I recently posted this on the official fanfiction website, and decided to post it here as well. Enjoy!

 

Chapter 1

 

~~P:AR~~

 

We all stand in a row in a room with pale gray walls. I don’t know why we’re here. I doubt the others do, either. All we know is that they said they’d show us when we got here. Well, we’re here, and they haven’t shown us anything yet.

They small girl on my right shuffles her feet, kicking the left toe on the ground a few times. She has short blonde hair cropped at her chin, and muddy brown eyes. She wears a yellow blouse, with a white skirt.

On my left is a taller boy. He looks like a goth, with his hair dyed silver, with little red streaks in it. He is wearing torn-up jeans and a black vest, open and exposing his bare chest. A tattoo of a silver dragon in an “S” shape is visible on his left shoulder. His green eyes flicker from person to person suspiciously. I don’t blame him. We don’t know anyone here. We don’t know what they want from us. We don’t know what their intentions are.

A door on the far side of the room opens and a short, Asian looking man in a white coat enters the room. The girl on my right tugs on my sleeve. “Who is he?” she whispers. I shake my head, keeping silent. Silence seems like the right thing, at the moment.

The man clears his throat. If he is trying to get our attention, there is no need. Our eyes are already on him. He smiles brightly at us. “Welcome!” he exclaims. “I trust you are all in good health?”

He is met with silence. How does he want us to answer?

He looks a little nervous and swallows. “Right,” he says, not expecting our silence. “Well, I’m sure you are all wondering why we’ve brought you here.”

Some of us nod. Others murmur in agreement. The girl clutches my arm tight. The boy is one of those nodding. I simply stay silent and hold still.

The man smiles at us again. “You children were selected for something great. You have doubtless heard of String Theory. Here at our facility, we have been researching the possibility of entering other worlds using…”

I tune his words out. I never have understood any sort of Geek Speak. I used to make fun of one of my foster sisters, Jailee, for always playing around with those chemistry sets in her room. The man starts talking about even more complicated stuff, and more kids’ faces go blank. The man takes no notice, going on and on about “utilizing wormholes to travel between worlds” and “calculating quantum states using D-branes.”

I let out a yawn, hoping to show him how bored we’ve become. The goth kid seems to have the same idea, as he calls out “Can you just get to the point, already?”

The man looks directly at us and frowns. “A-anyways,” he says, stumbling over his words. “We have selected you to be the first humans to inhabit this new world, and populate it.”

It takes a few seconds for this to sink in. “Wait… WHAT?!” Infuriated and outraged cries fill the room as we all protest this.

“Who gave you the right to decide if we enter that universe?!” Goth-guy yells. “We have our own lives, thank you very much!”

The man holds up his hand, waiting for us to quiet down. Instead, we simply start getting louder. He continues to wait patiently, and eventually, we do settle down. “You will be split into groups of four. The four of you will be required to look out for each other, and pick a leader from amongst yourselves.” He smiles again. I really hate that smile. “Think of it as a trust building activity, like they have at school. Fail to stick together, and you most likely won’t survive.” He gazes around at our angry faces. “But don’t worry. For now, we’re just going to get you used to living together. When your group is deemed ready, we will send you to the other world.”

The other men enter the room then and begin dividing us up. I end up with the little girl, Goth-guy, and another girl with messy brown hair and green eyes. She waves a little at us. Goth-guy and I don’t wave back, but the little girl does. I wonder what she’s doing here. She’s a lot younger than the rest of us.

A gruff looking man in a white coat jerks his head to the side. “This way,” he almost-growls. He leads us down a long hallway, passing many numbered doors as we go through. We stop at door nine. The door is locked by a numbered panel. “Your code is 0-4-9-5,” the man says. “We have already collected your belongings and placed them in the room.” With that he walks away.

The four of us look at each other. The brunette girl smiles. “Well, we might as well go in. What did he say the password is?”

“Code,” Goth-guy corrects her. “0-4-9-5.”

She laughs at her own mistake. I don’t understand it. “Right! Silly me!” She goes ahead and punches the code in. The door slides open and we all enter.

The little girl squeals when she sees the four cots in the room. “Teddy!” she cries as she races towards one with a small stuffed bear on it. She hugs it close to herself.

The brunette girl makes her way to the cot with a bright pink backpack on it and starts rummaging through it. I frown appears on her face. “That’s odd. Where’s my cell phone? I was sure I always kept it in here…”

I roll my eyes. Who needed a cell phone? From what I heard, too many people wasted their time texting people who they could easily talk to face to face. I had no need for something as stupid as a “cell phone.”

Another bed has a dark blue duffel bag on it. This one is mine. I open it and see what little I have. A few changes in clothes, some toiletries, and my pale pink baby blanket. I always took this with me. I was glad they had packed it for me.

I glance over at Goth-guy, who watches us all go through our stuff, before leaning back on the last bed.

There are no belongings on it.

The brunette girl grumbles to herself about people not having the rights to go through other peoples’ things, when she seems to notice we’re all in the room too. “Oh yes! We should introduce ourselves, since we’ll be living together for the next… who knows how long. I’m Cameron, but you can call me Cammie! What’s your guys’ names?”

I stare at her, half impressed by her cheery attitude in such a bleak-looking place. The little girl is the first to answer. “I’m Lacey,” she says, hiding her face behind her teddy bear.

Cameron grins and the little girl. “Aww, you’re so cute!” She looks at me expectantly. “What about you?”

I bite my lip. “I’m… I’m Melissa.”

Cameron smiles in her friendly way. “Nice to meet you, Mel!” Wait… Mel? Cameron looks over at Goth-guy. “And your name?”

He doesn’t say anything. I sigh. “Come on, Goth-guy. We all did it, so now you have to too.”

“…’snot goth,” he mumbles. “Gang.”

Cameron’s eyes go wide as saucers. “You’re part of a gang? Cool! What gang were you part of?”

He doesn’t say anything for a few moments, then “Blade.”

“The gang was called ‘Blade?’” I ask, confused.

He shakes his head. “It’s what they call me. Blade.”

He then rolls over and closes his eyes, pretending to sleep. We all take this as a cue to go to sleep ourselves.

Chapter 2

 

~~P:AR~~

 

I shivered in the cold night air as I tried to find my way home- no. It wasn’t home. Not yet, at least.

I wasn’t surprised they had forgotten me, since I was still so new to their household. It was just that they had said they would pick me up from school, which was fifteen minutes from their house by car, and I had waited three hours for them. After waiting that long, I needed to go find home myself.

Out of all the families I had been to, this one was definitely one of the nicest. That just made me even more certain that it was simple forgetfulness.

As I walked down the dark street, I saw a crowd of people gathered around the other side- where a large column of smoke was rising. Curious as I was, I checked to make sure no cars were coming before running across the street. I heard people murmuring about an oil slick, and a tragic accident. I pushed my way to the front- and froze.

That was my foster family’s car, surrounded by police and firemen. The smoke was coming from the front of the car, which was crumpled up and smashed beyond repair. The front doors had been removed, and I wondered absently why there was red paint spilled on the car’s carpet floor and steering wheel…

I then realized it wasn’t paint. It was blood. I found myself hyperventilating. I heard loud screams- my screams, I realized. There were voices all around me, but I couldn’t hear them. I heard someone saying my name.

“Melissa.”

“Mel.”

“Mel! Wake up!”

I sit straight up in bed, whacking my head on Cameron’s. “Ow! Watch it!” she says, rubbing her sore chin.

“Then you shouldn’t put your head in my face,” I retort, rubbing my forehead in a similar manner.

Cameron stops rubbing her chin and looks at me, concern in her eyes. “Are you okay?” she asks.

I frown in confusion. “Why d’you ask?”

“You were yelling in your sleep.” Blade’s grumpy voice comes from the other side of the room. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“I did,” says Lacey quietly. “It was in a funny movie I saw once with my Grammy. The main guy was staying at a hotel with another guy who ate a lot, and he started screaming about toothpaste and ducks.”

I recoil a bit. “Wait… A guy was staying at a hotel with another guy? And your… Grammy let you watch this?”

“Well, the guy got scared of the other guy’s screaming, so he slept under a table in the entrance of the hotel.”

We all stare at her, unsure of what else to do.

Finally, Blade clears his throat. “Well, we might as well go down to the Mess Hall to eat.”

“There’s a Mess Hall?” I ask. “Why didn’t I hear this?”

Cameron smiles at me gently. I want her to stop smiling at me. “One of the guys in the white coats came while you were still asleep and told us.”

“Oh.” I frown at this. “And you didn’t wake me up for that?”

“You were really deep asleep then,” says little Lacey.

“You mean fast asleep,” says Blade.

I get out of bed. “In that case, I’ll come eat too.”

~~PAR~~

We take multiple wrong turns trying to find the Mess Hall, but eventually we find another group of straggling kids that actually do know where they’re going. I notice Cameron talking in a very animated way with one of the guys in their group, a boy about her age with dark blond hair and blue eyes, and a heavy German accent. I begin to wonder how wide a variety of kids there are here.

When we finally reach the Mess Hall, I see even more kids there than I remembered from the previous day. Blade clearly notices this as well, since he comments “We must have been brought in multiple groups.”

I nod absently, looking around at everyone. It looked like some international convention, and sounded like one too. I saw a few Hispanic girls chatting animatedly with one another in Spanish, a Japanese boy speaking quickly to a girl in his group as she nodded at his every word, a girl blushing fiercely as a confused young man with a French accent spoke to her in his native language, confusion increasing with every excited squeal. I shake my head. Stereotypes.

“I see some seats over there,” says Lacey, pointing to the far side of the room. We seat ourselves over there, and one of the guys in the white coats brings us four trays of food. My mouth waters just looking at it. Scrambled eggs with hints of cheese, chocolate chip pancakes, little sausages… I can’t remember the last time I had a meal this good!

Lacey, Blade and I all dig in immediately! I relish every last crumb of food! Cameron, on the other hand, holds one of the sausages between two fingers with a look of disgust. She grimaces at it, then turns to us. “Hey. Do any of you want this?”

I immediately reach out to grab the sausage from her hand- just a second too late. I glare at blade as he takes a bite of it. “I was going for that, you know!”

He smirks at me. “Yeah, well, I got it first.”

I open my mouth to retort, when he pops the other half into my mouth. Not one to turn down the gift of food, I chew and swallow the savory meat. I see him trying to contain a chuckle at this. “So, what? Last night you were Mr. ‘I’m too cool and tough to talk to you,’ and now you’re acting like a normal teen?”

Blade blinks in surprise, then slowly looks down at his plate. “Sorry. Watching you guys yesterday… made me a bit jealous.”

I snort when he says that. “Jealous? Of an old blanket and a teddy bear?”

“Not any teddy bear,” says Lacey, sticking her tongue out.

Blade ignores her and continues. “It’s not that you have possessions… it’s that you guys have family, and things to remember them by.” He chuckled. “I’ve always been envious of others for that.”

Cameron looks like she’s about to cry at his story. I shake my head. “Look. If you’re trying to gain sympathy by telling us your whole life story, it’s falling on wasted ears. I was a foster kid! You say you want a family? I’ve had more than I can count, and my last one died coming to pick me up from school!”

Blade stares at me in shock, then glares. “So, you’re rubbing it in my face?”

I glare right back at him. “I’m saying that having a family isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be!”

“I’m sure it’s better than living in the streets and dodging police all day!”

Cameron raises her hand weakly. “My mom died in childbirth and my dad was killed my a mugger,” she says, trying to help.

Lacey looks down at her plate. “All I had was Grammy, and a bunch of men took her to some place because she was old.”

I look around at our table. “So… none of us have any living family?” They all shake their heads.

I stare at what remains of my eggs, suddenly unable to eat anymore.