Hofrora’s apartment was open. Everything had been removed. Royden wondered where he was being kept now.
People on every floor were out and about talking with their neighbors about the evacuations. Royden saw all sorts of weird beings he had never seen before. Most looked like humans except for one or two strange additions. Some had tails or horns or were different colors. He didn’t realize so many different beings lived there. It was going to be almost impossible to interrogate everyone before they left for their home dimensions or planets. He tried to talk with a few but they didn’t speak any English. It really was going to be impossible.
Royden got in the elevator.
“Hey, Mr. Parrow, Flora, some ghost, are you there?”
No one answered. Royden tried to get the elevator to go up to the thirteenth floor but he didn’t know how. After a while he gave up.
On the seventh floor someone came up to Royden. It was Jessa Tezera, Mr. Tezera’s daughter who was around the same age as Royden.
“You’re Royden Doble, right?” She asked.
“Yes.” Royden said, wondering how everyone in the building seemed to know who he was.
“Cool.” She said awkwardly. “It’s nice to meet you.”
Royden nodded and kept walking. He didn’t have time to chat.
She followed. “You know some stuff about the weird things happening, don’t you?”
“This is the Discovery Apartments you’re going to have to be more specific.”
“The people disappearing. You know something, right?”
He stopped. “Maybe.”
“My dad said that you thought it was Mr. Hofrora. You said that he was working for someone.”
Royden looked at her suspiciously. “So?”
She smiled. “I think I can help.”
Royden didn’t believe her. If she knew something then her father probably did as well, and he was the one who started the idea of evacuating. “I’m busy now, try again later.”
She looked at him expectantly. “You beat Pooly, right?”
“I didn’t really beat it.”
“And you beat the gremlins. No one can do that.” She said excitedly.
“I got out alive both times—”
“That sounds like beating them to me.”
Royden shrugged and went to the elevator.
“I know who Hofrora is working for.”
Royden stopped inches away from the down button. “You do?”
She folded her arms proudly. “Yes.”
“I mean you really do?”
“Yes, but we can’t talk about it here.”
“Why not?”
“I’ll explain on the way.”
Royden sighed. It sounded like was going to end up in some sort of crazy adventure again. He hoped she was telling the truth. If he could get the information he needed he wouldn’t have to leave the building.
“Where are they?”
“They’ve already been sent back to their home, but we can see them there.”
“And where is this home?”
She started away from him down the hall. “Let’s go, I’ll show you.” She called back.
Royden followed uneasily. After dealing with Badchi he was weary about going to new places without prior knowledge of the place.
Jessa went to the end of the hall and stood by the trash chute.
“What now?” Royden asked.
She opened the metal door. A smelly breeze wafted up.
Royden coughed. “Do we have to go down there?”
Jessa smiled and pulled a card key from her pocket. “Yes.” She slid the card key across all four sides of the chute. Shifting of metal could be heard down below somewhere. “You ready?”
“Not until you tell me what you just did.”
“I made it so we don’t end up landing in garbage.”
She jumped head first into the trash chute. She gave a loud “yoo-hoo” before her voice disappeared.
“Jessa?” Royden hollered after her. She didn’t respond. He climbed into the chute and sat on the edge. “This place has more secrets—” He slipped off the edge and hurtled down past all the floors. He braced for impact but none came. He continued to fall into the Earth. With no lights and no windows he had to trust that he wouldn’t burn to death heading to the core.
The chute suddenly ended and he fell through the sky. Everything was blue around him with a few wispy clouds here and there. The ground came up to meet him. He closed his eyes expecting the worst. All motion stopped. Royden opened his eyes and looked out upon a flat world with light purple grass. A yellow tree stood in the distance with bright orange leaves.
Jessa watched with fascination nearby. “It’s always interesting to see how people react their first time.” She said half smiling.
“Where are we?”
“How many times have you asked that since you’ve lived in the Discovery?”
“Quite a few.” Royden confessed.
“Some places are better without names.” Said Jessa, looking out over the bizarre landscape. She threw her arm into the air. “Let’s walk!”
The two kids hiked all over the place that day. Jessa led the way. After a while of walking one way she suddenly turned and started another way. She did this several times.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Royden asked after several changes in direction.
“There’s not exactly road signs.” Jessa said haughtily.
“It’s getting late, I’m sure.” Royden said. There was no way to know in that world. He couldn’t find a sun in the sky to tell the time.
“Time doesn’t work here. You can stay here forever and never age or grow hungry. Exactly how you are when you come in is exactly how you will always stay.”
“Really?” Despite everything he had been through the idea of staying the same age forever sounded rather farfetched.
“Uh-huh, that’s why the beings here like to go to other places. When they get tired of living they go somewhere else to live a few years and die. They don’t live very long away from here.”
“And I’m assuming they do live here somewhere.” Royden said testily.
“You need to learn to be patient, Den, I’ll find the way eventually.”
What followed was more of the same. Jessa went this way and that never straying too far from the yellow tree with orange leaves. Nothing else could be seen above the purple grass in any direction.
After what felt like forever she finally chose a direction. “I think that’s it.”
“What’s it?” Royden asked, still not seeing anything anywhere.
Right before his eyes a dirt road cut through the purple grass ahead of them. It wound all over and disappeared into the distance. Far off in the distance trees popped out of the ground.
Jessa took off toward the newly sprouted trees. She happily hummed an upbeat tune the whole way. It looked like progress was finally being made.
Upon reaching the forest Jessa stopped and leaned against a tree. “Now let’s set a few ground rules.”
“How so?” Royden asked, amazed at the yellow trees with the bright orange leaves. They swayed so beautifully in the slight wind. Their leaves made soft sounds similar to flags blowing in the wind.
“We just entered the home of the Smurg Smurgles.”
“The what now?”
“The Smurg Smurgles. They are the ones responsible for the recent activity in your world.”
Royden started toward the center of the forest. “Then let’s go meet them and see if we can’t talk some sense into them.”
“Hold it there, person man. You can’t just jump right up to them.”
“And why not?”
Jessa’s eyes grew with wonder. “They’re invisible.”
Royden put his hands on his hips and bit his lip. “So what? We can still talk, right?”
“Um, not exac
tly. They don’t really talk in any language. They sort of know what each other are doing without language.”
Royden sighed deeply. “So we can’t see them and they don’t talk? Then why on Earth are they on Earth making people disappear?”
“They need to talk to do that?”
“I don’t know.” Royden said, growing annoyed. “How do you know they even exist then?”
She smiled creepily. “Oh, you’ll know. They use their powers to throw people out. And I mean really throw them out.”
“So what are we supposed to do?”
Jessa ran a few yards and stopped. “Come on, let’s see if we can find them. They might be able to listen even if they can’t talk to us.” She ran through the forest.
“Wait for me.” Royden followed as fast as he could.
They ran deeper and deeper into the forest. Royden couldn’t keep up and quickly fell behind. He promised himself that he would try harder in P.E. After a while of running he had a painful stitch in his side and had to stop. He caught his breath and walked on.
Jessa came out of the trees ahead of him. She tiptoed back over to him. “Here we are. They are all around. Can you feel them?”
“Feel them?” Asked Royden breathlessly.
“Their presence. Can you feel it?”
The boy closed his eyes expecting some force to become evident in his mind. “I can’t really. . .”
“Shh.”
He opened his eyes. Jessa looked all around, her mouth hanging open.
“They are near. They are coming closer. They’re right here!”
Royden backed into a tree.
“I’ll try to talk to them.” She cleared her throat. “Smurg Smurgles can you understand me?” Nothing happened. “We are here from the Discovery Apartments, sent as envoys from the manager himself. We know that you are putting people into a coma all around the area near the Discovery and we respectfully ask you to stop.”
Jessa Tezera unexpectedly rose into the air. “Whoa! They hear us!”
Royden grabbed a tree and hoped he wouldn’t be lifted up as well.
“We will not tolerate any more of it.” Jessa continued. “For the good of all the beings in the Discovery you must stop. We cannot have anybody from Earth snooping around in there. As you know we cannot reveal ourselves to them yet. We do not want to cause a panic.”
Jessa slowly came down a few feet. “Are you agreeing to stop?” Without warning she was flung from side to side in midair. “Stop, Stop!” She shrieked. She came to a stop. “Is there any way that you can tell us why you are doing this? Can you give us a sign somehow?”
For a few seconds everything was still. And then Jessa shot high into the air. She screamed. She came hurtling back to the ground, stopping inches from crashing. The beings then did it again. Jessa flew back into the sky and then came speeding back down. This went on for several minutes. Royden grabbed hold of the tree as hard as he could and refused to let go.
Jessa stopped just above the ground, gave a desperate look to Royden, and then shot backwards through the trees in the direction they came from. Her yelling faded away and she was gone.