Something's Wrong With the Different Realms

Twenty-Nine: Final Edits

"Oh, I forget!" Horizon exclaimed, then adjusted the camera, "hard to use...."

"I'm going to start sharing my screen now..." Isla muttered before her Brightspace appeared on the screen.

"Woah... how you do that?" asked Horizon.

"You just press the screen share button, I can teach you later," Isla answered. "Anyway... let's submit this thing!"

We watched as Isla opened the dropbox, scrolled down to "novel writing assignment," selected a file, typed our group members' names in the comments and pressed the "submit button." When she was done, she pumped her fist up in the air.

"Wait... hold still," she said. "I'm going to take a screenshot."

She quickly took a screenshot of our faces. "Perfect! I'll send this in the group chat."

The photo appeared in a matter of seconds. "Now we can brag about writing an entire book at the age of 15 or 16 on our résumés!" Isla chirped.

"What's a résumé?" asked Horizon.

"Just search it up," Isla waved a hand nonchalantly.

"'Kay," Horizon said.

"Horizon, Allaira," Isla stared directly into the camera, "you guys can leave now. Jasper, I have to talk to you really quickly so can you stay for a moment?"

Once Allaira and Horizon logged off the call, Isla spoke up. "I think I'm going to have to tell them soon."

"Tell them what?" I propped my feet against the dining room chair.

"That I want to help them if they still need it," Isla rolled her eyes. "I meant to tell them earlier but I didn't get the chance to because of all the writing stuff."

"Oh, okay," I said.

"Yeah," Isla put a hand to her head, "I just wanted to warn you ahead of time you know? And I also wanted to assure you that me helping them is my own decision and that I won't drag you into this if you don't want to."

"When are you going to tell them?" I inquired.

"Tomorrow?" Isla shrugged. "I don't know, whenever they're free I guess."

"Cool."

"Oh, and before I forget, I think we should both tell them that we're okay with them being you-know-what and that we won't spill their secrets. I mean, we haven't formally acknowledged that to them yet and I think we owe it to them."

"Yeah, of course," I nodded.

Isla clapped her hands. "Cool, then that's all I wanted to say. See you in school tomorrow, I guess."

"Yeah, bye," I waved before the call ended.

"What was that about?" Miley approached the dining room and took a seat opposite to me, folding her arms on the table.

"Oh, we just finished our writing assignment today and handed it in so we're celebrating," I answered.

"Is it that book you're always talking about?" she asked.

"Yeah."

Miley slammed a hand on the table. "Send me the link, I want to read it."

"You sure?"

Miley's eyebrows shot up. "Yeah? I think that it's cool that you wrote a novel for school. Besides, I want to criticize your writing."

"Okay then, I'll send the link."

That night, I lay awake in bed, staring at my ceiling. I couldn't see anything but the dark but I kept my eyes open anyway. My body was drained of energy and I couldn't move my limbs but my brain was buzzing with activity. My thoughts kept circling back to the excitement of having finished the novel and the heaviness of everything that's happened recently and all the secrets that I had to keep.