September 2018:

"Honey! Hold still. It's almost done. Just one little poke and then all the candy you want is yours!" Screams Alice's mother from behind the surgery room's observatory. "Please do as the doctor says. You'll be alright."

The air is thin yet heavy, it's like breathing soup through a straw. "Just imagine what it will be like to play soccer with the normal kids, and your sister. Just keep your breath steady and blow the dust from the box that holds your happiness."

Alice looks at her with bloodshot eyes, screaming, struggling in the restraints tying her to bed. All the lights begin flickering. Air vents begin pulsating through the walls with the sounds of shimmering thuds. Lights begin to lose brightness with each flicker. Eventually, they become pitch black. Then, the sound of a scalpel dropping and a syringe shattering on the floor echoes into the corridors. All the electrics of the hospital stop, until no sound is left. Not even breath.

Two years and eleven months later:

"Nine, ten, eleven..." Counts Cody, with his forehead against a wall at the airport and hands wrapping his face, to let his two siblings hide. "... Nineteen, twenty! Ready or not, here I come!" He yells. The shuffling through a herd of people begins. People flow in one direction. Meanwhile, their children flow perpendicularly. It's like wind blowing the leaves away from seeds as they fall.

Ten minutes pass by. He found no one. Very soon, he slips over a fallen drink. He closes his eyes and screams. He feels nothing slam him in the head yet. Soon, he opens his eyes, they undrape an airport frozen in time, and he isn't falling. In front of him a woman froze while her jacket also frozen while flailing onto her back. A drink right over it's cup under the cap, frozen falling into a trash can. A mosquito frozen right in front of Cody's forehead. However, not the conveyor belt. But the luggage on it, frozen too. The conveyor moves in distorted shuffles, altering between fast and sluggish in the intervals of one second.

Noticing that the conveyer is the only thing moving, he walks towards it. Soon, his luggage slips onto the conveyor. The tiny black suitcase moves towards him. "How is that the only thing moving now? Screw physics." Wonders Cody. "That's right kid." a foreign, unthought-of-voice wanders into his head. Spooked, he says out loud, "Who are you?"

"Call me your passenger. I can't really introduce myself, so, let me show you what I can allow you to do." it says, "Close your eyes and focus on your current objective. That is, finding your friends." Cody closes his eyes and begins to focus. Then, in a softer tone, it says, "Good, keep focusing on that and open your eyes slowly." And so he does. Everything other than his siblings turns into an empty black space. Even the pillar behind which they hide. "Woah, cool. How do you do that?" Asks Cody. "Imagination is just a sheet of reality mixing with fiction. Everyone has them. But you have many more. The autism you have enables you to use the sheet and fold it to your will. But, when you finish imagining it, it will undo on its own. Not even fold marks would be left on the sheet. Like me, I am your imagination. I am not real. You have so many sheets, that if you could focus hard enough, you can actually affect your surroundings. The passenger replies, "Now, move towards the second pillar straight ahead. There they are."

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

Cody gets on his tippy toes and taps his way over to them. He reaches the second pillar, and there they are. He hears them giggle behind the pillar. "Let's make a grand entrance." He wonders. So, he focuses on the shopping carts from the supermarket nearby, closes his eyes and opens them a second later. They grow into sight too, just like veins. Each steel wire on the cart's body weaves itself into a zig-zag horizontal shape and joins the other perpendicularly, creating a strong square mesh. Then, plastic cylinders get wrapped by rubber. To form a thick wheel. It then splits into four identical wheels and attach themselves to the underside of the cart's body. And then, it sweeps its way over to Cody. "Nice one kid!" Says the passenger.

He grabs the cart, gets in it and pushes against the first pillar and glides over to the second. "FOUND YOU!" He says. Then, the world comes back. "This game is so damn lame! I told you he'd find us here, jerk." says Michael, Cody's teenage brother in black pants, black jacket, black socks, black shoes, black wristbands, and a black beanie. "That's not nice!" Says Janet, Cody's twin sister. "Shut up. Both of you" Cody says. "Hey. Stop talking like that to me, retard!" Screams Michael.

The particular area in the airport goes silent and heads stare at the 'drama' that people would die for.

[In the car from the airport to the hotel]

"I told you boys to not play at an airport of all places!" Screams mother Judith. "Here we go again." Sighs Michael. "It was Cody's idea." Squeals Cody's twin sister Janet. The engines start up and they leave the parking lot in the rental green SUV.

Meanwhile, John, their dad, just sits there with his hands on the steering wheel and mind on the unpleasant conversation behind him. He turns on the headlights, then stares at the traffic light, waiting for it to turn green. Soon enough, it goes green.

Three hours pass by, and finally, they stop at the gate of the motel. Dad leaves the car, gets the tickets and parks in front of room 36.

[In the motel room]

The sun sits on the flat savanna. "We'll go out to get dinner, then get some rest and in the morning, we'll say hello to grandma." Says their mother. "Okay, mom." Says Janet. That is followed by a "Whatever." From Michael.

Two minutes after they leave, Cody falls asleep on the couch, Janet and Michael go to get a soda from the vending machine. As soon as they shut the door, the sound wave from it causes Cody's chin-long blonde hair to be pushed back. Soon, he wakes up. "Codes?" whispers the passenger. "What the... oh it's you. Yeah hi, creep." He replies. "Your siblings are going to a soda machine. They will pick up a poisoned pack of mango juice. Prevent that from happening." It says.

Cody swings onto his feet and sprints to the door. He fails to open it. "Things are frozen. You know how to open this door. Focus on it." The passenger's voice reverberates in Cody's head. And so he does. Suddenly, the door snaps off its hinges noiselessly. But it freezes in the air. He pushes it away, like a door floating around in space. He runs towards the soda machine, past his siblings and pushes it away just like the door.

Suddenly, time begins accelerating, until a second later when it is at the original speed. Just then, the vending machine breaks through the wooden fence. Sparks of flame from under the machine's legs mop the air. It then hits the ground and shatters the glass door. And just a second or so after that, the sound of the wooden door smashing against a wall. That is followed by a little girl's scream.

The door hit the person she stood next to with such force that it caused the person behind it to explode. Cody and all his siblings turn towards her and watch with bats in the bellies, as blood pours out from behind the door. A halved eye squishes out the side of the door and an intestine sloshes onto the floor after slipping down the wall, like a wet tissue. "Cody, get inside now!" Screams the passenger in his head. He runs back into the room and his siblings follow. With no door to shut, he just curls up around a pillow from the yellow couch that used to be white. His siblings come in and hide in the bedroom, trying to pry off what they just saw. In doing so, they pass out and fall asleep, as does Cody.