by Lizzy Ford
The answer was here. It had to be. If not in her files, was it in her head? She’d claimed not to recall the first adventure before the Power Users. Why would she lie? Or was the memory as blank as the notebook marked as her first story?
A stiff breeze carrying the scent of rain swirled around the apartment. It ruffled the manila folder containing his first memories, tossed the cover back, and flung the pages all over the floor.
Deep in thought, he bent automatically to grab those pages floating towards him, started to stuff them back into the folder and froze.
Words moved across one of the pages, as if someone was still writing the story.
The empty apartment, antsy dog, and disorderly living room. He gathered up the pages and returned them to the table, watching as another sentence scrolled across one page.
“Oh, no,” he breathed.
The Red Knight was rarely caught off guard after all he’d seen and done, but this time, he didn’t quite know what to do. His eyes fell to a pen beside the laptop, and a far-fetched idea crossed his thoughts. He reached for it and then noticed the dog watching him.
He swept the animal off its feet and strode to the door, into the hallway and to the nearest apartment. The Red Knight pounded on the neighbor’s door, irritated by the amount of time he waited.
The door cracked open, and an elderly woman peered out at him.
“Would you be so kind as to watch your neighbor’s dog for a short time?” he asked and gave her his most dazzling smile.
“Where’s she gone?” she asked, unaffected by his attempt to charm her.
“She had an emergency,” he supplied. “I can pay you.” He adjusted the dog to his other arm and pulled out his wallet. “Is this enough?” He pulled out a few hundred-dollar bills.
The elderly woman eyed the money. She opened the door. “I’ll watch him for a week,” she said. “Where’s his food and leash?”
“I’ll be right back with them.” The Red Knight set down the dog just inside the apartment before hurrying back to L.F.’s apartment. He searched it quickly to find the food and left, bag in one hand and leash in the other.
The elderly woman opened the door when he knocked. L.F.’s dog had already claimed a spot on a pillow on the couch.
“I can’t thank you enough,” the Red Knight said and set everything down by the door. “I’ll tell her to hurry.” Before the woman could ask him anything else, he exited and returned to the adjacent apartment.
Locking the door, he went to the table and picked up the pen.
And then stopped.
This story didn’t contain his origins, but it was his first memory, his first life. What if, by writing himself back into the story, he went back to this beginning? Forgot who he was and why he sought out L.F. in the first place? He couldn’t exactly rescue her if he didn’t know he was supposed to.
If anyone could remind him of who he was supposed to be, it was the person who created him.
And … maybe he, too, could have a second chance to become someone who still believed in the world.
Without another thought, the Red Knight wrote a sentence, inserting himself into the story.
A door materialized in front of him.
Several figures disembark the square spaceship. They stride towards me, all dressed in black, except for their leader, who wears red.
They all wear masks, too. Not cool masks, but plastic Halloween masks from the 80s, which were creepy then and creepier now.
Bad guys are always easy to spot, especially ones this stereotypical.
“We have to go!” Princess Layla says and grabs my arm.
Dream or not, I know the man in red is bad.
“I think I’ll be okay,” I assure her and shake her off. “Really. I’m going to wake up soon.”
She’s surprised. “But what if you don’t and he captures and tortures you? That’s Dark Invader.”
Torture?
Dark … ah. But I thought the antagonist in the Star Wars films wore black, not red. Is this an adjustment I made as a child?
I’m kicking myself for not reading the rest of my story before going to bed.
“Come on!” Princess Layla takes my arm again.
Reluctantly, I let her pull me towards the round spaceship, up the ramp, and into the metal interior. Logically, I can wake up at any point. I don’t need to stick around on this planet with a bunch of bad guys.
She leads me to a cockpit, where Huey and Duke already sit. The pilot is a man with dark hair and a goatee.
“Dan Bolo,” I murmur.
God, I hate that I remember this. I was obsessed with a few movies when I was little, and Star Wars was one of them.
I sit down and pull on my seatbelt. My stomach drops as we lift off the ground and jettison into the air.
The others are tense. I become so, too, when I realize Dan’s instrument panel is a Lite Brite screen. He maneuvers the ship with a ridiculously large steering wheel and by rearranging the Lite Brite pegs.
We soar into the purple sky – and then upward.
I close my eyes. I’ve never had any desire to go to space and am afraid I’m going to throw up if I see myself hovering in a metal tank over the world.
After a quick ascent, the trip mellows out. I open my eyes and brace myself to be sick.
Space is vast and dark. It doesn’t look too scary yet.
“Turn off all the headlights,” Dan whispers to Huey.
The interior of the ship goes dark, with the exception of the Lite Brite screens, dials, buttons and other gadgets in front of him. Is that a can opener by Huey’s side?
The engines stop whining. It feels like we’re floating, which makes my stomach turn.
Duke and Princess Layla are sitting on the edge of their seats, gazes fixed on the empty space outside the window.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
“Quiet. The space smaugs may be blind, but they can hear the smallest sounds,” Duke hisses.
How could I forget about space smaugs? I was obsessed with the book The Hobbit, too, when I was young.
A bright green wing, followed by the massive body of a dragon, drifts by in front of the cockpit. I’m not sure how he breathes in space, but I have a feeling it doesn’t matter. I wrote this when I was a kid. I had no idea how space worked. I do feel kind of bad that I made the space smaugs blind.
Assuming I did that. I can’t recall all the details of what I wrote so long ago, and dreams are known to morph and change on their own.
I watch the dragon fly away, impressed with the detail of its scales and iridescent wings. Dan waits until it’s nothing more than a tiny dot in the distance before he revs the engines again and grips the steering wheel. He accelerates using a pedal much like the one in a car. The spaceship sounds like my dad’s old car, which was missing a muffler.
I’m pressed against the seat back by the force of our sudden speed. The others relax soon after. I assume we’re out of danger from the space dragons.
I’m still not waking up. Maybe I didn’t make it outside before the fire consumed all the buildings in my complex, and I’m in a coma. That would actually explain a lot.
I hope Wookie’s okay.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“We have to take something to Duke’s uncle,” says Princess Layla.
“What?”
They look at me then at each other.
“We can’t tell you,” Duke says solemnly.
I wrack my brain but don’t remember this part of their journey. I’m along for the ride for now.
Princess Layla glances at her Swatch watch.
“It’s bedtime,” she says and stands.
Duke, Huey and Dan all stand, too.
“Wait, what?” I ask. “Who’s going to drive the ship?”
“It’ll drive itself,” Dan replies.
“Aren’t you worried about bad guys or space smaugs attacking us while we sleep?”
“Nothing happens at night,” Duk
e tells me. “Everyone sleeps.”
I remember my mom telling me that when I was afraid E.T. lived under my bed. If he’s asleep at night, like everyone else, he can’t get me. It’s simple kid logic. I was nine, which means, I started this story around that time.
“Okay.” I stand, too. I’m not tired, but I could use some personal space to process everything.
We all trek down the hallway and into bedrooms. I step into mine – and laugh. It’s how I remember it. We moved a lot, but this is the bedroom I shared with my sister when we lived in a double A-frame house. The ceiling slopes into a triangle above me. Twin beds are on each side of the room, covered with blankets crocheted by my grandma, and bright homemade curtains rest against the windowsill across from the entrance. Two posters are on the sliding closet door: one of E.T. and the other of Star Wars. Baskets of stuffed animals are stacked along the walls.
It’s chilly, too, which I remember well from childhood. A wood stove heated the two-story house, and the second floor was always cold.
Why did I choose this room? I lived here when I was six or seven, not nine when I started this story.
“God, I hated that movie!” I go to the closet door featuring a poster of E.T. and tear it down. I was afraid of three things when I was little: clowns, spiders and E.T.
Underneath the poster, there’s a second one, also of E.T. I tear it down, too, only to see a third one.
“I get the point.” I’m stuck with a creepy alien poster on a spaceship. I guess there’s symmetry in that.
I cross to the window and open the curtains, expecting to see a metal wall.
To my surprise, a familiar forest stretches outside the window, just like it did in real life. Snowflakes drift down from a gray sky and dust the ground and branches of pine trees. I try to open the window, but it doesn’t budge. Crystals of ice form in the corners of the glass, though, as if it’s real. The dark form of a black bear lumbers across the backyard, from one patch of trees to the next. His coat, too, is dusted with snow.
Sitting down on the bed, I gaze out the window, pinch myself, and will myself to wake up.
It doesn’t work.
I always loved this room, this house, this forest. Deer, bears and mountain lions traversed our property routinely, but that didn’t stop me from wandering in the forest with my sister to pick berries. The woods were magical and quiet.
There was a reason I based the world of Black Moon Draw off this place.
I tug my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them, pacified by my favorite place. Of everywhere I’ve ever lived, this is the only place that ever felt like home. I’m content to wait here until I wake up from this bizarre dream.
I nod off.
I wake up when I hit the floor. The world rocks again, and the grinding of metal on metal come from outside my door. I lie still, trying to determine if I’ve snapped out of my coma or not, before realizing I’m in the same room where I fell asleep. Snow falls outside the window. The entire room goes sideways, and I’m thrown against the wall.
“Elf! Wake up!” Princess Layla shouts and bangs on my door. “We’re under attack!”
Disoriented, I claw my way down the wall towards the door.
The ship rights itself, and I land hard on the floor. Already I can feel the bruises forming. I scramble up and out the door before I’m thrown against the wall again.
Princess Layla is waiting for me. She beckons to me and then darts down the hallway. I follow and catch myself against the wall more than once, when the ship shudders.
She passes a hole twice as wide as I am in the side of the ship, unconcerned, but I stop. The gaping hole leads straight into space. We’re not being sucked out into nothingness, which is good.
“Is this a problem?” I call after her and motion to the hole.
“No, no. We’ll glue it back together later.”
I think it’ll take more than glue.
I jog after her. We return to the cockpit, where everyone else has gathered.
“This shouldn’t be happening,” Dan says, steering and punching buttons. “It’s too early for an attack.”
“They’re using lasers,” Duke says.
“I can fix the engines, but I need time.”
“I’ll fend them off.” Duke dashes out of the cockpit.
I sit down and put on my seatbelt, uncertain what Duke intends to do but more concerned about the constant shaking and pitching of the spaceship.
Dan pulls the covering off the bottom of his navigation station. He slides under it, as he might a car, accompanied by a toolbox filled with wrenches.
A ship glides into view, distracting me. It’s also square, like the bad guy’s ship, but far smaller. It fires a laser, and I brace myself for another hit.
Suddenly, Duke is there, blocking the laser with his light saber. He stands outside, on the hull of our ship, wielding the bright sword.
“Doesn’t he need a mask or space suit?” I ask, confused.
“Just a coat,” Princess Layla replies. “Dan, hurry! There are more of them!”
Duke continues to block the laser fire. Several more fighters appear. He’s knocked back, and our ship takes another hit.
“Got it!” Dan says. He pushes the toolbox aside.
I hear the engines rev up again.
“Duke!” Dan shouts. “Get in here now!”
Duke darts out of view. Dan returns fire at the fighter ships. Seconds later, Duke walks into the cockpit. He tosses his coat and sits down.
We blow by the fighters. Our ship takes a hit hard enough to turn us upside down. The seatbelt digs into my upper thighs. Duke, who hasn’t had time to put on his, is slammed against the ceiling. My stomach does a flip.
“Another blast like that and –” Dan starts grimly.
A second blow slams our ship onto its side. Duke’s head smacks the wall. He’s unconscious, and I stretch towards him, hoping to prevent him from hitting anything else while we’re under fire. Blood drips down his face. I yank him toward me, just as the ship lurches to the other side. Hugging Duke, it takes all my strength not to drop him.
A shadow falls over us, and what appears to be the mouth of some great metal fish closes in front of us. A larger spaceship has swallowed us.
Silence falls around us. Assured we won’t be doing any more lurching, I release Duke, who remains unconscious. The others are frozen in shock.
“Shouldn’t we hide or something?” I prod.
“Good idea,” Dan says.
Huey the hedgehog scoops up Duke. We all race through the ship, past the gaping hole, and to a door. Dan opens it. It’s a janitor’s closet.
“No one ever looks here,” Dan says confidently.
Is this the best my nine-year-old self could do?
We cram into it. Seconds later, footsteps walk by the closet. I hold my breath. I’m not sure how I wrote this scene. The footsteps fade.
“We have a smaller ship in the cargo bay,” Dan says. “If I can get the doors of the space cruiser open, we can escape in it.”
“We can’t let him take what we hid in storage,” Princess Layla says urgently.
“You and Elf go to storage. The rest of us will get those doors open,” Dan says.
I start to tell him my name isn’t Elf but decide it’s not worth it. I’ll be gone soon. They can call me whatever they want.
“Ready?” Dan asks. “One, two, three!”
He flings open the door. We burst into the hallway. Dan and Huey – who carries Duke – dart one way while Layla tugs me the opposite way. We hurry quietly through the ship. More than once, we stop and hide in an adjacent hallway while men in black march down the hall.
We reach wide bay doors. Layla taps a wall-mounted garage door opener on the wall to the right of the door. The door lifts to reveal a smaller spaceship and their precious cargo.
“Oh, my god!” I whisper.
“It’s very rare and very valuable,” Princess Layla says. “We’re taking it to Duke’s un
cle so he can protect it.”
Wow. A unicorn.
“Her name is Shaytana,” Princess Layla tells me.
Not just any unicorn. The Black Stallion – in unicorn form.
The Arabian horse’s coat is coal black, its horn pearly white, its large, dark eyes trained on us. Its mane and tail are blacker than the night sky. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life, and I created it! Er … sort of. The Black Stallion was another of my favorite books, and the horse protagonist was a black Arabian stallion.
I didn’t create him, but I’ll take credit for turning him into a female unicorn and putting her on a spaceship.
“Go, me,” I murmur.
“I knew you’d come here.” The low, inhuman voice jolts me. My sister and I used to turn a rotating fan on high and then speak into it to hear our funny voices. This guy’s voice sounds like that.
The man in the creepy red mask appears from around a stack of boxes. Seconds later, we’re surrounded by his men in black.
“You can’t take her!” Princess Layla shouts and draws her light saber. It flickers to life.
The man in red draws his, and his men raise space ray guns.
“Layla, maybe we should –” I start, eyeing the minions who appear ready to blast us out of this story.
She charges the man in red.
“Or we can do that.” I’ve always wondered why the bad guy’s henchmen in any movie don’t just tie up the heroes and take them away. There’s always a fight scene, but there doesn’t need to be. If I were a bad guy, I’d definitely think this through better.
Princess Layla smashes her sword into Dark Invader’s, and I wince. He strikes back, driving her into the wall. Concern floods me. This, too, is a little too real for me.
The unicorn is stamping her feet and tossing her mane.
“Hey, can I go make sure she’s okay?” I ask the nearest random minion. “I don’t want her spooked and running off.”
He ignores me. Maybe he’s a secondary character who’s not supposed to have a personality. I don’t know. In any case, I walk behind him towards the unicorn. The attention of all the men in black are on the sword fight happening between Princess Layla and the red guy.
I approach the unicorn and stop, admiring her once again. She quiets some, and I close the distance between us. I was obsessed with unicorns and horses in general when I was little. I rest a hand on her warm, soft neck and smile.