James’s eyes widened. There it was. There was the black realm exit. He remembered the sound of wind chimes, only to realize that there were little wind chimes hanging from the tree branches. He thought of the dark realm where he had first seen this image. Nobody knew what to say. Then a few of them started walking forward, and the others followed.
Alex stopped when he noticed some odd markings on a tree trunk and discovered that it was a message. He read, “It’s been two months. We have to leave. We’re sorry.” Alex gaped at the message. “We love you,” he whispered.
“Um… is that what it…?” Holly began.
“Yeah, that’s what it says.”
“Do you think it was left for an old Month?” Leah asked.
“Probably,” Dawn commented. “I don’t know if any of you heard the guides say this, but the paradise realms are where many people go missing.”
“So they just… left?” Alex asked softly.
“At least the realms go in a certain order now. Hey, why do you think that is?” Leah wondered.
Holly shrugged. “Shall we go?”
Alex took in the green grass, the blue sky, and the little song of the wind chimes. “Yeah, we better.”
They all held hands, as they always did for this sort of thing, and off they went.
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Winter returned to the lab after going for a walk in an attempt to calm down. What could she do to get those monitors working again? All of a sudden, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the once black monitors showing pictures again. She gasped and ran over to the screens. There they were. The Months were entering the last realm! Quickly, Winter stepped through the portal to the last realm. When she appeared there, she looked around expecting to see the Months making their way in. Nobody was there.
Confused and frustrated, Winter returned to the lab. She went over to the screen to try reseting it but then halted in her tracks. On the screen, she saw Autumn, Spring, Summer, and herself too. She was there. Winter sunk into her seat. Then she closed out of the video and checked its information.
Twelfth Trial, it was labeled. Yes, okay. Trial start: January 1, 2014. That was correct. Trial end: July 10, 2016. Winter couldn’t move. She sat there even as the video timed out and shut down. How could this have happened.
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~ July 9, 2016
After entering the black realm exit, October opened his eyes to find a dim room that looked a little like his dining room. All his friends were sitting at the table. Smiling, October went over to them. He walked up to where his chair usually was, but found Cameron sitting in it. There were extra chairs in the basement, so October brought one upstairs. By now, he knew that he was in his house, yet it had a bizarre, eerie feeling about it. “Um, can someone scooch over please?” October asked, trying to find a nice place to put the chair. When nobody moved, October stuck the chair next to Noah and sat a little too close to him and Naomi.
“Hey May, will you pass me the jello? I like jello.” Noah appeared to not even know that October was sitting next to him. He just smiled as the others talked over October, who felt a pang of panic each time he was ignored. “Guys?” October looked around at them. “Hey. Is this a game? Are you messing with me? Haha, okay. Very funny,” October laughed nervously. “I’ll get the jello myself.”
October had tried to talk to them a few more times, but realized that they would simply not acknowledge his presence. Shaking slightly, he began to feel like he was choking. Nobody would look at him. Nobody would talk to him. It was like he wasn’t even there, and they were happy. His being there meant nothing to them, which meant his not being there wouldn’t mean anything either. He had liked to think that he mattered to them.
After another few minutes of enduring this, October finally snapped. “Look at me!” he screamed. “Look at me, can’t you see me!” Nobody so much as flinched or glanced in his direction. “Why won’t you talk to me!” October sobbed, his breathing quick and uneven as he trembled and cried out in fear. “Please, look at me, please, look…” October trailed off, sitting on the floor and curling up into a ball. “Do you hate me?” he whispered. “I’m sorry.”
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It was completely dark where James had ended up. He noticed the darkness first and then the thick coolness of water. It was pitch black and he was drowning. In a panic, James flailed his arms around, unable to do anything to save himself. He couldn’t even see the surface. He couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t breathe. Though he was encompassed in water, his body felt like it was on fire. This was it. He was dying. His lungs burned. And here he had thought that Hell was made of fire, when in fact, it was dark and filled with water. James screamed, but barely made a sound.
Finally, James started gasping, gulping water and slowly giving up on trying to swim out of this place. He felt lightheaded for a while as he waited for himself to faint. However, James did not faint. He was breathing. It was difficult and a very strange feeling, but he was breathing underwater. Trembling, James sighed and leaned to the side. He jumped when his head found a hard surface. Pressing his hands against the surface, James was distracted enough to not wonder how he would get out of there. Glass? Was this glass? Gingerly, James ran his hand along the glass.
He stared forward into nothingness. Then a small light appeared. As it grew, he began to see a floor, a wall, and a chair. Finally, he was looking at a room. He looked up and saw the top of a tank. Scanning the area, James located a little button on the inside of his tank. He pushed it, seeing nothing else that he could do. Just then, the water began to drain out and he noticed that he could push the glass to make a little door open. As soon as it opened, he stepped out of the tank and looked around the room. He found another black realm exit, but this one was just a small rectangle.
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Frantically, Alex ran all around the house, opening doors wherever he went. He was at the house, but nobody was there. He then ran outside to find that nobody seemed to be outside either. Alex sprinted down the roads, looking for somebody. He knocked on some of the neighbors’ doors, even going into their houses and searching for a person. Somebody. Anybody. Alex searched the whole town as he fought the urge to fall to the ground and sob. Nobody was there. He knew this. He had run around the town and through all the houses for the third time now. Panting, Alex ran back to the house to see if anyone was there now.
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What a horrific thing this realm was. It was actually a collection of realms, similar to the way the paradise realms were set up, but this was not paradise. This was more of a nightmare. Many of the Months entered realms where nobody was there, or people were there but nobody noticed them. Holly’s realm started a little like October’s had, but instead of being ignored, she was harassed. Sometimes details are better left unexplained.
Naomi’s first realm was incredibly cold. There was nothing but snow, and she could not be warmed. She couldn’t find anybody and didn’t see any buildings. Only snow. Leah and Skylar had similar realms. October and Noah entered empty lands of snow too. In order to move from one realm to the next, they discovered, they had to face their fears. Sometimes the way to do so wasn’t as obvious as some of the others. October had to realize that he would not die if he didn’t have attention for a few minutes. He had remembered that he was in a new realm and that the people who were ignoring him were probably copies. Only then did he move on to the next realm.
Cameron and October shared some realms. They each found themselves in a scenario so realistic that they had believed that they would starve to death. This was one of Cameron’s worst phobias. He had screamed and cried until he realized that he could leave that place. October was too shocked to react much to anything. This changed when he entered the realm of heights. This was October’s terrible phobia. He had to jump off of several high places, climb, and walk from high platform to high platform on a thin beam. By the end, he was whimpering and shaking, wiping tears from his face.
One of Ocean’s realms took place in her middle school. Kids kicked and punched her, shoving her around and pulling her hair. They pinned her down and wrote slurs all over her face, laughing with each other. Then Holly appeared out of nowhere, only to say that she had pretended to love Ocean as a joke. After that, Holly left. Ocean forgot for a moment that it wasn’t really Holly. Ocean wailed. There was no greater pain.
At one point, James had found himself in the smallest space he had ever been in. He screamed until the force of his cries began to hurt. This little place he was shoved into was his coffin; he was sure of it. He couldn’t breathe again.
Alex endured many realms of people hating him and being disappointed with him. In several realms, he had somehow made people cry, which made him cry. He had never felt sadness like this.
Dawn found a realm where all the plants in the world had died, the planet stripped of all its forests. It was dull. She felt like somebody had torn out a piece of her heart. She had only been able to leave this place when she focused on examining the dirt and wondering about how her friends were doing.
These realms made of the Months’ fears were not a good place for someone who had seen many horror movies. Skylar faced the most twisted creatures she could imagine. Even though she was afraid, she had been able to fight them, which opened up a realm exit for her.
Noah and Carson’s realms were similar, and they had a few things in common with October’s and Alex’s. They felt as though they needed attention in order to survive, so not receiving it seemed life threatening to them. The didn’t know what to do with themselves. In one of Carson’s realms, a party was going on around him, and he didn’t recognize anyone. It was dark and loud, and he was alone in a crowded room. Noah’s realms sometimes had his dad and brothers picking on him. These were hard to get through.
Piper’s realms were much like Alex’s. She was simply alone. What she feared was that nobody liked her either, but then she remembered her friendship with Dawn and the way the others always offered her a place to fit in. Then she was able to move on.
James found himself in a realm where he saw Alex and Holly making cookies together. They were smiling as they helped each other in the kitchen. “A-Alex?” James whispered.
“Oh, hey,” Alex answered, as if hoping James would go away if he didn’t look at him.
“Hey,” James spoke again. He cautiously made his way over to Alex, hoping to be able to hug him. He froze as Alex leaned over and gave Holly a kiss. “Wh--”
“Don’t you have something else to do?” Alex waved him away.
“Alex, w-what the… what the fuck.”
“Oh, did you think I actually loved you?” Alex laughed. James’s eyes stung, his heart aching.
“You don’t love me?” James whispered.
“Dude, I was just messing with you. No homo.”
Breaking down into tears, James immediately left the room. “Cameron!” he screamed. “Cameron, help!” He turned to find Naomi staring at him. “Where’s Cameron?” James trembled.
“Who?”
“Cameron! Where’s Cameron!” James pleaded.
“I uh… I don’t know who that is. Is he a friend of yours?”
Hours passed before James finally felt numb enough to leave the realm. He didn’t think it could get any worse than what he had just left behind. When James looked up, he felt light headed again. He was standing in his house. Not the house he had lived in with his friends. This was the house he was born in, which he had hoped to never see again. Standing in the middle of the living room, James took it all in. The first thing he looked at was the closet. He shuddered, looking away, but everything brought back painful memories. He hated this. He wanted to be anywhere else. He wanted anything else. Anything but this.
The rattling of chains made James jump, and he spun around. There in front of him was a young woman chained to the wall. Startled, she straightened up to get a better look at him. She seemed familiar, but James couldn’t think of where he had seen her before. Her dark blond hair reached slightly past her shoulders, her wide, green eyes staring at him. “Are you real?” she asked.
“Um… y-yes I think so,” James nodded.
The woman gasped. “You’re in the nightmare realms!” she blurted out. James took a few steps back. “These are your worst nightmares and you can only escape by facing them!” she explained hastily upon hearing a door open. “You will not die! I’ve done this before, trust me,” she added desperately. “You--” she stopped, a panicked noise escaping her mouth. “Elias,” she whispered. “You’re here too.”
James turned to find an older man chained to a spot on the ground that was blocked by the couch. When James saw him, he shrieked as if he were being stabbed. The man jumped, and the woman gawked at him.
“No!” James cried, slapping himself in the face like it might wake him from this nightmare. “No! No! Go away!” he sobbed. “I hate you! Go away!”
“James?” Elias whispered.
“What did I ever do to you!” James screamed at the top of his lungs.
Elias looked over at Lacey, shock and panic smeared across his face. Then it clicked. “James?” Lacey raised her voice. Her head shot up at the sound of footsteps. “James!” she shrieked.
James looked up only to be whacked across the face by the disapproving hand of copy Elias. “I told you to sit there until you finish your work!” Elias shouted, the actual Elias watching in horror as a copy of himself abused his son. James began to cry and yell incoherent things at him, receiving a punch to the face. Then it kept coming. Lacey shrieked for him to stop. James screamed as he tried to push his dad off of him. His dad was bigger and stronger and continued to tear into him. Somehow, James managed to kick him hard enough in the wrong places to escape to reach the front door. Just when he thought he was free, he was yanked back into the house by the collar of his shirt.
“Do you want me to beat you!” this Elias shouted in James’s face. “Is that what you want!”
“I want you to kill me!” James sobbed. “Just kill me, you piece of shit,” he wailed.
Elias lifted his fist and James shrieked, flinching horribly. He stood there like that, pressed against the door, his face contorted in anticipation of another blow. Elias waited a few minutes before backing off. “Go do your work,” he muttered as he walked away.
The actual Elias watched as his copy disappeared. James slumped over onto the floor, curled up into a ball and cried softly. “It’s not over yet,” Lacey revealed, tears streaming down her face. “You have to um…” she looked around. “You have to call the police,” she told him, spotting the phone on the counter.
When James was able to stand, he ran over to the counter and dialed 9-1-1. He cried as he told the police what had happened. Though he had bruises all over his face and marks on his arms from being grabbed so hard, he worried that the police would come, wouldn’t believe him, and leave. Or maybe his dad would get so mad that he would knock out the police officer somehow. After waiting for what seemed like hours, James saw the police car in his driveway. Hurrying outside, James begged for their help. At the time, he hadn’t realized that calling the police was going to be his way out of the realm. Sure enough, his dad--the copy, anyway--was taken away. The police seemed to operate knowing that this was just a nightmare realm, because all they did was take copy Elias away. A realm exit opened.
James walked back into the house in a daze, met with Lacey and Elias still chained to the house. That was his dad on the floor. He never thought he’d see his dad again. He hadn’t wanted to see him again. Automatically, Elias and Lacey were freed from their chains. Sobbing, Lacey ran up to James and gave him a hug. James stiffened and squirmed out of her embrace. He wanted to go home.
“Let’s get him out of here,” Lacey frowned. She let Elias leave first, then guided James through the exit. James was too shocked to protest entering another realm.
The three of them ended up standing in lush grass and looking out at a clear, blue sky. They were free. The other Months were waiting for them. Alex and Cameron jumped up and raced toward James to give him a hug.
“Are you okay?” Alex worried, reaching out to him. James quickly shook his head, backing away quickly. Cameron lifted a hand, wanting to touch James’s shoulder, but James screamed and pulled away. His friends stepped back slightly. Lacey told them to leave him alone for a while, so they did.
James sat by himself, pulling at the grass. He had finally stopped crying. His whole body ached. He felt like he was on a different planet. In a few minutes, Lacey slowly approached him, sitting in front of him but not too close to him. She let James stare at her for a while.
“Are you the first September?” James asked, remembering where he had seen her. She was the apparition at that lake.
“Yes,” she answered quietly.
“Oh. You’re pretty.”
“Thank you,” she smiled, wiping tears from her face.
“What’s your name?”
“Lacey Reid,” she told him. James gazed at her in a daze. “Are you James?” James nodded slightly. “Did you know I’m your mom?”
James’s eyes widened and he gasped. “No,” he whispered.
“Yes,” Lacey nodded with a reassuring smile. She hadn’t been certain of this at first, but when James had screamed at Elias, she knew.
“I just stopped crying,” James chuckled quietly as a few tears slid down his cheeks. He gave her a pained look, his arms outstretched.
“Oh, honey,” Lacey cooed, bringing James into a hug. “It’s okay,” she told him soothingly, rocking him in her arms. “You’re safe now.” How could James not have recognized her? She had just been in his paradise realm. James squeezed her tightly. This was his mom. This time, she was real.
“I love you,” James sobbed into her shirt.
“I love you too,” Lacey whispered to him, kissing his cheek. “My poor son, you’ve been through so much.”
James eventually calmed down, nearly beginning to fall asleep in his mom’s arms. At some point, he actually fell asleep. The others walked over to him, asking questions about what had happened and if he was okay. Alex eyed Elias, whispering to Cameron that he was James’s abusive father. Elias stood awkwardly on the side, watching everyone ask if James was okay.
As night approached, everyone built a fire and gathered food. Lacey told them about her first time through the maze. A sleeping James had his head resting on her lap. “After this realm, we’ll meet the Seasons,” Lacey revealed.
“Really?” Naomi asked. Naomi was doing a lot of the talking, as the others were quietly thinking about their horrible experiences in the nightmare realms.
“Yes, that next realm is the last realm. We should rest before returning though.”
“Are you sure we don’t meet the Seasons right now?”
“Yes I’m sure. Why?”
Naomi pointed as the Seasons, all except Winter, emerged from the black realm exit.