Reality Check

Prison Break

A/N - 😉

Right Now (by One Direction)

"Late night spaces with all our friends, you and me, yeah. Love these faces, just like how it used to be . . ."

___

When Owen woke up the next morning, his first thought was that the previous day — escaping from the hotel with Bethany and Kiel, finding Gwen and Orion and Charm, fighting Science Police, confessing the truth to Charm, and watching Quanterium get destroyed — had only been a dream. It had been a whirlwind of events.

But then, he found himself laying uncomfortably on the orange carpet of his mother's library instead of his own comfy bed, which normally never happened (except when Fowen had burned down his mother's library in the fictional world). A mix of relief, fear, and excitement went through him once he realized that it hadn't been a dream after all.

Yawning, Owen slowly pushed himself off the ground, feeling slightly sore from sleeping on the ground. His friends were all still asleep, aside from Charm and Bethany, who he guessed had woken up before him. The inside of the library was quiet and peaceful, and for now, he couldn't hear any sounds of fictional monsters that might be outside. Bright sunlight came in from the windows, illuminating the library with a warm, friendly glow.

Owen always felt most at home when he was here, in his mother's library. He was free to truly be himself, since books were what made him feel safe and secure. Before he had friends, books had always been his escape from reality. They'd always been there for him when he was having a rough day or simply wanted to enjoy himself. And somehow, waking up with endless bookcases in front of him was enough to make him feel better about things.

Despite being eerily empty, Owen found a source of comfort just by being here, surrounded by all of the books. After everything that had happened yesterday, it felt nice just to be back in the library, at least for a little while. The familiarity of it all made him almost believe that everything was back to normal, even though it wasn't. Not yet. Not until Nobody was defeated and the fictional worlds were safe.

After the ordeal they'd gone through last night, all of them had been exhausted and had agreed (with some reluctance mostly on Charm's and Orion's part) that sleeping in the library was the safest option. Owen had slept in here a few times before, but that had been several years ago, and he'd brought a sleeping bag with him then.

Now, he probably should've thought ahead by bringing blankets and pillows to the library. That would've been helpful! But who knew that they'd be sleeping in here? Owen was so used to going back to his house and sleeping in his bed after they went on adventures, and it was weird to remember that he didn't actually have a house anymore.

The library wasn't the most comfortable place to sleep, but Owen would've preferred that over sleeping in the now-destroyed Quanterium. Even a day later, he still couldn't believe that Quanterium was completely destroyed. He'd grown up loving the Kiel Gnomenfoot books. The characters had always inspired him for the longest time, especially Kiel. And now that Quanterium was gone because of Nobody, it all felt like a bad dream.

He realized that they really did have to hurry, because if they weren't fast enough, Nobody would just keep destroying the fictional worlds until nothing was left. And Owen loved books and the fictional worlds too much to ever let that happen. Luckily they still had some time before the pure possibility absorbed everything, so Owen held onto the belief that they wouldn't be too late to save the worlds.

First, all they needed to do was find Kara as fast as possible. That shouldn't be too hard, right? She'd been taken by time agents to their secret facility with a location that Owen didn't know, but that wasn't going to stop him from searching. And if that didn't work, they could always use Kiel's location spell to find her.