The Rubbish Realm: Chapters 1-8

The start of the start of a fantasy series, the Chasm Chronicles. Please review this one.

Word count: 16778(!)
Prologue

10 years earlier

Brady was in the pits. Literally and figuratively. Spelunking had always been one of his biggest dreams, but now that he was actually doing it, it was far worse than advertised. Neck deep in cave water, he felt far too acutely the dull, damp, dark dreariness of the deepening cave. And worse still, he felt alone. Granted, he was spelunking with his friend Robert, but they couldn't converse or see each other because of the murky cave water. For all he knew, Robert could have been on the entire other end of the cave, but as long as they both got out... thinking about that caused Brady to grab hold of the rope that traced his way to safety - but his fear multiplied when it wasn't where he had thought it was.
Oh, shoot.
He whirled around, grasping at anything he could, but his arms found nothing but air and the damp cave wall. Breathing hard and trying (unsuccessfully) not to panic, Brady was reminded of a somehow worse problem: his oxygen was almost out. Throwing his arms up in frustration, they hit the low ceiling. Seriously? As if it couldn't get any worse...
Dejected, he slumped, his eyes catching something odd in his peripheral. Is that... light? It was, or at least it seemed to be. Managing to compute that light meant an exit, he summoned the last of his panic-induced strength and dragged himself towards it, knowing far too well that it was his only hope. Just one step farther... and a few after that... The water receded until eventually he was fully out of it... and he immediately collapsed, sleep overpowering him as he felt lucky he had managed to get that far.
The next thing he knew, he was being awakened by his oxygen alarm, saying he had five minutes left before it ran out. Chuckling weakly, he disconnected it, not needing it now that he was back above the water. He rose slowly to his feet, the light far more defined now that he was far closer to it. But instead of coming from an exit, it seemed to be coming from... a bracelet? He reached out tentatively before pulling away from the searing heat, shaking his hand to try and alleviate the pain. "What in the world?"
It seemed to cool, so Brady picked it up again to no ill effect. Looking it over, he didn't see any screws or seams to contain any mechanisms. Confounded, he was about to set it back down when it spoke to him, its booming voice seeming to come from his worst nightmares.
"I've been waiting a long time for you, Brady Hemlinson."
He fainted.

Robert emerged slowly from the cave, resignation and deep sadness in his brow. He sighed a long and drawn-out sigh, hints of deep, haunting pain audible in that one small utterance.
"What's wrong?" the cave servicer asked worriedly. Then he noticed it - Robert was alone. Nobody was allowed to spelunk alone. "...where's your friend?" He'd get in trouble if someone got lost, and judging from the look on Robert's face, someone had gotten lost.
Robert crumpled. "He got separated from me... he's not coming out."




The Rubbish Realm

Book 1 of The Chronicles of the Deep

Chapter 1
Clyde woke up to a crash. His first thought was "An earthquake? In Wisconsin?" His second thought was "What happened to the roof?" And his third, the most important question of them all, was "What is with the sky?"
As you can probably tell, Clyde was very confused and more than a little bit dismayed. It's hard enough waking up in the middle of the night to normal circumstances, but these were clearly not normal circumstances, or anywhere close to it. Clyde got out of bed... wait, he wasn't in bed anymore. Looking around, he saw that he was on what used to be his floor, and his bed was destroyed under rubble! How am I still alive? he thought. And what happened to destroy my house? He could not help thinking about the mortgage and how he could ever pay it off, what with his lack of home insurance.
But, a cursory glance around him and a stab of pain from his knee brought him back to reality, or at least what seemed to be reality. After all, this whole experience so far had felt quite unreal to Clyde.
All around him was rubble as far as the eye could see. Somehow, impossibly, he was nearly unharmed even though the entire roof and all four walls of his house had all collapsed, no stone left on top of another, so to speak. He had rolled off his bed into the only spot in view that was not covered in the all-encompassing rubble. But, with the bleak landscape, it appeared that he was doomed anyway, incredibly lucky just to die a more painful death of starvation.
Remembering that, he figured he might as well check the refrigerator, to see if anything had survived, but of course the refrigerator was crushed, as was his entire pantry. He went to go ask his neighbor for something to eat, but then he saw their house, similarly destroyed, and he turned away in sorrow, knowing there was no way they could have survived like he did. In the end, he realized he was lucky he lived alone. Anybody else in his house was doomed. He should have been doomed. He still was doomed.
Knowing the futility of it, he yelled, "Anybody home?", trying to find any other survivors, but of course there was no reply, save an echo in the distance.
There are few things more depressing than waking up in the morning to find that your house is destroyed, all your neighbors are dead, all your possessions are gone, the whole neighborhood is rubble, and you're likely going to starve. And then add onto that the fact that he had no water, was wearing his pajamas and slippers, and that the heat was, unsurprisingly, destroyed, leaving him to suffer fifty degree weather, or at least that's what it felt like. And so, Clyde did what any reasonable person would have done given the circumstances - he broke down and wept.
After a little while, he composed himself again and decided to analyze what he could do. The words of Frozen 2 rang in his head, of where Anna is left alone, Elsa having perished and Olaf having fallen with her, to save the forest all by herself - "Just do the next right thing". Although here, Clyde didn't have such a straightforward goal, and the fact that he only had slippers to protect himself from the rubble certainly wasn't helping his planning. He decided to check the time before realizing that he had left his phone plugged in and it had been destroyed, just like most everything else. So, he decided to estimate what time it was from the sky... but the sky was all wrong. Instead of the sun in any corner of the sky, or even clouds, the sky was simply a dull blue, save for a portion where it seemed to have a hole, right above him, where he could see a familiar-looking dusky sky once again. What in the world? Where am I? And why - what- -
Even so, that hint of dusky sky seemed to be brighter than his future.
But, realizing the current uselessness of this train of thought, he turned his mind to more pressing matters. How was he going to escape the rubble? How was he going to find food and water? How was he going to survive to live another day?
Another wave of depression hit him quickly and he came to the conclusion that this was undoubtedly the worst day of his life so far, even worse than when his mother had died, and thinking about that caused him to melt into a total breakdown and he collapsed in hopelessness.
But his hopelessness was interrupted by a crinkling from his pocket, reminding him of the granola bar he had pocketed the night before. Well, better than nothing, he supposed as he consumed it slowly, savoring every bite as he knew it very well might be the last thing he would eat. It left his mouth dry, reminding him of his Nalgene water bottle, which was supposed to be able to handle being dropped from a four story building. Perhaps that had survived, he thought, and started digging through the rubble where it would have been.
Finally, after nicking his fingers multiple times on the jagged edges of the rocks, he found it: dull orange, scratched up, and dusty against the gray rocks. It was half full, or half empty, depending on how you think of it. Clyde, for one, was in a very pessimistic mood at the moment, and he knew it was half empty. So he took only a small sip, trying to conserve it for later despite what his dry throat was telling him.
And then, having taken care of that, he once again was left to face the rubble and the seemingly insurmountable barrier it presented. After only three steps, his feet, only protected by the thin slippers, informed him rather impolitely that this was not a viable solution, or at least certainly not for long enough to endure the amount of time it would take to cross the far-as-the-eye-could-see sea of rubble.
Lost, confused, depressed, and still not even fully awake, he figured his wisest course of action would be to fall asleep and deal with his problems later, and so, remarkably, despite the lack of a pillow and sleeping on the floor, staring straight up at the dawning hole in the strange sky, he fell asleep immediately.
Chapter 2
He was shaken awake. Ugh, my alarm clock hasn't even gone off yet! Then, suddenly, he realized - he had been shaken awake! He wasn't alone! He might not starve after all!
"What?" he asked, still somewhat drowsy, blinking the sleep from his eyes.
"What are you? How did you get here? How did you survive the rubble? And why are you wearing such odd clothing? Don't you know it's cold out here?" It, whatever it was (he couldn't see clearly out of his half-awake eyes), bounced up and down energetically.
"What am I? I'm... human." Clyde was puzzled. He had thought that was pretty obvious. "What are you?"
"I'm an elf. A small elf at that. My name's Lysander. What's yours?" Lysander was about the size of a nine-year-old, with the pointy ears one always thinks of when one thinks of elves, incredibly pale skin, and bright green eyes that, though childishly energetic, seemed to look straight into one's soul.
"I'm Clyde." He was starting to warm up to this elf, especially since he was his way out of the rubble. He decided to pose what was, to him, the obvious question: "Where am I?"
Lysander looked at him, mouth agape as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, but didn't answer, his piercing eyes boring their way into Clyde's skull.
"Did you hear me?" Clyde squinted, flummoxed.
Lysander grinned mischievously. "You're in Perelandrea, the world inside earth. We have magic here, is it true you don't have magic up on, oh, what was it called, yeah, Earth?" Lysander was grinning wildly, like this was the most fun he had had in a long time.
"Yeah, we just have technology. Are elves... common here in, what was it, Perelandrea, you said?" Clyde looked away subtly, trying to avoid Lysander's intense gaze.
"Yeah, somewhat." Lysander nodded thoughtfully before pausing abruptly.
"And?" Clyde prompted.
Lysander snickered before sobering. "But how did you get here? Where did all this rubble come from? And what happened to the sky?"
""That's what I was wondering! I just woke up to this, and the rest of the neighborhood seems to all be dead." Clyde frowned resignedly.
"How... annoying." For the first time, Lysander seemed to be at a loss for words. "Was your family with you?" He sat down to get a better look deep into Clyde's eyes, or so it seemed.
"My family was already dead before this happened. Car accident." Clyde's already frowning face fell yet further as he sighed. He was reminded of that far too often, ruining all his efforts to forget that terrible day. In fact, come to think of it, he figured, it was probably worse than this one.
"What's a car?" Lysander probed. He didn't seem to notice Clyde's downcast expression, or perhaps he just didn't care. But Clyde didn't like to be one that made assumptions, so he didn't mention it.
"Umm... it's a... transportation vehicle that can go really fast." Clyde felt bad for dictionary writers: definitions are nearly impossible.
Lysander nodded thoughtfully, his face brightening as he realized the possibilities with that. "Fun! You use them because you don't have magic up there, right?"
Nothing quite like children to brighten up your mood, Clyde thought, finally sitting up. "Yeah. Can elves just teleport yourselves around? Is that how you got through the rubble?"
"If only it were that easy! No, we have to walk pretty much everywhere, which is why we wear such high-quality boots." Lysander lifted his foot in order to show Clyde his nice leather boots.
Clyde hadn't noticed the boots, so he said as such. "I hadn't noticed those before; that adds up. But why don't you use magic?"
Lysander shrugged. "Most of us can't do much magic at all and even those who can don't. It's really tiring and more than a little erratic."
Clyde sighed - that would have been such an easy way out. It's hard to hope when even magic isn't all it's cracked up to be.
Lysander just shrugged and sat there, enjoying the awkward silence while Clyde sighed and slumped upon the rocks, grimacing a bit as one bit into his back.
Finally, Lysander put two and two together, though he very well might have had it all together before and just not said anything for the sake of the awkwardness. "So, in other words, you're stuck here right now? I could help you with that."
"Yeah, thanks! But... how?" Clyde tried to force some happiness into his tone, but he couldn't overcome the fact that he wasn't in the mood for it.
"Here's an extra pair of boots for you... and here's the coat. Good thing I packed extras!" Lysander grinned mischievously as he pulled out a pair of boots his size and a coat that looked far too small for Clyde.
"Thanks?" Clyde mentioned as he noticed the far too small garments. How in the world was he going to get them on? Couldn't Lysander see that they were far too small?
"Try them on!" Lysander bounced up and down energetically while still maintaining a smug grin as if he were hiding something.
Clyde hesitated before trying them on, sure that they'd be far too small, but when he put them on, they fit like they had been made for him.
Lysander noted the surprised look on Clyde's face and broke out laughing. "It's magic clothing; it fits everyone who wears it as long as I want it to."
"Wow." Clyde's jaw dropped. "How?"
"Magic. Let's go!" Lysaner rolled his eyes at Clyde before running through the rubble with a sudden burst of energy, leaving Clyde to run to catch up, laughing.
"Did - you - do - this - yourself?" Clyde managed, gasping for air as he sprinted at top speed through the ruins, the magical boots protecting his feet and keeping him balanced. If not for them he would have tripped quite a few times by then.
Lysander grinned proudly. "Yup! It isn't very hard, once you get the hang of it." He didn't seem tired at all and was still happy even though the rubble still reached to the edge of both of their views.
Clyde found himself wishing he had the hang of it. That would be epic! he thought to himself as the momentum provided by the magical boots let him catch his breath. "How much longer will it be until we're out of the rubble?" He couldn't help being worried even with Lysander's brightening mood, and his face fell into that resigned frown that had been all too familiar recently.
Lysander stopped abruptly, going from a dead sprint straight to standing still in a matter of moments. He reminded Clyde of his often over-caffeinated cousin Blake, who was always full of energy and often perplexed him, as, of all people, would be the person who needed coffee the least. And just thinking about him brought back a flood of nostalgic memories, causing him to stop as well, and he was only barely able to keep from crying. "And how big was the destruction? Was all of Wisconsin taken out?"
Somehow, Clyde had managed to dim even Lysander's mood with his brooding, causing him to turn completely around and walk up to him before pausing with a puzzled expression. "How big is Wisconsin?"
Clyde facepalmed, realizing he had forgotten that Lysander wasn't familiar with his world. "It's..." He really didn't know how big it was, or how to explain it in terms that Lysander would understand. "a pretty big region."
"That's remarkably vague," Lysander muttered to himself as he fiddled with his fingers, seemingly bored. "I don't know. It seemed like a pretty big hole in the sky, so it very well could have been a very large region, but I'm not familiar enough with your land to know how big Wisconsin is." He squinted into the distance straight up while he tried to estimate with his hands energetically. "The destruction is definitely bigger than a city, though. Luckily, we won't be running the entire distance, as I know where a portal is we could take to get to a region that looks far nicer." He smiled sadly. "I can't imagine how hard it must be to lose friends you've known for a while, and, judging by your beard, friends you've known for longer than I've been alive. But, at least, you're not alone anymore." Punctuating his response, he hugged Clyde with all the strength of his small frame, which was a surprising amount.
All the events of his roundabout day were, once again, too much for Clyde, and he broke down again, crying into Lysander's shoulder. He'd only known Lysander for a couple hours, yet he was already his best friend in the whole world. It was rather tragic, if you think about it. It was also really tragic even if you don't. He was hit with an intense longing to suddenly wake up and realize this had all been a terrible nightmare and he could go about his normal life again. But he knew it hadn't been, his hunger and pain from the various nicks and bruises throughout his body assuring him of that. He finally composed himself slightly and looked up gloomily just to manage, "Nobody else survived, right?"
Lysander, slightly overwhelmed by this outburst of emotion, but still rather empathetic for his small age, and even more remarkably so due to the fact that he had just met him, mumbled, loud enough for Clyde to hear, "Yes. It's a miracle even you did."
"Why? Why me?" All Clyde wanted to do at the moment was jump off of a bridge, but, everything in view having been rubble-ified, there was none to do so with. He couldn't decide whether that was a relief or just even more depressing.
Lysander looked right into Clyde's eyes with that piercing gaze of his and stated "I don't know. Probably neither of us ever will. But things are as they are - sometimes, all you can do is the next right thing, which is never jumping off of a bridge." He spoke with remarkable wisdom for his young age, leaving Clyde with no options but to wonder how he knew what he had been thinking, collect himself, and continue on their way, Lysander taking a slower pace this time.
Clyde smiled weakly, deeply grateful that Lysander was there and that things weren't all bad. "How did you find me in all this rubble?"
It seemed as though Lysander was trying to be as confusing as possible when he answered, "Luck," more than a hint of a grin reappearing.
"Bro." Clyde couldn't repress a smile, before coming to a realization. "How did you know I wanted to jump off a bridge?"
Lysander smiled back genuinely. "I found you for the same reason why you survived: you have a luck affinity."
After all the other confusing things that had happened to him that day, learning that he had an affinity was the least of his worries, but it still piqued his curiosity. "What do you mean I have a luck affinity? I wasn't very lucky up there!" he said, pointing to the hole in the sky rather disheartenedly. "Also, what is an affinity?"
Lysander had expected this line of questioning. "Here, everybody has an affinity for something, related to some sort of emotion, usually. Unless you're really unlucky. There's a few people who don't have any, but they usually work the hardest to try and make up for it. Most don't do much at all, for example, most people with an anger affinity are just even-tempered, but some lucky people get more powerful affinities, like natural talent at damaging magic or the ability to inspire anger in others. The better they are, the more uncommon they are. And you can tell which one they have by their eye color." Being a rather excitable person, he had started to ramble, grinning widely. "I can tell yours is luck because you eye color is yellow, which means that you have a happiness affinity, and it's bright, which means that it's powerful, which is lucky in and of itself, and you've been getting really really lucky lately, which is why I know you have a luck affinity!"
The difference between the two was astounding: Lysander looked like he was having one of the best days of his life, and Clyde looked like this day was easily his worst of his entire existence. "But yesterday my eyes were dull green!" Clyde's voice wavered, though he was grateful for the slower pace. "Nobody has yellow eyes on Earth."
Lysander turned to face Clyde, walking backwards so he could keep going in the direction he had been going in, his magical boots letting him keep his balance. "Maybe they only work in Perelandrea. That would make sense since you don't have magic on Earth." He spoke faster and faster as his features brightened more and more. "But yeah, your luck affinity is probably why you survived the fall; it would have kicked in the moment you entered our sky."
"But why didn't anybody else have a luck affinity who fell? Why was I the only one?" Clyde refused to give up on being languid, repressing Lysander's infectious cheerfulness.
"Some probably did, but it was still incredibly lucky that you survived, even with your luck affinity. The spot where you ended up is the only spot I've seen so far with enough flat space to keep anybody alive, especially for anybody as tall as you, and you were really lucky that I heard you yelling so I could help you get out." Lysander was, rightfully, quite proud of himself, at least until he hit a rock that was too high for even his magical boots, and he tripped backwards, falling behind the rock. "Oops."
Clyde chuckled tiredly. "Are we there yet?" All he wanted to do right then was collapse, his legs threatening to give out on him any minute, even with the boots' assistance.
There was no response from Lysander, nor did he appear from behind the rock.
"Lysander? Are you okay?" Clyde ran up to the rock and looked behind it worriedly, but Lysander was not there. "Lysander? Lysander?" Clyde was starting to get desperate and started to think he had hallucinated Lysander's existence at all, or, more likely, that he was actually dead and this was what purgatory felt like. It would explain all the rubble and the hole in the sky, after all even though he wasn't Catholic.
Suddenly, Lysander reappeared, right where Clyde had been looking. "You called?"
Clyde fainted with shock and exhaustion.
"Well, I didn't know the portal was right there!" Lysander exclaimed apologetically, shrugged, and then, with remarkable strength for his small size, dragged Clyde into the portal, apologizing each time Clyde's head hit a stray rock. "Sheesh."
Chapter 3
Alistaire woke up, coughing, to a banging on the front door.
"The shop's closed!" he tried to yell, before succumbing to the coughing yet again. He did such without getting out of bed, knowing that nobody up to any good would be knocking at this hour, and if one did come, he couldn't deal with them. However, he couldn't resist the nagging feeling that whoever was at the door was really somebody he should answer.
The knocking did not cease, to Alistaire's annoyance. "What are you here for?" he asked. When there was no reply, he sat up in bed, groaning, pulled on his cloak, and went to the door.
Finally, the hooded figure standing outside the door replied, "That is none of your business, Alistaire."
The password! It must be him! "Coming." he stated, a hint of a smile crossing his ragged features, his first real smile since a long time prior. "Are you... Evander?" And even if it's not, it's still someone I have to open the door for. Or at least should, he thought, remembering his prior anticipation. They were almost always right... but only almost.
Evander, if it was him, did not respond, instead staring placidly at the door, waiting for it to open, but even so, Alistaire could see the relief in his eyes, an observation honed by many years of experience. Many, many years. He sighed, wishing he could still recall his childhood when he was still young and innocent, but those days were long gone. The man cleared his throat, reminding Alistaire of his presence.
Alistaire, startled for a moment, opened the door tentatively, muttering a countermeasure to the charm set up against intruders. "Please, enter!" He hadn't been so excited in years, as he also hadn't seen Evander for a similar length of time.
"Yes, I am Evander." The figure spoke in his deep, dull tone as he entered the room. "And soon, you will wish I wasn't." The man's shoulders sagged, tired from the many miles he had traveled and from the sad message he carried. How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news... and how ugly Evander's feet must have been.
"Evander?" Alistaire stepped back, reading the deep sadness in Evander's tone as regret that he would have to deal with his old friend, or it might have been malice? Either way, he readied a piece of magic in case Evander struck at him. For all my foresight, how could I not have known he would turn on me? Regret filled his voice. "What's wrong?"
"I bring you ill tidings. The sky is falling, and the Emperor is looking for you, specifically." Evander removed his hood to reveal his scarred, rueful face. His dull purple eyes were filled with sorrow and determination. "He seems to think you caused it, or at least that is what he is saying. You and I both know it was him behind it, though."
"The-the sky? Surely it cannot be Beresford's long-forgotten prophecy coming to pass?" Alistaire felt weak suddenly and sat down, shaking. It was getting harder and harder to surprise him in his old age, but that had truly been unexpected.
"I don't remember that one. Perhaps you could... jog my memory, to use the term. Are we all doomed?" After all, usually prophecies come true are times of great need, he thought to himself, a thought fitting his gloomy mood.
Alistaire nodded sadly before starting to recite the prophecy from memory, one that he had studied quite often along the years.
"'When the sky begins to crumble,
Fell things upon the earth shall rumble.
If one from above can save you not,
The world you know will be a blot
Crushed under rubble from above,
Devoid of joy, devoid of love.'
"Or at least that's all I remember." He couldn't shake off the nagging feeling that there was more to it than he knew, which in and of itself was probably more than anyone else on the whole planet, since Beresford himself had died many years ago.
Evander was an out-loud thinker, unlike Alistaire, a man of few words. "Most people have forgotten it because it doesn't seem to say anything useful in it, like what you should do when it starts to happen, but... we must act immediately! Where would be this 'one from above'? Or do you have another prophecy you could share to guide us on our path?"
Alistaire stared off into the distance, as if he could see something in the wall that Evander couldn't. "I know not. But if the emperor has really found me..." he trailed off, his slumped features countering Evander's determined frame. "Do you know a safe place where I could peruse my tomes to find another one? I need time!" He noted the irony to himself, how for so long he had had all the time in the world and now today he had no time left. But he finally understood why his health was beginning to fail: the sky was failing as well. It was both relieving that nobody had cursed him and worrying that his long life might finally be drawing to a painful close. Everybody else always thought he knew everything on account of his exceedingly long lifespan, but really he knew far less than he would have liked.
Evander lost himself in thought.
Alistaire, with the patience that only someone who has lived many years can have, waited a while before he covered his mouth, overcome by another coughing fit, but this time his hand was red with blood.
Evander returned to reality. "I know of none, except for the region with rubble that fell from the sky. But how would you survive? You're getting old, and-- Alistaire?" He finally noticed the blood on Alistaire's hands. "No, no, not now!" He started to pace the room. "You wouldn't last more than a couple of days out there."
"But would the sky last?" Alistaire interjected softly, and his deep, tired pink eyes met Evander's for the first time in many years. "Would you survive that long here?"
Evander caught its implications, the soft words of his old, dying mentor cutting him straight to the heart. "No. Neither of us would."
Alistaire simply nodded in reply, a regretful frown crossing his features.
"So we must go. Do we really need all of these tomes?" Evander queried, his affinity for confidence overruled by the hundreds of large books scattered throughout the messy room.
"Yes." Alistaire stated bluntly, before pushing back on a bookshelf and revealing a secret passageway. His memory certainly wasn't good enough to remember them all, and he was a fast reader anyway. "Put them in here, and then from here we can take them where we need to go."
Evander stared wide-eyed at the portal for a moment, startled by its sudden appearance even though he had seen similar portals previously before regaining his composure, brushing his long hair back, and getting to work, lugging the hundreds of heavy books inside, while Alistaire sat in the chair, coughing blood into a handkerchief, too weak to stand.
Evander paused from his work, pained to see his old friend hurting like this, and put his hand on Alistaire's shoulder. "Will you be alright? Is there anything I can do to help?"
"At my birth, a prophet prophesied, as they typically do, 'His health will be tied to the world above.' Since the upper world, Earth, is dying and falling apart, so am I." He looked down ruefully into the blood-stained handkerchief. "But it has never been this bad before." As if to prove the point, he fell into another coughing fit, causing Evander to look away in grief.
"All the more reason to get going sooner rather than later." Evander stared through the window at the now-broken sky, knowing full well that this was only the beginning of their problems, before breaking away from the sad scene and carefully laying the last of the books into the portal. "Everything is ready. Do you also need some food to keep you going while you... peruse?" The faintest hint of a smile appeared in the corners of Evander's downcast face at that last word.
"That would be nice. To the rubble?"
Evander grabbed an emergency pack full of bread, cheese, other basic necessities, and a blanket in case it rained, and tossed it into the portal with the books. "To the rubble."
Finally, they both stepped through, Alistaire knowing it might very well be the last time he saw his beloved home. And in that space between realms, they were grateful that they had known each other.
"I'll check on you sometime soon!" Evander noted with forced happiness as he turned back to the house.
Knowing full well they would probably be the last words he would say to his good friend, as he closed the portal, Alistaire left with a soft and simple "I hope you don't have to."
Chapter 4
Clyde woke back up in an unfamiliar room, although, to tell the truth, all rooms in Perelandrea were unfamiliar to him. Lysander was standing over him, clearly worried and, more shockingly, he looked worn out. But when he noticed that Clyde was awake, he broke into a wide grin. "You're back! I had been worried about you."
Clyde was groggy, but smiled at the sight of Lysander. "I could tell."
Lysander raised an eyebrow childishly. "You were unconscious. You couldn't tell."
Clyde attempted a side eye. "Hrmmm... anyway, where am I?" He sat up and surveyed the small, but yet cozy room.
"This is my room!" Lysander, though already happy, grinned even wider as he showed Clyde everything in it. "There's my dresser, there's my old magic wand, here's my bed, here's the painting I made when I was 6, here's the door charm to make sure my parents don't intrude..."
Clyde chuckled a little at the last one. "Did they intrude before you put the charm up?"
"Yes, all the time. They always wanted me to finish my vegetables, but their insidious plans were foiled!"
Clyde felt bad for his parents. Lysander must be quite the handful, he thought with a grin. Even so, that painting was quite impressive, especially for someone who was 6 years old. "Is the painting magical?"
"Nope, I made it myself." He grinned proudly.
"How did you learn magic anyway?" he asked, changing the subject.
Lysander smirked, then strode towards a closet and flung it open dramatically. It was packed to the brim with books. "Research." he stated, evidently quite proud of himself.
Clyde was impressed that someone who clearly couldn't even sit still could find the time and patience to read so many books and actually remember anything about them, let alone whole magic spells and the like. "Wow."
"It also helps that I have an affinity for mind-reading..." Lysander trailed off smugly.
That explains a lot, thought Clyde.
Lysander caught him thinking that. "Hey!" He shook his head at Clyde like he was being a naughty child. "Tsk tsk."
"No fair." Clyde pouted sarcastically.
"Says the luckiest one on the whole planet!" retorted Lysander.
That thought sobered Clyde, and the grin left his face. "Yeah. I'm a bit too lucky for my own good, I would say."
Lysander turned back towards Clyde, looking straight at him, unnerving Clyde with how he seemed to look straight through him. "It's lucky for us, here, that you were really lucky. I guess you probably haven't heard of Beresford's prophecy, because I haven't told you yet, right?"
"Yeah." Clyde nodded solemnly, but at the same time he was rather curious. He could be involved in a prophecy?
"Well, that's probably because I don't remember it. It's something about the sky falling and the one from above having to save the world to avoid the rest of the sky falling. Not many people know about it anyway, though." Lysander shrugged empathetically. "I'm sorry that the pressure is all on you, but at least you're not on your own anymore."
Clyde sighed. "Seriously?" Out of the frying pan, into the fire. Sheesh. He had figured that only Earth had problems, but, apparently, magical worlds had their fair share of issues as well. Although it would have been nice if they had given him more information. Snippets of a prophecy wasn't much to go off of.
Lysander smiled wryly. "Yeah. But do you want to meet my parents?" He didn't like dwelling on unpleasant subjects such as those, only doing so if he had to.
"Sure." Clyde appreciated the change of subject. He could learn more about Beresford later. "Where are they?" Really, Clyde wasn't wondering where Lysander's parents were, he was wondering where the door was. There was none in sight, even with the charm set to keep his parents from intruding.
"In the kitchen, probably. After all, it's almost supper time. Come on, I'll take you to them." Lysander promptly walked straight through the wall.
"More magic?" Clyde muttered to himself, more tired than incredulous, before following Lysander through, fully expecting it to just be a wall, not a doorway like it had been for Lysander.
"What did you expect? This is Pereleandrea, after all." Lysander shrugged, before turning around and pointing to a couple of other elves behind him, far taller than him. "These are my parents, in the kitchen, like I told you."
"Hello." They acknowledged Clyde's presence with a solemn nod. "You must be Clyde?"
Clyde nodded in return. "Yerp. And you two are..."
His mother spoke up. "Amelia and Theodosius, Lysander's parents. He's quite the adventure." They smiled at each other knowingly, although Theodosius muttered under his breath, "It's Theo."
Lysander scowled playfully. "Hey!"
Clyde smirked. "I could tell. Have you heard of Beresford's prophecy?"
Judging by the shocked look on Theodosuis's face, he had. "But nobody's heard of it! We only know of it because Lysander found it in an old tome of his. It's about the one who comes from above - -" Theodosius stopped abruptly, realizing what he was saying. His tired white eyes widened with shock, although it was a bit hard to tell, his eyes being white and all. "It's you," He whispered in awe. "After all these years, finally!" Amelia hugged him, knowing Theodosius hadn't been this excited in a very long time, but not having paid attention to what was going on, per her usual. "And just in the nick of time." He sobered the conversation, staring forlornly out of the window towards the crumbling sky.
Nobody spoke for a moment, all of them following Theodosius's gaze, all of them wondering how much longer they had before the rest of the sky came down with it.
Lysander, though he was enjoying the awkward silence, was reminded of a more pressing need by his growling stomach and returned the conversation to the matter which he thought should have been on hand. "Is supper ready yet?"
Chapter 5
Ermengarde awoke... and immediately wished she hadn't. It wasn't even dusk yet, and she could have slept a couple more hours. Groaning and knowing full well that she wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, she rolled out of bed, drowsily attempting to brush some of the wrinkles out of the work dress she had fallen asleep in. It had been a long night, and she hadn't had time to get changed into her pajamas before she had collapsed onto the bed.
After stumbling down the stairs (a painful experience), she opened the cupboard only to find that all the coffee was gone. That realization woke her up more than even two cups of coffee could have - the coffee merchant wouldn't be coming back for months, and the two of them, Ermengarde and her littler sister Isolde, who was still asleep, had consumed all of theirs far too quickly. Well, it was probably mostly me, she thought to herself, remembering that Isolde was a morning person and didn't drink coffee. How lucky for her. She lit the candles in the middle of the room before settling down to read the newspaper, trying to keep her mind off all of her troubles.
The newspaper, the Daily Tribune, although nobody knew why it was named that anymore or what tribune even meant, was Ermengarde's favorite of the five or so that ran throughout the city of Emlenton simply because it always got straight to the point, as it did today: Piece of Fallen Sky Buries Entire Region, Mountains Invisible Under Piles of Rubble. That was a newspaper peddler's dream headline, as everybody was buying a copy, eager to hear what could possibly have caused such a calamity. As a result, prices were twice as high as usual, but still not so high that people wouldn't buy them.


"People in Gerthingham woke up to a crash last night, like someone had knocked over a very big lamp. Going outside, they were greeted by a furious earthquake, setting the whole village ablaze. As they fled, they were knocked down by the aftershocks. They had no time to grab anything before it was destroyed, and everyone who wasn't fast enough was left behind to die. Everything they had was ruined, and they were the lucky ones.
"It's hard to even imagine destruction of this magnitude: destroying an entire region irreparably and leaving a permanent gash on the sky and the planet. Fires, earthquakes, and floods never get that large, and even if they were, some people would survive and be able to build back. But as far as we can tell, nobody survived this, and certainly nobody will be building back there anytime soon. And the hole in the sky will likely never be fixed, a constant reminder to those who survive that nowhere is ever going to be safe.
"You might think, 'Surely somebody survived. Some luck affinity must have managed to be far enough underground to survive, or just happened to be in the only place that hadn't been fallen onto.' But the whole area has been searched, and even if somebody survived, they'd starve, stuck under or in the miles upon miles upon miles of rubble. Anybody lucky enough to survive would have left before it fell, and certainly nobody from the world above could have survived that fall. Beresford's prophecy, for the few that know it, looks impossible even at the time it seems to be coming to fruition. Since most people don't know it, look it up. It fits our situation perfectly.
"Many of us had people we knew somewhere in Llolysward that are no more, some better than others. Our paper even lost two of our best reporters who were working in the region. And many of us will be hard-pressed to find food because of the destruction of some of our biggest trade routes. Most of us will no longer feel safe anywhere, knowing that at any moment the sky could fall somewhere else. Chicken Little is finally becoming a reality, and we all know full well who the fox is - our emperor. We all can run to him, but who's to say we won't be eaten? Who's to say he wasn't the one to knock the hole in the sky in the first place? He will certainly claim he didn't, but he's the only one who could have.
"Llolysward is no more. And faced with that, we must ask - how could such a thing happen? Who would do such a thing? And what's to say this won't happen again somewhere else?
"The answer, of course, is nothing. All we can do now is hope."


That was really not what Ermengarde had been hoping to read, but it certainly woke her up far more than the lack of coffee had. Whoever had written that anonymous article really had a knack for making people think. Maybe that was their affinity, although she had never heard of someone having that particular affinity before. Which emotion would that even be? Compassion? Creativity? And what kind of dunkledorf decided creativity was an emotion anyway?
Forgetting that Isolde was still asleep, Ermengarde called up to her. "Isolde, I have something for you!" It wasn't very loud, but she suddenly remembered that Isolde was a light sleeper, and that realization led to her remembering that Isolde was still asleep. On top of that, she realized that Isolde probably wouldn't know what Beresford's prophecy was anyway. Oops.
Isolde moaned, then replied, "What are you doing awake now, Ermie? It's not even dawn --"
Ermengarde was slightly worried by the sudden pause and started to fidget. "What's wrong?" she asked softly, barely loud enough for Isolde to hear.
"The sky. It's... yeah, wrong." Isolde couldn't think of a word to describe it right, and decided to just use as few as possible, even if it sounded wrong. Besides, even though she was a morning person, she was still half-asleep anyway.
Ermengarde replied by throwing the newspaper up the steps, its pages fluttering and for a split second revealing a name she recognized. "Wait a moment." She dashed lightly up the stairs to follow it, turning to where she had seen it and read the entry aloud to herself. "'Wanted: Evander Branson and Alistaire of the unknown last name. They have been suspected to live at 45 North Carpenter's Avenue. If you have any information regarding them or if you have them, please call the emperor by yelling his name loudly. $1000 reward.' Evander's in trouble, Isolde!" This all was getting to be a bit much for Ermengarde, who usually took a while in the morning to get up.
"Isn't he always?" Isolde had meant to ask it innocently, but, admittedly, it came out a little snarkily. "In danger, that is?"
"But- but-" Ermengarde sputtered, shaking her head because of the lack of words.
Isolde cut Ermengarde off. "Is that the article you woke me up about? Or did you just forget I was asleep?" Her eyes narrowed as she glared at Ermengarde. Clearly, this had happened before.
"No, it's this one." Ermengarde folded the newspaper back up so that it displayed the front page before offering it to Isolde. "The one about the falling sky." She looked at the floor, embarrassed and hesitant. Isolde was always far too decisive for her.
Isolde's eyes widened further and further as she read further and further down the column. "Yikes."
Ermengarde agreed quietly. "Yup. Sorry for waking you up."
Isolde smiled. "It's fine. You know I like getting up early anyway."
"No, it's not. Sorry." Ermengarde continued to avoid eye contact. She did that so often that Isolde figured she might have the whole floor memorized by now.
"That's not something you have to apologize about, Ermie." Isolde gently turned Ermengarde's head to look directly into her eyes.
"Yes, it is. Sorry." Ermengarde was as stubborn as she was fragile. That is to say, exceedingly so.
Isolde facepalmed. "It's... well... this isn't even our problem, right? We can't possibly do anything about it!"
Ermengarde took back the newspaper and turned it to the page where Evander had been mentioned, then returned it to Isolde, the simple gesture saying it better than she could. They could help Evander.
"B-but he's just a normal elf!" Isolde stammered, her composure ruined. "He can't possibly be the one 'from above' in Beresford's prophecy, and how could we even help him if the Emperor is after him?" At that moment, Isolde wanted nothing more than to just wake up and find out it was all a dream, that the sky had never fallen and it was just a regular old day.
"How do you know about Beresford's prophecy?" Ermengarde was taken aback. Isolde did not lose her composure easily, especially not in front of others, and the last time Ermengarde had seen her lose it was when their house had burned down five years before.
Isolde started to pace, panic visible in her dull, perpetually bloodshot red eyes. "I read it in a book," she muttered.
"Anyway, we need to help Evander." Ermengarde got up to put some water to boil for some tea. "Since the Emperor is after him, he must be onto something."
Isolde stopped pacing abruptly, side eyeing Ermengarde as if she had just told a terrible joke. "If we really need to help Evander right now, why are you making tea?"
Ermengarde sighed, as if she had expected Isolde to say that. In fact, she probably had, Isolde thought to herself, knowing full well about Ermengarde's anticipation affinity. "Perhaps it was to have you say that."
Isolde thought for a moment before running up the stairs. "Well, then, what are we waiting for?"


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Interlude 1a

10 years earlier

Brady awoke to find himself in a dark room. I must have fallen asleep in the cave and dreamt that I met that creepy artifact, he thought, shuddering, but at the same time, he was rather disappointed that he wouldn't be controlling the world.
He reached up to turn his headlamp back on, hoping against hope that there would be some way out he hadn't seen before, that he could find Robert again and they would both escape this terrible cave. But it wasn't there. Coming to his senses, he realized he wasn't wearing any of his spelunking gear, but he wasn't in the water either. Maybe I only hallucinated part of it, he thought. That would explain how I'm still breathing without an oxygen mask on and how I'm not in the water. But, at the same time, he realized in the back of his mind that this was exactly what would have happened had he not been hallucinating, if the artifact had been real.
He was brought back to reality by a sharp, stinging heat on his wrist. What in the world? He looked down, like any reasonable person would, and saw the bracelet on his wrist. His eyes widened and his knees buckled.
"Do not be afraid, Brady Hemlinson." The artifact spoke, while at the same time cooling back to room temperature. It needed to earn Brady's trust.
It wasn't a dream! Brady grinned widely, ignoring the insidious tone of the artifact, clearly there to manipulate him. Manipulation goes both ways. "Where am I?" And where was the light switch? It was far darker than Brady liked in there.
The artifact chuckled inwardly at Brady's apparent dim-wittedness. The dumber, the better, after all! "You're in your new secret lair, and all good secret lairs are dark."
That was more than slightly worrying for Brady. Clearly this artifact was not a good one. "And why do I need a secret lair?" He figured he might as well figure out the artifact's evil plan as early as possible. He was honestly surprised with himself for not having realized that earlier, what with the artifact's insidious tone and all.
"So you can take over the world, obviously. I thought I already told you that!" The artifact never thought, though - it only knew.
"What's your name?" Brady was finding it rather annoying to be simply referring to it as 'the artifact' in his head, and figured its name might reveal something about it anyway.
"I'm commonly referred to as Beresford's Bane, although technically my full name is Etherealorister. Nobody calls me that, obviously." None of its wielders had used that name since many, many years ago, but the artifact figured the more honest it was, the more easily manipulated Brady would be.
"Etherealorister..." Brady trailed off, deep in thought. He had heard of that name before, he was sure of it, but he had no idea where he would have heard of it. "Who was Beresford?" A little history lesson couldn't hurt.
If it could have stiffened and backed away, it would have. "Beresford... no, we will not speak of him." The insidiousity in its voice was lost behind a mask of formality.
Brady smirked. If worst came to worst, he could always look up Beresford. There was his out route. "So, how will we go about taking over the world?"
"First, let's make you immortal. All you have to do is give the command."
"It's that easy? Sure, make me immortal." Brady was sure there was some catch attached, but glad nonetheless. He had never been a fan of overcomplication.
"It is with me." Herbs began to appear, visible in the artifact's dull glow, then boiled in a cauldron that also appeared, boiling with no visible flame. It distilled itself into a potion in a similarly summoned potion bottle.
Brady looked on, wide-eyed. "You are powerful!" With this kind of magic, ruling the world would be a breeze!
"Now drink this potion, saying 'I will do whatever it takes to become immortal.'" The insidiousity was back, now that the artifact had regained its composure.
Brady wasn't sure why it used the insidious tone. It was unnerving enough as it is. But, he followed the artifact's instructions anyway, feeling a wave of cold as he finished. "That's it?"
"Yes, you will live as long as I do." So gullible! The perfect minion.
He had known there would be a hitch! "And how long will you last?"
The cauldron tumbled to the ground. "Long enough." He has me for a single day, and is already worrying about my durability? Either he's very malicious or very attached to me. Perhaps both.
Brady shook his head disapprovingly. Such a secretive artifact. "Now we just brainwash an army and declare ourselves rulers of the known world?"
It's like he's thought about this before... "How did you guess?" It summoned a book: Necromancy for Beginners. "It should be in here."
Necromancy? What have I gotten myself into this time? He stared at it, mouth agape. Where did it come from? When will it go? Where did you come from, Etherealorister?
"Necromancy shouldn't be much of a problem. If I were you, I'd take a special interest in the section about liches, considering you are one now."
Brady paged through the book, finding the section.
"Liches are immortal beings, typically evil, whose lives are tied to a certain artifact and draw magic through them. When the artifact is destroyed, so is the lich, but as long as the artifact lasts, so does the lich."
What have I gotten myself into this time?
Interlude 1b

Many years prior

Tobias paced through the hospital room, a worried look upon his face. "Are they okay?"
He received no response from the hustle and bustle of hospital workers moving around him. People, people everywhere, but no one with which to speak.
"Hello? Where's Isadora? Are they okay?" Still they all ignored him. "Will anybody answer me?" Tired from asking and worrying as he had for many long hours the previous night, he sat down. He had a book, but he couldn't concentrate, he was so wracked with consternation for his wife. She had given birth just a couple of days prior, and Tobias hadn't seen her since.
"Will somebody at least tell me where she is?" He was exasperated. When still nobody replied, (Oh, the good old days when people actually cared about conversation), he got up and asked the strangest-looking person he saw - an old, white-haired and bearded man, his anticipation affinity making him look like a stereotypical mage, quite out of place in the formal hospital setting. To make matters even stranger, he carried a staff. "Do you know where my wife Isadora is?"
The old man straightened, as if he recognized the name. "That is where I am going."
Confused, but realizing that any further questions he asked would likely get a similar response, Tobias followed the old man.
The old man paused at door 224, opened the door, and gestured for Tobias to enter. Actions speak louder than words, after all.
Tobias entered, and the sight that met his eyes he had been looking forward to for a long time: Isadora, safe on a hospital chair with their new baby boy on their lap. "What did you name him?"
Isadora noticed the old man and gave him a strange look. "His name is Alistaire. I named him after your great-uncle, the one that went off to war."
Tobias frowned, a bit of disgust crossing his features. "Oh, him."
Isadora snickered.
The old man spoke up. "I am Nikolai, the greatest prophet of this age."
Tobias was too incredulous to process that properly. "And?"
Nikolai glared at him, disappointed. "Alistaire is special. He will be the greatest prophet the next age has ever seen."
Isadora looked right at Alistaire, and as if she were noticing his vibrant pink eyes for the first time, she fainted. Tobias ran over to catch her before realizing she had been in a chair and was fine. He took Alistaire off of her lap, worried that she might drop him and noting how Alistaire looked like he already understood what was going on.
Nikolai continued. "He will be the one to see Beresford's prophecy completed, for his health shall last as long as the sky does. And he will know when he is about to die, for his magic as well will die with the sky. And he must do all he can to delay that day as long as possible." He stared off to the distance, as if he had lost all touch with reality. Tobias had known enough prophets to know that they always did that when they saw the future.
"And we will not live to see that day?" Tobias' eyes inadvertently flicked towards Isadora, who lay unconscious on the ground.
"No, and you will be lucky that you didn't." Nikolai grimaced, seeing the rubble in his mind's eye, knowing full well that he wouldn't be around to see that either.
Tobias fell silent, taking in the full meaning of those words and their full implications.
Nikolai pivoted slowly for maximum effect before leaving the room. "Do not forget Beresford!" he said over his shoulder as he exited.
"I won't." Tobias muttered quietly enough that only he and baby Alistaire could hear. "I won't."


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Chapter 6
Evander was scared.
It wasn't that he was on his own that frightened him, he'd been alone for quite some time before meeting Alistaire. It wasn't that he was being chased, he'd been chased before. It wasn't even that Alistaire was likely going to die - no, he was scared for himself. He was scared of how he couldn't trust even the planet to work the way it should, how the sky might collapse at any moment, burying him in an endless sea of rubble.
But, speaking of being chased, there were the orcs again. How they expected to catch him when they walked so loudly he could hear their every move was beyond him, but his back was starting to ache from having been crouching for so long.
He skulked yet further within the dark corners of the town, away from the ever-approaching orc police behind him. They seemed to never tire, but Evander had worked through worse. At least they didn't have a mage with them. That had been terrifying, an encounter that had bred a deep fear of mages within him. Alistaire was the lone exception.
"Why don't they just give up?" Evander muttered under his breath, grumpily. "What's keeping them going? Surely I couldn't be that tasty!"
But as he skulked around the next building, not really sure where he was going, he was met by an unpleasant surprise: the city had come to an end, leaving wide open countryside as far as the eye could see.
"Shoot. How am I supposed to skulk in the shadows when there are no shadows?"
Needing some reassurance, he fingered the daggers hidden within his cloak. "Never be unprepared," his father had told him many times, and Evander had gotten the point after seeing what had happened to him. He cringed at the memory before cringing yet more when he realized the orcs were gaining on him.
Stuck between two bad options, Evander chose the open countryside, sprinting at top speed towards a singular building in the distance, preferring any direction that wasn't towards the orcs.
This did not go unnoticed, however. The orcs turned and pointed at him, removing swords from their heavy belts. "Get him." Their leader snarled wickedly, his prey in sight.
Evander fled for his life, the satchel Alistaire had given him, complete with a note saying "I hope you find a use for these. I won't need them anymore", whacking against his shoulder. He'd always read the newspaper before, and so hadn't gotten caught off guard, always avoiding this sort of predicament since he was always miles away. But, having been lazy, lulled into a false sense of complacency, he didn't even know where he was going. So much for stealth, anyway. All he needed to do was outrun the orcs and he'd be fine... though inwardly he knew he couldn't hold them off for long. He was just avoiding the inevitable conflict, and he stood no chance against so many of them.
Looking back, he saw that his suspicions were confirmed - the orcs were outpacing him and would soon catch up to him if he didn't do something about it. He figured he could snipe one with his dagger, but he knew that wouldn't slow the rest of them down. They didn't care about their friends, except for the fact that more of them means less chance of them dying.
Now he was scared of being chased.
Evander quickly took in his surroundings while still maintaining his dead sprint. The building was still too far away for him to be sure he could get to it, to his right was bare grass, and to his left, there seemed to be a field of something that looked rather like wheat. Sighing, he realized that wouldn't hide him: the orcs' sense of smell was far too acute for that. Alistaire's old satchel slipped down his shoulder, reminding him of it and causing him to wonder what could possibly be enclosed. Glancing back to see the far too fast orcs still gaining on him, he knew the satchel was his only hope, although he was rather glad that he had any hope at all.
Evander tripped while fumbling with the strap, scraping his hand on the gravelly path, but he had no time with which to exclaim in pain. "Ignore it. You can deal with a little scrape," he mumbled to himself, determination slipping into his tone. He would not, could not die here. Or, at least that's what he hoped.
Finally, the strap came undone, the satchel's contents spilling on the ground. Evander silently chided himself for his clumsiness and lack of foresight, but quickly returned to the matter at hand: the orcs were only a few paces away.
Evander tried to keep from panicking, knowing that if he did he was doomed and instead grabbed the nearest item that had spilled, a clear, slightly cracked globe with something floating inside. Quickly scanning the attached note for any instructions, the first couple of words stood out to him. "Throw this..."
Feeling their presence behind him, he did so, resigning himself to his fate. He knew it would take a miracle for him to get out of this alive, for him even to last the day. Time seemed to slow as he followed the globe's trajectory towards the ever approaching group... and then one of the orcs slashed through the globe with his sword. So much for them having bad hand-eye coordination, Evander thought, expecting that thought to be his last.
As he waited for the sword to drop, his life flashed before his eyes. He recalled how as a child he had nearly cut one of his fingers off by accident when one of his pranks backfired on him. And of the day his father took too strong a stance against the emperor and paid the price. Of the day his mother left and never came back, unable to handle the constant reminder that Evander looked so much like his father. Of those long, hard years working as hard as he could just to survive. Of the day he met Alistaire when the barracks burnt down, one of the worst and best days of his life at the same time. Of the day he got removed from the army for speaking out against the emperor, warned that if it happened again he would pay with his life. Of the day -
He suddenly realized he'd been reminiscing for far longer than he should have been able to. Deeply perplexed, he looked over his shoulder. The orcs were still there, but they weren't moving - they seemed to be frozen in time. His jaw dropped, not able to comprehend the scene before him. How- what- why- why could he move and they couldn't? He stared blankly at them like a prophecy affinity getting a revelation. Just the fact that he had been so sure he would die had caused his brain to roll to a complete stop.
Nothing moved. Evander looked like one of the orcs, frozen in time, unable to move, when suddenly the voice of Alistaire shocked him out of his blankness. Flee, Evander. There is not much time.
Evander jumped back, his brain needing a moment to process that the voice was Alistaire's. It took him another moment to realize what Alistaire had said. It took a third moment for him to finally start sprinting towards the farmhouse, realizing that the globe's effect would only last so long and that the farmhouse would be the only shelter close enough.
As he ran, Alistaire spoke to him again. Ask for Amberly and tell her I sent you. He sounded tired, as if he were on his last legs, but it still carried the authority of one who has lived many years, seen many things, and knows that he knows what to do.
Suddenly realizing he had left Alistaire's precious objects lying on the ground, he turned back to pick them up, the panic from earlier not being allowed to fully recede. Hurry! Alistaire exclaimed caringly, so much so that Evander could feel his worry for him, which spurred him on. After fumbling with the satchel and dropping a key and a dagger, he managed to load them all into the satchel, then, after a far-too-long break for breath, he mustered his strength and sprinted back towards the farmhouse. His legs were yelling at him, but the adrenaline from his near-death situation kept them going towards his goal.
They are coming.
Those words were not what Evander had been hoping to hear right then, to say the least. And he knew they would be furious. "I would be too, and I don't get angry easily," he said to himself. Huh? Evander chuckled once he realized that Alistaire had heard what he said with no context. "Just talking to myself again." Then his eyes widened as he realized it - the orcs were coming. The spell that had frozen them in time seemed to have worn off, the sheer power of the spell causing it not to last very long.
Evander tried to speed up, to quicken his pace, but he was already running as fast as he could, tired as he was. "Sheesh." He didn't like to be pessimistic, but the farmhouse was far too far away for comfort, especially with how the orcs were outpacing him by such a large margin. "How do they run so fast with such bulky frames?" he wheezed, out of breath and feeling like he wouldn't be able to catch it again until tomorrow, but at the same time unable to slow down because of the dumb orcs. He frowned despite himself, that hint of pessimism sneaking into his facade of confidence.
He was interrupted by some sort of clear wall, his momentum carrying him right into it and making for a rather painful collision. But that wasn't the worst of it - he had lost all of that built-up acceleration while the orcs, who didn't need to get through the wall, advanced, the slightest hint of carefulness added to their heavy tread. They were determined not to be surprised again.
Then, just as he had given up hope yet again (this was not the nicest of days, to say the least), Alistaire spoke, causing the orcs to pause. Yell. No more, no less. Just that one word: yell.
Evander, still thinking at light speed, continued panicking. "What am I supposed to yell? How am I supposed to yell when I'm so out of breath? How will yelling help? Am I doomed?" Bear in mind, he wasn't usually like this, just when he's about to die over and over. Normally, he was a very composed individual, unlike how he was here.
And then, just as Evander finally knew he had just gotten out of the frying pan into the fire, Alistaire delivered one of his wisest sayings ever, which was saying something, as Alistaire had said many a wise thing during his many years treading Perelandrea. Guess. "Great life advice, but not very help-" His eyes widened as he finally grasped what Alistaire had been saying, his fear-addled brain finally putting two and two together, although he had never been particularly good at math.
"Amberly! I have come from Alistaire! He said you would let me in... and I kinda need that like right now." Evander yelled at the top of his lungs, grimacing as the orcs reached him.
"You won't escape so easily this time." Their leader approached, malice dripping from his husky tone. "No more tricks and baubles for you."
Evander's eyes darkened as he set his jaw, determined to take out as many of them as he could before he died. "Well, it seems you are in for a surprise." His apparent fearlessness appeared to rattle their leader for a moment before he continued his advance.
"You may enter." Another booming voice emanated from all around Evander, who stumbled backwards at the loud noise, falling through what had been the clear wall before, but now, since he had clearance, had seemingly parted to let him through, though he lost consciousness when his head struck what appeared to be a path. The orcs, downright frightened, banged against the reformed wall as hard as they could, but when it did not yield, they left to inform their supervisor that Evander was a bigger problem than anticipated.
If only Evander had been conscious enough to see that...
Chapter 7
This was the wildest day of Brad Johnson's whole entire life. As a journalist for the New York Times, he typically enjoyed it when big events happened, this time it was a bit too big even for him. The Earth itself was falling apart.
How does one even begin to write about a tragedy bigger than any that's ever happened before? How does one even begin to try and comfort the thousands of families who lost at least somebody they loved? And how does one even start to explain how they found another world in the hole that that tragedy caused?
Being a journalist is hard, he thought to himself. You always have to get it just right.
His boss, Mr. Smith, interrupted his train of thought. "Mr. Johnson, hurry up. We need that article by nightfall and we all know how slow you type." His hair was slightly mussed and his tie was off, like he hadn't slept at all last night. Brad had never seen him look so disheveled before.
"It's not that slow!" He was slightly insulted - he typed a perfectly average 23 words per minute. It was admittedly a bit slow compared to the other journalists, but compared to everyone else, it was not terrible.
"It is, believe me." Mr. Smith pulled out his phone to check a statistic. "It says here that the beginner typing speed for adults is 45 words per minute and you type half that." He grinned slightly, a hint of a smirk finding its way into his smile.
"Oof." Brad realized that Mr. Smith had probably told him that many times before and he had just forgotten. Selective memory, no doubt.
"Oof is right. Now get back to work." He wasn't as bossy as usual. Brad figured that was probably due to the same reason that he looked somewhat disheveled - he probably hadn't slept the previous night. Perhaps he too was worried about the earth crumbling beneath them.
Nevertheless, Brad did get back to work... or at least he tried to. Writer's block happens to journalists too.
                   

-           -

Fred stood at the edge of the greatest cliff Earth had ever known. He wasn't the only one there, for certain - it was also the widest cliff Earth had ever known. If he were three feet more east, he'd fall farther than any human had fallen... and survived, of course.
It was far enough down that Fred couldn't even get a good look at it, all he could see was specks - some water here, a continent here, a mountain range here, and some sort of glowing ball, not unlike the sun, rising on the horizon.
"Copycats." he muttered to himself, smiling wryly. It was an interesting scientific dilemma, how a star came to be in there and wasn't destroying everything, but the scientists had far greater things to worry about, like why the Earth's crust was coming apart.
Fred was slightly annoyed that the chasm kept ruining his mood and wouldn't get out of his mind, but, being a reasonable fellow, he figured that it only made sense to think about it, considering he was on the edge of it and one misstep would send him tumbling in.
"Not even an H-bomb could have taken out the crust... but if you take out the crust, would the rest follow?" He started to pace thoughtfully before stepping on a loose pebble. He quickly regained his balance, but the shock brought him back to his senses, and he sat down upon a nearby ledge. Could someone in that inner world, Middle-Earth, if you will, have taken out the Earth's crust? Could they have larger explosives than H-bombs? And even if they did, why would they use them? And how would you get them up here?
"Frederick Wilson, your helicopter is leaving in three minutes. Hurry up and get on over here." The loudspeaker boomed so loudly, it seemed to be yelling right in Fred's ears. He whipped around towards the source of the sound, nearly losing his balance again, before realizing where he was and getting up carefully.
"Always take the path," he reminded himself. "Don't take unnecessary risks." The scientists had worked right away to make an observational path, which is how Fred had gotten to the edge in the first place. Nobody had fallen in yet, at least not from the observational party, and Fred didn't want to be the first.
"Frederick, we will leave without you. You have 90 seconds." Fred tripped, scraping his hand on the rocks, but got back up and started to sprint, dangerous considering his perilous proximity to certain doom. As if matters couldn't get any worse, the earth shook in a small earthquake and raindrops started to fall.
"Wait for me!" he yelled, hoping that they'd notice him or at least stop due to the inclement weather. The weather prediction services had been down, disrupted by the water flow into the chasm which was throwing off even their best models. Already the Great Lakes had been drained, although the waterfall had been admittedly one of the finest sights of his entire life.
Abby sighed. Fred was always late, but he was not so late this time that she could honestly leave him behind. "Get in the back," she commanded, punctuated with a side eye, through the now gusty winds. Boy, that storm had started quickly.
Fred threw open the door, grateful for the shelter, and jumped in, tripping on the step but not suffering any damage. "Oops." He was the clumsiest person he knew, and that was saying something.
"Buckle up - we're going in." Abby had never been so excited in her life. She felt that this was a great example of God working everything for our good in that this chasm was letting her be the first explorer to delve into the depths of the inner world, or, as the public called it, Middle-Earth. Perhaps Tolkein had been onto something.
Fred grinned. He had been waiting all his life for an opportunity like this, and he was rather surprised that that hope had actually panned out. But, not wanting to bother irritable Abby, he stayed silent.
They descended through the roaring wind, the windshield wipers working at amazing speed, as Abby subtly adjusted for the terrible flying conditions. It was great weather a few minutes ago... thought Fred to himself. He was not a fan of such whimsical weather, which is why he lived in Bermuda, when he was home, which, admittedly, was not often.
But as they descended deeper and deeper into the hole, the weather started to fade and the color of the sky started to dull into a deep gray, like it was dusk. Clearly, the weather above didn't affect the weather below... but why did the rain stop? Shouldn't it have fallen through the hole as well? Nevertheless, he was glad for the better weather, even if it made the region far gloomier than it needed to be.
When Abby turned on the headlights to adjust for the dimmer lighting soon after, the piercingly bright beams revealed rocks. Dull gray rocks as far as the eye could see, even from their superb vantage point from high up in the craft. "Our crust must have fallen onto here, making it a barren region," Fred noted. "It probably took out more of their planet than it did ours, since theirs seems considerably smaller than ours."
"I know." Abby glared at him for a moment before turning back to the controls. "I'm not dumb."
Fred fell silent, not wishing to anger Abby when she was the closer one to his eject button.
As they surveyed the rubble placidly, their headlights came across something that wasn't rock. "Is that... a person?" Fred asked hesitantly.
Abby lowered the helicopter to get a better look, the figure cloaked in darkness appearing to note their out-of-place vehicle. "That is." Her eyes widened in shock. "How did he get down here?"
Fred also was stunned, but not because of the man: he was stunned that Abby had said something that wasn't sarcastic - and not once, but twice! "Should we pick him up?"
Abby nodded. "Ye- wait..." She paused to check a flashing red light on the dashboard. "No, we don't have enough fuel. We'll have to pick him up tomorrow, and yes, we'll have to land in the storm. It's not going to magically clear up or anything." The pensive look on her face did not match the sarcasm in her tone - clearly she had regained her composure, her mask of sarcasm regained.
"Oh, well." Fred was disappointed as their copter landed back at the research base, but he knew the man would be fine. It wasn't worth the risk of getting stuck down there to pick him up. They'd just take twice as much fuel and figure out how he survived the fall - or if he'd been down there all along...
Chapter 8
Harrigan paced around the candlelit room. It was far later than he had wanted to be awake for, but worry that the sky might fall, burying him and his family in endless rubble, kept him out of his bed, pacing the floor. He knew he would suffer the consequences the next morning, but he figured that was nothing a warm cup of coffee couldn't fix.
Having been reminded of coffee, his sleep-deprived brain naturally convinced him to check how much was left of it to see if he could have some now. After rummaging through the cupboard for what seemed like a while, he finally found a candle, and lighting it, he found that the cupboard was empty, devoid of the life-giving beans. He groaned, wondering how he would ever get up the next morning. He needed that coffee!
At least that sudden realization stopped his pacing, as instead of doing so he slumped on the couch, tired but not tired enough to fall asleep quite yet. The slouching caused some of the hot wax from the candle to drip onto his hand, causing a suppressed exclamation together with a sudden realization that he was still holding it and was far too close to setting the couch on fire.
"Ow..." He shook out his hand, trying to relieve the pain and jostle the wax off of it, very nearly bumping into the candle being held in his other hand. He really should not have been up that late. But, coming to that realization, he also remembered why he was up that late - the sky might collapse.
Those were the worst kind of worries: the ones he could do nothing about. The ones he could do something about he usually took care of and got a decent night's sleep, but the ones like this one - he knew he'd be lucky if he got three, even if he got to bed at 8. This time it was so bad he decided to not even try. It was a lost cause, he figured, although it could be chalked up to the fact that he was sleep-deprived and couldn't think straight. That was often the case.
It wasn't helping his paranoia that the floor kept creaking, reminding him of an earthquake. Only three hours of sleep and staying up until three in the morning had made it so that he couldn't tell the difference, or even let him remember that there was one.
The candle's sputtering flame let loose another drop of wax, falling onto Harrigan's outstretched palm as he kept it from hitting the ground, its quick burst of pain flaring and then dispersing into a dull ache, bringing a wry, weary smile to Harrigan's disheveled figure. He sighed, picking the now dried wax off of his hand and noting that the candle was now no more than a burning stub. He went through a lot of them during his nightly vigils.
Outside, it started to rain lightly, the smattering of the raindrops upon his abode easing his tension slightly. He had always enjoyed rain, even when it came with thunder and lightning. But that night, all he saw as he looked out the window was his sanity dripping away. He needed coffee, and fast.
A bright flash of lightning split the dull, morose horizon, casting its bright light upon the unlit scene in Harrigan's room. Harrigan grinned before sighing and crumpling back onto the couch. If only things were different... but they weren't. The hole in the sky, also illuminated by the short-lived bolt, reminded him quite thoroughly of that. Not even the corresponding peal of thunder brightened his mood.
Harrigan stumbled back to the cupboard, stubbing his toe in the process, causing him to stifle another exclamation. He couldn't wake up Sylvia and Nicholas, his wife and son respectively. He took out another candle, another match, and a book to try and pass the time. He wasn't sure why his book was in the cupboard, but he wasn't awake enough to figure that out. It was probably Nicholas anyway... or maybe he had left it there last night? Shrugging to himself, he strenuously made his way back to the comfort of the couch. His legs were threatening to give up, and he was in no mood to refuse their demands.
Outside, the rain fell faster and faster, the lightning struck faster and faster, and the thunder formed a continuous rumbling, far louder than the creaky floor. Finally, Harrigan could relax, and he did, pulling out the book and lighting the candle, ignoring everything Sylvia had ever told him about maintaining his eyesight. His sanity was more important than his eyes, and he needed to do something. He put the candle into the lampstand, the charm upon the lampstand lighting the whole room in its dull glow. All that having been completed, he sighed in tired relief, sagging into the couch. Meanwhile, the thunderpeals grew louder and louder and more and more continuous, although Harrigan couldn't process it in his decaffeinated state.
Buried in his book, not quite large enough to be a tome, but at the same time very long, he didn't notice anything wrong until the pattering of the rain turned into a dull thunking upon the rooftop. Looking out the window, he noticed that it wasn't raining rain anymore, it was raining sand and pebbles. "What?" Harrigan mouthed to himself, incomprehensive. How was that even possible? Did some mighty wizard send a sandstorm after them? Why? And why so late in the day?
Sleepy groaning came faintly from upstairs, in the direction of the bedrooms. The storm had woken up the rest of his family. Harrigan added his own groan to the chorus, not wanting to deal with another sleep-deprived and decaffeinated person - it was hard enough dealing with himself.
"Do you know what's happening?" Sylvia asked, tired and timid, like always. Well, she wasn't always tired, but she was always timid.
Harrigan facepalmed, ready to respond when a sudden "BOOM!" sounded from above, accompanied by a blinding flash of light, brighter than any bolt of lightning he'd ever seen. And before his terrified eyes, part of the sky started to crumble and fall, his worst nightmare coming true.
Nicholas jolted awake from his drowsiness, letting loose a shield of light off of pure instinct. Slyvia and Harrigan stared at him, having had no idea he could do that and not thinking it to be even possible that a boy of only seven could have so much power.
Nicholas looked like a boy twice his age, causing a motherly smile to bloom across Sylvia's face even with their unfortunate circumstances. "Quick, dad, activate the portal and get us out of here! The shield won't last long!" His boyish confidence was offset by the maturity visible in his bright orange eyes.
Sylvia didn't know how to react. "H-how do you know?" She was as hesitant as ever, one of the most indecisive people either of them had ever met. Meanwhile, Harrigan flipped through the book he'd been reading, his sleepy unresponsiveness transformed into brutally efficient panic. "Portal... portal... page 294..."
"It's page 257, actually," Nicholas added, staring worriedly at the shield holding up the falling sky. "It's in the section labeled Transportation Portals."
Sylvia snickered lightly, hidden in the safety of the corner, when she noted the unintentional sassiness in Nicholas' voice, a direct contrast to the obvious innocence on his face. Harrigan just shook his head, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. Nicholas had been just what he needed to brighten up his day... or night, to be precise. Or day. Frozen in indecision, he glanced at the clock. It was three in the morning. That matter settled, Harrigan turned to the suggested page and found the section Nicholas had indicated.
"To open a portal, first arrange candles in a circle. Light them in counterclockwise order, starting from the candle of your choice. Secondly, place in the center of the circle coffee, or something else important to you. Thirdly, designate to the circle where you would like the portal to go to by writing that in chalk within the circle. If any of the writing is outside the circle, it will not work. If you would like to add a duration for which the portal works, write that inside as well. Finally, place your palm upon the item (or items) in the middle of the circle and will it to work. Disclaimer: afterwards, you will likely feel very weak and/or faint. It is very much advised to either create this with a partner who will take you through the portal or to create the portal before you actually need it. The portal can be destroyed whenever you wish it, but doing so while within the portal will get you stuck in the portal-realm, a world of many windows and no exits. And remember, as always, when using magic, be careful: things can go wrong very easily and we are not responsible for user error."
That was their way of getting out of any legal trouble: just blaming it on user error. That's why most people didn't use magic those days - there were too many fakes in which every spell just blew up the caster.
"Hurry!" Nicholas wasn't panicking, per se, but he was very worried. He wasn't very good at masking his emotions, which was probably good, considering he was still only seven years old.
Harrigan knew it was no use arguing, so he set it up with a purpose: not too fast, to make sure he didn't drop anything, but still not too slow, because the shield might collapse at any moment, sending them to their doom. As he spoke, some rocks slipped through the magical barrier, which shrunk until it was directly above them to conserve its magical energy and give them enough time to escape. The effort of the adjustment seemed to wear Nicholas out, and he became as drowsy as he had been before, but the rest of the sky falling onto the rest of the surrounding region was a truly gruesome sight, even if you ignore the terrible crashes and screams. Nicholas slumped onto the couch, his slouch bearing an eerie resemblance to the mood Harrigan had been in earlier, but unlike Harrigan, he was unconscious.
Everything having been set up, Harrigan touched the last of his coffee beans, his emergency storage, tentatively, expecting nothing to happen, or, at the worst, it to explode, killing them all. He was rather pessimistic, to say the least, but his fears appeared to be well-founded as a sudden burst of light emanated from the circle together with a sound like breaking glass. Sylvia jumped back from it, trembling, although scared even more from the circle's reaction then from the impending doom outside, which, speaking of which, was getting even closer as the shield sagged. Nicholas just sat there, his eyes glazed over with sheer exhaustion, as keeping the shield up was taking all he had out of him. Sylvia's heart ached with the pain of seeing her son so weary, but she knew the only thing she could do was... well, nothing. Just to stay out of the way. Just like always.
Harrigan stared, entranced, at the narrow beam of light before he collapsed on the ground directly to the right of the troublesome circle, sleep-deprived and magically energy-deprived.
Sylvia sighed. It wasn't that Harrigan or Nicholas were particularly muscular, but it still would be a lot of work for her to drag them both into the portal, and what if it didn't work? Her attention drifted to the falling rocks all around the house, their deafening crashes making it very difficult to think of anything else. How could anything she could do ever be enough? And what about her neighbors? She had known Lydia, her back-door neighbor since she was 5, how could she cope with having let her die?
She was frozen in indecision and panic: even with the danger so close at hand, her brain couldn't register it. She had no idea what to do, or if she should be doing anything at all. Would you if the world were crumbling all around you and you had been raised to never mess with magic?
The blue shield had turned into a dome, protecting their house from the larger rocks, but its waning power allowed the pebbles to seep through, although their clattering upon the rooftop was drowned out by the mass destruction outside of the protective webbing. It was by far and beyond the worst sight Sylvia had ever seen, and, as is usually the case, on the worst night Sylvia had ever had. Times were bleak, to say the least.
She felt so alone, her indecision a direct contrast to the chaos outside. Tentatively, she picked up the book, its pages still flipped to the instructions for the portal. As she pored over it, looking for some hint as to what had gone wrong, her attention caught on a passage near the middle: "It is very much advised to create this with a partner who will take you through the portal." Strangely enough, it also seemed to be highlighted: she was sure it hadn't been highlighted earlier! Surely she would have noticed pink highlighting, right? She wasn't so sure. Maybe she just hadn't been paying attention. After all, she was almost always wrong.
As she stared at it, writing started to appear in the margins in a scrawled cursive script, and as she continued to stare at it, it cleared up. "Hurry!" it stated, underlined a multitude of times. Sylvia dropped the book like it was on fire, jumping back with a tiny shriek. Terrified out of her wits, she gripped the windowsill, trembling even faster than the ground was from the crumbling rocks all around them. And when her terrified gaze met the landscape outside, she crumpled to the ground, crying with pure terror.
There was nowhere to hide.
Nicholas started awake, eyes wide with fear. "I can't hold it much longer!" Then he noticed Sylvia, who was quaking on the floor, trying to hide. He'd never seen her so afraid before, and the sight of her so unnerved unnerved him as well. But, that could be dealt with later, he hoped, because it would have to be. "Quick, pull Dad into the portal!" He stumbled towards it, moving like someone with a 102 degree fever who really should be in bed all day.
Sylvia looked up weakly before sighing in despair, the frail sob sending shudders through her small frame, but the sight of Nicholas dragging himself bravely towards the magical beam brought a small spark of hope to her desperate heart. "How does he do it?" she mouthed to herself, slightly embarrassed that Nicholas was being so much more valiant than she even though she was so much older.
Meanwhile, as Nicholas crawled towards the portal, plodding wearily along the floor which seemed a mile long, the shield fell lower and lower, Nicholas not able to keep it aloft and crawl towards the portal at the same time in his weakened state. He whimpered softly from the effort, but still managed to punctuate his point by staring right into Sylvia's eyes, looking up from his low position on the floor. The roof started to crumble from the weight of all the rubble the shield was struggling to hold, but Sylvia didn't notice. She couldn't hear anything anyway because of the rumbling outside, where it was still pitch black. The only light in the whole countryside seemed to be coming from the supposed portal in the center of the room, and she was yet more paralyzed from that than from the impending doom from the rocks above.
Through all of this, Harrigan lay near the portal, unconscious, his face turned towards the portal as if begging Sylvia to pull him into it- but what if it didn't work? Fear does strange things to people, and in this instance, her brain simply couldn't process that if she didn't get in the portal, she was going to die from the collapse of the shield.
Realizing that Sylvia was having a panic attack, Nicholas, who had remarkable perceptiveness for a boy of his age, tried to muster some last burst of magic to pull Harrigan into the portal, knowing that Sylvia would follow, but with the effort of maintaining the protective barrier and having dragged himself nearly into the portal all he could muster was a little flicker of light from his fingertips, and, panting, he slumped flat on the floor. And so, about to fall unconscious again, he mustered all his remaining available strength (the strength he wasn't using to maintain the sputtering bulwark) and managed one last word, hoping it could spur his mother into action, needing it to work. "Hurry." Then, if he could have collapsed further, being already slumped flat on the floor, he would have as his eyes drooped shut and he lost consciousness.
That one word struck Sylvia right to the heart. That was what the mysterious writing in the book had said, and even though Nicholas' and Harrigan's valiant sacrifices hadn't gotten her moving, that eerie coincidence did, reminding her that even messing with magic couldn't get her in a worse position than she already was in. And so it was that that finally raised her from the floor while the shield began to crumble and the walls fell down. "Hurry." She clung to that one word to keep her going, making it her shield against the anxieties that were trying to make her freeze again, to be indecisive until the roof would crumble and they'd all be buried. Someone had to survive to speak for the ones who didn't. She suddenly envied Harrigan, who was just sleeping through all of this. Either he'd wake up safe and sound or he'd never wake up, having died in her sleep. Both of those sounded far better to Sylvia than her current predicament. She was slightly grateful that she was lying unconscious and wheezing on the ground like Nicholas, but the sight of him sprawled like that, tired beyond anything she had ever felt but still having to hold on, pained her deeply. She wasn't sure how she could ever forget that.
But still, she dragged Harrigan into the portal, his body disappearing once it came into contact with the glowing beam. Suddenly wracked by worries, her hand flew to the locket Harrigan had given them when they had married with a dove etched in it, trying to steel herself from another panic attack. There was no going back now, she thought, not with the confidence that usually comes with that sentence or dread from impending doom, no, instead she said it trembling, trying to grab onto some last determination so she could muster the ability to drag her prone son to wherever Harrigan was. She nearly froze again except for the wings of the dove locket pricking her palm and reminding her of what she had to do.
Nicholas moaned subconsciously as Sylvia dragged him into the portal, the shield outside flickering as he passed into it before finally collapsing the moment he was finally in. And the rocks came tumbling through the roof. In that split second before they arrived, Sylvia froze again, her fear-addled brain not realizing what had just happened.
"What happened to the-"
Realization struck her as soon as the roof collapsed. Instinctively she curled up into a ball to protect her head, even more scared than she had been before. This was worse than dragging Harrigan into the portal had been, knowing she might never see him again - this was knowing she might never see anybody again.
And just when she had resigned herself to the fate she'd finally realized, Nicholas reached through the portal with one hand, striking Sylvia's ankle and causing her to lose her balance into the portal. A gasp escaped her lips as she fell into one of the things she most dreaded: magic.
"No!" But her scream was cut short as it all faded to black.