Armadron: The Otherworld Series: Book 1

by Corey Tate

  “Oh, now who’s the jerk?” he asked.

  “You still are,” Molly joked, pushing him in the shoulder. “And being gullible isn’t a bad thing. It means you trust people.”

  Scott was looking at her. Suddenly he blurted, “You wanna sit down near me?”

  One side of Molly’s lips raised in a little smile.

  “I mean, sit down on the grass. Where I’m sitting. On the grass,” Scott corrected.

  Molly’s smile kept growing, and she covered her face with her hand, stifling giggles.

  “I mean . . .” Scott stopped himself and made an exasperated sigh. “Molly, please sit down. It feels weird talking to you like you’re the overlord of the sidewalk with you standing up there and me sitting down here.”

  “Sure.” Molly dropped her books and sat down next to him. She picked at a piece of grass. “I think you have a future as a stand-up comedian.”

  “I think you have a future in modeling,” Scott said before he could filter the thought.

  Molly stared at him, and his face instantly turned the color of a tomato. So did hers.

  Crap, Scott gulped. Totally creepy. That was a totally creepy thing to say. Why do I even—

  She smiled and leaned in toward him almost imperceptibly. Almost.

  “What else do you see in my future?”

  Scott knew a lifeline when he was being thrown one. He thought back to the silent promise that he had made himself earlier in the year: I’m gonna get Molly Clenton to go out with me.

  “Scott?”

  He mentally slapped himself. He had been zoning out again. He cleared his throat. “What do I see in your future?”

  Molly nodded.

  “Your future is . . .”

  Out of nowhere, his throat seemed to turn to dust and his lips to stone. He couldn’t get it out.

  She just kept looking at him with those bright hazel eyes.

  “With me?” he lamely finished.

  That last little bit had come out as a high-pitched question.

  “BWAHAHAHA!”

  Scott and Molly swiveled toward the burst of laughter. There was Charlie laughing hysterically and rolling around in the grass. Apparently, he’d laughed himself right out from behind the planter from where he’d been spying on them.

  Molly looked over her shoulder at Charlie, who picked himself up and sauntered off, embarrassed for both himself and Scott. Probably more for Scott, though.

  Molly turned back around and stared at Scott for a couple seconds. He held her gaze, terrified and completely red in the face.

  She broke the silence. “You really think you’re something, huh, Scott?”

  Get me out of here! I’m such an idiot, he thought, then stammered, “M–m–m–maybe?”

  “Yeah . . . well . . . keep trying.” Molly grinned mischievously and patted his knee.

  She didn’t take her hand off his knee.

  Scott looked down and instantly blushed. Molly started to slide her hand away, but Scott reached down and held it, with his own hand shaking a little. This was the girl he’d been chasing since the fourth grade. Today was the day he was going to kiss her. He could feel it.

  Her gaze flickered up to Scott questioningly. There was no backing out now. He nervously leaned in, put one hand on the sidewalk, and . . .

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  Scott quickly realized that his eyes were closed. He opened them as he leaned back and fumbled over his words.

  “Were you trying to kiss me?” Molly asked quietly.

  “Yuh—no. No. Definitely no.” Scott was really confused and was practically shaking out of his skin in embarrassment.

  “What the what . . . ?!” Scott heard Charlie whisper loudly. He was behind the planter again.

  “Oh. Good.” Molly smiled.

  Scott was mortified. He felt like he wanted to cry. His dreams had been utterly shattered in one fell swoop. An unpleasant chill ran through his body, rattling his bones to their core.

  “Because I wanted to kiss you. It’s always the guy that does it, but women can initiate too, ya know?” Molly smiled again.

  She leaned forward to kiss him, and he held his breath, inching his face toward hers.

  Suddenly they heard the rumble of an engine, the squeal of brakes, and the hiss of hydraulics as the late bus pulled into the parking lot.

  Scott and Molly both jumped up and grabbed their bags.

  Scott noticed that on the edge of the sidewalk near the road where his hand had been, the ground was warped and mutilated. It looked like a hot lump of iron ore had sunk into the cement.

  He quickly looked around, but it didn’t seem like anyone else had seen it.

  He looked at his hand, but nothing seemed wrong with it. He went to go pull out his phone and check his eyes, but Charlie jogged up in front of him and turned around, walking backward. Charlie gave a big grin and a wink and then turned back around.

  On the bus, Scott took a seat next to Charlie, and Molly sat with a few of her friends in the back. The bus rumbled out of the school lot. Charlie turned to push Scott’s buttons a bit more, but Scott was sound asleep. He’d fallen asleep almost as soon as his body hit the seat.

  The next thing Scott knew, he was jerking awake to discover himself almost falling into the bus aisle. The bus had stopped, and Molly was standing up and getting her bags.

  “Later,” she said. She smiled at him and waved from only a foot or two away.

  He still felt unnaturally sleepy. The best he could muster was a nod.

  Molly got off the bus and turned around. She waved good-bye to Scott from the sidewalk. He waved back sluggishly.

  * * *

  Shortly after, Charlie got off the bus and Scott was left alone with his dreams. The only other person on the bus was the bus driver now.

  “I don’t mind if you stay on this bus, kid, but don’t you have a life to get to?” the driver joked.

  Hearing the voice, Scott struggled to pull his brain out of the fog. The bus was stopped, engine idling, in front of his driveway. Scott picked up his bags and mumbled a half-intelligible apology to the bus driver. The driver pulled the lever to hold the door open, smiling and shaking his head as Scott climbed out of the bus and headed up the driveway.

  Halfway up, Scott groaned. He’d hadn’t even asked for Molly’s number.

  He finished walking up the driveway and opened the front door to find Jared in the kitchen doing math homework.

  “Hey man, how was your day?” It took effort, but Scott managed to ruffle Jared’s hair and pulled his ear like he always did.

  “Good!” Jared said excitedly. “How was soccer?”

  Christine opened the front door just as her oldest son was about to respond.

  “Hi, boys,” she greeted as she stepped in the house.

  “Hi, Mom,” they said in near unison.

  She walked over to the kitchen table and deposited her coffee cup and her work folder. She sat down with a heavy sigh and looked at Jared and Scott.

  “So how was your day?”

  Jared spoke first. “Mine was great! I got three touchdowns playing football at lunch!”

  “You have asthma,” Scott reminded him.

  Jared glared at Scott. “Oh yeah. I forgot for a second. Thanks for telling me.”

  “I bet you didn’t get three touchdowns. I bet you got two at the most.”

  “I really did get three!” Jared yelled, rising out of his seat and leaning forward on the table. “Seriously! It was awesome!”

  “That’s great, Jared.” Christine smiled and patted his hand. “You should be proud of yourself.”

  But he wasn’t anymore. He shot both of them a look of contempt and slunk back into his seat with his arms crossed.

  “Stupid,” Jared muttered. “Everyone treats me like I’m a child.”

  Christine turned to Scott. “How about you? Anything interesting happen at school today?”

  Scott looked at Jared and frowned.


  “I got a good grade on a math test, and I think I did really good at soccer tryouts,” Scott replied, knowing that she would be satisfied by this and leave him alone.

  Suddenly the pain started up again in Scott’s head. He tried not to panic—outwardly.

  “That’s great!” Christine said distractedly. She looked at her watch, then stood to leave, the kitchen chair scraping loudly on the tile floor. “I’ve got to wrap up a few things. I’ll leave you guys to it, then!”

  She was humming as she walked out of the kitchen.

  “Actually, Mom,” Scott blurted, suddenly remembering something, “my shower head broke upstairs. I don’t know how but there’s a problem with the water. It’s . . . it’s kind of broken now.”

  “Okay.” Christine stopped and looked at her son. “I’ll have a plumber come check it out tomorrow.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Alright, well, I’ll see you boys in a bit!” She beamed at them and then walked away.

  The boys heard her bedroom door open and then close shortly after.

  Jared’s shoulders slumped. She was always there one second and then gone the next.

  Jared immediately got up from the table and ran out of the kitchen. He sprinted up the stairs to his room and locked the door behind him.

  Scott followed him upstairs, but then turned and went to his own room. He closed the door and locked it, just as his brain felt like it had exploded.

  “No, no, no!”

  That was all that he could get out before the seizure started.

  He writhed on his bed back and forth, knocking books and papers every which way. His vision flickered to the white lines again, and Scott could see them coming from outside, underneath the door, from his alarm clock and many other places. They were everywhere now, and they weren’t stopping.

  Scott couldn’t think as he rolled and jerked back and forth like a possessed voodoo doll. He couldn’t feel his limbs anymore. He screamed inside his own head, trapped within his own body and unable to do anything about it. Except that the layer of sweat that had formed on Scott’s body as he twisted suddenly rose and was now floating around him, about two feet off the bed. The vague glistening form moved around the room wherever his eyes looked.

  He suddenly felt his left leg again. He could move his toes, but nothing else. That’s when something about this started to finally click.

  Scott concentrated on the floating sweat and thought of one word: Help.

  Even before the thought had fully formed, all the sweat droplets combined into different letters to form the word Help, which was now suspended in midair a foot in front of his TV.

  Just before Scott passed out, the feeling return to his right arm and hips.

  * * *

  He woke up to a wet bed, and papers and books on the floor everywhere. The word Help was gone, and there was a small puddle of water under the TV on the floor.

  He cleaned up the water with a used towel from the bathroom. Scott looked at the floor when he was done and saw some drops of water he’d missed. He stared at the drops, trying to make them float again.

  After about twenty minutes, Scott just gave up. He had tried squinting his eyes, moving his hands up and down, physically throwing water from the sink and snapping his fingers—all to no avail. The water didn’t float, he didn’t get a headache, and his eyes didn’t change color.

  “This is so stupid!” Scott finally yelled at himself as he threw himself into his desk chair.

  He decided to concentrate on his homework, since being a magician/superhero/Bible figure didn’t seem to be in the cards for him today.

  After finishing some math assignments, American history, and an English essay, Scott was now free and clear to try his hand at being a water bender again.

  “Dinner’s almost ready!” Christine called up from the kitchen.

  “Aaargh!” He threw himself dramatically on the bed and closed his eyes for a second, with the intention of hopping up, running downstairs, wolfing down dinner, and retreating to his room as quickly as he could.

  You Must Be Dreaming

  He was standing in a vast open plain. There were no trees in any direction as far as the eye could see. It was sunny with few clouds, which struck Scott as odd since all his recent nightmares had been set at nighttime.

  “Hello, Scott.”

  Scott startled and yelled like a little girl. He slowly turned around to find an old man dressed in a long purple robe sitting barefoot and cross-legged on the ground. He looked like Merlin from a dime-store picture book.

  “Won’t you join me?” the man asked politely.

  Yup. He’s a wizard, Harry. Scott smiled to himself in the dream.

  He sat across from the old man and waited until the man spoke once more.

  “This is temperamental magic even for me, but I will try to shed some light on our situation during our limited time together. I will be brief and direct.” The old man looked Scott up and down.

  There was something unnerving about him, and it took Scott a moment or two to realize what it was.

  The man looked like he was made of glass, but not in the fragile sort of way. Depending on the way he turned, either his skin reflected the light or Scott could see his bones and his veins very clearly for a fraction of a second. His fingernails also reminded Scott of a rat’s teeth. They were chipped and worn and cracked and looked like the old man had been using them to pick locks.

  “I have a theory that the acute brain cancer and seizures that you are experiencing are caused by molecular displacement,” the old man stated as if they were discussing lunch plans. “Come to Armadron and we can help you. It’s where you need to be, or you’ll die in weeks. You’ll be fine after you Accelerate for the first time, but no one has ever done that on Earth.”

  “Who . . . who are you?” Scott asked, perplexed. “Is this another nightmare? And what about brain cancer? And why do you look like you—”

  “I have had hundreds of names in my time. You may call me Artam. This is most certainly not a nightmare, and yes, you are developing brain cancer every time you use your curse before you have learned how to Accelerate. If you come to Armadron, I can help you.”

  Artam paused, letting his words sink in, before continuing.

  “I am what is known as a Conjurer. I’ve been instructed to help you, because we need you. My appearance is that of transparency because I come from a different place than you. On Irri, you are the one who looks strange. “

  “Oh.” Scott nodded slowly, then stared at the old man. “But seriously, though, what was that about me having freaking brain cancer ?”

  “Listen closely,” Artam said, suddenly appearing as if there were some unnamed urgency. “According to our intel, Terminus is in possession of a young boy. A portal creator. In a few days, he will use the boy to create a portal through which he will send his Conjurers to retrieve you. We are covertly sending one of our operatives in that portal behind them, with the hope that our operative can get to you before they do. We need to get you to Armadron to keep you safe.”

  A bottle of water appeared out of thin air, and the old man paused to remove the cap and take a long drink. When he was finished, he returned the cap and tossed the bottle behind him, where it blinked out of existence.

  “As of now, you will not receive any further help from me,” Artam continued. “But I will tell you this: To the best of our knowledge only your curse works on Earth, Scott. No one else’s. At least not yet. You are different from the Conjurers, and even from the test subjects who are under Terminus’s control. Still, you need to be careful. If Terminus is smart, the Conjurers who come for you may look and act like normal humans in order to get close to you and prevent mass panic—but, Scott, you are more powerful in ways you cannot yet understand.”

  “What the hell?! What the hell are you even talking about? You are telling me that I have brain cancer, and that I have a curse? Or abilities or something? And on top of that jambalaya, you want me to blindly
just—”

  “Yes. To all,” Artam interrupted, tapping his hand on his leg impatiently. “All you have to do is get on the ship, make it to the Bermuda Triangle, and let our operative take care of the rest. My best guess is that the boy Terminus has acquired can handle only a fraction of the energy required to keep a space-bridge open for a sustainable period of time. We suspect our operative will have just enough time to use the portal to get to you but will need to bring you to Armadron using other means.”

  “Which is what? A Star Trek beam-up thing?” Scott commented dryly. He couldn’t take any of this seriously. Nothing was making sense, and he honestly couldn’t remember half of the stuff that this guy was saying anyway. A bunch of stuff about someone named Terminus, Conjurers, curses, and Armadron or something.

  “That would be convenient,” Artam said. “But no. It is the naturally occurring Gateway generated by Halley’s Comet, which will open on your side very, very soon. You must get to us through that Gateway and let us help you, or Terminus will kill your family, your friends, and everyone that you hold dear. He is coming.”

  “When?”

  “As you near the Bermuda Triangle, Terminus nears you,” Artam answered.

  “So I just won’t go.” Scott laughed. “Then this Terminus guy can’t get to me, and all isn’t lost, or whatever you said earlier. I’ll just wait this one out.”

  Artam was already shaking his head.

  “Terminus has the means to get to you. He will capture you, he will experiment on you, and he will torture you beyond what you are currently mentally capable of perceiving. You will be brought to Armadron, one way or another. I would prefer it to be our way, so that we have a chance. You are the key, Scott. Our only hope is getting you through the Gateway so that we can help you fight—and you can help us—once you get here.”

  “Fight who?” Scott was rubbing his forehead back and forth.

  “Everyone,” Artam replied with a frown. “You are the Mediator for Earth, and that comes with a lot of responsibilities. There are only a few Mediators for each of the six planets, and you have some, shall we say, unusual qualities, the precise advantages of which are still unknown. We need you on Armadron. We need to keep you alive, and we need your help.”