by Katie Cherry
Dad hesitates, then nods. “I guess there’s nothing we can do to talk you out of it either, is there?”
“…No.”
He sighs. “Then you have our blessing to go. …Thank you for telling us everything.”
<<
Nathan stumbles to the ground, falling onto his back. A stick pokes his chest as a small face appears behind it, looking immensely pleased. “You’re dead!” she shouts triumphantly. “I win!”
“Oh, warrior, you have defeated me with your greatness,” Nathan replies dramatically. “You truly are the best in all the realms. I never should have doubted you.”
She giggles, then jumps up and down. “Let’s go again!”
“But you killed me!” Nathan jokingly replies, putting a hand on his chest and gasping.
She sticks her tongue out at him. “Then I bring you back to life so I can keep beating you!” Nathan smiles and begins picking himself up. As he does so, the back door to the house opens and Dave steps out.
“Daddy!” Kiki cries, tossing the stick aside and running to him. Nathan drops his own with relief.
“Hey there, my little Kiwi!” Dave calls, stooping to pick her up and wrap her in a hug. Nathan cautiously comes toward him as well. “Nathan. Thank you so much,” Dave begins, looking into his eyes with a grave, serious look on his face.
“Oh, it’s nothing,” Nathan quickly replies, waving it away with his hand. “She’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“Not just for playing with Kiki,” he replies as he sets down the squirming girl. They watch her run inside before he continues. “For… well, everything you’re doing for our daughter. …You will keep her safe in this new world you’re going to, won’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Nathan immediately replies. “Her mission may be to find her brother, but mine is to keep her safe, whatever the cost.” He pauses after saying this. He hadn’t realized it, but that truly was the case. It had become his mission to protect his friend Crystal from anything that may come her way. Everything else came second to that.
Dave’s eyes mist over and he smiles gratefully at him. “Thank you. You don’t know how much that means to me.”
“You can count on me,” Nathan replies with a comforting smile.
<<
“Do you really have to go?” Mom says, her eyes watering up once more as she retains a firm hold on my arms.
“Yes,” I reply with a sigh. “I’m sorry we can’t stay longer, but the longer we’re here, the more likely I am to put you- all of you- in danger. And the Dragon Hunters… they’re nothing you want to deal with.” I close my eyes for a moment and my mind shows me an image I hope to never see come to pass. A hooded figure, the hood concealing a sickly green scar, coming up behind my mom, grasping her with gloved hands. The fear in her eyes causes me to shake, and I quickly open my own before the tears can come. I’ll never let that happen. Patrick will never sink his claws into my family- either of them.
Nathan and Dad then follow Kiki back into the kitchen. “I take it you’ll be heading out now?” Dad asks solemnly, taking me in with his eyes.
“I’m afraid so,” I reply, gently pulling away from mom to stand by Nathan. “We have a lot to do, and the sooner we get it all done, the sooner I can come back and we can all be safe together.”
Mom nods with tears in her eyes, but they don’t fall. She’s trying to be strong. For me. Realizing I might start crying as well, we do a final round of hugs and goodbyes before I step out the door and close it behind me for possibly the last time in a long time. I had tried to assure them that it wouldn’t take long, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes years before it’s safe for me to see them again.
Taking a deep breath, I focus on enjoying the cool weather and the fall leaves scattered on the ground. Tiny snowflakes begin to fall and I shiver, pulling my jacket closer. Nathan doesn’t say anything, so we walk in silence back to the portal. I notice him getting tense as we near Justin’s house, so I lead us a different way. He immediately relaxes. I think about questioning him, but I know he probably won’t really appreciate that. So leaving him to his reasons, I continue to trudge forward beside him. When we reach the spot we arrived in, we stop and he pulls up the circumference of his watch. Vlad appears in a faint hologram above it.
“Nathan, there you are. Are you ready for the portal?”
“Yep,” Nathan replies, glancing over to me to confirm. I give a shaky nod in response. Don’t think about how you’re leaving the only world you ever knew for most of your life and that you may never come back. Just think about the family you’re working to repair… I need to save Rex before this same thing happens to him. Whatever family adopted him on whatever realm, they need to be protected as well. The Dragon Hunters… they would use them as leverage against him. I have to find him first.
“Alright, it’ll just be a few minutes for it to stabilize,” Vlad instructs before closing his watch, ending the call. Nathan does the same, then turns back to me.
“Are you okay?” I stare at him blankly, not understanding what he’s referring to. Chuckling, he clarifies, “I mean, saying goodbye isn’t easy, especially when you don’t know when you’ll be back. Particularly because of the portals being less stable…” He stops, but I already know what he was going to say. With the portals being less stable, we may be cut off from Second Earth forever if this war doesn’t end soon enough.
Gulping back sudden tears at the thought of not being able to see Kiki grow up and missing most or even all of her life, I nod and duck my head. Swallowing a few times to ease the tightness in my throat from holding back tears, I say, “Yeah. It’s not easy. But we’ll find Rex before the Dragon Hunters do because of this… we can save a lot of lives,” I gulp hopefully.
I peek up at him to see his kind, understanding smile. “Of course. I believe you can do anything you set your mind to,” he adds, a proud look on his face. Blushing, I duck my head again. A few more moments pass and Nathan declares that it’s time to go. Taking my hand, he leads me forward and into the portal. As I’m surrounded by the bright whiteness of the portal, I look only to Nathan, grateful for his comforting presence. He keeps a reassuring grip on my hand the whole trip, only letting go when we both reach Zilferia safely.
Turning, we find everyone waiting for us near where we left them. They give us sad smiles. “How did it go?” Pearl asks me, coming up and taking my hands in her soft, delicate ones.
I sigh wearily. “It was alright. They took it really well.”
“That’s great,” Alexander says as he comes up beside his wife. “Hopefully it will go that smoothly with Nathan’s family as well.”
Nathan nods, his mouth set in a firm line. “One way to find out. Vlad? I’m ready.”
He nods and waves a hand before the portal behind us. It shimmers before disappearing once more. “Let me know when you’re ready to return,” Vlad instructs. “And good luck.”
“Thank you,” Nathan murmurs before turning back to the invisible portal. “Ready?” he asks me.
I nod and step up beside him. “Ready when you are,” I reply. He takes a deep breath, then walks forward and disappears. I step in right behind him. I feel like I’ve gone blind. It takes a few moments before I notice that the black around me isn’t darkness, but another color of portal. It seems to have sparkles seeded throughout that dance around us. As we get closer, the scream of metal grinding on metal grates in my ears. Wincing, I clap my hands over my ears. I feel a comforting warmth on my back soon after that and I realize that Nathan’s trying to comfort me. The steadying hand helps to take my mind off of the noise, and soon it ends, leaving my mind ringing. My eyes are still closed, but the smell of polluted air tells me that we’ve arrived. I brace myself for this whole new world, my hands now on my knees.
Thank heavens Nathan is here with me. I won’t be alone, even if I do feel lost.
CHAPTER TWO
Beryl’s Story
Nathan waits patiently for C
rystal to open her eyes, keeping his hand on her back as she recovers from the trip. Finally, she straightens and gazes around. She squints at first, but before long she begins tearing up and has to close her eyes. “Ugh,” she groans. “It’s so bright here. How can you stand it?”
Nathan frowns in confusion. “What do you mean?”
She peeks up at him, tears still dripping down her face. “What, the light reflecting off of pretty much everything doesn’t bother you?”
“No. …Oh, that’s right. Sorry, it slipped my mind. Because of all that, everyone on First Earth gets eye surgery to advance our eyes’ capabilities of adjusting to brighter lighting when they’re born.” Crystal stares at him.
“That’s so… strange,” she murmurs, still squinting and wiping at her eyes with her sleeves.
Nathan chuckles at her reaction. “More strange than being part dragon?”
“Oh! That reminds me, maybe my dragon eyes will help!” she gasps before her eyes roll back and are replaced with the gold reptilian eyes. It never ceased to fascinate him watching her do that. She looks around, relief in her voice as she says, “Ohhhh that’s so much better.”
“That’s good,” he replies with a smile. “But unfortunately you can’t really go around with your dragon eyes out. We’ll get you some sunglasses. We still have those despite our eye advancements, because it bothers some people how long it can take to adjust to darker places.”
“Makes sense,” Crystal smiles. “Lead the way!”
“Alright,” he chuckles, stepping onto a moving sidewalk. Crystal gapes at the sight for a moment before jumping on behind him.
“You weren’t kidding that people don’t really have to move much here,” she murmurs in awe as she looks around, taking in the large people sitting on motorized unicycles. Her eyes, partially hidden behind sunglasses, widen as she witnesses someone getting off of one. He hits a button above the wheel, and it shrinks until it’s just a silver disk about two inches in diameter, which he then tucks in his pocket. He walks into a building just as a young lady steps out, seeming to talk to herself before pulling out a different small circle. She presses it and disappears. “Oh… my…”
“That was a teleporter,” Nathan explains with a gentle smile. “Just wait until we get you a Bottomless Backpack.”
“You’re kidding me!” she gasps, spinning back to face him.
“Well, it’s not actually bottomless,” he admits with a chuckle. “It’s just called that for marketing. But it seriously fits more than it seems like it should be able to.”
“That’s amazing… all of this is amazing!” she gushes as she squints into the air, trying to examine the cars flying above their heads, nearly silent in their passing. “How do they not crash into each other?” she asks, referencing the speed at which they were moving, yet none of them colliding. “There aren’t any lights or roads or anything.”
“Oh, that’s simple. The cars can sense each other. Honestly, most people don’t drive anymore either. The cars can do it themselves. You just pick a place on the map, and it reads the area around it, communicates with the cars around, and they all work together. There hasn’t been an accident in years.”
“That’s… unreal,” she whispers, still looking around with wide eyes. He hated to dampen her curiosity, but her stares were starting to attract some from those around them.
“Hey… just so you know, I’d try to be a little more casual about everything,” he mutters under his breath to her. “People are starting to stare. It’s getting pretty obvious you’re not used to this technology, which they find odd.”
“Oh, of course!” she gasps, scrambling to recover. “Sorry. It’s all just so… mind-blowing!”
“You’ll get used to it,” he replies, his mouth twitching against the urge to smile. She simply nods in response, looking around but trying not to stare or have too much of a reaction to anything. He continues to watch her as she does so, finding it charming how excited she is. Too bad we can’t stay here longer, he sighs. They were almost to his house… and there, he would have to figure out how to say goodbye to his family in a way that would make sense to them.
Now it was his turn to say goodbye to everything and everyone he knew.
<<
We soon reach Nathan’s house, which is just as futuristic looking as nearly everything else that I’ve seen so far. I shake my head in disbelief that he doesn’t think anything of it and acts like it’s normal that cars drive themselves through the sky, they all have surgically engineered eyes, and you can freaking teleport places. How was any of this supposed to be normal?
Nathan glances over at me and smiles as we step off of the moving sidewalk and up to his door. “Watch this,” he says before placing his palm on the door, which has no handle. A small beep sounds, and it unlatches, swinging open a little.
“What?…”
“We program our doors to only open for those who live inside. There also hasn’t been any break-ins since they perfected it.”
“That’s insane. So First Earth doesn’t have any crime?”
“Well, no small crimes. Violent ones still happen, but Dad’s working on a robot that can basically tell if someone has ill intent and to subdue them before they can do anything.”
“Your Dad is creating that?” I gasp. No wonder Nathan’s so intelligent.
“Well, he’s part of a team that’s working on it, but essentially, yes,” he smiles. “He only recently got hired on. He used to just work on upgrades for the cars and such.”
“That’s amazing,” I say for what feels like the hundredth time that day as I follow Nathan into the house. My eyes are instantly captivated by a giant mural on the main wall of the room. “Is that your family?” I ask, walking forward. His Dad was huge and looked like he definitely exercised regularly. His mom looked sweet, as did the little blonde girl wrapped in a hug from her big brother.
“Yeah,” he replies, stepping up beside me. I start to turn to him, but notice the wall change in the corner of my eye. Gasping, I spin back to it. It had changed to a weather forecast.
“What?…”
Nathan chuckles. “Yeah, this wall is pretty handy. It can do anything we need it to, really.” Reaching a finger out to it, he pokes it. As he does, it stirs and becomes translucent. We can see what’s going on outside.
“Whoa.”
“Yep, and they can’t see us, it’s a one-way thing,” Nathan smiles. “Show me a time-lapse of my life,” he instructs it. As soon as he finishes, a cute little baby boy appears in the middle. Everything around him flashes by through different circumstances, but Nathan remains in the middle. Laughing, crying, smiling, making messes. I smile. He’s adorable. Before it finishes, I hear a faint voice call from elsewhere in the house.
“Nathan?”
“Grandma!” he replies, waving his hand before the wall, which reverts back to the mural of his family. “It’s me, I’m home!”
“Nathan, you were gone for so long this time,” the voice begins as it grows clearer, the speaker drawing closer to us. “I thought Vlad usually paused the time while you were gone?” A mess of curly grey hair crests the stairs as they pull her up a level, like an escalator. “Oh! You brought a guest!” She smiles kindly at me and steps off of the now stilled stairway. “Crystal, you look just like Nathan described! I’m so glad to finally meet you,” she gushes, pulling me into her soft, thin arms.
“Oh… you too,” I manage, awkwardly returning the hug.
“I’m Beryl, Nathan’s grandma,” she greets me, still with a wide smile. She then finally returns her attention to Nathan. “I sense that something is afoot. What’s wrong, dear?”
Nathan smiles, clearly set at ease in Beryl’s presence. “Well, it’s kind of a long story.”
“Oh, another adventure! Wonderful! I’ll make snacks,” she cheers, leading us into the kitchen. Nathan quickly gives her a breakdown of what happened since he left to face Bryce and Zarafa in order to get through the portal,
skipping or only briefly mentioning the hardships. He hesitates when he gets to the part about losing Greg, but is able to force himself to tell her what happened. My heart aches for him, but I’m also proud that he’s able to do so.
“So now we’re heading to Quagon,” he finishes, taking a deep breath.
“I had a feeling you were gone for a while this time because of something being off with the realms,” Beryl sighs, placing full plates before us on the table. “I had wished that wasn’t the case, however… Now there’s no knowing when we’ll see you again. Although I suppose it helps with the fact that you would be aging while the rest of us remained frozen.”
“That’s true,” Nathan murmurs. “But still… how am I supposed to tell mom and Dad? And Anna… how is she supposed to understand this?”
“You’d be surprised what children can handle,” Beryl assures him. “As for your parents, I’ll let them know. They’re both working late tonight, and I know you need to get on your way.”
Nathan frowns, a deep sadness in his eyes. “I was hoping to see Anna one more time before I go, though.” With a long sigh, he continues, “But that’s probably for the best. The longer I’m here, the more I endanger all of you.”
<<
Hunter opens his eyes, relaxing the tension that had been building as he had scrunched his face together in concentration. The Abonsam materializes before him, chittering like the monkey it so resembled. “You may go,” Hunter says, waving a hand at it. He hated the Abonsam, but they were necessary. “I will call on you when I have need of you again.” It doesn’t reply, but vanishes just the same.