Chapter 12 - Twilight Zone

A cry woke him from his sleep.

“Must have fallen asleep in this chair again.”

He looked around his living room. Night had clearly fallen, but with the street lights filtering in the front window through the trees on his street he could still make out much of the room.

“She must be having another nightmare. Been a while.” He told himself, running his fingers through his hair. His temples were getting whiter with every passing year but on a good day he hoped he could pass for closer to forty than fifty.

He thought about the nightmares his daughter Callie had started having shortly after his wife passed away. It had been a year or two since he remembered hearing her troubled in the night though. And six since her mother had died in the crash.

“I should go check on her. Like the old days.” A rueful smile crossed his lips. The one thing he could never tolerate was his daughter in pain, but the memory of their time together since, of how close they had gotten, made the feeling bitter sweet tonight.

Another sound came from upstairs. Louder. A shriek.

“What?!?!”

It was no groan in the night. It was a scream of terror.

He ran. His steps heavy on the old creaking floor of his house as he gripped the railing of the stairs, willing himself to go faster.

Her room was just off the top of the stairs and he quickly arrived at her door. The thought of barging into a teen girl’s room without knocking would normally be unfathomable but her screams prevented him from even considering the question and he threw open the door.

The door swung wide, fast, so hard the doorknob on the inside punched a hole into the wall. He never had gotten around to installing those coils to catch it. A lot had happened after they first moved here. And right now, he didn’t care or even register the problem.

All he knew was that his daughter was in pain.

A light assailed his eyes from inside the room.

No, Callie wasn’t in pain. It was fear.

Lying in her bed she was surrounded by a wide circle of lines and floating symbols, all spinning in different directions.

“What’s happening?!” She screamed.

Realizing questions could wait he leaped into the room and wrapped his arms around her, trying to lift her off the bed and out of the glowing circle.

“ERROR. ERROR. Summoning target composition changed.”

A voice. A strange, monotone voice could be heard. Not by his ears. In his mind.

“What?!”

The look on Callie’s face made it clear she had heard it too.

“Reattempting saviour protocols.”

The voice echoed in their minds again.

“No!”

He pulled on Callie even harder but her body wouldn’t move. He started to realize he couldn’t move himself back up from leaning over her either, like some immutable force kept him where he was, his arms wrapped around her.

An image flashed in his mind. Dozens, no hundreds, of examples came to him from all the shows he had watched. Books he had read. Stories of people whisked away to other worlds.

“Don’t take her from me!!! Take me!!”

A bright light now poured out of Callie. So bright he couldn’t keep his eyes open.

But he could still hear her screams of terror.

“Noooo!”

Without the ability to do anything else he held on to her tight. So tight he knew it must hurt but he didn’t care. He could apologize later. He couldn’t lose her. Not her too.

And then the light vanished.

No. Everything but the two of them vanished.

He still held Callie in his arms, but she was quiet. It looked like she had passed out, out of breath from her screams. He quickly checked her pulse. It was strong and he sighed in relief.

Looking around he saw…white. Nothingness.

Everywhere.

He and Callie were floating? Sitting? He wasn’t sure. But everything around them was a sea of pure white. If not for Callie in his arms he might have thought he couldn’t really see at all.

“ERROR. Saviour protocol malfunction.”

The voice. It rang in his mind again.

“Demon energy obliteration potentiality being granted.”

“What?!”

“ERROR. Demon energy obliteration potentiality installation faulty. More than one target core identified.”

“More than one?” He looked at his daughter’s face.

“Ability selection in progress. Multiple target cores identified. Targeting core one.”

“Core one?! No! I don’t care about any ability. Just let us go home!”

“ERROR. No registry exists for ‘Go Home’ ability. Installing closest match.”

“Ugh!”

He felt a tremendous weight on his chest over his heart as a blue light poured out of him. Before he could process what was happening the voice rang in his mind again.

“Ability selection in progress for core two. ERROR. Core two not conscious.”

“Leave her alone! Keep her out of this!”

I need to keep her safe. How can I get this…thing…to stop paying attention to her?

“Ability selected. Now installing.”

This time Callie’s body glowed with a bright purple light emanating from the centre of her body.

“ERROR. Apparition coordinate calculation error due to change in mass. Summoning target location coordinates modified.”

Before he could respond there was a flash of pure white light.

When he opened his eyes he found that he and Callie were in a forest. The moon hung low in the sky. No, two moons. Three!?

*****

Orpheus sat up with a start, woken up suddenly from his dream.

“Same dream again dad?”

Callie was there in the doorway of his bedroom.

He looked around. His dark leather armour lay on a chair nearby. The worn helmet he wore sat on the desk next to it.

And three moons hung in the sky that he could just make out through his window.

Right. Still here. He turned to Callie.

“Yeah. I dreamed of us coming to this world again.”

He looked at her as she stood in the doorway. “You know, this all started because I came to check on you in your bedroom.”

“I know dad. You told me. And…”. She came closer and sat next to him on the bed. “Thanks.” She hugged him around his torso tightly. Her ears, now long and elfin, tickled his chin but he didn’t mind.

“What’s this for?”

“You’re only here because you tried to save me. I don’t know what it would have been like without you. So…thanks.” She hugged tighter.

He wrapped his own arms around her and hugged her back.

“I’m just sorry I couldn’t do anything except mess up whatever power brought us here.”

She loosened her grip enough to lean back and look him in the eye.

“Like you said before dad, it’s not all bad. We did get some cool abilities out of it.”

He sighed. “I just wanted the ability to take us home. But that didn’t work, did it?”

“No, but desperately wishing that I could be safe did get me my cool phasing ability.” She giggled. “I mean, I can turn invisible and stuff passes through me. I’m basically a ninja!” She pumped her fist and made a pose that reminded him of an anime they watched together.

“You look very cool.” He deadpanned. “But I recall that character being a cat girl, not an elf.” He chuckled.

“Fine by me, never wanted to be a furry anyway.” She laughed too. “Besides, your power ended up pretty cool, even if it can’t take us home. Well…” she paused, trying to think of how to finish her thought. “At least now that you don’t throw up everywhere when you use it. Glad that stopped.”

He grimaced. “You and me both. You have no idea how happy I am that all that training for two years means I don’t even get dizzy anymore. Tomorrow probably wouldn’t work without it.”

Callie thought for a moment. “You sure tomorrow will go well?”

“Of course!” He replies with some obviously false bravado. “But seriously,” he continued sincerely, “no matter what happens it will be something that works for us.”

“Well, those are your favourite kind of plans.”

“As they should be. I’d risk a lot to take us home, but the one thing I will never risk is losing you. Slow and steady wins the race and all that.”

“Alright. Shall we go over the plan one more time on the way tomorrow?”

“Absolutely.”

“And dad?” She snuggled him again.

“What’s up?”

“Can sleep here?” Her voice was tiny, like when she was a child.

“I’d like that.” He pet her head and they lay down. “I used to rub your head for hours when you were a baby and had trouble sleeping. Thank God for portable games.”

“It’s nice.” Her voice sounded further away as it was clear she was falling asleep.

Orpheus smiled and kept rubbing her head until they were both sleeping peacefully.