Chapter 1. Once
Chapter 2. The Two
Chapter 3. The Two Come Back
Chapter 4. A Vengeful Ghost
Chapter 5. A Rebel Return
Chapter 6. The Great Leap Forward
Chapter 7. A Meeting
Chapter 8. A Warning
Chapter 9. The Plan Fails
Chapter 10. The Three
Chapter 11. The First Murder
Chapter 12. A Tragedy in the Family
Chapter 13. The Plot Thickens
Chapter 14. A Sudden Disappearance
Chapter 15. The Great Escape
Chapter 16. The Two Leave The City
Chapter 17. Tracking
Chapter 18. Return Of The King
Chapter 19. A New Direction
Chapter 20. An Endless Nightmare
Chapter 21. A Last Resort
Chapter 22. A New Beginning
Chapter 23. The Beginning Of The End
Chapter 24. Reunion
Chapter 25. A New Hope
Chapter 26. The Enemy's Back
Chapter 27. The Final Battle
Chapter 28. Tragedy
Chapter 29. The End Of An Era
Chapter 30. A New World
Chapter 31. Sins of The Father
Chapter 32. The End Of An Era
Chapter 33. The Great Escape
Chapter 34. A New World
Chapter 35. A New World
Chapter 36. Reconstruction
Chapter 37. The End
Chapter 38. A New World
Chapter 39. Heading Into The Storm
Chapter 40. The End
Chapter 41. A New Life
Chapter 42. The Last Battle
Chapter 43. The End
Epilogue
Preview
Contact
The story picks up in the middle of the chaos. The characters are trying to handle the events of the past few months, as best they can.
Chapter 2.
The Two
Chapter 1
Mai walked home from the temple.
Normally, that would be the end of her story for the night, the end of the episode. But that wasn’t going to happen tonight. Instead, something was going to happen.
She was certain of it.
On her way back to the apartments, with the temple in sight, she ran into one of the priests. In fact, he was carrying the temple offering bowl.
“Maia?” he said, surprised to see her. “Aren’t you going to the meeting tonight?”
“How can I go to the meeting?” she asked him. “My parents are missing. I can’t go to a meeting while they’re gone.”
He frowned. “What do you mean? You know their routine. There’s no good reason you can’t go to the meeting.”
“I need to find them, I can’t go to the meeting while they’re out there. That would be worse than not going to the meeting at all.”
The priest looked worried, but didn’t say anything. He put a hand on her shoulder, guiding her to one side of the temple, next to the statues of the two main God’s that the family worshiped.
“Listen, don’t worry about your parents. We’ll search for them, just like we’ve done every other night for the last couple of years. I’m sure they’re just delayed at their apartment somewhere, or looking for a late dinner or something like that. Once you’ve given them a bit of time, you can go to the meeting.”
She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I’m not going to sit there and not worry about my parents. They would do the same for me. I know they would.”
The priest shook his head. “Well, they can’t. They’re trapped, in an alternative reality.”
“No, you’re wrong. They aren’t trapped. You can visit them whenever you want. You said so yourself.”
The priest nodded. “I did say that, and it’s true. It’s just that in this reality, your parents don’t live in the apartment anymore. They’ve moved to a different one. But you know that. You live there. You’ve lived there all along. Your apartment is the same as always. You just don’t notice it because you don’t spend much time in it anymore.”
That was an uncomfortable truth that she didn’t want to face. She knew that what he was saying was true. Her parents didn’t live in the apartment any more. But she didn’t want to believe it, not yet.
“I’ll be at the meeting tonight,” she said, with a smile.
“Are you sure you don’t want to wait another day, or two? I’ll search for them again, myself.”
“No, that’s okay. The whole thing is nonsense anyway. The meeting can wait. We’re going to wait for them. We’ll wait a long time if we need to. And, besides, I’m not really in the mood to go to the meeting anyway.”
The priest smiled. “Well, if you insist on going, you better go straight back to the apartment and make sure that nobody saw you leaving. I’m sure your parents will be along shortly.”
“Of course. We’ll wait for them.”
She took his hand, and started to walk away, towards her apartment.
The priest looked at her curiously, but then just nodded and walked into the temple. She hoped he’d find her parents. She really wanted to wait for them, but she couldn’t.
She had too much to do.
She closed the door behind her, and made her way to the main room of her apartment. She entered the living room and walked directly to the kitchen, to the cabinet where she kept her parents’ emergency supplies. She removed the bottle of wine and poured herself a glass.
Only a moment later, she heard the familiar click-clack of her parents’ keys in the door, from the apartment across the hallway. They’d barely been home since their last visit, two weeks earlier, but tonight it was different. Tonight was different.
Their footsteps were coming towards the living room. She drank the rest of her wine, and then walked into the front room. She raised her glass in the air.
“Here’s to you both, on your return. Tonight is not a usual night for you. You’re not stuck here on this side of the glass, but, as we all know, stuck on the other side. We won’t mind a visit from the other side, but tonight isn’t a time to celebrate it. Tonight we raise our glasses and toast the lost ones, those who we won’t see for a very long time. Tonight is for you, and not for us.”
A clink of glass, as her father’s hand reached out to touch his.
“We’ll do all we can to get you back. Don’t worry. We’ll keep looking for you until we find you. We have your names tattooed on our arms. We always will. The night you disappear, they’ll stay with you forever.”
They were standing in the middle of the room. They stared at her, their eyes wide, like they were expecting something more. She went over to them, and embraced them. They were so happy, like she hadn’t seen in a very long time.
“Tonight we can let go of the little worries,” she said. “Tonight is for us, and not for them. Let’s just have a night to relax, for once. Tonight, I’ll make dinner for us, and we can talk about old times, and we can forget about the worries, for now.”
Her father raised his glass, and knocked it against hers. “Here’s to forgetting our worries, tonight.”
They drank.
They clinked their glasses together again, and put the glass on the floor.
They were still standing, even though she had already picked the glass up. She raised it to
