The Blade of Shattered Hope

Bad thoughts drifted through his mind, images of all the terrible things their vanishing from Jane’s captors might mean.

To get his mind off it, he knelt down on the floor and reached under his mattress. After feeling about, he found what he’d been looking for and pulled it out, then sat on the bed. Though he couldn’t see it very well in the pale light coming through the window, he knew every detail of the object anyway. His Journal of Curious Letters.

Yes. Unless this was a Reality that had split from Prime very recently, he at least knew he was in the right place. But what in the world was he supposed to do now?

He set the book on the table by his bed and kicked up his legs onto the bed, not bothering to take off his shoes. He lay back onto his pillow, hands clasped behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. Odd-shaped shadows from the moonlight slanted from corner to corner, dark and menacing. He closed his eyes.

Sleep. Could he really sleep despite all the terrible things going on that very instant? He didn’t know, but he needed it for sure. Surprising himself, he relaxed, feeling the first trickles of sleep edge his mind.

A minute passed. Two. The darkness was deep. No sound except a slight breeze pushing branches against the outside of the house. Something smelled good, like the fresh scent of laundry detergent and dryer sheets. All of it seemed to pull him down into the bed, as comfortable as he ever remembered being. Almost feeling guilty, he sank into the welcome pool of slumber.

Ooooooohhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnn . . .

This time the sound came from the hallway right outside his room, a miserably haunted, ghostly moan. Tick shot up in bed, his feet swinging to the floor. A silver-blue light glowed through the space under the door.

So much for sleep.

Chapter 26

Many Faces

He heard the sound again. Then again. And again. Each time it was only a few seconds apart. The moan had such a creepy, deathly feel to it that prickles of goose bumps shot up all over his body, and he felt like every hair on his head reached for the ceiling. This was a new kind of terror—something very different from the constant worry of being killed or hurt, something he’d almost become accustomed to.

No, this was like a real-life ghost story. He was in a horror movie.

He quietly stood up and walked over to the window, carefully stepping on the non-creaking spots of his bedroom floor. He looked through the glass, wondering if he’d have the courage to jump out. The moon cast its pale glow on the yard outside, making the trees look dark blue and creating shadows in which he could imagine every monster from his every nightmare hiding, waiting.

Ooooooohhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnn . . .

Tick turned around to face the door. His mind felt hollowed out. How had it come to this? An hour ago he’d been in the middle of a desert in the Thirteenth Reality, watching Mistress Jane destroy an entire world. Now he was back in his house, in the dark, staring at a sheet of silver-blue light panning across his floor. He saw that it wavered with flashes and glimmers of shadow as though the source of the light was a gigantic TV out in the hallway, showing an old black-and-white film.

He didn’t want to face whatever was out there. He turned back to the window and unlatched the lock. After pulling up the window, he unhooked the screen. He stuck his head out to look at the ground twenty feet below. If he could land in that clump of bushes . . .

Behind him, the moan took on a different pitch, stuttered. Then something sounded almost like a cough, followed by an odd crackle. Tick couldn’t help but look back at this new noise.

Tendrils of bright white electricity danced around the doorknob, sparking and zigzagging like small bolts of lightning. It had a charged sound to it, like the monster-making machines in the old Frankenstein movies. There were dozens of small sparks casting flashes of light all over the room.

Tick was pretty sure he had stopped breathing and didn’t know if he would ever start again.

The lightning and electricity intensified, spreading out and growing larger until they covered the entire door and the walls around it. A glow of silvery light formed in the middle, growing brighter and brighter until Tick couldn’t see the features of the door or his wallpaper. Just a globe of metallic blue.

He realized he was in some sort of a trance. He was about to turn away and jump out the window—he’d take the broken leg or arm instead of whatever this was—when the entire display in front of him collapsed into an oblong and upright shape, standing maybe six feet tall. Crackles of electricity still danced along the surface, but they seemed more controlled, swirling around the oval body of light.

Then, to Tick’s shock, a large face appeared in the middle of the light. It was a young woman, her features shimmering but smooth, and her expression showing a small struggle, as if she was concentrating on a difficult task. But then she was gone, replaced by another face. This time it was a man, his features rigid and angled. Then another face formed—a young boy. Then another one—an old woman, her wrinkles lines of blue against silver. A second later, a younger woman appeared, this one with a round face and eyes.

More faces appeared, each one lasting only a few moments before another took its place. Boys and girls, men and women, all ages and all races. They all had that same look of intense effort, their eyes focused on Tick, sometimes with their tongue bit between their lips.

Tick realized he’d relaxed. He was breathing normally and no longer felt the urge to jump out the window. If this thing was a ghost, it didn’t seem very scary. After all the studying and intense reading of science and its inner workings he’d done over the past months, his rational mind had finally taken over. What he saw before him had to be some kind of explainable phenomenon, and his fear had been replaced by excitement to find out what it was.

The faces continued to change, one after the other, all types and ages. The light cast from the glowing oval shimmered and danced in the room, which had an even more relaxing effect on Tick. He stepped over to his desk, pulled out the chair, and sat down, never taking his eyes off the apparition.

The morphing faces seemed to relax a bit. When a young Asian man appeared, the lips of his mouth parted. He transformed into an African-American woman, and her lips began to form a word. When the sound finally came out, traveling across the room for a very shocked Tick to hear, it came from a teenage boy. Then a fat man. Then a beautiful woman. Then an old man. Face after face, image after image, their lips remained in sync as the odd phenomenon began to speak. The voice never changed, however; it was deep and charged with energy, laced with crackles of electricity.