It took all I could to hold onto the stone which wasn’t stone that also gave like it was cotton candy, yet held the toughness of steel. It was confusing and hard, but it was either that or fall into the gaping sky that devoured all and die.

The choice to me should’ve been incredibly easy considering dying was the other option.

But while I struggled with all I was to hold on, I couldn’t help but wonder if I should just let go. It was so tempting to release my grip and let the sky have its way with me when I fell into it. I wouldn’t have to remember what I had seen in this terrible Realm. I wouldn’t have to worry about how to deal with the burden that I now had on my shoulders. I wouldn’t have to remember her broken face, defiant to the end, and yet so very scared.

I had made a promise to her during her last moments though.

So instead, I held on. Even as the air around me seemed to scream with a million different voices whispering to me to let go. Even as the world seemed to spin around and around like a twisted carousel. Even as the feeling of a hundred little legs crawling on my skin assailed me. All things I somehow knew would stop if I simply let go and stopped fighting.

I held on and didn’t let go.

I didn’t let go.

I didn’t-

----------------------------------------

“Lewis! You there?”

I jolt forward from where I had been sitting and staring into a blue sky that I wasn’t falling into when my name gets all but shouted at me. Some grass of Srora’s City Park that I had been gripping far too hard in my hands came with me when I did so which I promptly let fall back to the ground. My gaze swiftly finds itself meeting the concerned solid brown eyes of one of my best friends, Eric, who was sitting against a tree in front of me.

“Oh, uh, what’s up?” I meekly respond, doing my best to shake myself from those terrible memories. I hadn’t let myself get that out of it, had I?

Eric just stares at me for another moment before he sighs. The look on his face not particularly fitting his wild light brown hair nor his haphazardly thrown-on outfit. “Lewis, are you okay man? I’ve been trying to get your attention for the past minute and you only just now noticed.”

I frown for a moment before I plaster a small smile over my mouth that very much didn’t have my heart in it. I really needed to get out of this new habit of mine. “Sorry, I’ve just had a lot more on my mind recently than normal. I’m all good though. Mostly at least.” I add after a moment when his face doesn’t shift.

After another moment passes, he slowly nods his head still looking thoroughly unconvinced by my words. “Sure man. Though, if you’re all good, you really should stop zoning out like that. You’re making me think I should see if I can’t sic Bella on you to see if she can’t figure out if your time in that Upheaval Realm did something more to you when you got caught up in it. She might not seem it usually, but she can be very perceptive when she wants to be.”

Part of me wanted to say no to him immediately in response, but I knew if I did he’d only be more sure about telling her so I resolved myself to wait a moment. I both didn’t want to talk about my time there and additionally, I simply didn’t deserve anything like that from his sister, Isabelle. 

She wasn’t just his sister after all, something I had only realized when she had been the one to bring me to safety from the Upheaval Realm. She was a Magical Girl, blessed with strength and powers beyond comprehension. Many looked up to those like her. For they, alongside Magical Guardians, were the premier defenders of humanity from the supernatural threats that plagued us. That and those of them who were more public put on some truly amazing shows.

Of course, everyone believed that to be one was to be extremely fortunate. Not even a week ago, I had been one of those same people who thought that anyone who was found to have the Spark was blessed.

Now? Now I knew better than to think that and a part of me wished so desperately to be able to go back to that blissful ignorance. I could only wonder how others who I knew had ended up in Upheavals too could still think like that, much less not constantly find their thoughts occupied by the sheer wrongness that came with being caught in one. Did they just not care, or were they better at dealing with it than I was?

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How did Isabella deal with it all and seem so normal if somewhat lazy at times?

I suddenly snap out of my thoughts again when I realize I’m beginning to zone out again and shake my head to try and clear them away. Hopefully I didn’t do that for too long this time. “I’m fine, really. Just… I don’t want to think too much about it.” Or ever again really, but memories didn’t work like that unfortunately. “Now, what was it you were originally trying to get my attention for?”

The pensive stare Eric’s been giving me holds for another moment before it disappears as if it wasn’t there in the first place when I shift the topic. “Well, we’ve already agreed that we’re going to spend some time hanging out this weekend, beginning tomorrow. But what do you say to staying the entire weekend instead of just hanging out? My folks have already given me the a-okay on it. And I think you’d at least enjoy a break from your own folks and the chance to relax. So, whaddya think?”

My face genuinely lights up a bit at his idea. A break from my own folks was something I welcomed, not to mention it would be an even better distraction from thoughts of that experience than it originally was going to be if I was there for the entire weekend. “I think I’d enjoy that. I’ll have to text my mom about it and grab a spare change of clothes, but otherwise, I think it’s set.” I left unsaid how I probably wouldn’t receive a response back and that I’d be taking that as permission from her.

“Then it sounds like a-” He abruptly pauses while his eyes shift towards something behind me before they widen. His mouth begins to move, but I’m already in motion long before he can say whatever it is he’s about to.

I twist around to look behind me, not only finding the afternoon sun and its light shining straight into my eyes forcing me to squint, but more importantly a hard white ball on a direct collision course within my face and too close for me to do anything but get hit by. At least it should’ve been.

Instead, I find one of my arms moving impossibly swiftly to intercept it. Through some miracle, it gets there in time. I feel my hand wrapping around it and bringing it to a stop. I had somehow caught the ball of all things, which still sends my body rocking back slightly from where I had been seated on the grass from the force of it.

“Watch… out?” I hear Eric uncertainly finish.

I find myself stuck staring at the ball now held in my hand which has begun to feel a tiny bit sore. How in the world had I managed to not get smacked in the face with it, much less catch the ball?

“Oh shit, good catch. Mind tossing that back?” I hear a voice awkwardly say, causing me to tear my attention away from the ball I had somehow caught. It belonged to an older boy with a catching glove on one of his hands and who was currently looking more than a bit shocked if glad to be so.

I absentmindedly tossed him the ball, the shock of the fact I had caught it of all things still running through me. He gives me a nod after he deftly catches it before he promptly runs back to where I could now see now another boy who was staring at me in both surprise and relief. It wasn’t exactly like I was slow, but I had never been quick to react like that before in my life. At least I hadn’t until a week ago.

“Well, that happened.” I slowly say while I turn back towards Eric.

“That it did. Didn’t realize you were holding out on some sick catching skills there. I think if Jeremy were here, he’d have scooped you up onto the baseball team in a heartbeat and tried to train you up from that display alone to fill in the holes on the team. Might still actually if those two say something about that to him once Monday comes round.”

I shake my head, still in a slight daze. “That was just a fluke. I have no idea how I even managed that in the first place.”

Eric snorts. “Another fluke, huh? Well, I suppose we can add that to your growing list of flukes then, can’t we. Though I certainly can’t complain that much this time, definitely would prefer that to you taking that, heh, head on”

My own cheeks flush slightly at the first part of that, the terrible pun flying straight over my distracted mind at the moment. I had pulled off an astonishing number of flukes recently. From incredible displays of agility I knew I had never been capable of before being absentmindedly done until it was pointed out to me. To far stranger moments where I found myself excelling at things I had never done before or even at things I had been terrible at. Going from being absolutely incapable of juggling to being able to comfortably do it was almost as surreal as the fact I swore I knew someone who had been capable of doing the things I was suddenly capable of now too.

Part of me knew they weren’t just simple flukes anymore. Something about me had changed since that Upheaval a week ago, and in some ways, it felt like something important had been missing since then. But I couldn’t bring myself to figure out why, to again confront what I had witnessed.

If I could help it, I’d live the rest of my life in ignorance of the reason why rather than subject myself to willingly thinking about that cursed day. Tomorrow when the weekend hits and I had two days where I would be able to just relax and chill with one of my two best friends couldn’t come soon enough. 

Nevertheless, even while my conversation with Eric continued, a creeping memory of that terrible day couldn’t help but worm its way into my mind before I managed to shake it off. A visage of a girl I both didn’t know whatsoever and knew so well at the same time and her shattered whispered words.

Please don’t forget me.