The Brink of Insanity

Milo Goes Mental

The first thing I noticed was probably the least important: I didn't hear Simone hit the ground.

Milo had the quickest reaction time, scrambling to the middle of the tree in about six seconds flat. He sat down and leaned over the trunk, looking for Simone.

"Where are you?" he called. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay!" Simone's voice drifted up. "Be careful on the tree."

"But where are you?"

"I'm right under you," Simone answered. "You have to fall like I did to see me."

"Milo, you can't possibly be considering this!" I protested from the safe, steady ground. Milo stood up and turned, like how Simone did. "Seriously?" I yelled. "You're going insane, Milo! You're going to die!"

"Simone didn't die," he shrugged.

"Yeah, because she's a weirdo!"

"I heard that!" Simone called back.

Milo jumped off backwards. I waited to hear him hit the ground, but just like Simone, he was silent.

"Woah," Milo gasped. I still couldn't see him. "Is this a dream?"

That made me curious. I crawled out to the middle of the tree and didn't remove my hands from the rough bark until I was sure I could stand without immediately falling over.

"Okay," I whispered to myself. "You are not going to die. Not going to die." I closed my eyes and jumped backwards. When I opened them, I was standing on the floor of the ditch, but that wasn't physically possible.

For starters, I couldn't have landed that fall. I wasn't flat on my back, which would've made sense, but standing on my own two feet. In the corner of the room, there were a pair of closed black curtains that I'm sure I would have noticed before if they had been there the last time I looked. "Where am I?" I wondered aloud.

Milo's head popped through the curtains. "Dude, you have to come see this! It's so cool! Like, I don't even know what's going on, but you have to see!"

I rolled my eyes and stepped through the curtain.

Then naturally, because I thought my day couldn't get any weirder, there was a glowing blue portal. It wasn't circular, but triangular, and was radiating blue light.

I bet Milo could tell you the exact shade.

"What is this?" I asked Simone.

"A portal," she said unhelpfully.

"Okay, but where does it go?"

Simone shrugged. She pulled out a pencil from her cardigan and pushed it through the gateway. It moved through it like water, slowly disappearing. "That's the thirty-third time I've done this. Nothing had happened before, but then today... today this journal appeared, and look!" Simone pointed to the back of the journal, then back at the portal. "The same symbols! What does it mean? And then- and then it says to give it to Milo. I've only read the first page, but I'm sure it's important! Something supernatural is going on here, and this journal might be the key to figuring it out! It might be-"

"Slow down," I told Simone. "There's got to be a logical explanation."

Simone started jumping up and down. This was the most excited I'd ever seen her. "I think if we read this journal, it will explain everything! The portal, the symbols, how we fell down here! The first time I fell it was by accident, and I had my eyes closed, the second time I had them open, but I couldn't see how it worked! I bet the journal will explain it! Milo, you have to read it! This is important somehow, I just don't know how!"

"You've been watching too many science fiction movies," I sighed. I was ready to write Simone off as a weird conspiracy theorist, but Milo wasn't. He took the journal from Simone, then shrugged at the look I was giving him. "No harm in investigating."

"Yeah, no harm except for the fact that we could have died."

"But we didn't. Look, you've got to admit something strange is happening. I don't know what it is, or have an explanation, but I need to figure this out," Milo explained.

"The journal equals the key," Simone said quietly.

Milo opened the cover and started reading.

If you are reading this, then I am dead, and the world is ending.

"See! The world isn't ending!" I protested. "This is insane!"

Simone raised her hand. "Um, actually, the world kinda is ending."

I shot Milo a look. "Told you she was crazy."

"We're destroying each other. And we're taking everything down with us," Simone whispered. "The human race, I mean," she clarified. "Do you know the four harbingers of the apocalypse?"

I looked at her strangely. "Uh, no. Most people don't know that either."

"Death, War, Famine, and Pestilence," Simone answered her own question. "They're happening all around us. The world is ending. Your argument is invalid."

Milo looked around nervously then continued reading.

But you hold in your hands the key to stopping the destruction of the human race, the end of the universe, and the sunset of civilization. Something strange is going on, and it is up to you to stop it. Before you sits a portal to a different world. You must go here first to find your tools to stopping the End of Everything.

-M.D.

"You gotta admit it now," Milo told me. "This is just weird."

"Who's M.D?" I asked Simone.

"It means Master's Degree," she told me unhelpfully. "But maybe someone's initials? Do any of you guys know an M.D?"

"Marsha Darson," Milo suggested.

"She can't spell her name right, I doubt she could spell 'civilization,'" I scoffed.

"Can you spell civilization?" Simone asked me, like she actually wanted to know.

"C-I-V-I-L-A-"

"Wrong," Simone said smugly.

"Michael Dustins," Milo suggested, putting us back on topic.

"That's not right," Simone squinted. "He's not it."

"Why not?" I smirked.

"Well, there's only one way to find out," Simone sighed.

"Google?" Milo perked up.

Simone gave him a look. "No, go through the portal."

"There is no way I'm going through that," I gestured to the glowing blue triangle. Simone grabbed my arm and tried to drag me towards the gateway, but she wasn't very strong and just ended up falling into the dirt.

"Fine then, Milo and I will go, and then you'll come," Simone smiled. "C'mon."

Milo shot me an apologetic look as Simone walked through the portal. "This is just weird," he explained. "I've got to go."

Then he walked in too.

Simone was right. I had to follow Milo, even if I didn't care that much about the end of civilization. I sighed and stepped through the weird blue mass, following my friend.