Our parents had been totally freaked out. It’s possible I wasn’t exactly sensitive to their situation when I first woke up. I was still on an adrenaline high from finding out I was a freaking superhero. But after satisfying themselves that we were okay and crying a little with relief, they all went to the waiting room to fill out more paperwork and wait for the results of whatever tests the doctors had ordered.
We were supposed to get some rest, but I was so far from wanting to sleep it wasn’t even funny. The others seemed to share my feelings. We’d just come back from our first trip to Midrealm. But while we’d been awake and running for our lives there, our bodies had been sleeping here. Or at least that’s what I was trying to explain to the others.
“I don’t get it, dude,” Miles said, shaking his head at me like I was crazy. I didn’t mind. I’d gotten used to that really early on in life. And this was further out of Miles’ territory than anyone else. Everything I knew about him told me he was a typical jock: worried about athletics first, his girlfriend second, college third and (paradoxically) his grades fourth. He’d probably never seen a fantasy movie, let alone read a book. So he was definitely, unquestionably out of his element right now.
“No, listen, it’s obvious,” I said, about to explain again.
“Oh, so obvious,” said Raven, rolling her brown eyes. It was kind of strange to see her totally cleaned up. I assumed the nurses had to remove the purple contact lenses that she normally wore - along with the pounds of goth makeup she applied on a daily basis. Don’t get me wrong, Raven was pretty cool-looking. It was just hard to take her “goth-ness” seriously when she looked totally normal. The only hint of her style was the streak of pink in her hair and her nose ring. I’d heard she had pierced it herself.
“Look, we were awake over there,” I said, for what felt like the ten billionth time. “And we were asleep here. Or at least, our bodies were asleep. So we’re rested.”
“Don’t our minds need time to rest, too?” asked Sarah.
I looked over at her in her hospital bed. “Well, you tell me, cuz. Do you need to rest? Me, I feel fine.”
Sarah nodded slowly. Not agreeing, just acknowledging that she heard.
“Who cares?” asked Blade.
I was looked at him like he was an idiot, totally forgetting how many times he’d given me a swirly in the school toilets as I spoke my next words: “Who cares? Are you mental? How can you possibly say that in this situation? We’re freaking wizards, man.”
“Greystone’s a wizard,” argued Sarah. “We’re…something else.”
“You weren’t listening,” I said haughtily. “He’s a wizard. But we are the most powerful wizards in the world.”
“Not this world,” said a very quiet voice, so quiet I almost missed it. Tess sat nearby on her hospital bed, mild and meek, with her hair covering one eye as if to partially hide herself from the world.
But then, I had seen her at the line of pillars when we had summoned the barrier. Sarah had helped her awaken her power, something buried deep within her. It was almost beyond her control, but not quite — and it was extremely powerful. I already knew from the symbol on the pillar that had chosen Tess that she’d been given the powers of the mind. I was already beginning to suspect she might be stronger then any of us.
Not that that would be the case at first, of course. No doubt about it, I was the most equipped to deal with this situation; I figured I’d be top dog in the group for quite a while.
Tess’ comment pretty much shut everybody up. It was a sobering reminder that we were back on Earth where we were just six ordinary kids, and we had no idea when we’d be going back to Midrealm.
That was the next topic of conversation.
“When do you think Greystone will call us back?” Sarah asked. She was looking at me like I should know. I mean, I was the closest thing we had to an expert in our current situation, but every story has rules, and I hadn’t had time to learn them yet. Greystone had made us all go beddy-bye before I could learn much.
So I shrugged. “I have no idea.”
“What a surprise,” muttered Raven.
“I mean, we don’t even know if he does call us back,” I said, ignoring her. “Maybe we only go back when we’re needed. Like, when the Free Kingdoms are in danger.”
“What are the Free Kingdoms, anyway?” asked Miles. “He mentioned them, but he didn’t say much. How many are there? How many people are we talking?”
“Dude, I don’t. Know,” I said. There was something gratifying about being the guy who got asked all the questions, but at the same time it was frustrating when they expected me to know everything and got angry when I didn’t.
“Isn’t this in one of your dweeb books or something?” asked Blade.
“Innit in wun uv yer dweeb books or somthing?” I said, mocking him.
That might have been a mistake. Blade’s face turned into a scowl, and he cracked his knuckles.
“Only kidding,” I said, holding up my hands defensively. “Dude, this is real life. I have no frame of reference here. I mean, wizards I understand. Magic, swords, armor, all that. But I know as much about the details as you do. Don’t worry: if I learn anything, you guys will be the first to know.”
“Well, if we’re all sitting here talking about stuff we don’t even understand,” Blade said. He pushed himself from his bed, yanking the electrodes from his skin.
BREET, BREET, BREET
His monitor started going nuts. He made it halfway to the door before a gigantic troll of a nurse burst in, her clipboard under her arm.
“Mister Frederickson, I need you to lay back down in that bed!” she snapped at him.
“I’m checking myself out,” Blade said, ignoring her and walking by.
“What?” I shouted. “Dude!”
The nurse tried to block him with her impressive size, but Blade wasn’t some anorexic cheerleader. His shoulder bumped her out of the way surprisingly hard, and she grunted like a hippo doing a belly flop from the high-dive.
“You can’t leave here without the signature of your paren — ” she began.
Blade stopped with his hand on the doorknob. “I’m eighteen,” he said, cutting her off. He pulled out his wallet. “Here’s my ID.”
Nurse Hippo’s mouth dropped, sending her chins (all of them) swinging back and forth. She closed her mouth with a little snapping noise and glared. “The doctor hasn’t — ”
“I’m checking out,” Blade said again, and started to walk out.
“Dude! Seriously?” I said, stopping him again. I looked uneasily at the nurse. I didn’t want to say anything in front of her that would get me moved to the psych ward. “We need to…talk…and make plans…for stuff.”
Blade smirked. “You do that. Can’t wait to hear about your plans and stuff.”
And then he was out the door. Nurse Hippo chased him out, still babbling about the paperwork. The last thing I heard her ask was “Who’s going to pay for this visit?” I smiled. Somehow I thought Blade would get out of here without paying a dime.
“It’s probably better in the long run for him to be out getting some fresh air,” said Sarah quietly as his footsteps faded away. “I think being here when we woke up was a little uncomfortable for him.”
“Why?” I asked, confused.
Sarah looked at me sadly. “His parents weren’t here. He was alone.”
For some reason, that kinda got to me. I mean, me and my parents have our problems. I’m always like, Why don’t you let me have my freedom? and they’re all, Why do you keep blowing up literally everything? But I still love them, and I know they feel the same way. And I’m their only kid. I knew Blade was an only child, too, but apparently that wasn’t enough to get his parents to come to the hospital, even when he went into a coma.
I guess that’s why we all unofficially chose Sarah as the leader. She’s the kind of girl who notices things like that.
“Hey,” said Raven, breaking the silence. “What do you th
ink’s going to happen? When we do go back, I mean.”
I stared at her, confused. “Um…we’ll be wizards again, obviously.”
She shook her head. “No, I mean here,” she said. “Are we…will we go back into comas?”
I hadn’t thought of that. “I mean, I guess. If it happened the first time, it would make sense. Right?”
That sunk the mood in the room straight down to the floor. I saw Miles’, Sarah’s and Raven’s faces fall all at once. Tess’ expression didn’t seem to change, but she brushed her hair off her left eye and over her right instead.
“Oh jeez, that’s terrible,” said Sarah. “My parents are going to be worried sick.”
I stared at her, confused. “Sarah, they probably won’t even notice most of the time.”
“They will notice,” she said.
“Well, no biggie,” I said. “If they try to wake you up and they can’t, just say you’ve got some new kind of sleeping disorder. That’s what the doctors are guessing anyway.”
Raven slowly nodded. “He’s right. That’s going to have to be our cover if…well, I guess when we go back.”
“Great,” said Miles, irritated. “So we’ve all got sleeping disorders. All six of us. At once. Fantastic. Everyone’ll buy that.”
“The evidence will speak for itself,” I said with a shrug. “Even if it sounds fishy now, they’ll have to believe it if it keeps happening.”
“Hopefully it doesn’t happen often enough that it becomes a problem,” said Sarah.
I shrugged again. As far as I was concerned, it was a non-issue. Not the least because it wasn’t like we could do anything about it.
“Calvin,” said Miles, more reserved then before, like he didn’t want to know the answer to what he was about to ask.
“Um, yeah?” I said.
“What…what happens to us if we die in Midrealm?”
I blinked. Something else that hadn’t crossed my mind. “I don’t know.”
“Who else would know?” asked Raven. “You’re the geek.”
“I mean, I think we probably die here, too, right?” Miles asked.
I was stunned. If that were the case, it would really suck.
Sarah started to say something else, but just then the door to our room opened and she stopped talking. We all fell silent as a doctor walked in, followed by our parents. My mom and dad came over to my bed.
“Hey, sweetie,” said my mom. “So the doctor said that everything seems fine, and you all look healthy. We can go home if you want.”
“Great!” I said eagerly. I wanted to get back to my room. I had a sketchbook and a journal, and I wanted to start writing down everything I’d seen in Midrealm. Drawing and writing have always helped me clarify my thoughts, and I had a ton of thoughts floating around that desperately needed clarification. I wanted to be totally ready the next time I went back.
“You’re sure you’re feeling all right?” my dad asked. I could see in his eyes how concerned he was. It probably should have made me feel a little bad, but I was too excited.
“Totally,” I said with a smile. “Never better. But we don’t have to go to school today, right?”
My mom smirked. “No, you don’t. But no video games today, either. You need to rest.”
“Oh, sure, no problem,” I said.
That made both their eyes narrow. “Calvin, are you sure you’re feeling all right?” my dad asked, now twice as concerned as before.
“Dad, I’m fine,” I insisted. “I just have a lot of stuff I want to draw and write down. Video games are the last thing on my mind.”
My mom placed her hand on my forehead and turned to the doctor. “Doctor, could you take his temperature one more time?”
Eventually I managed to convince them that yes, I really was fine. I said good-bye to the others, saying I’d see them at school the next day. Then we finally got in our car and went home. The whole way home I stared out the window, my mind full of magic, Shadows and wizards.
We pulled into the driveway, and I jumped out of the car before my dad even put it in park. I ran straight up to my room and pulled out my sketchpad. I knew the first thing I wanted to draw: the circle where we’d first woken up in Midrealm. I grabbed a pencil, and soon lines were flying across the page. I drew out the circle, how I imagined it looked from above, with six smaller circles where each pillar stood. Then I started with the element symbols, putting one in each circle. Most of them were easy: earth, air, lightning, water, fire. Then I came to Tess’ symbol. The human head in profile, with concentric circles around it.
That made me pause. What was Tess’ power, exactly? I knew it was mind, but was that telepathy? Telekinesis? Both? Was she Jean Grey, or Professor X?
I tapped the space bar on my keyboard to kill my screensaver. I pulled up Google. A search for “mind powers” took me to a site dedicated to every kind of superpower imaginable.
“Sweet,” I whispered.
Their list was incredibly comprehensive. Everything from telekinesis to mind-teleportation. I even saw gravity manipulation. If anything, the list was TOO big. I couldn’t imagine she had every power in the list. She’d basically be God.
“Ah well,” I shrugged. I finished off the sketch of the circle and turned the page.
Next I started sketching the shadows. I hadn’t gotten a good look at them. We’d been running from them during the battle, and my eyes had mostly been on Cara’s back the whole time, trying not to get left behind. When they had popped through on the other side of the portal, I’d been too disoriented to see them. So I just sketched what I remembered. Their armor was black and twisted, and underneath it they were almost formless, a mass of twisting smoke and Shadow. I remembered that they had glowing eyes, mouths filled with sharp teeth. My page filled with sketches of three of the creatures, and when I ran out of details I stopped.
The man on the hill.
Even in the warmth of my room, I shivered. The man on the hill was huge. Mean-looking. His good looks were overshadowed by cruelty.
He’d been in charge of the Shadows. That was obvious. But why? He was human, or at least he looked human. It would make sense that there would be humans who’d ally themselves with Chaos. But why would one of them be placed in charge?
I looked down to see that while I’d been thinking, I’d been drawing as well. The man was already formed on the page. The drawing looked a little bit more comic-booky than he’d looked in real life, but the bulging muscles were only half fantasy. The guy had been big.
I shivered again. Maybe that was enough drawing for today. I folded the sketchpad closed and put it back in my desk drawer. I had a brief thought that I should hide it. But why? Even if someone saw my drawings, what I’d just drawn was tame compared to the superheroes, androids and spaceships that filled the rest of its pages. They’d just assume they were sketches based off another story I was reading.
They’d never guess it was a story I was living.
I sighed, and the sigh turned into a yawn. I checked my watch. It was already two o’clock in the afternoon. I’d been drawing and thinking for almost four hours. And despite the early hour, I was already getting a little tired. Maybe trans-dimensional travel was taking a toll on me.
Maybe I’d take a nap. Then I could try to get some more drawing in before dinner.
I shucked off my clothes down to my underwear and climbed into bed, another yawn escaping before I settled down. Despite my weariness, I stared at the ceiling for a while, my mind racing. Where would I find myself the next time I went to Midrealm? How long would it take me to learn how to harness my powers? Would we always go back together, or would some of us ever go alone? Would I end up there without the others?
Most importantly, when would I go back?
CALVIN
I WOKE UP WITH A start, rolling off my bed and onto the hard stone floor.
“Whrrgarbl?” I mumbled, thrashing and trying to free myself from the sheets.
Strong hands gripped me through
the bedsheets, trying to hold me still and help me right myself. “Hold still, Lord Calvin!” came a familiar voice.
No way. I fell completely still. The hands pulled the bedsheets off of me. Once I was free, I stood up.
Cara stood there. Behind her were two other Runegard. One I recognized: his name was Barius. The other’s name I forgot. Warren? Daryl?
“Are you well, Lord Calvin?” asked Cara.
My eyes went wide and a small smile started to spread across my lips. “I’m back.”
Cara nodded. “Yes, my Lord. You’re the first one.” She turned to the third Runegard. “Darren, go and tell Greystone at once: they are beginning to awaken.”
Darren, that’s it, I thought. He nodded and ran out the door into the hall.
My mind was racing. I was back already. I remembered laying down in my bed, planning to take a nap. The next thing I knew, I was here. Had they called me back already? Or…
I snapped my gaze to Cara. I didn’t want to jinx it, in case I was wrong. “Why am I back already?”
Cara looked back at me uneasily. “I think Greystone would answer your questions better,” she said, hedging.
“No, just…Cara, be straight with me here,” I said, hearing my voice shake. “Do I come back to Midrealm every time I go to sleep?”
Cara’s eyes darted back and forth, clearly not wanting to answer.
“Cara…just tell me,” I said. “I don’t know if I can command you to or not, but I don’t want to. I’m asking you.”
Cara sighed. “Yes. When you sleep on True Earth, you come here. When you sleep in Midrealm, you return to your body on True Earth. I…am sorry, Sir Calvin.”
There was a moment of silence as I processed the information.
“WAAAHOOO!” I roared, pumping my fist in the air. Ecstatic laughter ripped from my throat, echoing off the hard stone of the room. I threw myself back on the bed, kicking at the mattress frantically.
“This is the best thing ever!” I screamed.
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