Chapter 20

Monday 23rd November 1998

You know what I really hate? Going to bed feeling a little off, knowing – just knowing – that you’ll wake up ill… and then coming to more drained than when you went to sleep, groggy and dizzy.

And of course, it’s that time of year…

“Right, Mum will be home in a few hours,” Dad reminded me, having just retrieved my dressing gown for me after some two minutes of searching.

“I know…” I replied weakly, still wrapped up in bed, generally feeling sorry for myself.

“Medicine’s in the cabinet, your sister’s in her bed.”

What, was I supposed to take her too?

“Mhm.”

“Hope you feel better soon,” he spoke, before we wished each other farewell.

A minute or so after he left the room, I heard the front door shutting.

Several hours of discomfort lay ahead. Hopefully, I could sleep through it.

I’m not sure if it was a few minutes or half an hour that I was lying there half-asleep – time spent lying in bed is difficult to gauge at the best of times, never mind when you’re unwell – but my aspirations of a peaceful rest were brought crashing down as my bedroom door slowly drifted open.

Lucy, wrapped up like the captured prey of an enormous spider, waddled her way into my room. She looked about as healthy as she had yesterday evening, to no surprise. Reaching my bed, she collapsed onto it, and onto me, like a dead weight.

“Oohf!” I exclaimed from the force of her landing on my midsection. She very nearly winded me.

“I was lonely,” she declared, with a glimmer of her usual energy and no sign of an apology.

“Okay…” I grunted. “You gave me your cold…”

As if that wasn’t obvious.

“Yep…”

“Well? Are you going to apologise?” I asked, the most humour I could muster from my weakened state.

“Only if you beg.”

“I don’t think that’s how this works.”

“That’s cos you’re delirious.”

She slowly reached out from within her cocoon and put her sweaty hand on my face.

“You’ve got a hyper-fever, bro.”

“Mhm mh-hm!” I protested into her palm. Her response was a devilish chuckle, and it was left to me to remove her hand from my face before she smothered me. Thankfully she wasn’t using any force, so it flopped away as soon as I flung it.

“Please move…”

She wiggled a little in response.

“Please move off of me,” I clarified with a feeble sigh of exhaustion.

“Mrrrhmm…” came from my sister as she slowly squirmed around on my bed (and again, on me), neglecting now to use her hands and instead moving about like a dazed caterpillar. After considerable if understandably sluggish effort, she found her place lying next to me. And I felt like kneaded dough.

“Try to rest, ‘kay?” I suggested softly, attempting to settle down again and get some sleep.

“Not tired,” she insisted. “Let’s talk…”

“Later…” I groaned, rolling onto my side to face away from her.

“But I…”

A yawn brought Lucy’s sentence to a halt.

“Shhh…” I interrupted ever-so-softly. My eyes were already shut, and I sniffled a little.

Thankfully, Lucy actually did remain silent. I could only imagine her cold had gotten the better of her, since it was extremely rare for her to actually be quiet when asked to be.

My mind slowly turned to the others, off at school without me. While missing a day of school was hardly the end of the world, I was suddenly struck by the thought of them hanging out without me at lunch and after school. I’d be missing out on time with them…

And Dakota could be spending time with Ricardo… not like my absence made any difference there…

My mind hung on those thoughts as sleep embraced me.

…

The first thing to strike me as I woke up was how dark it was in my room. Had I slept through to the evening? It was the autumn, so it got dark before 5pm…

Second thing, the bed seemed to be moving slightly. I’d almost say it was bobbing. That, I rationalised as my head still being woozy.

It seemed to take a while – thought I’d like to think it was only a minute or so – for me to properly register my new surroundings.

I was still in my bed. That was normal. But everything else in my room had vanished, right down to the walls and the ceiling. Instead, my bed was floating on a seemingly-endless expanse of water, beneath a vast starry sky. Honestly, if not for the gentle movement of the water’s surface, I could have easily thought I was now drifting in space, as the heavens were reflected over again.

“… huh?” I grunted with mouth agape.

Even for my life, this was pretty crazy.

I rolled over, to see if Lucy was still with me or not. She was dozing restfully, so much so that I honestly wasn’t sure if I should disturb her. Still… I figured this was the kind of situation you shouldn’t sleep through.

“Lucy,” I started, shaking her shoulder. “You have to wake up.”

“Tiiiired…” she whined.

“I know, but… weird stuff is happening…”

“Okay,” she muttered, shifting a little but remaining snuggled up in her cocoon.

“At least try to wake up…” I attempted to reason with her. That seemed to be the most I could do. Forcing myself upright, I took another look at our new surroundings. As bizarre and disconcerting as it all was, it was tremendously beautiful. I’d never seen the stars like this, so clear and flooding the sky like a thousand spilt grains of sugar. The brightest night I’d ever known. I mean… taking it as night.

The bed rocked a little on the water. Lucy groaned loudly.

I had a sudden flashback to a ferry journey from 1994 and the discovery that Lucy got seasick pretty much the second she stepped off of terra firma.

“I dun feel good…” she complained weakly, before the bed moved around some more.

“Lucy… if you need to throw up-”

“Bathroom…”

“That might be tricky…” I noted awkwardly.

I can only assume she opened her eyes at this point.

“Whass- what’s happening…?”

She sounded more vulnerable than I’d heard her in a long time.

“I don’t know, but if you need to throw up, do it over the side of the bed,” I advised her. “I promise you, I’m going to figure this out and get us-”

She hurled before I could finish my reassurance. I plugged my ears, not fond of the sound of people throwing up.

What a scene…

A tap on my shoulder told me she’d finished.

“Sorry…” she gurgled once I withdrew my fingers from their post. “Is this to do with monsters…?”

“I hope so, or else we’re in serious trouble when Mum gets home…”

I got out of the covers, moving to the centre of the bed and slowly standing up. The added height compared to lying down only extended the horizon a little, and didn’t unveil any kind of distant landmass. And between the movement of the bed and my weakened state, it was hard to remain stable.

“Oh! Is it too late to make a ‘you wet the bed’ joke?” Lucy piped up as I lowered back down.

“Don’t know, but going to say ‘yes’,” I replied. “I think we’re stuck out here.”

“There’s got to be, like…”

She trailed off, gathering herself, taking a couple of deep breaths.

“A trick to getting out.”

“Whenever things go weird like this, it goes back to normal when we kill the monster,” I explained, likewise trying to settle down and combat my grogginess.

“Okay. So, we have to find a monster,” Lucy concluded, scanning the waters for any sign of one.

“Are you okay…?” I asked her, putting a hand to her back. Sure, there wasn’t a huge age-gap between us, but I was still her big brother and I had to look out for her.

“Of course!” she spoke with more energy than she’d displayed until that point.

“Because it’s okay if you’re not.”

“Sorry, no damsel here. Though I do feel queasy…”

“Do damsels usually feel queasy? No, wait, different point, sorry…”

Lucy then collapsed in what I hope was exhaustion and not dismay.

I stretched my hand out into thin air and focused as best as I could. With no obvious way of getting ourselves out of this altered reality, the most I could do was summon my Lokon sword and see how I could affect our surroundings. It took a worrying moment, but soon enough the weapon burst into my grasp. Its glow seemed to enhance the atmosphere.

Crawling to the foot of the bed, I reached out with the sword and tapped the surface of the water. No obvious effect.

“Who even invented… going onto the water?” Lucy grunted. “Why did people in the past think ‘screw living here, let’s cross the water to find other places’? What’s wrong with staying where you are? The ground is good. Or just wait until they invent the aeroplane.”

She stopped to heave a little.

“I have this hunch that they didn’t know the aeroplane was going to be invented,” I countered, moving back to the centre of the bed with the sword.

“They should’ve. I’ll invent a time machine to go back and tell them. ‘Hey guys, chill, enjoy your countries, don’t make boats.’ And then I’d go back to the 50s cos that looks fun.”

The bed rocked more thoroughly than before, and Lucy curled up within her duvet, groaning loudly.

“What would you do in the 50s?” I asked, trying to keep her mind off of the rocking.

“Chew gum. Go dancing. Watch car races.”

“You do that now.”

“Make sure Mum and Dad hook up.”

“Is your time machine a DeLorean?”

“Nah. TARDIS. With fifty DeLoreans inside. And a horse. And a vending machine. And some sexy half-naked guys to travel with me. And half-naked Kendal.”

“Okay… … Kendal? Like, my friend Kendal?”

This just took a weird turn…

“Right, sorry. Full-naked. With big jugs of lemonade.”

“Err-”

The bed tilted slightly, foot-end down… and remained like that, held in place.

I looked in that direction, and was greeted by the sight of a large, seven-fingered hand (six fingers, one thumb, to be precise) grasping at the bed. A withered arm with gruesome skin trailed off into the water.

“And not that guy. That guy can stay out of my damn TARDIS,” Lucy concluded succinctly.

Remaining sat down – I couldn’t see any chance of me staying upright with the bed at an angle – I brought the sword up and blasted my costume on.

“I’m thinking it sensed the sword,” I noted while beginning an uneasy journey down my bed.

“Or it saw something floating in the water,” Lucy huffed. “See, another problem with boats.”

As I reached the hand, I opted first to poke the hand with the tip of the blade. It immediately released the bed, causing it to bounce back into an even state, throwing me back and eliciting a dizzy groan from Lucy.

“Got to kill it…” I stated plainly, hoping to psyche myself up as I uneasily stood upright again.

“What d’you plan on doing? Harpooning it?” my sister asked.

“No…”

I pressed my hand to the sword’s emblem port, pouring blueness into my palm. Still raw like paint, I smothered it on my mouth and nose, letting it form into a breathing mask of some kind. I had no idea if it’d work, but hey, I was getting a knack for being creative with my weapon.

I made a rather half-hearted lunge into the water.

Despite the relative brightness above the surface, it was incredibly dark below. The sword illuminated my immediate vicinity, but the monster could’ve been ten feet away and I wouldn’t know. I willed the weapon to shine brighter, which helped a little.

And of course, it was only then that I realised I had now turned myself into a big blue beacon.

I glanced downwards and saw something faintly humanoid speeding towards me. Even if I were fit as a fiddle, I doubt I could’ve reacted in time underwater.

It collided with me, forcing me out of the water with remarkable force. I gasped through my mask, and found myself looking down on the water’s disturbed surface, my rocking bed with Lucy crying out, and something out of an H.P. Lovecraft book risen from the depths. Crooked horns, writhing tentacles, broad yet almost skeletal.

My descent began. I forced my weary arms to move, bringing my sword in front of myself. I couldn’t swing, but I at least managed to lead with the weapon as I fell back towards Tentacle-Face.

With no power leading my charge, the sword dug into its forehead carapace rather than slicing through. I landed with no such firmness, and only my hold on the weapon kept me from falling away. Instead, I was dangling in the monster’s face.

It reached up and snatched me away, its strength far outreaching my grip on the sword. I countered by summoning the sword back into my hand, but there wasn’t anything else I could do while it threw me far from the bed. I crashed down hard into the water, the impact rattling me.

At the least, I wasn’t nearly as beaten up as I imagined I would’ve been. Much like my costume kept me cool in the August heatwave, it seemed to be cushioning my blows.

Quickly returning to the surface, I found no sign of the monster. That meant it wasn’t after Lucy (who, I think, was trying to call out to me from the bed). It was definitely after me.

From the bed, to where I was. Presumably the shortest route.

Keeping afloat, I did everything I could to build up power in the sword, raised above my head. I had no idea how fast this thing could swim – I had no time to ascertain that when it burst up from below – so it was a matter of charging up as much as I could while I still had the chance.

Halfway to passing out, feeling the sword vibrating, I screamed out and swung forward.

The immense blast parted the water far past the bed, unveiling Tentacle-Face within; a second later, he too split down the middle, smudging away.

For a brief moment, my senses were overwhelmed by water rushing back in all around. I was certain I was about to drown.

And then I was lying on my bedroom floor, staring up at a familiar ceiling. Bone-dry, no less.

“Don’t get big-headed, but I want your life,” my sister’s still-weak voice spoke up from not too far away.

“Take it, please.”

I raised my head, to see her still lying on my bed, now back in its usual place.

“And you’re welcome.”

My heavy head collapsed back of its own accord. I just about managed to feel around for my sword, double-tapping the emblem port and instantaneously undressing back down to my boxers.

“Teach me that one, too,” Lucy chuckled lightly. A few moments later, she was leaning over me. “Come on. Back to bed.”

She eased me up even as my exhausted body refused to move on its own.

“Gotta hide sword…” I insisted while she guided me back to my bed.

“I will.”

She essentially shoved me beneath my covers.

“Get some rest, Blue Ranger.”

The last thing I saw before my eyes fell shut was her sliding my sword under the bed with her foot, back to keeping herself wrapped up otherwise. For as ill as she was, she seemed perky.

…

It was evening by the time I woke up again, still a bit groggy but at least somewhat rejuvenated. Lucy was still snoozing next to me. I felt proud of her, for having handled the madness so well.

Once I’d properly come to, I made sure to call Dakota and tell her what had happened. If nothing else, it was important to let the others know that I had summoned my sword, and that it hadn’t just been stolen. Not that a thief would leave the other four, but still…

… I’m so glad Lucy’s vomit didn’t return to reality with us and the bed…