Quitetly, Quiggly stepped into the darkness as he stealthily approached and steeled himself for the assault. He saw something shiny on the ground and stopped. It was the tip of a small scimitar. Quiggly was about to leave the object behind when he suddenly got this weird idea to check it out. He decided to pick it up with the intention of making it look like he came upon a dropped weapon. Quiggly had no idea what it was used for or why, but figured that would be his answer to “I dunno, so i’ll just leave this thing here.” Just as he expected the tip glowed as it began emitting heat, so Quiggly decided to take the weapon and hide it somewhere. This would allow him to look like he discovered the object, but not look like he picked it up.
Quiggly began to take off his backpack with one hand and slowly pick up the small blade in the other. He was about to put the blade into his pack when the world began to swirl in a way Quiggly had never seen before. It was like he was falling in slow motion and the sensation was disorienting. In addition to the sudden change in speed, the air around him was cool and dry. While most folks would say this is an indication of being in space, Quiggly was not thinking of the sky he was falling through. He was on the ground facing a large, white, round, almost featureless building. Quiggly had no idea what the building was and he was frozen in place, staring in shock at the place. As he looked around it seemed he had reached a new world. It was like the sky was a blue backdrop for a movie set. He couldn’t find anything familiar, other than the buildings, so Quiggly began to think he had never seen this before and quickly fell into confusion. He was thinking this could not be a safe place, but he continued to fall through the air. Quiggly didn’t know how fast he was falling, but it was scary because he had no idea how close he was to the ground.
As he continued to fall in the blue void, Quiggly started to think of other possibilities. Maybe the world he came to was not all that different from his own. Then again, maybe it was. He knew he had to land on the ground to gain his bearings. Quiggly was sure that if he continued to fall at his current speed, he would pass out in mid air or crash into the ground. There was something odd about him slowing down, so Quiggly decided to get out of the wind and wait for things to become quiet and smooth. Quiggly fell for a moment then crashed into the ground. It was a lot softer and cushioned his fall. Quiggly rolled around on the ground for a moment to get his bearings. He didn’t realize he was not moving any longer. Then it occurred to him he may have just died and he was standing in the afterlife… The first question that crossed Quiggly’s mind was, “did someone rob my grave?”
In that moment, Quiggly realized how silly he must have seemed. He was standing there in some strange land in some alternate version of Earth and he had no idea how he got there. There was a chance his home was right around the corner so Quiggly figured he would start walking and see where he was going to. Quiggly stepped forward. He was slightly dazed as he observed the area around him. He saw rocks and trees and lots of things that looked completely unfamiliar to him. Then he heard a rumbling noise. Quiggly looked up and saw a huge metal truck was driving right at him. Quiggly braced for the impact and he jumped out of the way. As he bounced off the ground, the vehicle ran over him. Quiggly fell flat and the world faded to black.
When Quiggly woke up he found himself in a huge room. He was in some sort of medical lab surrounded by doctors and scientists in lab coats. As Quiggly recovered, the doctors were talking among themselves. They were talking about the people that got crushed by the car. Most of the doctors looked worried, but there was one that was extremely confident. “We can rebuild them. We can replicate their faces. We can copy their memory, personality, memories, everything. I told you this would work.” Quiggly saw a woman lying in the bed nearby and, in a daze, he sat by her side. She had no nose.
Quiggly felt sorry for the woman and decided to help her. She spoke to him with her damaged mouth and he saw her memory play out. She was trying to get help from the doctors when the truck ran her over and then she was all alone. As the doctors worked on her, Quiggly was happy she would get to live. Then Quiggly was hit with the thought, “Am I a doctor? Can I help people get well too?” Quiggly wasn’t sure, but he was excited to find out. He took out his backpack and looked at the scimitar he picked up. It was shiny with a tip on the end and something blue about it. Quiggly thought it seemed familiar, like he had seen something like it before.
As Quiggly turned it over in his hands he began to study it, but as he looked down he noticed the tip was still glowing. It was emitting the same heat it had before, so Quiggly decided to test his hypothesis that he found the thing by accident. To his surprise, when he touched the blade to his right arm, he felt like he lost a limb! However, the pain had a numbing effect.
The doctors came running in at the sound of pain. They saw Quiggly holding his arm in shock, covered in blood. Quiggly was not really sure what had happened, so he told them that he accidentally found a weapon. The doctors saw that Quiggly was all bandaged up and realized the injury must have happened recently. One of them said they should test the effects the blade had on anyone else. So, a nurse grabbed another patient that had no nose and they gave it a test. To their surprise, when the doctor asked the patient about something he saw, the patient actually could describe it, which the doctor could not. The doctors were so confused they asked Quiggly to show them what he did with the blade. Quiggly was still afraid, but he wanted to help, so he held the tip of the blade to the woman’s arm and watched. The woman described the location of the pain and how it seemed to have spread throughout her body. As she described the spread, a picture of her appeared on the computer screens around her and the doctors began to understand her affliction. The description she gave was spot on. The doctors grabbed a gurney and wheeled her out of the room, telling Quiggly to clean up the mess he made.
Quiggly was happy for the woman. He had done his job well, so he decided to grab some scissors and a sheet of paper. He headed out the door and decided he would clean up his own mess. He was almost out the door when he thought he heard voices outside. Quiggly stopped and listened. As he stood there in the hallway, he was glad to have found a scimitar and some sheet of paper. When he heard the voices he became more excited. Quiggly thought, “It must be a group of kids playing a prank, or a homeless guy that snuck in through the window.” So, Quiggly turned back to the door and let the people in. There was an older gentleman in his 70s that was leading the group of twenty kids and they were very disappointed to find a bloody mess instead of a new game. They kept quiet and sat down in order to hide their frustration. As Quiggly sat at the entrance to the room, he watched the kids play around and waited for them to give up. However, the kids were very patient and just kept quietly playing until it was nearly dark.
Quiggly decided to go out for a walk around the building. He didn’t have a flashlight or any kind of light, so he took out his scimitar, put it on the ground and lit it up. He thought, “It is dark out, but the blade should light up anything it touches.” Quiggly was happy to have come up with an ingenious way to light his way in the dark. He held the blade out in front of him. When he looked around him, he saw all sorts of stuff that was interesting. There was a small lake with a big black fish. Quiggly thought it looked fake, but as he walked around he saw that there was a tiny little house and a tiny little dog standing at the front. The buildings looked really old and the tree in front of the little house looked really big, which made it seem like the landscape was designed in an old age. However, everything was in order and no one seemed to notice. So, Quiggly thought, “There are things like this everywhere. I never would have known if I didn’t walk around the place to see what was there.”
While Quiggly was playing with the scimitar, the kids were playing with their toys in their section of the room. They noticed that there were old toys that they could easily put together and then use them for new games. When Quiggly was looking at the scimitar he thought the kids may like some of their toys. So,
