Where's That Orb Anyway? WC 288

Where’s That Orb?

Phillip steered the BMW through the darkness. Serena rode shotgun, and Billings and Trisha were in the back seat.

The sign ahead read Crystal Point 2 miles, with a right-pointing arrow. Philip turned right.

“We’ve arrived,” Phillip said as he pulled into the lookout point.

“Did you bring it?” he asked Trisha, as their eyes met in the rearview mirror.

“I thought Billings did.”

“I thought Serena did,” Billings said from his seat beside Trisha.

“Serena, where is it?” Phillip said to his front-seat passenger.

“Don’t look at me! It’s yours! I thought you brought it.”



Weeks earlier, Phillip’s father (realizing he had not long to live) had entrusted the crystal orb to his son.

“If I were well enough, I would make this journey Phillip, but I’m not,” the dying man had said. “Choose your most trusted friends, and explain the power of this crystal orb and its ability to open a portal in the universe...”

The dutiful son had convinced his friends to go on this adventure.



“My father said the orb would open a portal to a better place, and now here we sit without it.”

“I'm glad we forgot it,” Serena admitted. “I was afraid.”

“Me, too,” Billings said. “What if the place was scary and we couldn’t return?”

Phillip was also frightened of the outcome and had hidden the orb under the driver’s seat—too afraid to activate the portal.

“Can we go now?” Trisha said. “I have to pee.”


“I guess there’s no reason to stay,” Phillip said.

As he backed out of Crystal Point, the orb began shaking violently, then the BMW, then its startled passengers.

And that is when the car vanished, never to return to this plane of existence.