Royden held onto that tree for dear life. He refused to move for the longest time. He expected Jessa to come back somehow. The longer he waited the more he realized that she wasn’t coming back.
Cautiously Royden let go of the tree. “I’m sorry if we offended you.” He said slowly. “But we really need you to stop making people disappear. Where are you taking them? Are you putting them in that unstable dimension?” He winced, ready to be thrown around.
Nothing happened. He stepped gently in the direction Jessa was thrown. “I’m going to leave now.”
He made up his mind to try and find Jessa and go back to the Discovery Apartments. They would then tell Mr. Bringum everything that happened and have him take care of it. Now that they knew these Smurg Smurgle characters were behind everything it shouldn’t be too hard for stronger beings to stop them.
Royden made his way through the trees without any trouble. The beings must be alright with him leaving. He promised them that he wouldn’t come back and started running towards where they threw Jessa.
He came out of the trees into the endless purple grass. Jessa Tezera was nowhere to be seen. The boy followed the road back to the lone tree they started next to. Still nothing.
He suddenly got an idea.
“Hey!” He yelled, feeling braver. “What did you do to her?”
He waited for some type of response but none came.
“Hey!” He shouted as loud as he could. “You losers messed up everything for me at home and I want you to fix it!”
Not a thing happened. Maybe he went too far from the trees. Royden jogged all the way back to where he last saw Jessa.
“What did you do with her?!”
He wanted something—some type of retaliation from them. He wanted them to throw him to where they threw Jessa. Royden yelled and carried on for a while with no consequences in the least.
Footsteps echoed through the quiet forest. Royden hid behind a tree just in case. A very old man limped onto the scene. Royden came out.
“Are you a Smurg?” He asked.
“A what?” The very old man asked. He had a long white beard and one of his eyes was closed with a scar across it.
“A Smurg Smurgle.”
“What is a Smurgle?” He asked. “I came over here to tell you to shut up. All these kids come here and carry on like idiots thinking nobody lives here. Well guess what, I do.” Said the old man irritably.
“But the Smurg Smurgles—aren’t you afraid they’re gonna throw you around?” Royden asked.
“I’m going to tell you this once, boy, there ain’t nothing called a Smurg Smurgle. Nothing in the whole multiverse is called that, you understandin’?”
“But—”
“Where are you from?” The man asked. “We speak the same language.”
“I’m from Earth, from the Discovery Apartments.”
“Oh, an Earthy kid, well you can go back to your apartments. I left that place behind and I am never going back.”
“Why?”
The man looked taken aback. “Never you mind why. Now get out of here.”
“I don’t know how. And besides I need to find my friend. She got thrown by—”
“By the smurgly things?”
“Yeah.” Royden said feeling very embarrassed about the whole thing.
“I don’t know what kinda game this is, but it ain’t funny in the least. Now follow me and I’ll get you out.”
Royden followed the old man through the woods quietly. Surely Smurg Smurlges existed. What else could throw someone like that? Maybe they didn’t mess with the old man because he didn’t do anything to them.
They came out of the forest to another endless patch of purple grass. Only this one had a little wooden hut sitting nearby.
“Is this where you live?” Royden asked shyly.
“Do you see anywhere else I might live?” The man grumbled.
“No sir.”
“That’s right.”
“Where are we? I mean, what is this place?”
“Who knows. All I know is I don’t have to deal with people here . . . usually. I’m unfortunately immortal so the time difference doesn’t bother me.”
“I know someone who’s immortal.”
The man gave Royden a nasty look. “What do I care?”
The old man took Royden around the hut to the back. A rocking chair faced the endlessness. The man handed Royden a very old silver dollar.
“Wish on this to go home.” He said absentmindedly, heading back around the hut.
Royden followed. “Does it really work?”
The man gave him another dirty look. “Why else would I give it to you?”
“Do I wish to be home, or do I have to give it an exact location?”
“Don’t forget the stamp.” The man said dryly. “I don’t know how it works, it just does. Now get out of here so I can enjoy something again.”
Royden stared at the coin hard and pictured his building in his mind.
“What in the world?” The old man said loudly. “Just say it, boy, my goodness do you need me to hold your hand?”
Royden shook his head. “I wish I was back at the Discovery Apartments.”
One second Royden was looking at the old silver dollar and the next he found himself staring at his empty hand in his apartment.
He shrugged and went to his room. His parents weren’t home yet, they must have been working really late. He went to the window and looked out at the cars going by five stories below. The sun reflected off their windows and shined back into his eyes.
This might have been the longest Monday ever. He couldn’t believe that he actually went to school that morning. So much had happened since then.
Royden frowned. Why was the sun still out? Clearly it shouldn’t be. Wasn’t it already evening when he left? He checked his watch. It showed a quarter past nine at night. It clearly wasn’t nine o’clock at night. It looked more like late afternoon.
The boy ran from his room and looked around the apartment. No one was there. His father’s cell phone sat on the couch. He forgot it all the time. Royden flipped it open.
The screen showed fifty six missed calls. Grandma called on the twelfth of April. Mr. Doble’s boss called on the thirteenth, the fourteenth, the fifteenth, the sixteenth . . . It kept going and going.
Royden dropped the phone and backed away, breathing hard. “What?” Was all he could think to say. Something was very wrong.
He threw the phone in his pocket, grabbed the siren’s comb from his room just in case and ran from the apartment to the stairs. The hall was dark with only weak emergency lights to see by. The stairs were worse. It was pitch black in there. He stopped on the fourth and third floor. No one could be found. The building seemed eerily quiet.
On the first floor he pounded on the manager’s office. Mr. Bringum wasn’t there.
“Oh come on, where is everybody?” He said, growing scared.
“Royden?”
He flipped around. Jessa Tezera stood in the hall. She looked very surprised to see him.
“You made it back? Did you find the old man?” Royden asked, glad to see someone.
“An old man? Royden how did you get back? I thought for sure you were eaten by the Smurgles.”
“What?” Asked the boy, suddenly very concerned. “They eat people?”
“Of course not.” she said quickly.
“Jessa, what’s going on here?” He asked, backing up to the main lobby.
“I don’t know, everyone’s gone.”
Royden didn’t believe her. He went up to the counter to see if the guard was on duty. He looked over the counter and jumped back. The guard lay on the floor, his eyes closed. “Jessa Tezera tell me what’s going on.”
“I told you I don’t know.” She said unconvincingly.
“He got out didn’t he?” Royden
looked around, expecting the black suit to appear. “Badchi’s on the loose.”
“Probably.” Jessa nodded fervently. “We need to stop him.”
Royden ran from the lobby. He tried to get into room 106 but it was locked. He glanced back. Jessa stood exactly where she had been, watching him carefully. He then went to the stairs and came out in the basement.
Thankfully the door to the T.V. room wasn’t locked. He snuck in and hid behind the couch facing the television. Jessa Tezera quietly came in and closed the door. She looked menacing as she scanned the room.
“Royden?” She called out. “He did get out. I don’t know where he is now. Let’s look around the building and see if we can find anything.”
Royden didn’t move. He didn’t believe her in the least. She looked nervous about something, like she was hiding something very important.
“Royden, come on out, dude. It’s getting late.”
“What day is it?” Royden asked from behind the couch.
Jessa jumped on the couch and looked down at him. “It’s the twelfth. It has been the whole day.”
“No it’s not.”
“Sure it is.”
He stood up. “Jessa, what’s going on here? What aren’t you telling me?”
Jessa smiled sympathetically. “Royden, you’ve had a long day. Ms. Carol told me you fought some crazy monster today. That’s really brave.”
Royden backed up toward the pool room. Jessa got off the couch and followed at a distance.
“You talk to Ms. Carol?”
“Sure, everyone does.”
The boy pushed the door open to the pool room and went inside. The water was still.
“What day is it really?” He asked.
Jessa kept smiling sympathetically as if Royden was a little kid unable to understand the great secrets of life. “The twelfth of April.”
“No it’s not.” He whispered.
The water in the pool began to churn quietly below the surface.
“Come on back up to your room. Your parents are probably worried. Have you told them you got back?”
“They weren’t there.” He said, listening to the water grow more active behind him.
“They probably went out for something.” She assured him.
“Where are they?” He asked almost silently.
“What’s that?” She took a step closer.
He went to the edge of the water and glanced down. “Where are they?” He repeated, still barely audibly.
“One more time.” She took a few steps closer.
“Where are they?!” He shouted.
Jessa Tezera jumped in shock. Her face turned angry and her hair rose up off her shoulders in spikes. Her feet left the floor and she floated up to the ceiling.
“They’re gone.” She said calmly.
In one great motion she launched herself down on Royden. Her feet turned to claws and her arms to wings.
Royden put his hands up in defense.
A tentacle of some sort shot from the pool and grabbed Jessa in midair, sending her into the ceiling with a loud thud.
Royden bolted away from the pool out of the way.
That was no ordinary tentacle. It was made of water. Jessa clawed at it, breaking free.
More tentacles shot out and grabbed her in the air. She writhed to get free, only to be caught by more.
The siren rose out of the water, her face brimming with pleasure.
“I thought there was something wrong with you.” The siren said merrily. “I should have known you were a harpy. I could smell that horrible bird stench all the way down here.”
“Get away!” Jessa the harpy shrieked.
She fought against the water tentacles to no avail. The siren sent more and more, pulling her down. With a great heave the tentacles yanked the harpy into the water with a large splash. The siren disappeared under the surface.
For almost a minute water splashed all around the pool. A head appeared here a claw there. And then it died down.
Royden sat in the corner watching the water grow still. Several feathers floated to the surface.
He warily crept to the edge. Nothing could be seen in the water.
The siren’s head popped out.
“Now what were you doing with a harpy?” Beth the siren asked.
“She tricked me into going to this crazy place down the garbage chute. I—I don’t know what’s going on. I think she wanted to leave me there.” Royden said sadly.
The siren shook her head. “I’ve heard of that place. Time works differently there. A few minutes there could be a day here.”
“What? We spent nearly an hour there.”
“You’ve missed a lot of days then.”
“What is today?”
“The first of May.”
Royden couldn’t believe it. How on Earth could that even be possible?
“How could I lose so many days? What’s been going on here? Where is everybody?”
“Everyone evacuated weeks ago. I thought you did too.”
Royden sat down in one of the lounge chairs. “What do I do? I have to find my parents. Do you have any idea where they could be?”
“No clue. The city’s under high alert with all the people disappearing—more now than ever. There’s more than a hundred known cases. If you ask me that’s not even close to the real number.”
The boy sat in a daze. Everything was out of control, and it only seemed like a few minutes to him. “I have to do something.” He said, unable to wrap his mind around it all.
“I have seen Mr. Tezera around.” The siren said offhandedly. “He came down here the other day to make sure we were gone. The mermaids took off. They’re so weak. I stayed. I could tell something wasn’t right.”
“The Tezera’s might also work for the ‘them’ that control Badchi.”
Beth shrugged. “What are you going to do?”
“First I want to thank you for staying. I was backed into a corner there. Of course I didn’t know she was a harpy. You saved my life.”
“As much as I hate you I hate harpies way more.” The siren said with a devilish smile.
“I need to find the other Tezera’s.” Royden said, mentally making a plan. “If Jessa was still here there’s a chance that the other three are here as well. I just don’t get what they’re up to.”
“That harpy was only pretending to look human. Don’t forget that the others might be doing the same thing.” Beth warned.
Royden nodded. “Probably.” He then thought of something important. “Is there any way that you can get Pooly to help? You control him right?”
“I can send Pooly anywhere I want.”
Royden stood up. “Do it. I’m going to see if I can find out anything.”
Beth dipped under the water as Royden left the pool room.