Chapter 1
Beeeep. Beeep. Beeep. Kira rolls over and smacks her alarm
clock to shut it off. “I hate getting up this early” Kira mumbles as she looks
at her clock showing it’s 7am. She rolls back over and stares at the ceiling
while thinking about her classes for the day. She slowly climbs out of bed and
makes her way over to the bathroom and turns on the shower. While she’s waiting
for the shower water to warm up, she looks at her reflection in the mirror. She
brushes her bright red hair out of her face and checks her face for any
overnight blemishes. She smiles when she sees there aren’t any and climbs into
the shower.
After her shower she sits at her computer stand and waits for
her Keurig to finish brewing and gets her notes together for her upcoming
English class. She carries her coffee cup around her dorm room while getting
dressed. Before she’s ready to head out the door, her phone starts ringing.
“What do you want Orion? I’m heading to class.” “You should bail on Professor
Harper’s class and come hang out with me!” Kira just shakes her head. She’s
known Orion all her life and he’s been a slacker for most of that time. He’s 20
and she’s 19 but he sometimes acts like he’s 13. “Orion, you know I can’t do
that. We’re going over our notes in class today to get ready for our finals in
two weeks.” “You have an A in that class Kira, haven’t missed a single class
AND you know you’ll pass your finals with flying colors. Come with me, I want
to show you something I found that is amazing!” Kira sighs and then says, “Fine
Orion. I’ll go with you. But if I’m not amazed and/or fail my finals, I’m going
to ring your neck.” She ends the call, tosses her notes and book on her bed and
grabs her car keys.
Chapter 2
Kira pulls up behind the old abandoned high school. The
place has been abandoned for as long as she could remember. Many kids started
getting sick and dying. After a lot of research throughout the school they
found it had something to do with the water. There was some unknown bacteria in
it. The CDC still doesn’t know exactly what it was.
Kira sees Orion standing at the back doors. She gets out of
her car and walks up to him. “What are we doing here? We’re not supposed to go
in there. Who knows if that bacteria is still in there. I don’t know why the
city hasn’t demolished this place yet”, Kira says. “I come here to get away
from things and have some peace. No one comes in here, not even the homeless,
so I know I can be utterly alone.” “You ever wonder why even the homeless won’t
come in here Orion? They live in every other abandoned building here, but they
leave this place alone and it’s three times the size of some of the other
places.” “Yes Kira, I’ve wondered that. But I still just like being alone
sometimes. You know I don’t get to have time to myself anymore”, Orion says
with a sigh.
Kira apologizes to Orion and asks him what he wanted to show
her. “I found this by accident. I was angry about things going on at home and
was throwing stuff around. You have to see it to believe it” Orion says. “Fine,
lead the way Orion.” Orion unlocks the padlock on the doors and she wonders how
he had the key, but follows him in. Kira looks around the hallway and gets a
cold shiver from what she sees. There are lockers still open, backpacks, books
and papers all over the hallway. Orion leads her down a couple different
hallways and she even spots a few stray sneakers and a high heel. Guess when
they evacuated the students and staff they were in a hurry and didn’t care
about what was left behind.
Kira almost runs into Orion when he comes to a sudden stop
and she’s still too busy staring at the debris left behind. “Woah Kira. Walk
much?” Orion says with a smirk. “I wasn’t expecting you to just stop abruptly
you jerk!” Kira playfully slaps Orion across the shoulders. “So, what is it you
wanted to show me? All I see are lockers.” “That’s it Kira. I wanted to show
you this specific locker.” “Orion, I do believe I know what a locker looks
like. I had to use one for about 9 years.” “This isn’t like those lockers Kira,
I can promise you that.” Kira just shakes her head. She walks up closer to the
locker to see if she missed something. She opens up the locker and goes to
reach into it when Orion suddenly grabs her by the back of her shirt making her
lose her balance and fall on her butt. “What the hell Orion?! Why did you do
that?! You made me fall on a book!” Kira stands up, brushes herself off and
rubs her rear end. “I told you this isn’t a normal locker Kira! I didn’t want
you to stick your hand in it because I don’t know what would happen!” “It’s
just a locker Orion. The worst that would happen is it gets covered in
cobwebs.” Orion just shakes his head at her and picks up a book off the floor.
“Watch this” he says. Orion chucks the book at the locker and Kira covers her
ears waiting for the loud sound that should emanate from it. But there’s no
sound and there’s also no book.
Kira walks up to the locker again and Orion goes to grab her
but she smacks his hand away. “I’m not going to touch it so don’t grab me
again”, she says. She peers into the top of the locker and doesn’t see the
book. She crouches down to look closely in the dust covered bottom and there’s
still no book. She turns around to see if Orion even threw the book and he’s
just standing there with a grin on his face, no book in his hands. “Orion..?
What happened? Where’s the book?” “I told you it was amazing, wasn’t it? I
don’t know where it is, I just know it’s gone. I’ve thrown hundreds of things
into that locker and it always vanishes. Have you ever read about portals? I
think this is one!”, Orion says with a grin on his face. Kira just shakes her
head again. Orion has always been into science fiction ever since he lost his
parents at a young age. He used them to escape reality because she knew his
grandparents that took him in weren’t very nice to him growing up. She hasn’t
heard him talking about the stuff in years and had thought he’d finally
outgrown it all.
“You know that stuff isn’t real, it’s just made up” she
says. “Then explain what happened Kira! Where did the book go? It’s not in the
locker and there’s no other trace of it anywhere. It vanished into thin air.”
Kira looks around and picks up another book. She flips through the pages to
check that it is a real book. She smiles on the inside as she realizes she’s
thinking a book isn’t real. She tosses the book into the locker and pays close
attention to it. Once it reaches the back of the locker, it seems to just go
right through it. It doesn’t bounce off of the back or anything, just completely
vanishes. She looks over at Orion who is still grinning. “You know what this
means, don’t you?” he says.
Chapter 3
“We can meet back here at 5pm. If you can pack up some food
and stuff to drink, I’ll get some other necessities we may need. Don’t forget a
variety of clothes and shoes. You never know what will be on the other side.”
Orion says. “I don’t know about this Orion. What if it isn’t safe? What if we
can’t get back? What if—“ Orion cuts her off, “Stop worrying Kira! I’m going
through whether you come with me or not, but I’d rather you did. I don’t want
to go through alone and I’ll be there to keep you safe. I promise I’ll get you
back safely.” “Fine. I’ll go with you. I don’t want to be left here worrying
about you. You know you’re like a brother to me. Let’s get out of here so we
can get ready.”
Kira follows Orion back out of the school and watches him
walk off in the direction of his grandparents’ house. She wishes he’d of been able
to go to college so he could get away from them. They were terrible people but
he still felt like he owed them for taking him in when his parents died. Most
of his paychecks go to helping them out. Once they got too old to mooch off the
government by fostering kids, they started to mooch off Orion instead. “I hope
this all goes well. I know he needs a break from everything”, Kira mumbles to
herself as she gets into her car and heads to Walmart.
Kira drops the bags of food and water on her dorm room
floor. She searches through her room for her backpack and suitcase. She rifles
through her closet and tosses out some t-shirts, sweaters, jeans, shorts, socks
and underwear. She pulls her snow boots out from her under bed and then grabs
two pairs of sneakers and sandals off her shoe rack. While folding up her
clothes to put into her backpack she starts to regret telling Orion she would
go. She doesn’t want to miss any more classes, but she also doesn’t want him
going off by himself.
She puts her shoes into an old duffel bag that Orion had
given her a few years back. She opens up the suitcase and puts the bottles of
water in the bottom. She stacks the granola bars, peanut butter, crackers,
jerky, ramen, dehydrated fruit and oatmeal on top. She stuffs a few water
filter bottles in there and zips it shut. She figures Orion wouldn’t think
about bathroom necessities, so she tosses her toothbrush, toothpaste, toilet paper,
shampoo, tampons and deodorant into her big purse. Sitting on her bed, Kira
looks over at her clock and notices it’s only 1:32pm. “Who knows what all will
happen today. Who knows if I’ll even be able to sleep tonight. I’m just going
to take a nap” she says to herself as she sets her alarm.
Chapter 4
Kira pulls in behind the old school at a few minutes to 5pm
and doesn’t see Orion anywhere. She grabs her phone out of her purse and just
as she’s about to dial Orion’s number, a knocking on her window makes her jump.
“You almost gave me a heart attack! Where were you?” she grumbles at her as she
gets out of the car. “I almost hit a couple snags getting things together, but
everything is good now.” He motions to a huge duffel bag with wheels. “I
stocked up on batteries, flashlights, lighters, candles, bandages, and a few
other things to help keep us safe. I even grabbed our old sleeping bags for
just in case.” “Keep us safe, how?” “Don’t worry about that Kira. I promised I’d
get you back home safely, so just trust me.” He walks off towards the school
pulling the duffel bag behind him and unlocks the lock again. Kira puts her
backpack on and slings her purse and duffel bag over her shoulder and follows
him in. She walks down the hallways and finds Orion standing in front of the
locker sticking a foot long ruler into the locker. He pulls it back out and
there’s a book on it. “What are you doing? Where’d you get the ruler?” she
says. “I grabbed the ruler from a classroom. I just wanted to make sure if I
put something through, I could get it back.” He takes her purse off her should
and grabs her backpack. “Anything in here breakable?” he asks. Before Kira can
even finish shaking her head, he tosses them into the locker and watches them
vanish. “I’ll go through first. You’ll have to turn sideways and pull your bag
behind you as you go through. I don’t think you would fit through if you kept
it on your shoulder. Please don’t wait too long to follow me through. I’ll see
you on the other side.” Before Kira can even reply, he’s already walking into
the locker and vanishing as he pulls his duffel bag behind him. “I guess it’s
now or never” she mumbles to herself as she steps up to the locker and walks
through it.
“You can open your eyes now Kira. We’re in one piece and
safe.” Kira opens her eyes and looks around. She sees that they’re in some sort
of windowless room with an assortment of junk everywhere. She notices her purse
and backpack lying a couple feet away. The more she looks around, the more she
realizes she recognizes some off the stuff on the ground. There are several
school books, backpacks, papers and shoes from the high school littering the
ground. She walks around and gets a closer look at things when she hears a
crunch from below her feet. She looks down and sees it’s a picture of Orion’s
grandparents. She looks back at him and he just shrugs. “Let’s get out of here
and have a look around.” Kira follows him up some steps and realizes they were
in the basement of some building. When they come out on top, they both gasp.
Most of the building walls are gone and what is left probably won’t last much
longer. There are some animal skeletons scattered around the floor and she
cringes.
