0 comments
Zach jumped out of the little brown leather book and ran into his locker. He was at his high school in the real world. Don’t give up, Addie. Fight it while I get help, he thought as he took off with Adaline’s book. As he passed teachers and students, he found missing posters on the school’s walls. Adaline’s short brown hair looks more doll-like than human. The photo shows the different schools in the background, probably the ones that she went to before she moved to Baker. And the strange thing was she was wearing glasses, but you could still tell it was Adaline because of her dorky smile. Next to that photo was another more recent one. This one had Adaline with her pixie haircut. Right, Adaline said that time worked differently in the stories and that a fake you would be in the real world. But she is in trouble so it must mean that the fake one is in danger, too. Zach thought as stopped to see if Adaline’s book had anything on what to do if something happened to her. He flipped open the book to the table of contents.
Chapters 1- 5 were all about the rules of the book and how to use them. Chapters 6- 8 were about dating people in another world and how to prank the other you. Zach rolled his eyes, That’s Adaline for you, he thought as he continued to read through the contents. There it was, Chapter 22; “What to do in a case of an emergency”, but when he went to the page number the pages where chapter 22 was supposed to be were completely blank.
“No, no, This can’t be right,” Zach said, flipping through the pages frantically, but there was nothing in the guidebook about this- he checked it twice. As he took a wheezy breath, the world began to spin.
Two of Adaline’s friends from her homeroom class, Shelly and Ian (from the real world), we're passing by when Zach’s legs started to give out beneath him. “Zach!,” Ian rushed over, “You okay? Are you remembering anything about where you were for two weeks? Was Addie with you when you guys went missing?” All the questions flew around in Zach’s mind; I was missing, too? I guess when I came from the other world, my fake copy must have been found with no memory. “Zach, what happened?” Shelly asked, pulling him out of his thoughts. “Yeah, I’m fine,” Zach said as an idea popped into his head, “May I ask you two to follow me?” Shelly’s eyes narrowed, “Why?” Zach sighed, “Do you want to save Adaline or not?”
They both nodded and the three of them went into an empty classroom. Zach opened the book and placed it in the middle of the floor. A portal of blue light appeared in front of them. “What the heck is that?!” The two of them practically said that unison, “Zach, what did you do, now?!” Zach took a long time to explain everything to them. “Now, we got to save Addie, so come on,” Zach waved his hands to move them along, practically pushing the teenagers into the book, “Wait,” Shelly stopped right in front of it, “What is stopping us from going into the wrong world?” Zach took a moment to think. Ian’s eyes widened, “YOU DON’T KNOW?!” “Let’s just find that out if that happens,” and then he pushed them in...
When Zach opened his eyes, the room that they were in was completely dark. “Don’t worry,” Ian extended a hand for the switch, but the lights didn’t come on, “I’ll find the lights.” He reached further into the darkness and his fingers landed on some kind of old-fashioned oil lamp. When the lights came on, Zach and Shelly turned to Ian who had found the correct light switch. They were in the same cabin, but this wasn’t the one that Zach was familiar with. The walls were covered in bloody handprints. The three of them took several steps back, causing Shelly to trip over a pile of bones that were stripped of flesh, “ZACH! WHERE ARE WE?!” she said as she quickly stood up and ran into Ian’s arms. Zach moved into the kitchen area. The kitchen was no worse than the room that he had come from. The sink looked like a complete disaster zone; it looked like the garbage disposal had been used as a meat grinder. Spread throughout the cabin golden angel-like feathers littered on the dark, sticky stained floor. “What happened in here,” Ian muttered quietly under his breath. Zach knew exactly what happened. “When Addie gave up, letting her personalities get out of control, and started to listen to what the demons were telling her, that must have meant that angels lost the fight against that demon girl.” Zach turned to leave when he bashed his toe into a wooden box that was blocking the doorway. “Ah- who put this here?” Shelly moved to see what was in the box. When Zach opened the box, a cloud of dust poofed out. “Hey, there's a note,” Shelly pulled an envelope out. It looked like it had been in the box for years. “It’s addressed to Adaline,” Shelly then started to read. “Cool, this from her future self and all this stuff are some of Addie’s old hobbies that didn’t stick.” As she continued to read, her eyes narrowed, “This might be the way to save Addie and most of her personality.”...
Adaline was hugging her knees well and the ground beneath her feet started to sink even faster into the black ink that bubbled below the surface. Five more demons appeared beside the ‘Spider Boy’. The ghoulish girl stood with a grin right behind Adaline. Little did the demons know that Zach, Shelly, and Ian were hiding behind the trees watching and planning their next move.
“You are a pathetic waste of space,” the demon continued to tear Adaline’s heart in pieces, but something had stopped her from saying the next hurtful thing. Three figures came into view. Adaline’s face lit up. Zach had brought Shelly and Ian to help her. Adaline took in her surroundings in a series of glances as if she had regained control. Then an idea popped into her head.
The ghoul was stunned, but then reclaimed her composure, “GET THEM!” The demons charged as Zach pulled the wooden box around like a little wagon. The three of them dove into the box for weapons. Ian found a volleyball then spiked it towards two oncoming demons. Shelly pulled out a soccer ball and drop-kicked it towards the ‘Spider-Boy’ demon, knocking him onto his back. Zach was still digging in the box for something useful when a demon girl grabbed his ankle. Zach then grabbed the first thing that his hand touched; the Annabell movie on DVD and then slapped her with it. That did every little damage...
While the ghoul was distracted watching the other demons fail, Adaline moved over to the edge. The creak was a pretty good size of a gap, but in measurements, it was probably 4 or 5 feet wide. Adaline could use the broken ground as footing, after all, there were 6-8 feet between the flat ground and rising ink, but her weight was also a big factor in her plan. Ignoring all logic and science, Adaline just rushed into her plan, just as the ghoul turned around.
Her legs barely made the jump, causing her to do a belly flop on the hard ground. Adaline wheezed as she pulled herself up. After replacing the air that got knocked out when she hit the ground, Adaline started to stand up when something then grabbed her, pulling towards the edge.
“I AM NOT GONNA LOSE AGAIN TO YOU, LITTLE BRAT!” the ghoul was holding on tight to Adaline’s legs. The ghoul was dangling over the edge and was trying to take Adaline with her. Adaline took a glance at the black ink, it had begun to shape-shift into a human-like form;
Anna Angel, who had discovered Adaline's notebook and Bible when she had misplaced them when she took a little vacation in Anna’s world, which then led to utter chaos. They weren’t ready for the truth like Ethan.
“You did this…” Anna’s face began to melt and change into Ethan’s face, “Now, you get to watch your work burn in front of you.” Adaline bit down on the ghoul’s arm, forcing her to let go. “YOU BIT ME!” the ghoul screamed as she pulled her arms to her chest, not realizing the force of her movement would cause her to fall off the edge. “AHH!!”
Realizing that their leader had just plummeted to her death and drowned in ink, the rest of the demons scattered like rats. “Addie!” Ian and Shelly took off towards Adaline, leaving Zach behind, and passed out from exhaustion. Between jumping through different worlds and fighting demons, they were all pretty sore. Adaline cracked a few smiles in between hugs, “How did you, guys get here. Please tell me Zach didn’t leave the portal open in a classroom.” All eyes were on him, “I may have- but to be fair, you were in trouble,” before Zach could finish Adaline bolted towards the cabin. She threw open the wooden door to find a very confused teenager named Tyler. He stood there wide-eyed, “WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?!”...
Ethan stood looking into his closet, where photos of the gang hang. The photo in the middle was connected to all of the others with a little red string; a photo of Adaline. “Who are you, Adaline?” Ethan asked as he twirled the pen of death in his fingers...
Adaline threw a notebook at Zach, who ducked behind a couple of boxes full of rubber band bracelets, “YOU LEFT THE PORTAL IN A CLASSROOM THAT ANYONE COULD GET TRAPPED IN?!!” Tyler sat looking from Shelly to Ian, “So, I jumped in a portal and landed in a world created by Adaline when she was a kid?” Shelly nodded while Adaline dug through a box of old toys. Zach peeked out from behind the cabin’s kitchen counter, “Addie? Can’t we talk about this like adults?” As he said that, Adaline turned around holding a NERF gun, “There is no talking over this. What if someone closed the book, huh? What were you going to do then? This is why I wrote a guidebook, but does anyone read it? No!” Zach ducked down as a round of foam bullets flew by his head, “If you wrote the book, then why was chapter 22 completely blank, huh?” Adaline’s light brown eyes narrowed, “What do you mean?” Zach stood up from his hiding spot and pulled out the little brown leather notebook from the portal, “ZACH! PUT THAT BA-” Before Adaline could stop him the portal closed up with her right hand in it, “Ahh- uh!” Zach dropped the book onto the floor. Shelly and Tyler moved to Adaline’s side while Ian went to go find a first aid kit. Zach’s eyes widened- Adaline’s arm had burns from her hand to her elbow. Shelly looked from Adaline to Zach and said, “You burned Addie’s writing hand.”...
Ethan sat on his bed staring up at the ceiling then back to the closet where the photos of Adaline and the rest of the writing club were hanging up. Ethan sat up and sighed as he reached over to his nightstand to grab a cold case. When he read the files inside, his green eyes glowed in the dark bedroom. He looked over to his phone to the time; 10:00 p.m. An evil grin grew on his face as he made his way down the hall. Ethan left the file open on his bed...
Adaline’s arm, now wrapped up in a rainbow loom cast made of rubber bands, was a light rose pink in color and hung by her side. Zach kept his head down while the girls helped Addie find some weapons. Zach kept replaying the last 15 minutes in his head: Adaline pulled her arm to her chest. “Addie!” Ian and Tyler moved Adaline to the dinner table to get a good look at the burn. “That didn’t hurt us when we got here, so why did it hurt you?” Shelly looked from the book on the floor to Adaline. “When you move the book the portal closes and reopens in another world. Anything in the path of the portal’s way of closing gets its butt kicked by a not-so-friendly force.” Adaline then oddly moved her arm, “Don’t worry Zach, it’s just a flesh wound. And I have done worse, one time I got hit by part of the falling debris from one of the Twin Towers. Boy, did that hurt in the morning.” Tyler raised an eyebrow, “You were at the Twin Towers?” Adaline shook her head and pulled out a handful of rubber bands, “No, but I have read books on a lot of things; serial killers, the Nazi invasion, events in history such as the Twin Towers, the discovery of America, and other stuff that happened. I go to other worlds to escape real-life problems and write about the past for school reports. I have been to most of the life-changing events,” she said as she put a colorful cast on. She turned to face the gang, “I will take those who want to go home to the portal. Those who want to stay and help me stop Ethan can, but I am warning you. Ethan is not the only villain that we will face; there are monsters from the horror movies that I and my brother have watched. They guard a powerful weapon that can bring Ethan to our world if he ever finds out about the book’s portals. That is why I am going to get it, but first, we need weapons. You can make your decisions before we leave.”
Zach sat in silence while Adaline walked back into the dining room, “Zach,” Adaline’s eyes met his as she continued, “It was an accident. It is your first time making a mistake in another world. I have made a ton of them and I assure you that the others will make some.” Zach thought about what she was saying, “You’re right. Thanks, Addie, and sorry for your arm.” Adaline scoffed, “It will heal in the next hour or so- time is weird here.”
“Hey, Addie?” Adaline turned around to face him, “I think we could get help from another world.” Zach had a wild look in his eyes...
You must sign up or log in to submit a comment.
0 comments