Written: Saturday. May 30, 2020.
At first she thought that she was late for breakfast. Amanda sat up from her bed, her head was throbbing and pulsating, much like how it would always do that whenever she spent an all-nighter last night in order to punch paragraphs on her on-going novel. She’d been trying to write down new stuff for about a year now, and still she couldn’t get past ten chapters on it. She keeps on revising stuff, changing things that happened in the first chapters, thus changing everything else within the following more. She’s probably writing something completely different at this point. Of course, she wouldn’t exactly know, cause she trashes any version that’s been done before. She literally puts to trash anything that’s not the actual story anymore. Maybe that’s the cause of her delays with this novel. There’s nothing there for her to look back on. Just the current story, and how she’ll change things in certain ways to make it a tad bit better.
She pushed one key on her desktop keyboard, and the monitor lit up again, revealing the word document she had been working on last night. “Let’s see here,” Amanda squinted her eyes to see what she had come up with on her all-nighter session. “‘And before anyone could say anything more, everything turned black.’” She uttered to herself, trying to remember what it was that she was able to write. That was the last sentence written on the word document. It made no sense to her, even as she read everything else on the document. Did I write some sort of fan fiction last night? Why are there things about Toby and Tom fighting each other in here? “Like, what is this?”
Amanda kept reading, which did not help at all. It made no sense to her, even if she tried reading through it over and over. She decided to save the file, and close her desktop. She heard the sound of shoes clacking on cement, and when she looked around, she noticed that she had now been walking towards the school gate. She had stopped for a moment, trying to remember her last thought. It’s so far now. It’s probably nothing. I’ve had worse days on some of my other all-nighters. I probably blacked out and skipped breakfast. She looked below her, and noticed she was wearing her school uniform. I even skipped going through my whole morning routine today. What is this, Click? Where’s the remote?
She fumbled through her pockets, and when she felt that there were nothing there, she went through the insides of her backpack. She noticed a metal disc inside, It was the size of a vinyl record. What am I doing with this? Amanda noticed that she was sitting down on a wooden armchair, and her backpack hanged at the back of another armchair. Did I skip again? Someone tapped her shoulder, and when she turned to look, the person had already begun speaking to her.
“What’cha got there, Manda?” the person said, it was one of her classmates. It felt weird that somebody would up and just talk to her like that. Nobody ever came up to even greet her, or bat an eye on her. Amanda was the silent type, but she knew how to handle a crowd of people who tried to mess with her. They rarely got to do that, cause she’d find a way to turn the situation around on them, and they’ve fumble with their words, and end up not saying anything more to her. And they’d leave her alone the rest of the time. But I guess today, someone built up the nerve to talk to me.
She looked at what the person was asking for, and she saw a stack of papers on the armchair. The pages were clipped together by a metal clip. There was something written on the first page. She looked at it and read it aloud. “‘The Omnivault’ Huh, no author.” She flipped through the pages. There were about forty chapters worth of the damned thing. And it was all about her friends. Even some about her, and was surprised to see that there weren’t that many scenes where she was mentioned. “Who the hell wrote this?” she said. Nobody responded to her. She looked up and saw that the person who had tapped on her was no longer there. She looked back down, and the strange printed novel wasn’t there. Only the last page was left behind. She read the last sentence. “‘And before anyone could say anything more, everything turned black.’” Amanda saved the file, and closed her computer. Wait, didn’t I just —
The place was private. The sky was dark. It was night time. Just the perfect spot, and the perfect time, for a make out session. Tom’s hand felt warm. He looked down, and saw that he was holding hands with someone. He looked up, and saw a familiar face. “Wha — how did I — it’s you!” He was surprised when he saw that he was holding hands with none other than Bianca Favre. “What are you doing holding my hand?”
“You grabbed it first, silly.” Bianca tucked herself under his arm. “Tonight’s a bit chilly, don’t you think?”
Tom looked around, he started noticing where they actually were. They were on his balcony, and they were alone. The lights were closed. Only the orange light of the street lamps gave them some semblance of vision between each other. Tom almost didn’t recognize Bianca if it weren’t for those street lights. Even so, it’s as if it wasn’t even he —
“I’ll be honest,” Bianca voice interrupted Tom’s train of thought, “when I received that unknown message the other day, I thought somebody was pranking me. Like, who would have the guts to ask someone about what they were wearing right now, on a text? But I guess it was on me that I actually gave you a reply. Remember what my reply was?”
“Yeah, you said you were wearing nothing.” Tom answered her. “And I honestly fell in love at that moment.”
Bianca let out a chuckle. It was cute, and it hurt Tom a little inside to able to experience such a godly beauty as that. “And then in my head, I was like ‘what am I doing!’ you know? I was really flirting with someone I have no clue who it could be. It felt so spicy and all that.” Bianca let out a sigh. “And now here we are.”
“Yeah,” Tom said. “Here we are. So what do you wanna do. Like, right now?”
“Um,” Bianca put a finger on her lip. “I dunno.” She then slowly put her hand on Tom’s chest. “What do you wanna do. Like, right now?”
“That’s exactly what I asked you, but somehow you made it even sexier.” Tom said to her.
“Wanna make things even sexier? Ask me what I’m wearing under all of these clothes” Bianca asked him.
“I’m guessing that you’re wearing nothing at all.” Tom answered her.
“Yep.” Bianca let out a laugh. “Wanna see?”
“Sure.”
Bianca let go of his hand, and stood in front of him. Her silhouette moved gracefully in the dark. She slowly removed her upper shirt. And when she got all of it off, Tom couldn’t really figure out what he was seeing. Somehow the street lights dimmed out on the exact moment when Bianca was supposedly not wearing anything anymore from the top. Tom switched on the balcony lights. And saw that there was nobody else there with him. He looked around. The balcony wasn’t that big, and if Bianca could’ve accidentally fallen over, there would’ve been a loud noise from below. Tom heard nothing, and saw nothing when he looked down. A voice suddenly spoke from behind him.
“Gotcha!” It was Bianca, who pushed Tom over, sending him straight down. Tom yelled as he was falling.
Mr. Reyes couldn’t understand what had just happened. Him being the most under-experienced in the party, he literally had no clue as to what caused all of his students to suddenly fall asleep in the middle of their pursuit of the Quadmius.
“Ervagh, what the fuck happened here?” He asked the alien piloting the ship he was in. “Why are they all suddenly lying down like this?”
“Man, I can’t always keep up with the Lady’s sudden mind-breaches. She’s been acting stupid since the moment we arrived in this planet. I think I might even be catching the Terran disease myself. Don’t bother trying to wake them up, professor. They’re in for one hell of a twisted dream sequence. See, I’m even using your people’s expressions now!”
Drew saw a bunch of red in front of him. It was the most diabolical thing he’s ever seen. Why on earth would people ever stupidly buy these heart-shaped balloons in order to give to their significant other? It’s so stupid! He tried not reading them, but the words were so big that it was hard to even steer clear of the sight of it anywhere Drew looked. ‘Happy Valentines Day!’, ‘Happy Hearts Day!’, and even ‘I Love You!’ was all he’d been seeing for the past week. Around this time was the worst time for him. Not because he was sad that he didn’t have a date or a girlfriend, but that he despised ever to go through with the possibility of ever even dating anyone. It’s also not like he had a certain somebody that he thought he really liked.
Drew liked girls, but not in the sense that he’d want to ever ask them out on a date. But there was this one girl that he had asked, and he’s been tapping his foot on the floor rapidly and palpitating ever since. Why did you have to ask her like that? I mean, it’s not like I like her or anything. It was just a dare Tom created. For all I know, this is a challenge. A dare of utmost proportions. I can’t fail this, because that’d mean I failed the dare. Us guys have to stick it up. We gotta man up. I gotta, I gotta buy one of those red balloons, just in case June likes those kinds of things. I don’t really know if she’ll like it, but what was one of those things my dad said to me when we had the talk? ‘It’s not really about the gift, son. It’s about the effort.’ Some shit like that. But didn’t she say she doesn’t like those things? But what if that’s exactly what she wants me think? My dad said something like that too. ‘Women don’t really say what they mean, and us guys have to do the opposite of whatever they said. They like it when we do that.’ Some things like that. I dunno. I might be crazy. I might be crazy about June.
Drew looked back to where the balloon seller was, and saw that there was nothing there. In fact, there was nothing behind him, except blank space. What the hell? Drew stepped forward, and his foot caught nothing, and so he fell into the abyss.
Lady Veergha breathed slowly. She was inside of a room that had pictures stuck on one of the walls. It was a lot of pictures of the same thing. The monster in Toby’s dreams, she thought to herself.
“You’re finally back.” a voice said from behind her. Lady Veergha looked to see Toby standing there, his hands on his back. He was looking at the wall of picture. “I had a feeling you’d do another breach. I just didn’t expect you to do all of us in.”
“It was not my fault, Terran.” Lady Veergha answered. “You put quite a spell on me the last time. It was like I was a passenger in my own body. It’s happened once or twice before, but I never thought it’d occur with your kind as well.”
“Yeah, we haven’t really talked about how your kind worked, either. The last time we spoke, we were close to that topic, but then — well, here you are now. That’s all that matters.”
Lady Veergha let out a smile. “Perhaps it is time to explain.”
At first she thought that she was late for breakfast. Amanda sat up from her bed, her head was throbbing and pulsating, much like how it would always do that whenever she spent an all-nighter last night in order to punch paragraphs on her on-going novel. She’d been trying to write down new stuff for about a year now, and still she couldn’t get past ten chapters on it. She keeps on revising stuff, changing things that happened in the first chapters, thus changing everything else within the following more. She’s probably writing something completely different at this point. Of course, she wouldn’t exactly know, cause she trashes any version that’s been done before. She literally puts to trash anything that’s not the actual story anymore. Maybe that’s the cause of her delays with this novel. There’s nothing there for her to look back on. Just the current story, and how she’ll change things in certain ways to make it a tad bit better.
She pushed one key on her desktop keyboard, and the monitor lit up again, revealing the word document she had been working on last night. “Let’s see here,” Amanda squinted her eyes to see what she had come up with on her all-nighter session. “‘And before anyone could say anything more, everything turned black.’” She uttered to herself, trying to remember what it was that she was able to write. That was the last sentence written on the word document. It made no sense to her, even as she read everything else on the document. Did I write some sort of fan fiction last night? Why are there things about Toby and Tom fighting each other in here? “Like, what is this?”
Amanda kept reading, which did not help at all. It made no sense to her, even if she tried reading through it over and over. She decided to save the file, and close her desktop. She heard the sound of shoes clacking on cement, and when she looked around, she noticed that she had now been walking towards the school gate. She had stopped for a moment, trying to remember her last thought. It’s so far now. It’s probably nothing. I’ve had worse days on some of my other all-nighters. I probably blacked out and skipped breakfast. She looked below her, and noticed she was wearing her school uniform. I even skipped going through my whole morning routine today. What is this, Click? Where’s the remote?
She fumbled through her pockets, and when she felt that there were nothing there, she went through the insides of her backpack. She noticed a metal disc inside, It was the size of a vinyl record. What am I doing with this? Amanda noticed that she was sitting down on a wooden armchair, and her backpack hanged at the back of another armchair. Did I skip again? Someone tapped her shoulder, and when she turned to look, the person had already begun speaking to her.
“What’cha got there, Manda?” the person said, it was one of her classmates. It felt weird that somebody would up and just talk to her like that. Nobody ever came up to even greet her, or bat an eye on her. Amanda was the silent type, but she knew how to handle a crowd of people who tried to mess with her. They rarely got to do that, cause she’d find a way to turn the situation around on them, and they’ve fumble with their words, and end up not saying anything more to her. And they’d leave her alone the rest of the time. But I guess today, someone built up the nerve to talk to me.
She looked at what the person was asking for, and she saw a stack of papers on the armchair. The pages were clipped together by a metal clip. There was something written on the first page. She looked at it and read it aloud. “‘The Omnivault’ Huh, no author.” She flipped through the pages. There were about forty chapters worth of the damned thing. And it was all about her friends. Even some about her, and was surprised to see that there weren’t that many scenes where she was mentioned. “Who the hell wrote this?” she said. Nobody responded to her. She looked up and saw that the person who had tapped on her was no longer there. She looked back down, and the strange printed novel wasn’t there. Only the last page was left behind. She read the last sentence. “‘And before anyone could say anything more, everything turned black.’” Amanda saved the file, and closed her computer. Wait, didn’t I just —
* * *
The place was private. The sky was dark. It was night time. Just the perfect spot, and the perfect time, for a make out session. Tom’s hand felt warm. He looked down, and saw that he was holding hands with someone. He looked up, and saw a familiar face. “Wha — how did I — it’s you!” He was surprised when he saw that he was holding hands with none other than Bianca Favre. “What are you doing holding my hand?”
“You grabbed it first, silly.” Bianca tucked herself under his arm. “Tonight’s a bit chilly, don’t you think?”
Tom looked around, he started noticing where they actually were. They were on his balcony, and they were alone. The lights were closed. Only the orange light of the street lamps gave them some semblance of vision between each other. Tom almost didn’t recognize Bianca if it weren’t for those street lights. Even so, it’s as if it wasn’t even he —
“I’ll be honest,” Bianca voice interrupted Tom’s train of thought, “when I received that unknown message the other day, I thought somebody was pranking me. Like, who would have the guts to ask someone about what they were wearing right now, on a text? But I guess it was on me that I actually gave you a reply. Remember what my reply was?”
“Yeah, you said you were wearing nothing.” Tom answered her. “And I honestly fell in love at that moment.”
Bianca let out a chuckle. It was cute, and it hurt Tom a little inside to able to experience such a godly beauty as that. “And then in my head, I was like ‘what am I doing!’ you know? I was really flirting with someone I have no clue who it could be. It felt so spicy and all that.” Bianca let out a sigh. “And now here we are.”
“Yeah,” Tom said. “Here we are. So what do you wanna do. Like, right now?”
“Um,” Bianca put a finger on her lip. “I dunno.” She then slowly put her hand on Tom’s chest. “What do you wanna do. Like, right now?”
“That’s exactly what I asked you, but somehow you made it even sexier.” Tom said to her.
“Wanna make things even sexier? Ask me what I’m wearing under all of these clothes” Bianca asked him.
“I’m guessing that you’re wearing nothing at all.” Tom answered her.
“Yep.” Bianca let out a laugh. “Wanna see?”
“Sure.”
Bianca let go of his hand, and stood in front of him. Her silhouette moved gracefully in the dark. She slowly removed her upper shirt. And when she got all of it off, Tom couldn’t really figure out what he was seeing. Somehow the street lights dimmed out on the exact moment when Bianca was supposedly not wearing anything anymore from the top. Tom switched on the balcony lights. And saw that there was nobody else there with him. He looked around. The balcony wasn’t that big, and if Bianca could’ve accidentally fallen over, there would’ve been a loud noise from below. Tom heard nothing, and saw nothing when he looked down. A voice suddenly spoke from behind him.
“Gotcha!” It was Bianca, who pushed Tom over, sending him straight down. Tom yelled as he was falling.
* * *
Mr. Reyes couldn’t understand what had just happened. Him being the most under-experienced in the party, he literally had no clue as to what caused all of his students to suddenly fall asleep in the middle of their pursuit of the Quadmius.
“Ervagh, what the fuck happened here?” He asked the alien piloting the ship he was in. “Why are they all suddenly lying down like this?”
“Man, I can’t always keep up with the Lady’s sudden mind-breaches. She’s been acting stupid since the moment we arrived in this planet. I think I might even be catching the Terran disease myself. Don’t bother trying to wake them up, professor. They’re in for one hell of a twisted dream sequence. See, I’m even using your people’s expressions now!”
* * *
Drew saw a bunch of red in front of him. It was the most diabolical thing he’s ever seen. Why on earth would people ever stupidly buy these heart-shaped balloons in order to give to their significant other? It’s so stupid! He tried not reading them, but the words were so big that it was hard to even steer clear of the sight of it anywhere Drew looked. ‘Happy Valentines Day!’, ‘Happy Hearts Day!’, and even ‘I Love You!’ was all he’d been seeing for the past week. Around this time was the worst time for him. Not because he was sad that he didn’t have a date or a girlfriend, but that he despised ever to go through with the possibility of ever even dating anyone. It’s also not like he had a certain somebody that he thought he really liked.
Drew liked girls, but not in the sense that he’d want to ever ask them out on a date. But there was this one girl that he had asked, and he’s been tapping his foot on the floor rapidly and palpitating ever since. Why did you have to ask her like that? I mean, it’s not like I like her or anything. It was just a dare Tom created. For all I know, this is a challenge. A dare of utmost proportions. I can’t fail this, because that’d mean I failed the dare. Us guys have to stick it up. We gotta man up. I gotta, I gotta buy one of those red balloons, just in case June likes those kinds of things. I don’t really know if she’ll like it, but what was one of those things my dad said to me when we had the talk? ‘It’s not really about the gift, son. It’s about the effort.’ Some shit like that. But didn’t she say she doesn’t like those things? But what if that’s exactly what she wants me think? My dad said something like that too. ‘Women don’t really say what they mean, and us guys have to do the opposite of whatever they said. They like it when we do that.’ Some things like that. I dunno. I might be crazy. I might be crazy about June.
Drew looked back to where the balloon seller was, and saw that there was nothing there. In fact, there was nothing behind him, except blank space. What the hell? Drew stepped forward, and his foot caught nothing, and so he fell into the abyss.
* * *
Lady Veergha breathed slowly. She was inside of a room that had pictures stuck on one of the walls. It was a lot of pictures of the same thing. The monster in Toby’s dreams, she thought to herself.
“You’re finally back.” a voice said from behind her. Lady Veergha looked to see Toby standing there, his hands on his back. He was looking at the wall of picture. “I had a feeling you’d do another breach. I just didn’t expect you to do all of us in.”
“It was not my fault, Terran.” Lady Veergha answered. “You put quite a spell on me the last time. It was like I was a passenger in my own body. It’s happened once or twice before, but I never thought it’d occur with your kind as well.”
“Yeah, we haven’t really talked about how your kind worked, either. The last time we spoke, we were close to that topic, but then — well, here you are now. That’s all that matters.”
Lady Veergha let out a smile. “Perhaps it is time to explain.”
End of Chapter.
* * *
* * *
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