riven, maggie morris [great book club books .txt] 📗

I sniffed. He helped me to my feet, and there, in the middle of the crowd, I forgot all about my hand and the task ahead, and the only thing I could think was, Wow. He was gorgeous. I’m talking, drop-dead, keel on the floor and die from a heart attack gorgeous. Though, thankfully, I did neither of the above.

“Well, you still managed to keep your appearance up despite your near-death experience,” he grinned. He was physic! He knew how hot I thought he was, and how he had almost given me a heart attack. Oh, wait. Never mind. He must’ve been talking about getting trampled. “Nice costume, by the way.” Heat rose to my cheeks.

“I’m blushing, aren’t I?” Stupid, Alice. Way to make it obvious. My mind suddenly flew to Bryce, and a wave of guilt crashed over me. But, I pushed his memory aside and tuned back into my conversation.

“Yeah, I guess you are.” We stood there awkwardly, and I realized that everybody had passed us.

“We should go,” I said quickly.

“Yeah,” the stranger conceded. “I’m Liam, by the way.” Introductions. That was how relationships always started.

“Alicia, but my friends call me Alice.”

“I hope this means I can call you Alice?” Liam played.

I blushed again. “Of course. Thank you, really, for helping me.”

“Anytime.” He started walking, and I took that as my cue to follow. Silence settled over us, the tension thick. I could almost hear my heart pounding-that was, until the sounds of yelling filled my head again.

When we reached the ladder, Liam stepped back, allowing me to go first, and making it all the more harder to feel sad about Bryce. Liam is just a distraction. You still care for Bryce. But soon, it will be time to move on. Like, right now.

My thoughts of encouragement allowed me to ignore the nagging shame at the back of my mind. I returned to the moment, and smiled at Liam. I climbed up the ladder, and was immediately overwhelmed by panicked voices.

I waited for Liam to climb up beside me, and feeling more brave with him a my side, told the crowd, “I need everyone to move out of my way. I am the only one who knows how the bus works, and therefore only I can make it start.”

The huge mass of people pressed backwards to the edge of the roof. Realizing too late what was going to happen, I shouted, “Wait!” My plea for them to stop moving was interrupted by a terrified scream and a faint smack.

My stomach churned and I ran over to where the scream had come from. There lying on the pavement, was a little girl, body splayed at impossible angles. Nausea rolled over me and I heaved. The donut that I had eaten, now partially digested, spewed across the roof.

I heard two voices shout my name at the same time. I shakily spun around to see Liam and Ben running towards me. Liam, being the stronger one, lifted me to my feet and allowed me to brace myself against him. Ben, on the other hand, just stared at me and Liam, looking back and forth.

The mob was quiet. I felt angry at them, for only caring about themselves, not caring about who died in the process of stopping everybody from dying. I opened my mouth to yell at them, but then Ben spoke up.

“Alice, I don’t know what’s going on, but I still need to tell you something. Ha-” Ben was cut off by a freezing chill that passed over the crowd.

“What the heck?” Liam said.

“Oh, no. Alice, this is stage one out of five in the process of the ending of the world-the chill. The stages happen over a period of twenty minutes, so we have approximately-” He looked at his watch. “-nineteen minutes and twenty-four seconds until the sky plunges into eternal darkness.”

“Crap,” was all I could say.

IX

 

“We need to go!” Liam shouted. “We need to take shelter!”

“Liam. Ben. This might all seem crazy to you, but you have to believe me. We are not going to die. I am going to go get my brother, grandpa, and dog, and us six are all going to go to my first dimension, Inaceia. The world has already ended there, and we will be safe.”

“Alice, you’re making no sense,” Ben’s voice cracked.

“Just, please, trust me,” I said, flustered. “You guys stay here and keep the citizens calm while I go find my family.”

“What about our families? You expect us to leave them behind? I barely know who you are, and you expect me to believe that you are from another dimension where the world has already ended?”

“Yes,” I said firmly. “Now stay here.” I spun around to leave and saw that my brother was coming up the ladder.

“We need to go!” Everyone in the crowd looked at him and moved towards him. “Not you guys!” Adam ordered them. I took Liam and Ben’s hand in each of my own and pulled them behind me.

As I reached Adam, he gave me a suspicious look. “I won’t ask now, but I’ll need an explanation later.”

At the bottom of the ladder, Grandpa was waiting, and he already had a portal open.

“When you made a portal here, I looked closely at what you did. Hopefully, I made no mistakes and this will get us to Inaceia alive and in one piece,” Grandpa explained. “I knew we would be short on time, so I thought ahead.”

Both my newfound acquaintance and Ben looked wary of the portal, but I trusted Grandpa’s skill.

“You may feel a little light-headed after entering the portal,” Adam told the boys. “Keep your eyes closed to avoid brain damage.” He gestured to Shadow, who was attached to a leash that Grandpa was holding. Shadow was wearing a blindfold over his eyes, and was trying to paw it off with no luck. Normally, I would’ve laughed, but right now, the situation was too dire.

“I’ll go first.” I took a deep breath, and stepped through the portal.

Now, it’s hard to explain what going through a cross-dimension portal is like. You feel like you’re made of water, and being made of water doesn’t feel good. Your head feels like your stomach does when you are going down a tall roller-coaster. And there is this super-bright, jagged light all around you. If you were to open your eyes, it is likely that you would go blind.

The portal took about what felt like thirty minutes, but was probably actually thirty seconds. It could’ve been two hours, for all I knew. When I was shot out of it, I smacked hard against the grayish dirt and puked again, my nausea returning.

Someone landed on top of me, crushing me to the ground. I heard a crack, and my ribs screamed in agony.

“Alice?” The pressure on my back lifted, and Liam’s voice filled the air. “Are you alright?”

“Not really,” I groaned. “My ribs might be broken.”

“Oh, wow. I’m so sorry.” Strong arms slid around my waist, and I noted how they carefully avoided my ribs. Liam pulled me up, and I gave him a painful grin.

Ben came flying through the portal next. Liam bravely shielded me with his body so I wouldn’t be knocked down again. Not that Ben would be able to cause much damage, anyways, being the pasty twig that he is.

Ben stood up shakily, but was shortly slammed into by Shadow, who was barking loudly and quivering in fear. Shadow landed awkwardly on his three legs, but he didn’t fall. Ben, however, plunged to the dirt.

Adam came through next. Unlike us newbies, he landed expertly on his feet and studied his nails. Show off.

Grandpa, too, landed on his feet. However, he was more modest about it. He assessed the group.

“Can I get an explanation now?” He asked.

“Yeah, me too!” Ben complained. “I don’t have a clue what’s going on!”

“An explanation would be good,” Liam conceded. “And also, who are these people?”

Everyone introduced themselves.

And I gave them the run-down.

 

* * * * *

 

“Woah, so you’re like, smarter than me? All those questions you asked me that I had to think about for days, you could’ve easily answered yourself?” Ben plopped to the ground, blowing air out of his mouth.

I blushed. “Correct.”

“And you’re, like, a genius? Wow. I was a C+ student in school.” He winced at the word was. “You are way out of my league. But,” he winked, “that won’t stop me from trying.”

“Oh, God,” I teased, though really my heart was pounding against my broken ribs. I forced myself to calm down-I was still dating Bryce, even though he was dead. Anyways, if I had let myself continue to be flattered, my ribs might get worse, due to the hard beating they had received from my heart.

Suddenly, a howl broke the air.

“What was that?” Liam asked. I detected fear in his voice.

“A gracher. It’s what we call the mutant animals that were born on Doomsday. Don’t know how they were made, just know that if you get in a fight with one, you won’t be the winner. They’re ruthless, and many survivors of Doomsday have been killed because of them. None of us Forgies, though,” Grandpa told us, a little proudly.

“We’ve gotta move, or we’ll be gracher supper t’ night,” Adam ordered. “We have ten miles to the Sanctuary. I hope everyone can run.”

With that, he turned around and started running. Reluctantly, Ben and Liam followed, while Grandpa and I brought up the rear. Every step I took hurt. I wrapped my arms around my chest, trying to stop my ribs from jostling around too much.

“The grachers are big, ugly creatures. They are equipped with two rows of forty-seven very sharp teeth. They each have ten claws per paw, and they are close to the size of a bear. Their fur is almost impenetrable, and they’re nearly impossible to kill.”

“They are attracted to two thing-blood and food. They can smell both from over five miles away. That’s why we need to be careful not to leave any food out or get cut outside,” Grandpa said.

A sharp pain cut up my leg.

“Uh, Grandpa?” He seemed to have noticed that I stopped and looked down at my foot. My eyes went there, too. I was standing in a bear trap. It had clamped around my leg and bit into my skin. It hurt like crazy, but that wasn’t what I was worried about.

Grandpa cursed. “Adam!” He called. “I need your help.” Adam looked back and froze, seeing me with my foot in a bear trap, face clenched together in pain.

Then he broke into a sprint. He was at my side in no time.

“Okay, don’t move your leg at all, or this will be much more painful than it has to be.” He quickly grabbed the sides and pushed down, grunting at the effort. I hissed as the trap opened up and the metal teeth slid out of my leg. Adam tore off a piece of his T-shirt and wound it tightly around my leg. “Can you walk?”

I shook my head. Meanwhile, Liam and Ben had spotted us and were making their way over.

“What happened?” Liam asked urgently.

“Bear trap,” Adam grunted.

“I can carry her,” Liam offered up. “I’ll still be able to run.”

Adam just nodded. Before