Alice. Later That Day.
Most people agree that you should be awake and productive at 11 am. Alice was not like most people. Call Alice whatever you like, but you can’t call her tired. She had the unique ability to sleep whenever and wherever she wanted. It's like there was a switch in her brain she could switch on and off to sleep and wake up, ensuring she was never tired. Alice often used this as a way to joke that she had a real-life superpower, the power to fall asleep.
So Alice used this superpower to sleep for as long as she wanted. This annoyed her mother to no end.
“Alice!” her mother said while violently shaking her daughter back and forth as she slept in her bed. “Wake up, you need to get to the library in an hour.”
Alice didn’t even twitch as her mother pulled off the large pile of blankets wrapped around her like she was the meat in a burrito. “Alice, if you don’t get up I’m going to fill your socks with ice cubes.”
Still, nothing. With a sigh, her mother left Alice’s bedroom and returned a few minutes later with a plastic cup filled with ice cubes.
Meanwhile, in the mind of Alice.
Dexter sat across from Alice with a wide smile on his face as he sipped his cup of black tea. They sat in front of a restaurant overlooking the coast in Dublin, Dexter’s parents home town. Alice refilled her cup for the seventh time from the seemingly endless white porcelain teapot between them.
A sugar pitcher and a milk jug sat between them but were untouched. Just like Dexter, Alice preferred her tea strong enough she could taste the dirt the leaves grew in. Sugar and milk only diluted the taste and took away from the experience.
“This is nice, hanging out just the two of us,” Alice said with a satisfied sigh.
“The others won't remember,” Dexter said suddenly.
“... What?” Alice said, confused.
“What happened last night at Chaplins, they won't remember,” Dexter said.
“What are you talking about?” Alice asked.
“These powers were meant for one person, not four,” Dexter said while sipping his tea. “You’re minds are fractured. Just like me.”
“I don’t understand…” Alice said. “Dex, what are you talking about?”
“You’re future,” he said. “I chose you for a reason. Out of everyone in Autumn Sky I picked you.”
“Dex, what are you going on about? I don’t understand!” Alice said.
“Find the others, only united will you grow,” Dexter said. “I can’t talk to them, only you can hear me.”
“I don’t understand,” Alice said. “You aren't making any sense!”
“You must be united before he loses control,” Dexter said.
“When who loses control?” Alice said her concern growing with every word Dexter spoke. “Who is he?”
“He is the complete one. He will be your doom,” Dexter said, his voice slowly becoming more and more alien.
“What does that even mean?” Alice asked.
“In time you will see,” Dexter said as the world flickered in and out of existence. “You must find the others. Only united you will stand a chance.”
Suddenly, something cold engulfed Alice's feet as blocks of ice slowly formed around Alice’s legs.
“WHAT THE FU-”
Alice, the real world
“AHCK!” Alice screamed as she ripped off her large, fuzzy, ice-filled socks.
“What the bloody hell mum!” Alice exclaimed, her American accent was gone, replaced with a British one.
“I told you this would happen if you wouldn’t wake up at a reasonable time young’un,” her mother said with a cheeky smile.
“I’m not a child any more mum,” Alice said switching back to her American accent. “So please stop calling me that.”
“No can do. Besides, you need to get up and ready. You’re reading today remember?” her mother reminded her.
“Oh shoot!” Alice exclaimed as she glanced at the clock and hopped out of bed. If she didn’t hurry she would be late and she promised herself that would never happen.
“I need to get ready so out!” Alice said while she shooed her chuckling mother out of her room nearly tripping on the melting ice cubes on the ground in her haste.
She quickly dressed in a long-sleeved purple shirt, a loose white jacket, skinny jeans, and white sneakers. Deciding to skip the makeup, Alice quickly brushed her long hair and rushed out of her room grabbing a slice of toast from her mother's plate when she wasn’t looking as she ran out the door.
Alice’s mother worked at a library most days of the week and Alice volunteered to read to children once a week. Despite her dyslexia, Alice is a passionate reader. She wants to share the joy of reading with everyone she can.
As she walked to the library Alice felt a buzzing sensation in her hands. “What the…” she mumbled. Suddenly, she saw two identical slices of toast in her hand instead of just one. “Did grab an extra by accident?” She wondered aloud. Deciding she didn’t really care, Alice began eating both slices of bread at once. Though one tasted oddly bland compared to the other.
As she walked, Alice couldn’t help but think about the strange dream she had. Alice rarely had dreams in the normal sense, most of the time she relived memories. For the past month, it had been the trip she and Dexter took to Dublin together. Thinking of it always made her stomach flutter for reasons she didn’t quite understand. Whatever dream she had last night twisted that memory leaving a bitter aftertaste in her mouth.
“It's just a dream,” Alice repeated to herself as she walked down the streets of her quiet neighborhood. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake the feeling that there is something more to the dream. It felt too vivid. The tea tasted like she actually was drinking it during that very moment. Even now, she could still hear the warning dream Dexter told her.
Unite the others… before he loses control…
The warnings echoed through her head. No matter how hard she tried nothing could drown them out. “No, not a warning,” Alice realized. “A command!” Against her better judgment, her thoughts wandered to God. Alice was religious, but not deeply so. She believes in the existence of Heaven and Hell and all those who inhabit them. When she lived in Britain, her grandfather told her stories of how God spoke to her ancestors to fight against injustice.
“No,” Alice thought. “God doesn’t command people, he guides themes. Whoever or whatever was in my dream was just that, a dream. It must be my mind using faith against me to follow that command. It’s nothing more than my tired brain working against me.” Alice tried to reassure herself that the dream last night was nothing important. But a sick feeling in her gut told her otherwise.
She pushed away those thoughts as she arrived at the library. Nicknamed the BC library because of the similarities it held to the one seen in the Breakfast Club. Autumn Sky library had it all. The top levels of the library were dedicated to college-level research material and adult-level books. Just like in the Breakfast Club there was a sculpture in the center of the room. Alice wasn’t really sure what it was supposed to be, but it kind of looked like someone went to town on a double popsicle with a flamethrower and then cooled it off by showering it with ice from a snowcone machine. On the left side were young adult novels and personal computers from the early 2010s, and on the right were dozens of small bookshelves against colorful walls with dinosaurs and cartoon characters painted on them.
Everyone greeted Alice with a cheerful hello, only receiving a grunt of recognition in return as she moved toward the children's section. Her hand hovered over every book as she tried her best to read the titles, but it was early and she was still a little tired so the letters on the spines of the book marched around like colorful beetles making them impossible to read.
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It didn’t matter though, she knew all the books by heart after reading them to the children so many times. Today she was reading to an older group of kids, so she chose something to encourage them to read books without pictures. The Magic Treehouse, her favorite when she was their age. Judging from the cover depicting the two main characters Jack and Annie riding on a dark horse with a knight clad in black armor on the book she pulled out, it was the second book in the series. The Knight at Dawn.
“Hey, Alice,” Mary, the newest librarian said with a glowing smile. “How are you this fine morning?”
“Alive,” Alice grumbled as she set up the chairs in preparation for the kids.
“C’mon Alice, smile!” Mary said with glee. “Kids will be arriving soon! You can’t greet them with a grumpy face like that!”
“Have you considered that you’re the cause of this face?” Alice mumbled.
“Don’t be like that Alice,” Mary said, her smile and happy attitude never wavering.
Alice groaned, Mary was one of those people that was impossible to hate. She walked on rainbows and radiated sunshine. Wherever she went happiness followed, and that's exactly why Alice couldn’t stand her.
There was something to hate about everyone. Anyone who didn’t was hiding something. Yet for some reason that didn’t seem to be the case with Mary. She was so genuine, so caring, so annoyingly peppy, and honest that she never left a bad impression on anybody. That drove Alice nuts. Though she did serve as a good distraction from the command echoing in her head.
The rest of her time in the library went well. While it might seem like Alice would suck at reading to children, she was actually very good. Around people her age or older, she was often cold and dismissive. You could never trust people, especially strangers. But when she was around children it was a completely different story. To Alice, children were the purest forms of humanity. She believed it was her responsibility to encourage them to spread happiness to others. What better way to do that than with books?
So when she read to children, she strived to be a beacon of happiness to them. Always smiling and treating them with the kindness and respect they deserved. Alice wished she could spend more time reading to them as the end of their sessions always came too soon. Today she only had enough time for the first few chapters of The Magic Treehouse. But that was for the best as every letter on the page turned into a marching band of ants walking across the page so she only remembered the first few chapters anyways.
Saying goodbye to the children after she finished reading, Alice left the library to go hand out with Dexter. Maybe they would go grab some lunch, just the two of them. It had been a long time since the two of them had just hung out. John was almost always with Dexter when he wasn’t working. They were always talking about the worst movies or tv shows they found that week.
Their current obsession was with the movie Killer Klowns from Outer Space. For reasons a mystery to all but them. She had watched it with Dex a few days ago and he was instantly hooked. The cheesy dialogue, bad acting, and surprisingly good special effects were everything Dexter loved in a so-bad-its-good movie. While John appreciated the special effects, he hated the movie. So for the past several days, it had been a nonstop argument on where the movie would place on the J&D movie list. A tier list of every movie John and Dex had ever seen.
Alice pulled out her phone to call Dexter, but every time she dialed it went straight to voicemail. She tried to call Donald and Freya and while the call when through they never picked up.
“The police station. They are all at the police station,” Alice thought, but the voice was not her own. It was the voice of the command echoing in her head.
The world around Alice began to blur as her body moved of its own accord, time lost its meaning as she felt a ghostly sensation of walking. As soon as it began, it was gone. The world came back into focus and a very confused Alice found herself standing outside the police station.
“How the hell…” Alice said, looking up at the threatening concrete building.
“Inside, go inside,” the alien voice whispered.
Deciding it was probably not a good idea to continue to ignore the demands of the alien voice. Alice took a deep breath and walked into the station.
John, moments earlier
John was having a very bad day. He woke up in his car with no memory as to how he got there or what happened the night before, then had to walk 20 minutes to the nearest gas station after realizing that he left the car running all night long. After that he had to kick three very large and very unreasonable people out at the gunshop he worked at, and then got arrested for having expired plates when he got pulled over for going a measly 5 miles over the speed limit while on an errand for his boss. Now he was sitting down on a metal chair, handcuffed to a Detective's desk trying to convince him to not leave him in jail for 15 days.
“C’mon Detective!” John pleaded. “There's no need for this!”
“Mr. Eastwood, this is the 15th time you have been pulled over for speeding, and the second time for driving with expired plates,” the Detective said, not looking up from his phone as he tapped away at the screen as if his life depended on it.
“C’mon! Just let me go this one time! Wait, can you even pull me over in an unmarked car?” John asked.
“Yes, I can,” the Detective said. He was dressed in a clean pressed suit and dress shoes he shouldn’t be able to afford on a cop's salary. His brown hair was styled in the longer version of a buzzcut and he wore dark sunglasses to cover his eyes and what appeared to be a red scar running across his pale skin just underneath his right eyelid. “If I was off duty, no. But unfortunately for you, I was on my way back from a crime scene so I was on duty 2 minutes before I spotted you speeding.”
“Ugh!” John complained, leaning back dramatically in his metal chair.
“How about this, for 100 bucks, I’ll let you go,” the Detective said. Putting away his phone.
“Wait, are you trying to get me to bride you?” John said.
“Well you can pay me 100 dollars, or I throw you in jail for 15 days,” the corrupt Detective said.
“Umm-”
“Stoney! What the hell are you doing slacking off!” a plain-clothed officer exclaimed. “We got more important work to do than give Eastwood another ticket! Let him go and get over here! We got witnesses to interview!”
The Detective rolled his eyes and pulled out his handcuff keys and uncuffed John. “You got lucky this time, but if you tell anyone what happened I will ensure you spend the rest of your life in prison.”
John sighed as he rubbed the red handcuff marks on his wrist. It was sort of an open secret in Autumn Sky that the police were not the most virtuous of people. The mayor was either too scared or too corrupt to do anything about it. This meant Autumn Sky was the more suburban real-world equivalent to Gotham City from Batman movies and comics. That's not to say they were all bad, there were plenty of good cops but corruption and rampant nepotism prevented them from doing much other than patrolling the streets.
As John watched Detective Stoney leave, his eyes went wide as he saw Donald guided by two other police officers enter the building. His hand and clothes were stained red and a look of disbelief was on his face.
“Don!” John exclaimed rushing over to his friend.
Donald looked up, a weak smile on his face as John approached him.
“Sir, please step away from the witness,” one of the cops escorting Donald said while stepping between them.
“Hey, that's my friend! I deserve to know what happened to him!” John said.
“You can talk to him after Detective Stoney finishes interviewing him,” the officer said. “You are welcome to wait near the entrance but it will take a while.”
John took one look at his friend. Despite the brave face, he was putting on, John could see something was eating away at Donald.
“We'll talk after, John,” Donald said. “Promise.”
“Fine, but I ain’t leaving until your interview is over,” John said.
John watched as the officers escorted Donald away with a knot in his stomach. A normal man wouldn’t have noticed it, but there was a stench reeking from Donald. A stench he was all too familiar with from his time in the desert. It was a bitter stench reminiscent of rust or old pennies that tickled the nose in such a way that it set off instinctual alarms buried in the human mind. The stench of blood. Not the kind that flows from a cut in your hand, but the kind that flows from the bodies of the dead. Donald had watched someone die, there was no question in John's mind he was involved, but what that involvement entailed deeply concerned him.
John moved to the front of the station and chose an old worn chair to sit down on and waited. The whole experience resurfaced unpleasant memories he wanted nothing more than to forget. He could feel pain flare in the fingers of his right hand. Even today, almost an entire year after his discharge from the marines the pain from that day flared up whenever he thought about what happened.
As he waited he could feel the stare of strangers looking at his broken hand, a feeling he was used to at this point. They tell you how to deal with everything in rehab. The frustration, the shame, the embarrassment. Though they never tell you how to deal with all the stares. John crossed his arms, hiding his prosthetic on his right hand under his armpit as he closed his eyes.
“John?” a familiar voice said.
Opening his eyes John saw Alice staring down at him with curiosity.
“Hey there white rabbit, what are you doing here?” John asked.
“You first,” Alice said with a smile.
“I got another speeding ticket and my car got impounded,” John grumbled.
“Then what are you still doing here?” Alice asked.
“Donald, he’s here too,” John said, his tone turning more serious. “Something happened. The police are talking to him now.”
“What!” Alice exclaimed. “Is he alright?”
“Physically? He looks fine. Mentally? I’m not sure. His hands and clothes were covered in red stains and I could smell blood on him,” John said.
“Is Freya here too?” Alice asked.
“I don’t know, why?” John asked with concern.
“I just got a feeling, it was that feeling that brought me here. Something’s happened. I can feel it!” Alice said. Though John could tell she wasn’t telling the whole truth. “I think it has something to do with last night.”
“Wait, you remember what happened last night!” John exclaimed.
“Bits and pieces, but it's coming back to me,” Alice said. “Why?”
“Because I don’t,” John said.
Alice then went on to what she remembered. A meteor crashed into the forest, John and her going off the find it shortly followed by Freya and a very paranoid Donald. When they found the crash site of the meteorite, everything was fuzzy. She couldn’t remember much. Next thing she knows she's back at her house changed and ready for bed.
“Something happened last night that’s messing with our memories,” John deduced.
“Wow, Action Hero. With intuition like that, you put Sherlock Holmes to shame!” Alice said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
“Hardy har har,” John said while rolling his eyes. “My point is that maybe if we go back, we can remember what happened.”
“Could that really help?” Alice asked skeptically.
“I’ve seen it in cop shows before. They take the witness back to the scene of the crime and reenact what happened to see if they jog lose any new memories,” John shrugged. “Maybe it could work for us.”
“That's TV John, this is real life,” Alice pointed out.
“It's worth a shot,” John said and Alice shrugged in agreement.
With nothing else to talk about John and Alice sat across from each other in silence. Quickly getting bored, Alice pulled out her phone and began reading. Her eyes moved across the screen at lightning speed. Even though it may look like she was skimming, John knew she could easily read that fast. In fact, she was normally faster.
John soon pulled out his phone and began playing chess, several matches later John began to hear what sounded like Donald and his father getting into another screaming match. Kicking Alice in the shin to bring her back to reality. John watched as Donald began quickly walking towards them with Frank, his father, trailing shortly behind.
“What were you thinking!” Frank exclaimed.
“I was thinking I didn’t want an innocent man to die!” Donald growled.
“Your sister is your priority! Not a stranger!” Frank exclaimed.
“She was gone before the guy entered the store! How was I supposed to know she would jump on the hood of his car!” Donald argued.
“It is your job to keep track of her!” Frank yelled.
“She isn’t a pet! She is a person who is more than capable of taking care of herself!” Donald snapped, storming off.
“Where are you going?” Frank demanded.
“It was a mistake calling you, I’ll find my own way home,” Donald growled.
Donald stormed straight out of the police station quickly followed by a concerned John and Alice. To John's surprise, he could see the sun setting in the distance. Normally John would scold himself for not doing anything productive the entire day but whatever was happening with Donald was more important than what he had planned.
“Dude, are you alright?” John asked.
“I’m fine,” Donald said through gritted teeth.
“Do you need a place to stay tonight? My doors always open,” John offered.
“Do you have a couch I can crash on?” Donald asked.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t recommend sleeping on it though. I have an air mattress and an empty room you can use instead,” John said, remembering how his roommates loved to sit together on that couch a little too much.
“Thanks,” Donald said.
“What happened?” Alice asked.
“I tell you later, first I need to go to the junkyard,” Donald said.
“Why the junkyard?” Alice asked.
“The cop I spoke to, Stoney,” Donald hissed. “He refused to do anything about it. He claimed that there wasn’t anything he could use to find the guy, despite the fact I offered to sit with a sketch artist to describe the guy. So if the police won’t catch him, I will.”
Alice opened her mouth to say something, but John looked at her and shook his head. When Donald was like this, it was best to let him think so he could get over his anger faster. Though underneath all that anger John saw determination. Donald was planning something, and no doubt he would drag John, Alice, Freya, and Dexter into whatever he was planning.