The building tottered. The rest of the roof crumbled in on itself. Royden quickly drew a ring in the air and disappeared inside.
He stood on the beach in a large crowd of people. He wiped the portal away. Nobody was looking at him. He followed their gaze and saw the Discovery Apartments imploding. Large clouds of dust and debris filled the air, sending the people running.
He wished that he could be in the unstable dimension and drew another portal. He jumped in and wiped it away.
It looked to be late evening. The sun already set but the darkness had not completely taken over yet. The ground was dry and hard. Nothing at all could be seen around. No buildings, no trees, not even grass.
A weak moan was the only sound. Royden went over to the mangled body of Mr. Tezera.
The man looked up and rolled his eyes. “Why? Why did you stop me?” He said weakly.
“I didn’t mean to stop you like this.” Royden admitted. “I just wanted you to stop taking the minds of humans.”
“But I needed to.” He grimaced and closed his eyes. “I needed to save my people.”
“I realize that. But there are other ways. The DSD is trying to help. They can get your people out.”
“We can’t live here anymore. Our home dimension is dying. We needed somewhere else to live. My people—they can transfer their consciousness—they can take over the bodies.”
Royden knelt down. “Why didn’t you just leave?”
“We can’t.” Mr. Tezera bled abundantly. He had difficulty forming words. “We don’t live like you. We only exist as souls—no—no bodies. We need a body to live outside our home. We needed humans. They . . . uggh . . . they were perfect. No one would know. No one in—no one in the multiverse cares about . . .” He trailed off.
“Mr. Tezera.” Royden said softly.
“I can’t . . . If this body dies I go . . . with it.”
Royden knelt down close to him. “I promise I won’t let your people die.”
“It’s too late—I—I waited as long as I could . . . this dimension is about to collapse. They didn’t come. My people—they didn’t take the bodies. I can’t talk with them anymore. Everyone . . . will . . .”
He stopped breathing.
Royden shivered.
He sat in silence, not knowing where to go or what to do.
The adrenaline stopped pumping. The aches and pains of the day came out in full force. Exhaustion took over. Royden tried his hardest to get up. Finding his parents and everyone else was the only priority. Sleep could wait. But it wouldn’t. His mind could no longer concentrate. His eyelids drooped. Royden fell to the ground, asleep.
Royden opened his eyes. The ground was black and dead with cracks forming and growing larger. It rumbled beneath him, growing more and more violent. But that wasn’t what woke him up. Someone called his name.
“Oh, thank goodness. I saw you both here and thought the worst.” Millie said, helping Royden to his feet.
“How?” Royden said groggily.
“The suit didn’t put me in a coma. I thought for sure it was going to, but it just knocked me out.”
“I think it felt bad about everything. It no longer wanted to be a part of the evil it needed to survive.” Royden suddenly remembered why the ground was shaking so badly. “I can tell you more about that later, but first we need to find everybody and get out of here. The dimension’s done. If we don’t get everyone out we’re all going to die with it.”
“They’re all there.” Millie pointed to a long row of bodies nearby.
“Where did they come from?” Royden asked, thankful that they didn’t have to go searching.
“Like you said, the dimension is all but gone. All the hiding spots are gone. Nothing is left except for what you see
“Whatever let’s get them out.”
Royden handed Millie the dimension crystal. Millie drew a portal.
“But,” Royden said looking around, “there are beings here. We can’t see them, but they are here. They need bodies to escape. We can’t leave them.”
“If they were here then they would have taken over the bodies already. Let’s get these people out before we start worrying about that.”
Royden and Millie took up the bodies one by one and carried them through the portal to a pleasant field somewhere. They worked fast. Time slipped away.
Royden found his parents lying unconscious near the end of the line. He got them out and then went back to help the others.
They got them all out and wiped the portal away. Royden went over to his parents. “How do we get them back?”
“Don’t know. I say we go to the DSD and see if someone there knows. They have a database on all this stuff. I’m sure someone there knows. We’ll leave them here for now. This is a safe place.”
Millie got the portal ready and they jumped in.
They stood in a wide stone corridor of the DSD headquarters. Large circles were carved into the stone walls every few feet. Millie said they made it so a lot of people could use their crystals to get there all at once.
Millie led Royden through some doors and down some halls to a large room full of active portals. There had to be at least a hundred of them all over the walls, ceiling, and floor. They stepped carefully around the ones on the floor until they came to a much smaller room with a long table. Several beings sat around the table, all looking vastly different. Millie waved through the window and went in, Royden by his side.
Millie quickly explained what was going on.
What happened next was a whirlwind. Portals appeared and everyone went through different ones. Royden was told to follow a woman that looked the most human to a hospital wing of some kind. Within minutes the place was buzzing with doctors as every one of the bodies came in.
Royden was taken to a small room where he told the head of the Dimension Supervising Division, as well as some others including Millie, everything that happened.
He told them about the Tezeras’s plan and how they needed bodies to escape their dying dimension. He told about Badchi and how it seemed to come to its senses in the end. He also talked about Pooly and the collapse of the Discovery Apartments, which they all thought was a real shame.
They promised him that everything would go back to normal and he could go to sleep. They led him to a small room with a bed. He sat on the bed and everyone but Millie left.
“When you wake up everything should be better.” Millie said.