I finished my last bite of the meal. Pretty good, and I didn't mind not having any electricity for it. It was about time I did, anyway.

“This TV…” Jamie yawned. “This TV is from 1998. How is it even still working?”

“Really?” I perked up. “That’s so cool! It's older than I am!”

“Cheeseball.”

Theo sprung up. “1998? That's ancient!”

“I mean, I was born in 2003,” Dorothy spoke for the first time in ages. “So I guess in the grand scheme of things, it's pretty recent.”

Theo counted something on his fingers, raising an eyebrow. He shook his head and started over. “Nevermind. Wrong calendar.”

Dori and I just stared at each other.

Lightning flashed in the window again. An electric blue. Something about this this time just looked… different. Richer. Bluer.

“That was weird,” I said. “Hey, Theo, you're a genius. Why did it look like that?”

Theo giggled. “I dunno. Wanna find out?”

The words “Yeah, obviously!” danced on my tongue.

“No, it's okay,” I sighed. “The sky’s not going anywhere. And I'm not getting my shoes muddy.”

“Aww. Don’t let Korey bring you down.”

“It’s not that,” I calmly insisted.

Jamie jumped to his feet and tossed the remote on the couch. “If it means getting out of this swamp, then I'm going.”

He threw his sweatshirt back on. Seemed counterproductive, but we're friends for a reason.

“I wanna go too!” Dorothy clapped her hands, and set her bowl on the coffee table beside her.

“It’s agreed upon,” Theo announced, raising his hand in the air. “We’ll leave our shelter for the natural world. As for you, Jack, hope you're not afraid of the dark.”

“That’s not unanimous,” I retorted. “I didn't approve.”

Creakkk!

I darted my eyes around the room. Just Jamie opening the living room door.

“Fine, I'll go.” I jumped off the sofa arm. “But let's not stay out there for too long.”

The backyard couldn't have looked more haunted. Besides the light of Theo's phone, trees and flowers twisted and morphed in the shadows. Half of the grass drowned in water, and wet leaves drifted from above.

Right away, I spotted a marine glow in a bed of sunflowers. They swayed under the biggest tree in the yard, next to the table of crows. I bowed down to study it. The dust colored the dripping raindrops, especially in the small light of the moon.

Interesting. I held out my hand to catch some water in it. Blue. Electric blue water.

Theo reached down to pick one of the flowers.

“It’s everywhere,” I mentioned. “The dust is in the rain.”

“It’s funny, kinda,” Theo said. “Flowers usually die in heavy storms. Trees don't. They're invincible unless you cut them down. I'm surprised the grass is even alive.”

“Hey, look!” Dorothy exclaimed, pointing out into the forest far ahead.

Amidst the black sky, deep blue light shone through the clouds. Like heaven revealing itself.

“Should we be running around at this time?” I asked.

“Maybe not if my mom-mom was here.” She ran towards the edge of the yard, where a gravel path separated us from the forest beyond. “Come on! Let's go!”

It was her who had to spend the summer going to essentially another school. We offered to stay with her. Now wasn't the time to get all prissy about an imaginary curfew.

Dorothy skipped across the path and into the overgrown mess of the field. Jamie sprinted after her.

Theo stared into the sky, his mouth open. I caught his phone as it slipped from his hand.

“I’ll stay here with you if you don't want to go, okay?” I palmed his shoulder.

He shook his head, then just took off without a word. He rushed to catch up with the others as they neared the forest entrance.

Huh. I looked behind me at the looming house. The darkness covered every window and piece of wood in ghastly shadow. That was enough motivation to book it and meet the others.

The black beyond the first wall of trees looked like a void into space. The thick roots kept trying to trip us.

We stepped over a million fallen branches and food wrappers.

“Wow, Dorothea,” Jamie pretended to sound disappointed. “Scaring your grandma out of her house and polluting the planet?”

“Who are the yuppies walking into your yard and throwing their trash around?” I asked Dorothy.

“My parents,” Jamie blurted out.

Far away, few rays of silver fell through the trees, while we were stuck in a bleak labyrinth. Dorothy sped past the others and continued towards the light.

I had to put my glasses back before they blurred from the mist. As we followed,the fog thickened, and brightened with blue dust.

It stuck to my hand.

Then something crunched under my shoe. I stepped back to look.

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Three sea-green beans, glimmering like crystals.

“Cool…” I scooped them out of the dirt. “Guys, look!”

They looked like tinted glass. Scratches pitted the surface, like they were several decades old. And it didn’t feel like knock-off plastic glass, but something out of a museum.

Theo shoved through me and Dorothy, and shook them out of my hands.

“Those could be poisonous!” he shouted. “They’re weird glass bean thingies. Someone could've filled it with crack!”

“I-I guess!” Cold trickled through my body from the shock. “I didn't think about it that way. Kinda creative, honestly.”

Theo took a deep breath, his angered face relaxing. “It’s okay. I didn't mean to scare you.”

I knelt into the dirt and searched around for them.

Instead, tiny, curly bean sprouts poked through the soil in their place. I patted the dirt around them and realized—

“They’re real.”

“Real?” Dorothy asked. “How do you know? They probably just fell somewhere else.”

My heart dipped as I looked around to see a wall of dark rain and forest surrounding us a few feet away. Our skin and clothes were already drying. Everything in the blue light warmed my skin and brightened the plant, completely untouched by the dreary weather.

“Awesome!” Jamie cheered, and stuck his hand out into the rain. “It looks like we stepped into a music video. Or the Trident's Lane manga.”

Dorothy laughed and plopped down next to me. She leaned in closer and closer. I could hear the camera clicking in her head.

Then… the tiny sprouts popped up a few centimeters. Then another few inches, girthing up each time, and kissing Dori’s nose.

She jerked back.

“Eww, stop that,” I muttered, and crawled backwards until the rain hit my back. Sticks and leaves sloshed beneath my hands.

Jamie sat by the plant, and rubbed the growth between his fingers. Each time he did, a smirk grew across his face.

“You think this is cool?” I gagged.

He chuckled. “Kinda, I me—”

The sprouts slithered across the dirt, coiling around each other. But the more they did, the thicker they grew, cracking the ground around it.

Jamie hustled to his feet, bolting back into the rain.

They grew to the size of my head, to my height, and higher.

For a small minute, they rested…

Until the sprouts ballooned and exploded through the treetops. The base widened, swallowing rocks and trees in its wake. One tree cracked at the base and slammed into the ground. Everything flooded in shade.

“JACKSON!” A scream boomed in the air.

Dorothy.

“AHHHH!” Jamie's cries rang in my ears.

Miles high in the air, two figures tied in the plant’s limbs.

“DOROTHY, JAMIE!” I screamed.

The earth rumbled beneath. My legs gave out as my world spun around me, and my head hit the soft dirt.

The monster boomed through the white above, fading into the clouds.

The growth slowed to rest.

Branches snapped from its weight against them.

Dust swirled around my nose, and wet leaves stuck to my face. Rain drenched my clothes, and blue flashed the sky, silent as ever. I threw my hand above me, palming a wet wall of plant stem. My eyes… they were still open, but blurry.

A million miles above, whatever those demonic bean sprouts were, grew right through the storm clouds. The very last half felt faded, blackened like space.

I felt a cold, shivering hand on my shoulder. I looked up. Theo rested my head in his lap, and felt my forehead.

“Are you okay?” he whispered. “You think you can stand or anything?”

My throat felt like sand. “We need to get Dorot…”

Tears settled in my throat before I could finish her name, let alone Jamie.

“I’ll get them down.”

“I’ll call the police…”

“No. I'll fix it.”

He reached under my legs and back and lifted me up. For a couple feet, he carried me through the trees. My vision blurred in and out, resting on Theo's determined face.

“I can stand, Theo,” I muttered. “Just get them down.”

“Okay.”

He found a big tree, and gently laid me down against it. I struggled to my feet, my legs trembling.

“Go to the edge of the forest,” he said. “I’ll come back and get you. Just go, now.”

“Thanks, Theo.”

But as I looked up, he was already running the other way, weaving through the trees.

“Wait!” I tried yelling. “What about you?”

“Just go!”

A familiar image sparked in my head. That guy by the fountain telling me to run back. His scream as I ran…

Reality settled back in. I had to help.

I mustered some strength in my legs and ran back through the trees.

The dream. It was to save my friends. Dreams don't usually make sense, anyway.

The second I saw the beanstalk, I jumped forward to get a hold of it. I grabbed a weird, thick vine and pulled myself a bit off the ground. It didn’t last, and I leaned on the plant thing for support. My brain misted to nothing. Those things thickened to the width of a small classroom, with a million leaves and vines spiraling and tangling around it.

My hands stuck to the plant, as well as my feet.

I sighed and closed my eyes for a full minute. I shook the branch around, waiting for the beanstalk to fade, and to wake up in bed.

But it still stood high above me. In fact, it only felt more real when I closed my eyes.

I slid one hand above the other. Then again. And enough to get me a few inches above the ground.

But I had to hurry…

Rain continued pouring from the sky. Lightning flashed every few minutes, booming in my ears. I escaped the thick treetops.

Then I saw the roof of the house.

The rain densed as I trekked higher. I slid my hands up so much, I glided up the beanstalk.

My core shook as the neighborhood disappeared under a blanket of fog. It felt so unfair. Why am I able to do this? For more grueling minutes, a chunk of Delaware faded away beneath me. My arms ached, and my breaths hardened.

Where am I going? Into the atmosphere? You’ll die.

I pushed ahead, gulping every last breath.

The sky lit up again. And with a giant flash, lightning struck the top of the beanstalk.

Suddenly, my hands were free. Air breezed through my clothes.

A deep shadow fell over me. My eyes grew heavy. Darkness clouded the beanstalk just above. I inched my hand higher, but gravity weighed it down. I guess it was in vain.

How stupid. Maybe I should've listened to Theo.

I closed my eyes and waited for the ground and I to meet.

Then I felt a warm hand on my back; my head against fabric. I didn't feel like opening my eyes, though. And I was probably just imagining being saved.