Date on Earth: Friday, October 6th
Something pulled my arms as we moved through the forest. Everything blurred into a green mess.
I felt myself start to hyperventilate. Ginormous shadows grew out of the ground. Pulling on me in every direction. Digging into my skin. Turning my insides cold as they wrapped around me.
I fell to my knees, covering my head with my arms.
"It's not real," I repeated to myself. "It's not real."
A distant voice spoke to me. "Hold on there bud," it said. "Let's get somewhere safe first." I was lifted up as my eyelids started to droop. Continuing the chant, I tried to focus on what had just happened to keep my mind off of the snake-like shadows.
If the whole escapade hadn't been a hallucination, then we'd barely managed to escape the ship before the ramp had closed. I had fallen face-first onto the grass as another wave of nausea came crashing on top of me.
Then, we got bombarded by purple blasts from two huge guns on each side of the spaceship. I tried crawling away, keeping low so I didn't get hit.
After that, everything was pretty much a blur. All I could remember was somebody taking my arm and a voice constantly reassuring me, telling me everything will be okay.
I could also recall a bunch of monkeys carrying daggers and pistols while charging at us. Although that was most likely a hallucination.
Hopefully.
I felt us coming to a stop and attempted to open my eyes. But when I opened them, all I was met with was trees.
"Tristen?" I called shakily. "Diana? Tesha? Where did you guys go?"
"We're right here, Asher." A cold hand was placed on my thigh. Catching a glimpse of the hand in the corner of my eye, I immediately recoiled.
The skin was scaly and green, with long sharp claws. It dug its nails into my leg and I screamed. I followed the arm up to its face. The creature barely had a face, the smallest eyes peeking out from behind its hard scales.
"Asher, it's me," the voice said as I backed away slowly, hands in front of me protectively.
It's just a hallucination, I told myself. It's just a hallucination.
But I had already lost all sense of reality.
"D-don't come any closer!" I yelled, feeling for my stick.
"Asher," it said forcefully. Behind it, more of the dark shadows formed, slithering like snakes on the ground.
"Please," I begged. "Please don't hurt me." The shadowy snakes crawled up my legs, turning everything it touched into ice. I curled up into a ball, wrapping my arms around myself.
I was cold. So cold.
Ice crystals formed on my eyelashes. My fingers and toes went numb, turning black. The shadows grew, shifting and covering every part of my body until I couldn't see a thing. Couldn't feel a thing.
Did I even exist?
Soft sobs were the only thing I could hear, echoing in the never-ending abyss of darkness. It was just me. All alone. With nothing but my own dark mind.
Hopelessness drowned me, sucking out every bit of life.
Air. I need air.
I tried taking deep breaths, but nothing entered my lungs. Just darkness. Pure, empty darkness.
Suddenly, a piercing bright light shone through the dark abyss. I squinted my eyes to see the crack that had formed among the black walls. Slowly, I walked over to it, feeling it with my fingers.
At the slight touch, the crack grew. It extended in every direction, before completely shattering.
I fell on the ground, hitting my head. Oxygen returned and I took a gasping breath. When I opened my eyes, there were blue skies and the sun shining above.
Paradise.
I smiled widely, tears of joy falling down my face. I was back. No more gun-wielding monkeys. No more shadowy monsters. No more hallucinations.
At least, that was what I thought.
That was until I got up and turned around.
In front of me stood Mrs. Nancy's Foster Home. It looked exactly the same as I remembered. The same swing. The same porch. If I hadn't known any better, I wouldn't have even realized it was an illusion.
Cautiously, I walked up to the familiar door. It even had the same scratches and dirty handprints from all the children that lived there, including me.
It was funny how detailed it all was.
I knocked on the door, not knowing if a hallucination of Mrs. Nancy would open it or not. After a minute or two of waiting, I turned the handle and walked in.
The inside was just as realistic as the outside. Toys were scattered across the floor. I stepped on one of them and stopped to pick it up; it was a stuffed teddy bear with a pink bow tie on its head.
However, despite all the house's accuracy, it was missing one thing.
People.
The place I called home was a ghost house. Everything was deathly silent, except for the sound of wind blowing against the roof from outside.
Chills ran down my back. The foster house had lost all its warmth; an imposter of my home. It felt as though I was intruding, somehow.
I have to get out of here.
Quietly, I placed the teddy bear back down on the floor exactly as I found it, determined not to affect anything in the house.
I turned around and reached for the door when I stopped. In the stifling silence, the sound of sniffling had started, coming from one of the rooms across from the kitchen. It echoed, the noise filling my ears. I bit my lip.
Going against my better judgement, I followed the sound to see who was crying. The floor creaked as I walked, ten times louder than it ever had in all the years I lived in the house. Every breath I took was a struggle, like I was still stuck in the empty void of darkness.
Too soon, I reached the bedroom door. From there I could hear the cries louder, piercing my heart. I slowly turned the handle and opened the door, flinching as it cracked.
My heart pounded in my chest. It was the room for the younger kids. Five of them slept together there, sharing the two bunk-beds. The bedroom was the only room that wasn't like I remembered. The curtains were ripped and had multiple holes. Dust coated the bed covers. Toys also littered the floor, but they looked old, their colors faded and eyeballs falling out.
And in the middle of it all, a little boy sat on the lower bunk, next to the window. His face was buried in his knees as he shook. In each hand he held a toy car. One blue. One red.
Ben.
I felt my heart break in two.
Moving closer to him, I stepped over the broken toys. The small bed creaked as I sat down, but Ben didn't flinch.
"Ben?" I said softly. When he didn't respond, I placed my hand on his back.
He immediately snapped up, causing me to jump. Ben turned his head towards me, looking directly into my eyes.
"Are you here to save us?" he said, desperation seeping into his words. His face was stained with tears, like he had been crying for years. His eyes were red and wide as they stared at me.
I put my hands on top of his. "Ben, where is everybody?" The boy ignored me.
"Are you here to save us?" he said again, sniffling in between words.
"I-" I looked around, searching for an answer. "Ben, what happened here?" I asked instead. Ben started crying, and I pulled him closer.
"Monsters," he whispered. "There were monsters."
My breath caught, and I struggled to calm myself down. "What did the monsters look like?" The boy just shook his head before grabbing me.
"Are you here to save us?" he cried with more force than the last two.
"I-I don't understand," I said. "Where is everyone else? Where is Mrs. Nancy?"
Ben's grip got even tighter. "ARE YOU HERE TO SAVE US?!" he screamed in my ear, shaking me back and forth. I tried to wiggle out of his grasp, but he held on too tight.
"Stop it Ben!" I yelled at him. "Just calm down and tell me what happened. Please."
He stopped shaking me, but kept on squeezing my wrists. "Are you here to save us?" This time it sounded broken. Empty.
"I don't understand," I whispered. "If you would just explain to me-"
"Too late."
My eyebrows scrunched up. "What?"
Out of nowhere came a soft ticking noise. I gazed around, searching for the source of it.
There on a wooden nightstand was a small timer. A hand slowly moving around.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
It stopped abruptly, and only then did I realize what the timer was for.
"You're too late," Ben told me.
I barely had time to widen my eyes before the room exploded into a thousand pieces.
The force of the explosion sent me flying back. I held my hands out, trying to find something to grab onto. In front of me, Ben stood, eyes hollow. His skin burned continuously as he kept his gaze on me.
"Too late."
A hole appeared under me, swallowing me up. I fell down, farther and farther. Nothing breaking my fall. My stomach flipped inside out as I was weightless.
Suddenly, my body slammed on a hard surface, knocking the wind out of me. Gasping, I sat upright, ears ringing. Tears rolled down my cheeks. I grabbed my knees, pulling them closer to me.
I couldn't save them.
Guilt clouded my eyes.
What if I had said yes to him? Would they be safe?
"It's not your fault."
I looked up frantically. "Who said that?" Squinting my eyes, I peered through the mist that surrounded everything. Hiding among the fog was an outline of a person wearing a black cloak. The person's head was at an angle where I could just make out their side profile.
Whoever the person was ignored me, keeping their back turned away.
Slowly, I got up and steadied my shaky hands. I walked over to the cloaked person and reached out, when they snapped their head towards me.
The person's face was shadowed, so I couldn't see anything except their gleaming white teeth. They jerked back and took a few steps away before breaking into a sprint.
"Wait!" I yelled loudly, running after them. The person was fast, staying at a constant pace while still staying in front of me. I panted, starting to realize how unfit I was.
The scenery around me started to change. The blank surroundings suddenly turned into a dark forest, with strange trees twisting up to the sky. Roots and rocks grew from the ground, threatening to trip me.
Feeling myself slowing down, I concentrated on my breathing and told myself that I would not allow myself to lose them.
But no matter how hard I pushed, I couldn't get any closer to the stranger.
Come on Asher. You can do this.
I thought back to when I was running away from the two Axones. How I found an extra reserve of energy and drew from it. Focusing, I searched for the reserve, while at the same time making sure I didn't lose the person I was chasing. I channeled all the access energy I could find into my legs, running faster.
And faster.
Until the person was right in front of me.
Reaching forward, I grabbed the stranger's wrist. I smiled at my accomplishment and pulled the person towards me.
All of a sudden, I felt a sinking sensation. The ground grew hands that pulled me under. The stranger—who I still hadn't seen the face of—slowly disappeared and joined the fog.
A pair of hands wrapped around my torso as I tried to wiggle out. The other hands grabbed my extremities, pinning me to the sinking ground.
"Who are you, Asher Kasiel?" A voice boomed over the forest. I stopped struggling, mouth agape.
"Who are you?"
As the ground pulled me under, I stood still.
Not because I was terrified.
Not because I had given up.
But because of the name they had said.
Asher Kasiel.
The voice said my last name.
A name I didn't even know.
...
"Hey bud. It's okay. You're okay."
My eyes slowly adjusted to the sunlight. I grasped my head that was pounding in my skull.
Someone helped me to sit up as I rubbed the blurriness from my eyes. I looked up to see Tristen standing over me, wearing a smile of relief.
"How you feeling?" he asked me, backing up to give me a little space.
"Tired," I responded simply, resisting a yawn.
"Really, still tired? You'd think a whole day of sleep would be enough." Diana sat at my feet, tending to my stab wound. The piece of cloth I had tied around it had been removed, and the gash was cleaned out.
It took me a moment to process the statement.
"A day?!" I exclaimed loudly. Suddenly I was awake, getting off the grass. Diana did a grunt and crossed her arms, mumbling, "This is why I don't help other people." I ignored her comment. "I've been out for a whole day?!"
"Yes." Tesha appeared next to me, putting a hand on my shoulder. "You were affected very strongly by the hallucinogen. After you dropped to the floor, we thought that maybe..." She trailed off, turning her gaze to the ground.
"You might not wake up," Tristen finished for her, quietly.
"You really scared us there, Smiles," Diana admitted, and I was tempted to tease her for actually caring about my well-being. That was until she jabbed me in the stomach.
"Ow!" I whimpered. "What was that for?"
"For being an idiot," she snapped. "They filled me in on that little stunt you pulled to rescue me. Going solo, huh? And how well did that work out for you?"
"Pretty good, actually. If I didn't pull my 'little stunt', then we would've never succeeded at saving your sorry butt. So if anything, I think I deserve a thank you."
"Uh, I would thank you, if that wasn't exactly what they wanted to happen. What, did you really think the guards were dumb enough to follow you and leave the spaceship vulnerable without any reason?"
I huffed. "Well, our rescue mission still succeeded, didn't it? I mean, we still managed to get you back, so their plan didn't work."
Diana groaned. "You are such an imbecile. And whatever the result was, there were plenty of other alternatives besides using yourself as bait!"
"Like what?"
"Literally anything!" she screamed at me. "You could've made any other distraction, like, I don't know, a loud noise? If you just took a minute to think, then maybe you wouldn't have gotten stabbed in the leg."
I grunted. "Fine. You win. I'm an idiot. Happy?"
"Ecstatic."
"This bickering isn't going to change anything," Tesha intervened. "Asher made a mistake, and hopefully learned from it." She glared at me during the last part.
Groaning, I sat back down and blinked away the dizziness that came along with it. "Yup, lesson learned. Now, to more important things, what's the plan now? Or are we just going to play a game of hide and seek with the Axones indefinitely?"
"Guess that's all we can do," Tristen said. "Based on what Ana said, there's no place we can go where they can't find us."
Diana piped in. "First off, don't call me Ana. Only my friends are allowed to call me that. Second, well, about the 'there's no place we can go where they can't find us' statement..."
We gave Diana all our attention, waiting for her to continue.
She stood confidently. "I have a plan that might possibly postpone our inevitable death."