this occurred, I would have expected myself to react with horror or aghast, but it was beginning to become so routine that I found myself groaning from the tedium I was set to endure. I unwillingly got out of my seat and took a position where I could verify Aleck’s assertion. Sure enough, Yurei’s eyeballs donned that kaleidoscope hue! A voyage to another realm was destined to transpire, and the question became whether or not we could get her out of the library and prevent its entire assemblage of patrons from tagging along!
“Yes, Mister Fenmore?” Yurei gazed at me in confusion at my presence at her table. It stunned me how blissfully unaware the victims of these interdimensional mules were of their predicament!
“How…? How are you?” I recognized that was a lame response, but at that juncture, I mainly wanted buy some time so I could drum up something better.
Yurei gave me the exact reaction I anticipated from a baffled adolescent- a very peculiar stare and a somewhat snotty enquiry, “I’m fine! Why wouldn’t I be?”
I gingerly broached the subject, “You… Well, you don’t look well…”
Ismeray approached this seated and put in, “What are you talking about? She seems normal to me!”
“She seems normal? Are you serious?” I couldn’t fathom why in the heavens she would utter such a falsity! I knew she ran a coven and that her spells could produce real results, but I sincerely doubted this spectacle was typical even in the magical community! I ogled at her in astonishment of how she could belt out such an audacious claim, and when I saw her face, I exclaimed, “Oh, for Pete’s sake!”
“Oh no! She has it too!” Ellie assessed.
Ismeray wondered, “What do we have?”
That was a fair aspect to solicit information on, and the only idea I had in what to relay to them stemmed from my brief stint as a pre-med major. I gently delivered the bad news, “Listen, there’s no need to panic, but we have reason to believe you two ingested some poisonous fruit!”
“What do you mean, there’s no need to panic?” Yurei fretted. “That sounds like a perfect thing to panic about!”
“Shh!” a bunch of her peers around the vicinity shushed her.
I assured her, “There’s no need to panic because there’s a remedy that will clear it up straight away! Just follow us, and for the love of god, don’t say any times or places!”
Ismeray challenged that, “Why not?”
“We’ll explain later,” I lied. “Come on, let’s go get you that remedy!”
“Where are we actually going?” Ellie whispered to me as she escorted Yurei out of these quarters.
Roxy popped up and echoed that thought, “Yeah, where are you going? Not infringing on my honey-bunny’s plot, are you?”
Aleck steered Ismeray’s visage so Roxy couldn’t view it, and he strove to persuade her, “Of course not! We wouldn’t do anything like that!”
“Why are you hiding their faces from me?” Roxy interrogated us as she bobbed around our group trying to catch a glimpse of Ismeray and Yurei’s front half.
“They’re ill, they need privacy,” I spoke in a calm tone, but inwardly, I was getting anxious. I didn’t want Roxy’s obsession with her apocalyptic paramore to drag a lot of innocent bystanders into a dangerous situation! Plus, if she joined us, it would make whatever quest Damon sent us on that much more difficult! Roxy may have been fairly airheaded, but even she wasn’t so dense that she couldn’t figure out what was going on! I had no inkling on how we would shake her off though…
Roxy blocked our passage through the doorway and proclaimed, “I’m not letting you leave ‘til you prove to me they’re actually sick and you’re not planning to intervene in my love bug’s vengeful scheme against the rotten sinners of this town!”
Yurei queried to Ellie, “She sounds ill! Shouldn’t you give her the cure too?”
I grimaced. A lot of individuals would get dragged into this foray if Roxy didn’t move, including the librarian! I couldn’t imagine taking that old grouch on a misadventure that required cooperation! I glanced at Ellie and Aleck, and they seemed clueless too. The whole scenario appeared grim, but then…
“You’re wasting your time here!” Aniella informed Roxy. “I saw his other friends in Woodshop with the real victims. They were hoping you’d get distracted up here so you wouldn’t involve yourself with them.”
“Psh! You’re lying to protect them!” Roxy rejected her premise.
Aniella shrugged. “Suit yourself!”
Roxy’s focus flickered between Aniella and us, and I could tell Aniella’s casualness threw her off. She wasn’t certain who to believe, but ultimately, she decided to trust Aniella. “If you’re lying, I’ll… do something!” Roxy manically dashed off.
“Are they really there?” I inquired.
“I don’t know for sure, but probably not,” Aniella replied. I gazed at her incredulously, so she explained, “This whole school is full of weirdos, so I had to pick which weirdos I wanted to support. You appear to be a good one, whatever you’re doing! So, I pranked for a just cause!” She peered at Ismeray and Yurei, and she petitioned me, “Do I have to get involved with this?” We shook our heads, so she concluded, “I better go then!”
As she ran off, I shouted, “Thank you!” I then turned to Aleck and Ellie, and I instructed them, “Let’s hurry!”
We raced out of the library, and Ellie pressed me, “Where are we going?”
“I thought we were going to get treated for our poison!” Ismeray brought up. “Isn’t that at the school nurse’s office?”
“No! It had to be stored somewhere special…” I could practically see the wheels in Aleck’s brain turning as he struggled to finish that explanation. We came across the yearbook classroom, and Aleck completed his sentence, “It’s gotta be in complete darkness, so they put it with the never-developed film!”
Yurei’s brows furrowed. “Film? Since when do movies gotta get stored in the dark?” Ellie, Aleck, and I moaned from the lack of understanding of this concept since it made us feel old, but we didn’t comment on it- we simply shoved the girls into the room.
When we did that, we presumed the space would be empty because, well, I’m not really positive why! It just always gave off an aura that it was unoccupied! But, that assumption was wrong! Sam was in there with his arms folded in a stern manner, and Dennis along with a young girl I didn’t recognize were crouching behind a desk. Dennis refuted, “We weren’t making out in here! I was searching through records to prove that vampires once existed on this campus!”
The proper action to have taken at this point would have been to say nothing and bring the afflicted to an actually vacant sector, but my big mouth couldn’t resist blurting out, “You should’ve really stuck with the making out bit!”
“Mister Fenmore! You worked with my brother and his girlfriend! Tell them this supernatural stuff is real!” Dennis pled with me.
“Supernatural stuff! Don’t be ridiculous…” I shielded Ismeray and Yurei from their view so their presentation wouldn’t blow my assertion.
Sam growled, “Kid, if you keep making up crazy stories, I’ll call your folks and recommend they kick your behind from here to Tim-!”
Ellie interjected, “He’ll behave!” That was a relief! I wasn’t quite clear on what Timbuktu was like, but I still didn’t want to go to a realm based on it!
“He didn’t do anything so bad!” the girl attested. “Alright, so his theory about vampires was a little… interesting, but we did see some cool, vintage photos! I even got to see pictures of my parents growing up in the ni-!”
“Well, we better be going!” Aleck interrupted her.
That was a stellar plan, but there was only one small hitch… “Hold on, what about the cure?” Ismeray urgently alerted us.
Sam gawked at us quizzically, so I improvised, “They’re a rock band from the ei… past! Come on, I’ll describe them someplace else!”
I seriously thought our role in this conversation had ended, but then the girl called out, “Wait! I wanna hear about The Cure!”
“Nice try, Kala! You’re still on the hook for breaking into this place without permission!” Sam austerely regarded her.
“As opposed to getting permission to break in!” I chortled. Sam gave me a reprimanding glare, and I admonished myself for interjecting some humor where it wasn’t warranted. I felt terrible for undermining his authority, but Dennis and Kala didn’t seem too influenced by my shenanigans. Actually, Kala looked genuinely disappointed not to learn about this old-school music! I couldn’t close the window completely on somebody who wanted to discuss eighties pop culture, so I promised her, “We’ll chat about it sometime in the future!”
Instantly, I recognized I made a huge mistake- Ismeray and Yurei began chanting, “The future! The future! The future!”
Ellie and Aleck both hit my arm, and I affirmed, “I know, I know!”
“What’s happening?” Sam catechized as the swirling vortex manifested above us.
“You wouldn’t believe it if we tried to explain it!” Ellie responded to him shortly before we got engulfed into the paranormal portal.
We landed on lush grass with tree-filled mountains surrounding its perimeter, and I would’ve concluded that nature took over the planet if it weren’t for the giant, metal stilts! We craned our necks up to behold a series of circular buildings with the traffic of flying cars flowing between them! It was awe-inspiring to witness, but it was all a little too incredible for some people to accept as actuality. Sam pressed Dennis and Kala, “Alright what hallucinogenics were you smoking that got us all under the influence?”
My ancestors showed up, and Jasper conveyed to Sam, “I hate to break it to you, my friend, but this is reality! Oh, we’re Connor’s spirit guides, by the way!”
“You’re not doing much to convince him this is reality!” Yurei noted.
“Perhaps I could add some authenticity to this experience!” Damon snickered as he entered the scenery on a circular board that hovered in the air with a constellation-patterned suit complete with a sparkly cape.
Ismeray bluntly stated, “Yeah, your cheesy getup isn’t helping either!”
Damon clicked his tongue out of annoyance. “Okay, first of all, I wasn’t trying to help! And second, the authenticity will come as I lay out my quest for you!”
“Hey! How come our clothes stayed the same?” Aleck complained. “I want a cool, futuristic outfit like they have in the movies!”
“See! I told you otherworldly events were connected to Rosemary King!” Dennis triumphantly stated.
Damon seethed, “You can’t fathom how accurate that is!”
I eyed him suspiciously, “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing!” Damon chirped in a fashion that didn’t quite convince me that his allegation had no significance to it. Prior to me getting a chance to investigate further, he dramatically announced, “Your quest is… Bring me the Hand of Starcone!”
“Ew! We gotta sever someone’s hand?” Kala remarked in repulsion.
Damon threateningly warned her, “If you don’t complete it, you will pass… away!”
Kala grew positively alarmed by this notion, so I consoled her, “Don’t worry, it’s probably not an actual hand! It’s most likely something that we’ll wind up destroying and cause a lot of chaos and destruction.”
“That’s supposed to make me not worry?” Kala wondered.
“No, you’re supposed to worry! You should be terrified at these very real circumstances!” Damon cackled.
I retorted, “She’s scared now, but give her a bit of time, and she’ll learn what a dumb demon you are like we all did!”
Damon gave me a hard stare, and then he declared, “You can poke fun now, but I’ll be the one needling you after you meet your demise at last!” He emitted a diabolical guffaw as he ascended away from us, but his malicious merriment got cut off when he smacked his noggin on the bottom of a towering structure. He spotted our amused expressions and vociferated, “This changes nothing!” He shifted out of harm’s path and rose into oblivion.
“So, this is the future, huh?” Aleck queried.
“All of this has been the future for us,” Osra articulated.
Ellie looked at the city above us and pondered, “So, how do we get up there?”
I verbalized, “Let’s go find out so we can preserve our future! Which is in the past, but it hasn’t happened for us yet, so… uh, yeah! Whatever! Let’s just go!”
My Stories 