Alexis lurched forward and squeezed Parker as tightly as she could.

“Lara?!” Caleb shouted. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I was sitting in a room somewhere with a bunch of people I didn’t know and Lara. I don’t know how or why it happened.”

They all sat very still for a moment. The silence was palpable. Parker could see the uneasiness on Master Sora’s face grow.

“Walk me through this Parker,” the master commanded.

“I grabbed the hairbrush and all of a sudden I could sense Lara’s core again. It was the weirdest feeling. I haven’t been able to sense any cores since we got to Earth 2.”

Master Sora began observing the hairbrush they’d found but there didn’t seem to be anything different about it. “Hold it again.” Master Sora held the hairbrush out for Parker but before he could grab it, Alexis snatched it from his hand.

“No way!” she exclaimed. “What if he disappears again and she takes him or something?”

“Is that even possible?” Parker asked.

Alexis rolled her eyes. “That’s the point! We don’t know what’s possible when it comes to her.”

“Can’t I at least touch it to see if I sense anything and if I do, I’ll drop it immediately. Promise.”

Alexis stared at him full of worry. There wasn’t a lot of choice. They had to figure something out, even if it put them at risk. Lara had to be stopped no matter what. She begrudgingly held the hairbrush out for him to take.

Parker slowly reached for it. He grabbed the hairbrush and to his surprise he felt absolutely nothing. He expected to feel the same he did before but now there was nothing.

“Anything?” Caleb asked.

He shook his head and set the brush down. “I should’ve felt something,” Parker said sullenly.

“Why do you say that?” Master Sora asked.

“Because I already felt something! It’s not like I could’ve used it up or something.”

“Could you have though?” Caleb asked.

“How?” Parker asked. “How would that even be possible?”

Caleb shrugged. “I don’t know. But maybe that’s the problem. Maybe, somehow, you used up the… essence of it or something.”

“I hate to say it,” Alexis added. “But maybe that’s what happened. Should we look for something else of Hailee’s that might work?” Alexis closed her eyes as she said it. Parker could tell that she wasn’t happy with suggesting it but nevertheless couldn’t have been more proud of her.

“Let’s go take a look for something,” Master Sora said.

They all made their way to the replica of the girls’ room from Earth 1. From what Parker remembered, the room looked identical to the way theirs had except for the fact that it was nearly spotless. No matter how hard the boys had tried, they were never truly able to keep their room clean. It may be clean for a moment, but it wouldn’t be along until there was a mess again.

The four of them split up in the room and begin looking through things to see if anything jumps out at them as being something they could use to find Lara. Parker was struggling to figure out why they would look all over the room for something when he was pretty sure it would have to be something of Hailee’s that would do it.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

As he was digging through a draw that was obviously not Hailee’s Parker looked over and saw Caleb sitting at Hailee’s desk. It was then that he realized Alexis suggested this so that Caleb could have a moment with her stuff before they go riffling through it.

After a few moments of letting Caleb go through some of her stuff, Parker walked over and put his hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. “We’ll figure out a way to get her back, I promise.”

“Don’t,” Caleb retorted. “Don’t make that promise when you don’t know if you can keep it.”

“I’m—”

“It’s okay. I’m sorry. I just...”

“We understand Caleb,” Alexis said sympathetically. “Don’t forget we’re here for you. Always.”

Caleb nodded with a smile and a slight twinkle in his eyes.

“So do you think any of this will work?” Parker asked him.

Caleb laughed a little, catching everyone by surprise. “Dude, I have no clue. I can’t sense cores like you can so have at it and you let me know.”

Parker squeezed his shoulder again before he started picking up some of the things on her desk and in her drawers. Everything seemed normal for the most part aside from the fact that Parker still felt like this was all just impossible. The fact that Hailee wasn’t with them anymore. That Lara had completely destroyed a planet and created a replica of it. But maybe that was part of their problem. They kept thinking of Earth 2 as a replica of Earth 1. Earth 2 still has all of their stuff on it. The buildings are the same. Everything is the same, except the population.

“Hey,” Parker said setting everything down. “I think we’ve got this wrong...” he trailed off.

“Got what wrong?” Alexis asked.

“All of it. Earth 2. Everything.”

“Got what wrong though?”

“What if Earth 2 isn’t actually Earth 2?”

Everyone stared at Parker like he was crazy. “I don’t understand,” Master Sora said. “Explain your thoughts more.”

“When Hailee died and Lara took her body, everything went white right?” Everyone nodded their heads.

“Then we woke up here. On Earth 2,” Alexis pointed out.

“What if we never left Earth 1?” Now everyone was staring at him in disbelief.

“How would that even be possible Parker?” the master asked.

“Think about it, everything is the same. I mean everything. How could she have possibly managed to move all of our stuff or duplicate it with such extreme precision? My thoughts are that she figured out creating her own world with only Imperials was a pipedream. It was just too much of a task, so instead of creating a new world completely fresh, she just got rid of what she wanted from our world?”

The room fell silent. No one knew what to say. While everyone tried to gather their thoughts about what Parker had just suggested, he started to rummage through her desk drawer again. There was a nice drawer organizer that held everything perfectly, but it was slightly askew, unlike anything else in her stuff.

Parker lifted on the organizer and pulled it out of the drawer. Beneath the organizer was a small hole in the wood that didn’t look like it belonged there. He looked in the organizer and found a paperclip and began to unfold it. Sticking the end into the hole and wiggling it around, a small piece of wood popped out of place revealing a little compartment that was in the desk drawer.

Under it was a necklace. He picked it up and began examining it while everyone leaned in to see what he’d found. It was a white gold locket with a long chain to it. Nothing felt different about this locket, but he knew it had to hold some importance to her for her to hide it like this.

When he opened the locket to see what was inside, he noticed a picture. It was a very small picture, so it was tough to see clearly but it was obvious that it was a picture of Lara when she were younger. She looked just like Hailee but was just enough older that he knew it couldn’t be Hailee. His heart stopped for a moment while he stared at it, still struggling to believe that she was really gone.

“Is that her?” Alexis asked. Parker shook his head.

“It has to be Lara,” Caleb said. “She looks like Hailee, just a few years older...”

Parker rubbed his finger against the picture, as if trying to remember Hailee better. When his finger touched the picture the pulse of Lara’s core ripped through him. The feeling was unmistakable. He quickly pulled his finger from the picture and set the locket down.

Everyone stared at him, no clue as to what just happened. “Parker are you okay?” Alexis asked clearly concerned.

“That’s it.”

“That’s what?” Master Sora asked.

“The key to Lara’s core. I could feel her core stronger than when I was next to her on Earth—”

Alexis sat upright. “You mean we can use this?”

“I think it’s the answer.”

“But can you touch it and keep yourself from teleporting right to her?” Caleb asked. Parker grimaced and shrugged his shoulders.

Master Sora stood up and pocketed the locket. “For now, I’ll hold onto it and we’ll figure out what to do with it tomorrow.”