Happy Easter from Cwej and Arcbeatle Press!
If you've never read Cwej before, you can start here! It's a brand new fresh adventure, so welcome to our world, we hope you'll stick around. And if you've read Cwej before, you're in for a treat as well.
If you enjoy this, consider supporting us on Patreon.
If you've never read Cwej before, you can start here! It's a brand new fresh adventure, so welcome to our world, we hope you'll stick around. And if you've read Cwej before, you're in for a treat as well.
If you enjoy this, consider supporting us on Patreon.
1. The Kitten Conundrum
The snow had only started settling on her windowsill when the girl saw the man below her window again. He was crouched there by the deer statue in the courtyard, which now had a hat of white between its antlers. His arm was stretched out towards something that writhed beneath the statue. The girl slipped out of bed and into her bunny slippers, then threw on the cardigan the hospital had provided her to keep warm over her hospital gown, and as quietly as she could, slipped out of the room. She crept down the hallway, and past the nurse and security guard who were watching a low-budget movie together with the volume both low and just a little too high—just loud enough she could creep by unheard. She looked a little comical, walking with exaggerated movements like she was trying to be stealthy in a cartoon. She couldn't take the lift, that would be too loud, so she carefully opened the door to the stairwell, and, once it was shut, bolted down the stairs, grabbing a hold of the railings a few times as she accelerated a bit too much.
Eventually she reached the lobby. There were only the people you always passed by at this time in the hospital—sipping weak coffee, not looking anywhere in particular as they waited for news about someone they loved. She hoped for their sakes it was good news.
She’d been here long enough their sad faces were like wallpaper as she walked by.
Her family had come every day at first, and it had felt like a vacation where the nurses brought her food and she didn’t do chores while her twin brother came to play board games with her. But the visits had grown less and less, and they hadn’t come in days now. Busy, they said. But in her heart she knew they were glad to have a break from her. Always causing trouble. If only our daughter were normal, their eyes said.
She opened the glass door into the courtyard, and felt a rush of relief: the man hadn’t left. She wrapped her cardigan closer to her as she stepped closer to him, and he turned to face her. She could see he was holding a piece of fish. His face was warm in the cold wind.
“I didn’t expect you to come down.”
“Most people don’t expect me,” she said. “What are you doing?’
He gestured for her to come closer. She stayed a distance away, but edged around to see—beneath the Deer Statue was a shivering kitten. It wasn’t like any kitten she had ever seen before, though—it was black and white, in a way that stood out against everything else, like it was spliced in from a black and white film. “How’d she get in?” She looked around. The courtyard was sealed off. Did someone sneak her in? She couldn’t get in from the sky.
“I’m here to rescue her, get her back home.” He gave her a nervous smile. “Not exactly a cat whisperer, though.”
The girl had never owned a cat. She was a dog person. This didn’t stop her from saying: “Maybe I can help?”
He gestured for her to come closer, and she squatted down next to him. The kitten looked scared. “Here kitty kitty…”
She reached her hand out, and the kitten hissed—and before she could pull back, it whacked a paw out. A small line of red appeared on her hand, and she jerked her hand back. “Ow! Hey, I’m trying to help you!”
The man gently took her hand, and applied some sort of ointment from a pouch on his belt, and the girl had been certain that she’d been cut, but when she looked back down her skin was smooth, without even a scar. “Poor thing is scared. It’s lashing out at you. Just imagine you were her. You don’t have your mom or dad looking out for you, you’re in a strange place, and you don’t even know if you can get out. Can you imagine that?”
She looked at him, and her face drooped.
“… Yeah, maybe a little too much. So what do you think we should do? Should we give up on her?”
She shook her head. “We should help her. We just need to make her feel safe.” She held her hand out by the man’s hand that held the chicken, and he gave it to her. She looked around, and held up a single finger to the man, before running in and grabbing one of the cups used for the hospital’s signature weak coffee, and ripping it to form an impromptu plate. She ran back out, and set the plate down between them and the cat, and then placed the chicken on it.
The kitten’s nose raised into the air as it sniffed, and slowly—cautiously, she stepped out from under the deer. She sniffed the chicken again, and then licked it. Finally, she began to nibble it. The girl smiled up at the man. “She came out!”
“She did,” he reached out, slowly so that the kitten knew his hand was coming, and pet her. The girl could swear the light flickered through its monochrome fur as his hand ran across it. “Thanks for your help, kid.”
She watched the kitten eat. “I saw you out here before. You aren’t always helping kittens.”
“I’m always helping somebody—at least, well, that’s the dream.”
She watched him carefully. “I really am trying to get better. So you have to say hello again.”
He turned to her, a little baffled. “I’m sure you are, this is a hospital.”
She shook her head. “No, if you scratch and hiss, people walk away. Everyone walks away.” She looked down at her hands, and the man seemed moved. He probably didn’t really mean to say what he said next, it just came out.
“Look, if you get better, you get out of here, I’ll visit you again. Promise.”
She held a pinky out to him. “Seal the deal, Mr. Deer Guy.”
“Most people call me a bear.”
“That’s weird. Just make the promise already.”
“Sorry, right.” He linked pinkies with her. “I promise.”
“And-you-have-to-take-me-somewhere-very-cool-no-backsies!” she added really fast.
He frowned a little. “Well, not exactly a fair deal, but sure.” He reached over and pulled up the cat-carrier—she was sure he didn’t have that a moment ago?—and put a little more chicken in it. The kitten followed the food in, and he shut the gate.
“I’ll get this little guy home, thanks for your help.”
“What’s your name?” she asked.
He tapped a finger to her forehead. “Dreams don’t need names, I’m afraid. But you can call me Chris.”
When the girl awoke, she was alone in her room, the sunlight shining through the window. She checked her hand—no scar or cut. She looked out the window, and there was the deer standing as it had, with its hat of snow. She sank back into her sheets. It had all been a dream. But then she sat up, and got her slippers back on, and ran back down stairs—though this time she took the lift. She ran into the courtyard, and looked under the deer statue. It was almost imperceptible, but if you looked closely, there were four tiny paw prints there untouched by the elements.
Her eyes lit up.
He’d pinkie-promised. And she’d keep her end of the bargain.
Eventually she reached the lobby. There were only the people you always passed by at this time in the hospital—sipping weak coffee, not looking anywhere in particular as they waited for news about someone they loved. She hoped for their sakes it was good news.
She’d been here long enough their sad faces were like wallpaper as she walked by.
Her family had come every day at first, and it had felt like a vacation where the nurses brought her food and she didn’t do chores while her twin brother came to play board games with her. But the visits had grown less and less, and they hadn’t come in days now. Busy, they said. But in her heart she knew they were glad to have a break from her. Always causing trouble. If only our daughter were normal, their eyes said.
She opened the glass door into the courtyard, and felt a rush of relief: the man hadn’t left. She wrapped her cardigan closer to her as she stepped closer to him, and he turned to face her. She could see he was holding a piece of fish. His face was warm in the cold wind.
“I didn’t expect you to come down.”
“Most people don’t expect me,” she said. “What are you doing?’
He gestured for her to come closer. She stayed a distance away, but edged around to see—beneath the Deer Statue was a shivering kitten. It wasn’t like any kitten she had ever seen before, though—it was black and white, in a way that stood out against everything else, like it was spliced in from a black and white film. “How’d she get in?” She looked around. The courtyard was sealed off. Did someone sneak her in? She couldn’t get in from the sky.
“I’m here to rescue her, get her back home.” He gave her a nervous smile. “Not exactly a cat whisperer, though.”
The girl had never owned a cat. She was a dog person. This didn’t stop her from saying: “Maybe I can help?”
He gestured for her to come closer, and she squatted down next to him. The kitten looked scared. “Here kitty kitty…”
She reached her hand out, and the kitten hissed—and before she could pull back, it whacked a paw out. A small line of red appeared on her hand, and she jerked her hand back. “Ow! Hey, I’m trying to help you!”
The man gently took her hand, and applied some sort of ointment from a pouch on his belt, and the girl had been certain that she’d been cut, but when she looked back down her skin was smooth, without even a scar. “Poor thing is scared. It’s lashing out at you. Just imagine you were her. You don’t have your mom or dad looking out for you, you’re in a strange place, and you don’t even know if you can get out. Can you imagine that?”
She looked at him, and her face drooped.
“… Yeah, maybe a little too much. So what do you think we should do? Should we give up on her?”
She shook her head. “We should help her. We just need to make her feel safe.” She held her hand out by the man’s hand that held the chicken, and he gave it to her. She looked around, and held up a single finger to the man, before running in and grabbing one of the cups used for the hospital’s signature weak coffee, and ripping it to form an impromptu plate. She ran back out, and set the plate down between them and the cat, and then placed the chicken on it.
The kitten’s nose raised into the air as it sniffed, and slowly—cautiously, she stepped out from under the deer. She sniffed the chicken again, and then licked it. Finally, she began to nibble it. The girl smiled up at the man. “She came out!”
“She did,” he reached out, slowly so that the kitten knew his hand was coming, and pet her. The girl could swear the light flickered through its monochrome fur as his hand ran across it. “Thanks for your help, kid.”
She watched the kitten eat. “I saw you out here before. You aren’t always helping kittens.”
“I’m always helping somebody—at least, well, that’s the dream.”
She watched him carefully. “I really am trying to get better. So you have to say hello again.”
He turned to her, a little baffled. “I’m sure you are, this is a hospital.”
She shook her head. “No, if you scratch and hiss, people walk away. Everyone walks away.” She looked down at her hands, and the man seemed moved. He probably didn’t really mean to say what he said next, it just came out.
“Look, if you get better, you get out of here, I’ll visit you again. Promise.”
She held a pinky out to him. “Seal the deal, Mr. Deer Guy.”
“Most people call me a bear.”
“That’s weird. Just make the promise already.”
“Sorry, right.” He linked pinkies with her. “I promise.”
“And-you-have-to-take-me-somewhere-very-cool-no-backsies!” she added really fast.
He frowned a little. “Well, not exactly a fair deal, but sure.” He reached over and pulled up the cat-carrier—she was sure he didn’t have that a moment ago?—and put a little more chicken in it. The kitten followed the food in, and he shut the gate.
“I’ll get this little guy home, thanks for your help.”
“What’s your name?” she asked.
He tapped a finger to her forehead. “Dreams don’t need names, I’m afraid. But you can call me Chris.”
When the girl awoke, she was alone in her room, the sunlight shining through the window. She checked her hand—no scar or cut. She looked out the window, and there was the deer standing as it had, with its hat of snow. She sank back into her sheets. It had all been a dream. But then she sat up, and got her slippers back on, and ran back down stairs—though this time she took the lift. She ran into the courtyard, and looked under the deer statue. It was almost imperceptible, but if you looked closely, there were four tiny paw prints there untouched by the elements.
Her eyes lit up.
He’d pinkie-promised. And she’d keep her end of the bargain.
2. A Certain Film
Louisville, Kentucky, 2018
She looked at the VHS cassette tape. “What is this?”
Her mom grinned. “It’s a copy of my favorite movie. I used to watch it when I was little. Now I want to share it with you.”
Her mother placed it into the VCR, a machine her mom sometimes used to show her old movies, and it began to play.
They curled up on the couch together.
In her memories, the child would remember the rather grungy apartment as a much warmer place. The 70s wood paneling, stained with unfortunate splotches, was bright oak, and the faded wallpaper had flowers as bright as the day it was put on.
The title of the film came to the screen: Battle on the Easter Front.
She giggled at the title. It was silly, and the movie itself was silly.
“What do you mean, Easter is in danger?” a man with a jaw more chiseled than Mount Rushmore said.
“I mean our enemies have discovered time travel,” said a man who was chewing a cigar in every shot of the film he appeared in. “And you know what that means.”
Chiseled Jaw cocked a gun. “Have time, will travel.”
She and her mom broke out in uproarious laughter. The movie was delightful. It wasn’t good, but it was better because of that. She nuzzled her face into her mother’s chest. She was warm, and smelled like cooking oil and coffee from her workplace. She wished she could have stayed like that forever.
She wished even more that they could have seen the ending together.
She looked at the VHS cassette tape. “What is this?”
Her mom grinned. “It’s a copy of my favorite movie. I used to watch it when I was little. Now I want to share it with you.”
Her mother placed it into the VCR, a machine her mom sometimes used to show her old movies, and it began to play.
They curled up on the couch together.
In her memories, the child would remember the rather grungy apartment as a much warmer place. The 70s wood paneling, stained with unfortunate splotches, was bright oak, and the faded wallpaper had flowers as bright as the day it was put on.
The title of the film came to the screen: Battle on the Easter Front.
She giggled at the title. It was silly, and the movie itself was silly.
“What do you mean, Easter is in danger?” a man with a jaw more chiseled than Mount Rushmore said.
“I mean our enemies have discovered time travel,” said a man who was chewing a cigar in every shot of the film he appeared in. “And you know what that means.”
Chiseled Jaw cocked a gun. “Have time, will travel.”
She and her mom broke out in uproarious laughter. The movie was delightful. It wasn’t good, but it was better because of that. She nuzzled her face into her mother’s chest. She was warm, and smelled like cooking oil and coffee from her workplace. She wished she could have stayed like that forever.
She wished even more that they could have seen the ending together.
* * *
Hughes High School, Violethill, Illinois, 2025
The white wall was covered in the tacky colors of a 90s direct-to-TV movie. Or something like one. Megan Grabowski didn't know why it was on, or why it was playing already when she'd been told to go to the school's little theater. “Hello?” she said. No one replied, but maybe they didn't hear her over the movie. The projector seemed louder than it should be, too, looking at it as she descended the steps past the rows of dilapidated seats, she felt like the projector was thinking. A silly thought, like a child feeling bad they didn't serve their teddy bear tea.
“Mr. York?” she said. The school's theater director, and her English teacher, should be here. He'd asked to talk to her after school about playing the lead in the next play. But she didn't see him.
She did however hear the door close behind her. She spun around, and at first she panicked, and then felt that panic seep away. “Oh, it’s only you. Sorry, have you seen Mr. York?”
“I have, actually,” they replied. “He wanted me to show you this…” They took her by the hand, and led her up to the white wall of the room the projector was using as its canvas, where a chariot was blazing by with a man in outdated US military fatigues holding a rocket launcher was taking aim at a pair of Roman soldiers on horseback trailing behind them, as a woman in clothes out of a biblical epic pulled on the reins of the chariot.
“What kind of a movie is this? Is this like a RiffTrax thing?”
There was a sigh from behind her. “People really need to learn to appreciate art. Actually, there’s a lesson here in this film.”
“Oh, what’s that?”
“No one is coming to save you.” Before Megan could reply, she felt two hands shove her in the back towards the projection.
She thought she would hit the wall.
If only she'd hit the wall.
And if only she'd come home that night.
The white wall was covered in the tacky colors of a 90s direct-to-TV movie. Or something like one. Megan Grabowski didn't know why it was on, or why it was playing already when she'd been told to go to the school's little theater. “Hello?” she said. No one replied, but maybe they didn't hear her over the movie. The projector seemed louder than it should be, too, looking at it as she descended the steps past the rows of dilapidated seats, she felt like the projector was thinking. A silly thought, like a child feeling bad they didn't serve their teddy bear tea.
“Mr. York?” she said. The school's theater director, and her English teacher, should be here. He'd asked to talk to her after school about playing the lead in the next play. But she didn't see him.
She did however hear the door close behind her. She spun around, and at first she panicked, and then felt that panic seep away. “Oh, it’s only you. Sorry, have you seen Mr. York?”
“I have, actually,” they replied. “He wanted me to show you this…” They took her by the hand, and led her up to the white wall of the room the projector was using as its canvas, where a chariot was blazing by with a man in outdated US military fatigues holding a rocket launcher was taking aim at a pair of Roman soldiers on horseback trailing behind them, as a woman in clothes out of a biblical epic pulled on the reins of the chariot.
“What kind of a movie is this? Is this like a RiffTrax thing?”
There was a sigh from behind her. “People really need to learn to appreciate art. Actually, there’s a lesson here in this film.”
“Oh, what’s that?”
“No one is coming to save you.” Before Megan could reply, she felt two hands shove her in the back towards the projection.
She thought she would hit the wall.
If only she'd hit the wall.
And if only she'd come home that night.
3. The Cat Returns
Every day Jhe Sang Mi took the train back home from school. Usually, she was with her friend Jae Hyun, and they’d show each other memes on their phones or she'd bore him while talking about the history of silent cinema.
“Why are you so into them, anyway? They're both black and white and silent,” he said as they stepped through the doors into the train car.
“That’s what makes them good. They had such limitations; they had to be so creative! It doesn't matter that they look cheap or bad to us, they didn't to them, they were right there on the cusp of discovering cool stuff.” She waved her hands around and an old woman gave her a dirty look as they got too close to her personal space. Jae Hyun gave her an apologetic look. Sang Mi didn't notice as she adjusted the deer-shaped hair clip keeping her chin-length black hair out of her brown eyes.
“Oh right—I think someone is starting up a film club?”
“Is it Li Xiu?”
He shook his head. “No, after school when I was going to play practice I walked past this classroom where they were projecting some old movie on the wall. I didn't see who was there but I also wasn't looking.”
In truth, this detail had only occurred to Jae Hyun to have any importance when he realized that it lined up with Sang Mi's interests. The bell that alerted them the train would be moving again soon rang out.
Sang Mi nodded, and then looked up, and bolted. He began saying something else, but she didn’t notice. She had seen something on the platform, and she couldn't lose it.
She ran, ignoring people's cries of protest as she barreled out of the train doors just as they were about to close.
I'm not letting this chance pass me by. I'm not.
She pushed through the crowd, past the curses of adults about the youth these days. She could still see it—the strange out-of-place monochrome cat she had seen, or dreamed, all those years ago at the hospital. And if it was here… she tried not to get ahead of herself. The cat left the train platform, leaping down the stairs, and rushing past the bushes back towards the school. She’d just left for the day—and late in the day at that since she’d had track practice, so the sun was setting. Her muscles ached from pushing on past the workout she’d already gotten that day, but she forced herself on. The cat stopped at the door, and Sang Mi caught up to it, panting and leaning with her hand against the glass.
She looked down, and the cat looked up at her and meowed. “You… want inside?”
It looked like little lines and pops were moving across the cat’s body, like it was projected there on the pavement. It meowed again.
Sang Mi chewed on her tongue a moment, and opened the door for the cat. Was she supposed to be letting animals into the school? Absolutely not. But this was clearly not a normal cat.
The cat bounded through the open door, and Sang Mi followed. Through the entryway, and up the stairs. Finally it reached a classroom, waiting by the door till Sang Mi opened it for her. She stood by the door for a moment, but then turned around. She went to her locker, and pulled out a backpack she’d prepared and left there, checked to make sure everything was still in it, then ran back to the door, and slid it open. The classroom looked like there was a projector going, but there was no such device. Instead, one of the walls displayed a black and white film. But… it was backwards. Every so often there was a title card that would pop up with roman letters—probably in English, but it was hard to read with it being mirrored.
The monochrome cat came to a halt, and sat down in front of a blonde man who was watching the film in the darkness. He wore blue armor over a muscular frame. He leaned down to pet the cat. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said.
“I’ve been looking for you too,” Sang Mi said.
He looked up, surprised. “… Oh.”
She held the bag up. “I’m all packed! You came back again! I’m ready to go!”
They awkwardly stared at each other. “So you remembered that finally, huh?”
She nodded. “I saw the cat, so I knew if I followed it, there you’d be.”
“It’s a normal cat,” Chris lied.
“Don’t give me that, it’s got film grain!” Sang Mi said, pointing and practically yelling.
The cat seemed to flicker and pop for a moment like it had had a few frames of the print of film it was on damaged.
Chris sighed. “Alright,” he said as he stood up. “This really isn’t the kind of thing I should get a kid involved in. It's dangerous.”
She threw her hands up. “I didn’t ask for you to keep me safe, I asked for you to take me somewhere. Because you can. I know you can.”
His gaze shifted to a random patch of carpet. “Look, you don’t even know what I do. I’ve stopped by to check in on you a few times, sure—”
“And you’ve been helpful! You helped me in the hospital—and you helped me during all the weird stuff with the big storm a while back. I knew you’d come back again, you… travel around and help people, right? Help people with weird stuff. My whole life has been weird, I’m the perfect travelling companion. I get good grades, I’m in good shape, and the school has been forcing me to take kendo classes and I’m pretty good at those too! I can help. I want to help.”
With a single and almost breathless “ha” Chris ran a hand through his short blonde hair. “So that’s how you see me, a guy who travels around helping?”
“That’s literally what you do, don’t be weird about it.”
He gestured her over, and they watched the film playing together. “This has been showing up, all over the place. And where it does, people disappear. Mostly kids.”
She watched the backwards film play. It was hard to follow the plot. “Are all the places it shows up schools?”
He nodded again. “Quick on the uptake.”
“So it's something unusual. Like when you showed up before with the cat, or when you checked in on me during the big storm. It's something that shouldn’t be here.”
“Something other and something terrifying. Something I’m still trying to understand.”
She glanced back at him. “I get it. You didn’t come here to take me on an adventure. You came here to protect me.”
He gave her a sad smile. “Sorry. I was trying to avoid you so you wouldn’t be disappointed.”
She squatted down, trying to wrangle her emotions and the dark clouds coming into her head. She felt good he had thought of her still. She felt bad that he wasn’t taking her with him.
Then it occurred to her. She still had a card to play, she looked up, still hunched down. “You’re going to go find the place this film is being played, right? You’re investigating. Like with the cat, or the huge storm.”
He just nodded again.
“Then that means it’s probably in a school. Probably, this is being projected somewhere, in another high school, in somewhere that they speak English,” she said in Korean.
Chris, who was also speaking Korean right now, nodded yet again. “It sounds like you’re building up to something.”
She rose up, pointing to her chest. “I wanna go. I wanna help. Look, I might suck at this, I’m not particularly useful or anything, but I know that weird stuff happens! I’ve already crossed that line—I mean look at that cat. I’m guessing it jumped out of the film somehow. That doesn’t make sense! That’s wacko. There’s some sort of ridiculously convoluted scientific explanation I’m sure, but Clarke’s Third Law applies here—might as well be magic for all I get it. And I’m good at science. I have an A- right now.”
“Not an A+?”
“I’m not perfect. I’m just some loser with nothing better to do than follow a cat after school. I was going to go home, plan my next RPG session, and then play video games till I went to sleep. But you help people. You do something that matters—and I don’t need you to tell me what that is. I get that you can’t tell me a lot of things. But I know you do. And I can help you right now. Because I’m seventeen. I’m in school. And if you’re going to find out what’s happening in a school, you need someone who can talk to the students there on their level. That’s me.”
Chris rubbed the bridge of his nose, and groaned. “I’m not going to put you in danger.”
“I won’t be in danger, you’ll be right there,” she said, dancing around him, awkwardly trying to get his attention. “Come on. You promised.”
“I sort of kind of thought you’d forgotten that, or assumed it was a dream.”
“Welcome to being wrong! Come on,” she got serious. “If kids are really disappearing. I want to help.”
He crossed his arms, and looked at her firmly. “Okay. You have to promise to follow what I say, when I say it. No being snarky or weird.”
She gave a mock salute. “Aye aye, capitan!”
“And you’ll have to do stuff to fit in there.”
“Like, I’ll be undercover?”
“Sorta. Okay. Okay…” He held a hand out to her. “Well then, Sang Mi, want to head with me to Illinois?”
She walked up to him, and reached up to take his hand. “Cwej. My dude. I’ve got to be honest with you. Yes, absolutely. But also, I have no idea where that is.”
“Why are you so into them, anyway? They're both black and white and silent,” he said as they stepped through the doors into the train car.
“That’s what makes them good. They had such limitations; they had to be so creative! It doesn't matter that they look cheap or bad to us, they didn't to them, they were right there on the cusp of discovering cool stuff.” She waved her hands around and an old woman gave her a dirty look as they got too close to her personal space. Jae Hyun gave her an apologetic look. Sang Mi didn't notice as she adjusted the deer-shaped hair clip keeping her chin-length black hair out of her brown eyes.
“Oh right—I think someone is starting up a film club?”
“Is it Li Xiu?”
He shook his head. “No, after school when I was going to play practice I walked past this classroom where they were projecting some old movie on the wall. I didn't see who was there but I also wasn't looking.”
In truth, this detail had only occurred to Jae Hyun to have any importance when he realized that it lined up with Sang Mi's interests. The bell that alerted them the train would be moving again soon rang out.
Sang Mi nodded, and then looked up, and bolted. He began saying something else, but she didn’t notice. She had seen something on the platform, and she couldn't lose it.
She ran, ignoring people's cries of protest as she barreled out of the train doors just as they were about to close.
I'm not letting this chance pass me by. I'm not.
She pushed through the crowd, past the curses of adults about the youth these days. She could still see it—the strange out-of-place monochrome cat she had seen, or dreamed, all those years ago at the hospital. And if it was here… she tried not to get ahead of herself. The cat left the train platform, leaping down the stairs, and rushing past the bushes back towards the school. She’d just left for the day—and late in the day at that since she’d had track practice, so the sun was setting. Her muscles ached from pushing on past the workout she’d already gotten that day, but she forced herself on. The cat stopped at the door, and Sang Mi caught up to it, panting and leaning with her hand against the glass.
She looked down, and the cat looked up at her and meowed. “You… want inside?”
It looked like little lines and pops were moving across the cat’s body, like it was projected there on the pavement. It meowed again.
Sang Mi chewed on her tongue a moment, and opened the door for the cat. Was she supposed to be letting animals into the school? Absolutely not. But this was clearly not a normal cat.
The cat bounded through the open door, and Sang Mi followed. Through the entryway, and up the stairs. Finally it reached a classroom, waiting by the door till Sang Mi opened it for her. She stood by the door for a moment, but then turned around. She went to her locker, and pulled out a backpack she’d prepared and left there, checked to make sure everything was still in it, then ran back to the door, and slid it open. The classroom looked like there was a projector going, but there was no such device. Instead, one of the walls displayed a black and white film. But… it was backwards. Every so often there was a title card that would pop up with roman letters—probably in English, but it was hard to read with it being mirrored.
The monochrome cat came to a halt, and sat down in front of a blonde man who was watching the film in the darkness. He wore blue armor over a muscular frame. He leaned down to pet the cat. “I’ve been looking for you,” he said.
“I’ve been looking for you too,” Sang Mi said.
He looked up, surprised. “… Oh.”
She held the bag up. “I’m all packed! You came back again! I’m ready to go!”
They awkwardly stared at each other. “So you remembered that finally, huh?”
She nodded. “I saw the cat, so I knew if I followed it, there you’d be.”
“It’s a normal cat,” Chris lied.
“Don’t give me that, it’s got film grain!” Sang Mi said, pointing and practically yelling.
The cat seemed to flicker and pop for a moment like it had had a few frames of the print of film it was on damaged.
Chris sighed. “Alright,” he said as he stood up. “This really isn’t the kind of thing I should get a kid involved in. It's dangerous.”
She threw her hands up. “I didn’t ask for you to keep me safe, I asked for you to take me somewhere. Because you can. I know you can.”
His gaze shifted to a random patch of carpet. “Look, you don’t even know what I do. I’ve stopped by to check in on you a few times, sure—”
“And you’ve been helpful! You helped me in the hospital—and you helped me during all the weird stuff with the big storm a while back. I knew you’d come back again, you… travel around and help people, right? Help people with weird stuff. My whole life has been weird, I’m the perfect travelling companion. I get good grades, I’m in good shape, and the school has been forcing me to take kendo classes and I’m pretty good at those too! I can help. I want to help.”
With a single and almost breathless “ha” Chris ran a hand through his short blonde hair. “So that’s how you see me, a guy who travels around helping?”
“That’s literally what you do, don’t be weird about it.”
He gestured her over, and they watched the film playing together. “This has been showing up, all over the place. And where it does, people disappear. Mostly kids.”
She watched the backwards film play. It was hard to follow the plot. “Are all the places it shows up schools?”
He nodded again. “Quick on the uptake.”
“So it's something unusual. Like when you showed up before with the cat, or when you checked in on me during the big storm. It's something that shouldn’t be here.”
“Something other and something terrifying. Something I’m still trying to understand.”
She glanced back at him. “I get it. You didn’t come here to take me on an adventure. You came here to protect me.”
He gave her a sad smile. “Sorry. I was trying to avoid you so you wouldn’t be disappointed.”
She squatted down, trying to wrangle her emotions and the dark clouds coming into her head. She felt good he had thought of her still. She felt bad that he wasn’t taking her with him.
Then it occurred to her. She still had a card to play, she looked up, still hunched down. “You’re going to go find the place this film is being played, right? You’re investigating. Like with the cat, or the huge storm.”
He just nodded again.
“Then that means it’s probably in a school. Probably, this is being projected somewhere, in another high school, in somewhere that they speak English,” she said in Korean.
Chris, who was also speaking Korean right now, nodded yet again. “It sounds like you’re building up to something.”
She rose up, pointing to her chest. “I wanna go. I wanna help. Look, I might suck at this, I’m not particularly useful or anything, but I know that weird stuff happens! I’ve already crossed that line—I mean look at that cat. I’m guessing it jumped out of the film somehow. That doesn’t make sense! That’s wacko. There’s some sort of ridiculously convoluted scientific explanation I’m sure, but Clarke’s Third Law applies here—might as well be magic for all I get it. And I’m good at science. I have an A- right now.”
“Not an A+?”
“I’m not perfect. I’m just some loser with nothing better to do than follow a cat after school. I was going to go home, plan my next RPG session, and then play video games till I went to sleep. But you help people. You do something that matters—and I don’t need you to tell me what that is. I get that you can’t tell me a lot of things. But I know you do. And I can help you right now. Because I’m seventeen. I’m in school. And if you’re going to find out what’s happening in a school, you need someone who can talk to the students there on their level. That’s me.”
Chris rubbed the bridge of his nose, and groaned. “I’m not going to put you in danger.”
“I won’t be in danger, you’ll be right there,” she said, dancing around him, awkwardly trying to get his attention. “Come on. You promised.”
“I sort of kind of thought you’d forgotten that, or assumed it was a dream.”
“Welcome to being wrong! Come on,” she got serious. “If kids are really disappearing. I want to help.”
He crossed his arms, and looked at her firmly. “Okay. You have to promise to follow what I say, when I say it. No being snarky or weird.”
She gave a mock salute. “Aye aye, capitan!”
“And you’ll have to do stuff to fit in there.”
“Like, I’ll be undercover?”
“Sorta. Okay. Okay…” He held a hand out to her. “Well then, Sang Mi, want to head with me to Illinois?”
She walked up to him, and reached up to take his hand. “Cwej. My dude. I’ve got to be honest with you. Yes, absolutely. But also, I have no idea where that is.”
4. The Two Transfers
Hughes High School, Violethill, Illinois, 2025, two weeks later
Ms. Rochester looked up from her grading. “Oh, hello, Petra. Did you have a question about the Founding Fathers project?”
Petra shook her head and sat down in the flimsy plastic chair in front of Ms. Rochester’s desk in the Social Studies Teachers’ Office. The missing persons poster taped up on the wall behind her seemed to peer over her shoulder at Ms. Rochester as Petra spoke. “No, I think I've got a good handle on it. But I'm sort of... concerned? Yes, concerned, about one of my members on the group project.”
She nodded. “I see. Is it uh… oh dear, I’m always forgetting her name,” she said, checking her roster, “Delilah?”
“Sorry, no. It’s actually the new transfer student, Sarah?”
That was a surprise. Sure, ‘a pleasure to have in class’ was a bit of a cliche, but Sarah had been incredibly helpful from her first day. Respectful, and knowledgeable—aside from what seemed like a leftover bit of middle-school predilection to get reality and science fiction confused—she really was a pleasure in class. She could only imagine the two girls were having a crisis of personality, which she could remember very well from her own youth.
“What sort of problems are you two having?”
Petra reached back and ran her hand through her red ponytail a few times as she replied, “Well she asks a lot of weird questions. Like just yesterday, we were trying to work out how to portray Ben Franklin in our skit—Martha wanted him to be a real horndog which—is beside the point. Ahem. Sarah kept bringing up Megan?”
Ms. Rochester looked back at the missing persons poster. Ah. Of course. “I think we're all struggling with Megan's disappearance. And that George and Katheren vanished just afterwards… And then Tasha too…” She tried to give Petra a reassuring look, but she was pretty sure it came off as depressed. “We're all struggling to deal with this in our own way. We can only hope that our friend Megan returns safe and sound.”
Petra gripped her skirt with two balled fists. “But that's the thing, Ms. Rochester, Sarah wasn't here when Megan disappeared. She never met her. She never knew her. So why is she so interested in asking about her?”
It all clicked into place. Ms. Rochester leaned back, and let out a deep breath, the stain on the ceiling tiles standing out a little more as she tried to get her thoughts together. “Alright, I'll have a word with her. I'm sure she's just curious, but I know that has to be very difficult for you. And it's certainly unthoughtful of her.”
Petra nodded. “I appreciate that.” She seemed about to stand up, but quickly sat back down again. “Well, I do have one other concern… Sarah seems awfully close with Mr. Cwej, it’s a little—weird.”
Ms. Rochester leaned in. “Well, I'm probably not supposed to tell you this,” she said as her natural instinct to gossip kicked in from the depths, “but she's actually Mr. Cwej's niece—it's why she chose this school so she could stay with him as her host family here.” She paused a moment. “Of course, don't spread that around.”
“I see. Of course, Ms. Rochester, I'll keep that to myself.”
“I understand your concerns, with all the disappearances here at the school, everyone is on edge.” She gave a second attempt at a reassuring smile and was pretty sure she nailed it this time. “But we'll get through this together. I know the authorities are doing everything they can to find them.”
That didn't seem to reassure Petra as much as she’d hoped.
“Right, yeah. Well, thanks for your time. I have to get to track now.”
She waved her goodbye, and got back to her grading. Only when Petra left did it strike her as odd that Sarah and Mr. Cwej had both arrived at the same time despite her supposedly coming here because Mr. Cwej was a teacher here.
Oh well, it was probably nothing.
5. The Track Meet
Delilah leaned against Petra's track-locker door as Petra tied her shoe propped up on the wooden bench in front of it. “So, how did it go?”
“She said she'd have a talk with her—but get this, she said Sarah is Mr. Cwej's niece. That’s bullshit on bullshit right there.”
Coach Karen walked up and tapped Delilah on the shoulder. “Sorry, only team members are allowed in here.”
“Sorry, I’ll leave right away,” Delilah said blandly, and then stood very still. Coach Karen blinked a few times, and walked away as though she hadn’t asked.
“That’s still so weird,” Petra mumbled.
“Don't knock it when it works,” Delilah replied.
Coach Karen went to the front of the girls’ locker room, and rang a cowbell painted with the school’s mascot—a white stoat with a Roman helmet, which had made sense at some point in the school's history. “Alright girls—you sit down, Martha. Gabriella, you can do that later. Now—we have a big meet today, I know those of you who were here last year have been looking forward to this rematch—and I think it’s safe to say that John Quincy Adams High won't know what hit them!”
There was some general whooping.
“This will also be Sarah’s first meet with us—so we've got big expectations for you to fill. After all, you’ll be filling Tasha’s shoes.”
Coach Karen stopped awkwardly as the entire room came to a standstill. She had clearly overstepped the realms of good taste there.
Sarah coughed into her hand, and tried to smooth it over. “I absolutely won’t be filling her shoes—I know no one can. But I'll do my best to, uh… honor her place on the team until they find her.” She tried to think of how to end what she was saying and lamely settled on. “… So yeah.”
There was some applause, less because of her sentiment and more because no one knew how they were going to recover from that verbal pitfall.
“Right, yes!” Coach Karen said. “So let’s all root for our new team member today. Uh… alright, everyone bring it in, Stoats on three!”
Petra sighed, and gave Delilah a disgusted glance before she joined in with the other girls putting one hand into a big circle.
“One, two, three, STOATS!”
The awkward locker room talk at least didn’t seem to turn the team off. They'd walked out to the track pretty confidently, and taken an early lead in the high jump. Petra was ready to race. She’d felt cooped up—sure, her work at the Blue Candle Coffee Company was rewarding, but she rarely got the adrenaline rush of kicking ass and taking names there. Her ex-boyfriend had once told her he didn't think girls' sports weren’t about competition as much and focused more on teamwork. She never understood what he was talking about. She had come out here to annihilate everyone else and show them she was better than them, and she meant to follow through.
Stepping up to the line on the track, her spikes clipped the rubbery mesh. She looked down the line of runners—they weren’t very strong in the 800 meter, except for her. Gabriella might squeak out third if she really pushed herself, but that was unlikely. Still… Sarah looked oddly focused. That gave her some worry. But she was more worried about Montana Davis from JQA High. She was a powerhouse.
“On your marks,” the referee called.
She got up to the line, and leaned forward.
“Get set.”
She breathed in.
BANG! The starting gun went off, and they bolted. The first hundred meters around the curve on the track was the running equivalent of a bloodbath, as everyone tried to squeeze and push around each other to jockey for position to come out in a good position on the straight. She had come out ahead, and started on the straight, pretty sure that Montana was right behind her, which was confirmed when she tried to pass her.
But then by the end of the first hundred-meter straight on the track she realized that they weren’t alone as they hit the curve—Gabby and some other JQA runner were close behind, but in this first pack was also Sarah. She hadn't used her energy on the first curve trying to jockey; she’d let everyone go hard there while she coasted and just gone wide to the running pack's right when she hit the straight and surged to go around them, before getting back into the first lane before the curve so she wouldn't waste energy running wide on it. Wherever she'd transferred from, she knew what she was doing, and she had slotted in solidly in third.
They ran the next three hundred meters in the same positions, holding tight, with a few attempts at passing from Montana that she held off. That left three hundred meters, two straights with a curve in the middle.
It was on that first straight where the race got interesting.
Montana started to pass her, and was clearly making her move. Petra tried to keep up, but she was clearly making an early press hoping that she'd hold her off on the curve and keep up a strong kick at the end.
But Montana wasn't the only one trying to pass.
Sarah was right on Montana's heels, and just as soon as Montana slipped ahead of her, Sarah surged past both of them.
Oh come on.
Now solidly in third, Petra fumed as they hit the curve.
She would pass on the final straight. She just had to hold here right on their heels, and kick past them both.
Sarah led the way into the final straight, and both Montana and Petra swung wide to make their move.
Montana started to push past Sarah, but Sarah didn't let it follow through, and Petra could tell the girl had kicked too early trying to pass before the curve.
So she made her own move.
She dug in, and pushed hard. She felt lightheaded as she ran harder and faster than her lungs could keep up with, and found herself even with Sarah—she could hear the other girl to her left. Neck and neck. The crowd—as much of a crowd as there was for a girls’ track meet on a Wednesday—went wild.
Sarah was clearly giving it her all. She wouldn’t let her win. She wouldn't let this transfer student from wherever it was beat her. This was her race, damnit. She had to focus on her own body.
She thought hard. She was the main character of this race. This was her story.
This was her narrative.
She was supposed to win. And she would.
And she felt her legs move faster. And the crowd got louder, and she rushed through the finish line, going so fast it took till she hit the grass at the edge of the track for her to actually get to a halt. She keeled over, her body trying to catch up with her breath.
She felt hands on her back, and she could tell from the smiles and cheers as she looked up that she'd won.
Sarah was fuming a bit, but was joining in the congratulations even if Petra could tell that she was incredibly salty about the loss. Well, she could respect that. She'd have been salty too.
“We swept the race!” Martha cried out. “Gabby passed Montana right at the end, one-two-three bang bang bang!”
She blinked, and looked back at Sarah.
“Good job,” Sarah rasped.
“Yeah, you too,” she rasped back.
She looked up at the crowd in the stands. Mr. Cwej was there. It would have been natural if he had been clapping for his niece, and maybe he was. But he seemed to be observing her. Not in a weird way—but… like a hunter tracking a deer.
She went back to celebrating with her team.
But she took note.
“She said she'd have a talk with her—but get this, she said Sarah is Mr. Cwej's niece. That’s bullshit on bullshit right there.”
Coach Karen walked up and tapped Delilah on the shoulder. “Sorry, only team members are allowed in here.”
“Sorry, I’ll leave right away,” Delilah said blandly, and then stood very still. Coach Karen blinked a few times, and walked away as though she hadn’t asked.
“That’s still so weird,” Petra mumbled.
“Don't knock it when it works,” Delilah replied.
Coach Karen went to the front of the girls’ locker room, and rang a cowbell painted with the school’s mascot—a white stoat with a Roman helmet, which had made sense at some point in the school's history. “Alright girls—you sit down, Martha. Gabriella, you can do that later. Now—we have a big meet today, I know those of you who were here last year have been looking forward to this rematch—and I think it’s safe to say that John Quincy Adams High won't know what hit them!”
There was some general whooping.
“This will also be Sarah’s first meet with us—so we've got big expectations for you to fill. After all, you’ll be filling Tasha’s shoes.”
Coach Karen stopped awkwardly as the entire room came to a standstill. She had clearly overstepped the realms of good taste there.
Sarah coughed into her hand, and tried to smooth it over. “I absolutely won’t be filling her shoes—I know no one can. But I'll do my best to, uh… honor her place on the team until they find her.” She tried to think of how to end what she was saying and lamely settled on. “… So yeah.”
There was some applause, less because of her sentiment and more because no one knew how they were going to recover from that verbal pitfall.
“Right, yes!” Coach Karen said. “So let’s all root for our new team member today. Uh… alright, everyone bring it in, Stoats on three!”
Petra sighed, and gave Delilah a disgusted glance before she joined in with the other girls putting one hand into a big circle.
“One, two, three, STOATS!”
The awkward locker room talk at least didn’t seem to turn the team off. They'd walked out to the track pretty confidently, and taken an early lead in the high jump. Petra was ready to race. She’d felt cooped up—sure, her work at the Blue Candle Coffee Company was rewarding, but she rarely got the adrenaline rush of kicking ass and taking names there. Her ex-boyfriend had once told her he didn't think girls' sports weren’t about competition as much and focused more on teamwork. She never understood what he was talking about. She had come out here to annihilate everyone else and show them she was better than them, and she meant to follow through.
Stepping up to the line on the track, her spikes clipped the rubbery mesh. She looked down the line of runners—they weren’t very strong in the 800 meter, except for her. Gabriella might squeak out third if she really pushed herself, but that was unlikely. Still… Sarah looked oddly focused. That gave her some worry. But she was more worried about Montana Davis from JQA High. She was a powerhouse.
“On your marks,” the referee called.
She got up to the line, and leaned forward.
“Get set.”
She breathed in.
BANG! The starting gun went off, and they bolted. The first hundred meters around the curve on the track was the running equivalent of a bloodbath, as everyone tried to squeeze and push around each other to jockey for position to come out in a good position on the straight. She had come out ahead, and started on the straight, pretty sure that Montana was right behind her, which was confirmed when she tried to pass her.
But then by the end of the first hundred-meter straight on the track she realized that they weren’t alone as they hit the curve—Gabby and some other JQA runner were close behind, but in this first pack was also Sarah. She hadn't used her energy on the first curve trying to jockey; she’d let everyone go hard there while she coasted and just gone wide to the running pack's right when she hit the straight and surged to go around them, before getting back into the first lane before the curve so she wouldn't waste energy running wide on it. Wherever she'd transferred from, she knew what she was doing, and she had slotted in solidly in third.
They ran the next three hundred meters in the same positions, holding tight, with a few attempts at passing from Montana that she held off. That left three hundred meters, two straights with a curve in the middle.
It was on that first straight where the race got interesting.
Montana started to pass her, and was clearly making her move. Petra tried to keep up, but she was clearly making an early press hoping that she'd hold her off on the curve and keep up a strong kick at the end.
But Montana wasn't the only one trying to pass.
Sarah was right on Montana's heels, and just as soon as Montana slipped ahead of her, Sarah surged past both of them.
Oh come on.
Now solidly in third, Petra fumed as they hit the curve.
She would pass on the final straight. She just had to hold here right on their heels, and kick past them both.
Sarah led the way into the final straight, and both Montana and Petra swung wide to make their move.
Montana started to push past Sarah, but Sarah didn't let it follow through, and Petra could tell the girl had kicked too early trying to pass before the curve.
So she made her own move.
She dug in, and pushed hard. She felt lightheaded as she ran harder and faster than her lungs could keep up with, and found herself even with Sarah—she could hear the other girl to her left. Neck and neck. The crowd—as much of a crowd as there was for a girls’ track meet on a Wednesday—went wild.
Sarah was clearly giving it her all. She wouldn’t let her win. She wouldn't let this transfer student from wherever it was beat her. This was her race, damnit. She had to focus on her own body.
She thought hard. She was the main character of this race. This was her story.
This was her narrative.
She was supposed to win. And she would.
And she felt her legs move faster. And the crowd got louder, and she rushed through the finish line, going so fast it took till she hit the grass at the edge of the track for her to actually get to a halt. She keeled over, her body trying to catch up with her breath.
She felt hands on her back, and she could tell from the smiles and cheers as she looked up that she'd won.
Sarah was fuming a bit, but was joining in the congratulations even if Petra could tell that she was incredibly salty about the loss. Well, she could respect that. She'd have been salty too.
“We swept the race!” Martha cried out. “Gabby passed Montana right at the end, one-two-three bang bang bang!”
She blinked, and looked back at Sarah.
“Good job,” Sarah rasped.
“Yeah, you too,” she rasped back.
She looked up at the crowd in the stands. Mr. Cwej was there. It would have been natural if he had been clapping for his niece, and maybe he was. But he seemed to be observing her. Not in a weird way—but… like a hunter tracking a deer.
She went back to celebrating with her team.
But she took note.
6. A World Away
Sang Mi was lying in bed, looking at the little day planner they'd given her here on her first day.
She’d asked Chris to take her somewhere. And he really had. It was different. Everything was in English, which thankfully she was fluent in. It had ‘Sarah Jhe’ printed on the front, which was weird. She didn’t really think of herself as a ‘Sarah’. She didn’t really think of herself in roman lettering.
The bed was weird too. Squishy. The room she was staying in wasn’t her own, Cwej had rented a house using some service they had here for renting whole houses, pre-furnished, which was also completely weird. Someone had decorated it with off-the-shelf artwork, and put a bunch of books on the shelf they’d probably gotten from a secondhand store from the condition they were in. It was the illusion of home.
But the illusion was full of moments of unquestionable reality. They’d eaten meals together, and he’d talked to her like she was an old friend. Maybe they were at this point. She’d known him a long time, like a relative you rarely see but when they show up they greet you with the same warmth. There was a trust there she couldn’t quite explain—even so, she’d been wary. It’s not everyday someone whisks you off to elsewhere. So she’d made sure the locks on her door were solid, and always made sure to lock her bedroom and the bathroom. She didn’t think for a second Chris was a creeper, but still.
Staying here was odd. It was nice, in a lot of ways. She kept expecting to see her own sky, or breathe the air she was used to breathing. She would wake up in the morning, and panic that she wasn’t in her own room. The first night she’d woken up and Chris had had to talk her down from a panic attack. She’d nearly told him to take her home, and she’d curled up and cried later when he wasn’t there to notice.
Then she’d panicked again later when he took her out to eat at some sort of period American diner. She held her head in her hands, rocking gently.
“But—I’m gone, my mom, she’s—she has to be panicking. Oh god what have I done—”
He took her hands gently. “It’s okay. Remember what I explained—when you go back, you’ll be back the same night you left. Just like this was all a dream you woke up from.”
She controlled her breathing. Right. Yes. She’d been through weird stuff before. Chris had come back before after all. But she’d never been away from home like this. She took a bite of her burger. “… Is this like, actual animal?”
He shook his head, “Nah, I figured that might be weird for you, it’s fake meat. Just different from the fake meat you’re used to.”
She chewed it, and swallowed. The texture was weird. They played music from the 1950s over the speakers, and the quality was a bit fuzzy there too.
“So what do you think?”
“The burger is pretty good.”
He chuckled. “No, I mean, travelling like this. You were adamant I’d take you, so, what do you think?”
She looked out at the other occupants of the diner. An old man was doting on his grandson who didn’t seem to appreciate the effort his elder was putting in. Maybe decades from now, he’d get it. Two other teenage girls were sitting at a booth clearly gossiping and loving every second of it. Their waitress checked the register with a bored expression. Beyond the windows, noisy cars drove by.
“I’m glad you took me. I like seeing the way people are. A lot of things are different, but the basic stuff is all the same deep down… It’s weird though. No one would believe me, that I was here. But no one believes me anyway, so—not much of a difference?” She tried the fries. Pretty good.
“The way you talk about yourself always makes you sound so lonely, but you have a lot of friends, I’ve seen them. Your family cares about you too—and you care about all of them just the same.”
She pushed the sriracha she was dipping her fries in around on her plate with a fry. “There’s a difference between being loved and being understood. I’ve always been loved. But when people don’t understand you, love can hurt.”
He set his own burger down. “You mean like at the hospital.”
She nodded. “Ding ding ding, we have a winner.”
“What do I get?”
“I’ll think of something…” As she trailed off, she saw the missing persons posters pinned up by the counter. “… I hope nothing too terrible happened to the missing students.”
Then they stared at the posters together. “Me too.”
Feeling she had made things awkward, she made a big gesture with her hands and asked something that she’d been wondering this whole time. “Okay, so what’s with me being called Sarah here? You’re still Chris Cwej. Well, Mr. Cwej I guess.”
“It's a common thing here, Sang Mi—exchange students often choose an ‘English Name’ to help them fit in.
“But really, Sarah? It sounds like I'm in Little House on the Prairie.”
“I don’t know, you kind of look like a Sarah.”
“If I knew what that meant I'd probably be mad, but I don't so let's just move on. How’s the search going for you?”
He shrugged. “A lot of sad students who miss their friends. Not a lot of clues. You seemed to have a gut feeling about those two girls in your class.”
“Well, Petra and Delilah are pretty sketchy. I keep forgetting Delilah is there, like it’s… not normal? I don’t just forget people are right in front of me.”
This seemed to stir something in Chris. “That’s a big clue. How about Petra?”
“She seems annoyed I’m asking about the missing students. She’s been trying to play it off like I’m just being insensitive, but it feels like a thin shield to cover her frustration.”
He picked his burger up. “Well, let’s finish this food before it gets cold. But it looks like we know where to start. Say, when’s your first track meet?”
She’d asked Chris to take her somewhere. And he really had. It was different. Everything was in English, which thankfully she was fluent in. It had ‘Sarah Jhe’ printed on the front, which was weird. She didn’t really think of herself as a ‘Sarah’. She didn’t really think of herself in roman lettering.
The bed was weird too. Squishy. The room she was staying in wasn’t her own, Cwej had rented a house using some service they had here for renting whole houses, pre-furnished, which was also completely weird. Someone had decorated it with off-the-shelf artwork, and put a bunch of books on the shelf they’d probably gotten from a secondhand store from the condition they were in. It was the illusion of home.
But the illusion was full of moments of unquestionable reality. They’d eaten meals together, and he’d talked to her like she was an old friend. Maybe they were at this point. She’d known him a long time, like a relative you rarely see but when they show up they greet you with the same warmth. There was a trust there she couldn’t quite explain—even so, she’d been wary. It’s not everyday someone whisks you off to elsewhere. So she’d made sure the locks on her door were solid, and always made sure to lock her bedroom and the bathroom. She didn’t think for a second Chris was a creeper, but still.
Staying here was odd. It was nice, in a lot of ways. She kept expecting to see her own sky, or breathe the air she was used to breathing. She would wake up in the morning, and panic that she wasn’t in her own room. The first night she’d woken up and Chris had had to talk her down from a panic attack. She’d nearly told him to take her home, and she’d curled up and cried later when he wasn’t there to notice.
Then she’d panicked again later when he took her out to eat at some sort of period American diner. She held her head in her hands, rocking gently.
“But—I’m gone, my mom, she’s—she has to be panicking. Oh god what have I done—”
He took her hands gently. “It’s okay. Remember what I explained—when you go back, you’ll be back the same night you left. Just like this was all a dream you woke up from.”
She controlled her breathing. Right. Yes. She’d been through weird stuff before. Chris had come back before after all. But she’d never been away from home like this. She took a bite of her burger. “… Is this like, actual animal?”
He shook his head, “Nah, I figured that might be weird for you, it’s fake meat. Just different from the fake meat you’re used to.”
She chewed it, and swallowed. The texture was weird. They played music from the 1950s over the speakers, and the quality was a bit fuzzy there too.
“So what do you think?”
“The burger is pretty good.”
He chuckled. “No, I mean, travelling like this. You were adamant I’d take you, so, what do you think?”
She looked out at the other occupants of the diner. An old man was doting on his grandson who didn’t seem to appreciate the effort his elder was putting in. Maybe decades from now, he’d get it. Two other teenage girls were sitting at a booth clearly gossiping and loving every second of it. Their waitress checked the register with a bored expression. Beyond the windows, noisy cars drove by.
“I’m glad you took me. I like seeing the way people are. A lot of things are different, but the basic stuff is all the same deep down… It’s weird though. No one would believe me, that I was here. But no one believes me anyway, so—not much of a difference?” She tried the fries. Pretty good.
“The way you talk about yourself always makes you sound so lonely, but you have a lot of friends, I’ve seen them. Your family cares about you too—and you care about all of them just the same.”
She pushed the sriracha she was dipping her fries in around on her plate with a fry. “There’s a difference between being loved and being understood. I’ve always been loved. But when people don’t understand you, love can hurt.”
He set his own burger down. “You mean like at the hospital.”
She nodded. “Ding ding ding, we have a winner.”
“What do I get?”
“I’ll think of something…” As she trailed off, she saw the missing persons posters pinned up by the counter. “… I hope nothing too terrible happened to the missing students.”
Then they stared at the posters together. “Me too.”
Feeling she had made things awkward, she made a big gesture with her hands and asked something that she’d been wondering this whole time. “Okay, so what’s with me being called Sarah here? You’re still Chris Cwej. Well, Mr. Cwej I guess.”
“It's a common thing here, Sang Mi—exchange students often choose an ‘English Name’ to help them fit in.
“But really, Sarah? It sounds like I'm in Little House on the Prairie.”
“I don’t know, you kind of look like a Sarah.”
“If I knew what that meant I'd probably be mad, but I don't so let's just move on. How’s the search going for you?”
He shrugged. “A lot of sad students who miss their friends. Not a lot of clues. You seemed to have a gut feeling about those two girls in your class.”
“Well, Petra and Delilah are pretty sketchy. I keep forgetting Delilah is there, like it’s… not normal? I don’t just forget people are right in front of me.”
This seemed to stir something in Chris. “That’s a big clue. How about Petra?”
“She seems annoyed I’m asking about the missing students. She’s been trying to play it off like I’m just being insensitive, but it feels like a thin shield to cover her frustration.”
He picked his burger up. “Well, let’s finish this food before it gets cold. But it looks like we know where to start. Say, when’s your first track meet?”
* * *
Every day felt like English class at school, she had prided herself on being good at English, but this was honestly a bit much. She was on page ten of her research paper on the films of Fritz Lang—at least she had gotten to choose a topic she cared about for this—and she was already losing her mind wondering why English had so many words that started with letters you didn't even bother to pronounce.
Thankfully, she was interrupted as the door to their rented home slammed open. She looked up from the kitchen table, and waved with one hand at Chris as he panted in the doorway.
“Uh, welcome home? You alright?” He wasn't usually home after her, thanks to Track Practice.
“Sarah—Sang Mi—I have it. I have the missing piece.”
She lowered her laptop screen. “Okay, I'm listening.”
He shut the door, much more gently, and slid into the chair across from her. “So you were suspicious of Petra and Delilah, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, guess what? They transferred to this school shortly after the school acquired a collection of films from a local theater when everything was shutting down during the height of the pandemic.”
“During the what?” Sang Mi asked, suddenly and justifiably worried.
“Never mind about that—look, I got the list of films.”
He handed her a sheet of paper, and she scanned it. “… Okay, I’m still not getting what you’re going for here.”
“Of course you're not!”
She blinked at him.
He pointed at one of the films — Battle on the Easter Front (Damaged Print, Final Reel Will Not Play). “That film is a remake of a silent film called Soldiers of the Stone. It’s a movie about a pair of time travelers, one of whom is trying to stop the resurrection of Christ, and the other who is trying to stop the other guy.”
It clicked in her head. And she lowered the paper dramatically. “You mean… that’s the silent film that was playing in a mirror image at my school?”
He pumped his fist. “Got it in one.”
She stood up, slamming her laptop shut. “Okay! So it’s them, right? We can stop them now, right?”
He remained seated, and shook his head. “Not quite. We need to figure out what exactly they’re doing. Remember—our goal here is to rescue the missing students if…” he trailed off, feeling like he’d said too much.
“I’m a big girl, I know bad things could have happened to them.”
He nodded. “But my point is that our priority is rescuing them. And we could lose that chance if we act rashly. So we need to follow them. Monitor them. Figure out what their next move will be.”
Sang Mi smirked. “You were still trying to figure out your next lesson plan, right? I have a suggestion.”
He raised an eyebrow, and mirrored the smirk. He was pretty sure he'd already had the same idea.
Thankfully, she was interrupted as the door to their rented home slammed open. She looked up from the kitchen table, and waved with one hand at Chris as he panted in the doorway.
“Uh, welcome home? You alright?” He wasn't usually home after her, thanks to Track Practice.
“Sarah—Sang Mi—I have it. I have the missing piece.”
She lowered her laptop screen. “Okay, I'm listening.”
He shut the door, much more gently, and slid into the chair across from her. “So you were suspicious of Petra and Delilah, right?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, guess what? They transferred to this school shortly after the school acquired a collection of films from a local theater when everything was shutting down during the height of the pandemic.”
“During the what?” Sang Mi asked, suddenly and justifiably worried.
“Never mind about that—look, I got the list of films.”
He handed her a sheet of paper, and she scanned it. “… Okay, I’m still not getting what you’re going for here.”
“Of course you're not!”
She blinked at him.
He pointed at one of the films — Battle on the Easter Front (Damaged Print, Final Reel Will Not Play). “That film is a remake of a silent film called Soldiers of the Stone. It’s a movie about a pair of time travelers, one of whom is trying to stop the resurrection of Christ, and the other who is trying to stop the other guy.”
It clicked in her head. And she lowered the paper dramatically. “You mean… that’s the silent film that was playing in a mirror image at my school?”
He pumped his fist. “Got it in one.”
She stood up, slamming her laptop shut. “Okay! So it’s them, right? We can stop them now, right?”
He remained seated, and shook his head. “Not quite. We need to figure out what exactly they’re doing. Remember—our goal here is to rescue the missing students if…” he trailed off, feeling like he’d said too much.
“I’m a big girl, I know bad things could have happened to them.”
He nodded. “But my point is that our priority is rescuing them. And we could lose that chance if we act rashly. So we need to follow them. Monitor them. Figure out what their next move will be.”
Sang Mi smirked. “You were still trying to figure out your next lesson plan, right? I have a suggestion.”
He raised an eyebrow, and mirrored the smirk. He was pretty sure he'd already had the same idea.
7. School Days
“Alright, that’s the bell—everyone, get in your seats! Even you, Kevin,” Mr. Cwej called out to the class, who shuffled into their places. “There’s bellwork on the overhead, and we're only spending five minutes on it so everyone needs to get on it right now.”
“I need paper!” Martha called.
“Can someone get Mar--thank you, Sarah.” He smiled as Sarah handed the other girl a piece of lined paper. They went through the normal routine of the class answering the questions, and then trading them with a partner to grade them, then passing them up to the front, while Mr. Cwej got the lesson set up. As he picked up the last papers, he looked out at the class. “Alright, so — for our next unit, we’re going to be comparing a film to the text it's based on. Now we’re in luck—Hughes High actually has quite the library of films, including some rare ones, and with the Easter Season coming up, I thought we might get to compare one most of you probably haven't seen before.”
He couldn't help but smile. “How many of you have seen Battle on the Easter Front before?”
Petra Kryuk, who had been sitting doodling in her notebook in the third row, suddenly froze, and the color drained from her face, making her freckles stand out even more.
He looked around. No one raised their hands. “No one? Well, that’s perfect. Now technically, this film is based on a silent film that was based on the short story The Soldiers of the Stone. The short story is very different from both films—not that we can be totally sure of that, since the silent film is lost. So, can someone come up and help pass these stories out. Any volunteers?”
He looked around, no one raised their hand.
“How about you, Petra?” She jolted up, and like a possessed zombie came over and took the stapled packets containing the short story, wordlessly passing them out.
Chris was so pleased how well his plan had rattled the girl, that he completely forgot where he was in the lesson. “So um, next…” he stumbled, trying to look around for where his notes were.
Sarah raised her hand. “Uh, yes, Sarah?”
“I think maybe it would potentially be good if say, we spent the next twenty minutes reading the story, and then had the rest of the class period to answer the questions in the back of the packet while we start the movie?”
He pointed at her. “Yes. What you just said. That. We’re doing that.”
“I need paper!” Martha called.
“Can someone get Mar--thank you, Sarah.” He smiled as Sarah handed the other girl a piece of lined paper. They went through the normal routine of the class answering the questions, and then trading them with a partner to grade them, then passing them up to the front, while Mr. Cwej got the lesson set up. As he picked up the last papers, he looked out at the class. “Alright, so — for our next unit, we’re going to be comparing a film to the text it's based on. Now we’re in luck—Hughes High actually has quite the library of films, including some rare ones, and with the Easter Season coming up, I thought we might get to compare one most of you probably haven't seen before.”
He couldn't help but smile. “How many of you have seen Battle on the Easter Front before?”
Petra Kryuk, who had been sitting doodling in her notebook in the third row, suddenly froze, and the color drained from her face, making her freckles stand out even more.
He looked around. No one raised their hands. “No one? Well, that’s perfect. Now technically, this film is based on a silent film that was based on the short story The Soldiers of the Stone. The short story is very different from both films—not that we can be totally sure of that, since the silent film is lost. So, can someone come up and help pass these stories out. Any volunteers?”
He looked around, no one raised their hand.
“How about you, Petra?” She jolted up, and like a possessed zombie came over and took the stapled packets containing the short story, wordlessly passing them out.
Chris was so pleased how well his plan had rattled the girl, that he completely forgot where he was in the lesson. “So um, next…” he stumbled, trying to look around for where his notes were.
Sarah raised her hand. “Uh, yes, Sarah?”
“I think maybe it would potentially be good if say, we spent the next twenty minutes reading the story, and then had the rest of the class period to answer the questions in the back of the packet while we start the movie?”
He pointed at her. “Yes. What you just said. That. We’re doing that.”
* * *
Petra slid in in front of Delilah, setting down her lunch tray. “I hate the weird cubed pepperoni they put on the square pizza here.”
Delilah shrugged. “… Then get something else?”
“No,” Petra said, biting into her slice. “God, I can't believe Mr. Cwej. He shows up to replace Mr. York and just acts like he’s been running the theater program for years. And now this movie project. God. And what did he think he was doing, showing us a print of a movie where the ending is screwed up and jams the projector?”
Eating her own pizza, Delilah replied: “What else would he do?”
“You don't think it’s suspicious?”
“Oh, he’s suspicious, I just don't think that is.”
“Don't get pedantic with me. Oh hey, new nails?”
Delilah showed them off, they were sparkly blue. “Like them? I was wondering how long it'd take you to notice.”
“You’re lucky, the Luminary was pretty clear I needed to keep things low key.”
“Not so lucky. But I'll take the perks where I can get them,” she said as she flicked her fingers and watched them sparkle.
“Anyway, you think he's onto us?”
“He's absolutely onto us. He played the damn movie, or at least tried to. And I think that girl who showed up the same time as him, Sarah—”
Delilah coughed into her hand, and Petra looked up.
Sarah was walking towards them. “Hey, mind if I sit with you? Since you're sitting alone I thought…”
Petra and Delilah exchanged looks. “I'm not sitting alone, Delilah is right there.”
Sarah blinked, and squinted. “Oh. Right. I don't know how I didn't see you there. Well… can I join the two of you?”
Delilah's eyes screamed, “It would be weird if you said no.”
“Yeah, go for it,” Petra demurred.
Sarah sat down next to her. “This pizza is weird, it’s nothing like the stuff at my old school.”
“Oh, where was that?” Petra asked.
Sarah froze like a deer in headlights for a second before pivoting with all the grace of the devil. “Psh, oh, you know. New Mexico.”
“Really? What part of New Mexico?”
“Albuquerque,” she said a little too quickly. “I figure since we're both on the track team we should get to know each other a little—you kicked ass in that race yesterday. I tried to get ya at the end, but you really have a kick.”
“Thanks,” Petra said. There was something weird about this girl. Her accent was weird, but not in a way that made sense. It was mostly American Midwest, but with other layers in there that threw off her words every so often.
“I hear you both work at a coffee shop? Is it any good?”
Petra shrugged. “It’s okay.” She was feeling her out. These questions were a little too pointed.
“Hey, do you know if there is a film club here?”
“There isn't one,” Petra said. And this time she was the one who said it too quickly. Shit.
“Ah, too bad. I really like silent film.”
Bullshit, no one liked silent film. “Oh yeah, what are some of your favorites?”
“Well, I'm a little basic in that I love The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and basically anything Fritz Lang touched, but I really love The Man Who Laughed, Nosferatu,” she mimicked the titular vampire, “and—”
“Okay so you actually do like it?” Petra said.
“... Yeah? I literally just said that?”
“I love silent film. So some people come at me just to tease me about it, or they try to suck up to me with it. But usually they just, like, have seen Chaplin and Metropolis.”
Sarah nodded. “Oh yeah. I get that. At my old school there was this boy who was always trying to pretend he knew about the things I liked,” she laughed. “It was so funny, one time he forgot what he’d looked up about it, and pulled out his phone trying to pretend he wasn't looking it up right in front of me.”
Petra laughed. “Okay, that is pretty—”
“We need to go to our club,” Delilah said.
Petra was about to reply with “What club?” when she looked over and saw her friend’s face. Ah. Right. She was getting into the conversation. That wasn't good.
“Sorry, Delilah is right, we gotta go. Members only, I’ll see you at practice.”
Sarah waved them goodbye and they threw out the remains of their lunches and walked off together.
“You're getting sloppy,” Delilah said.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Everything set for tonight?”
Delilah nodded. “We're good to go.”
“Good.” She gritted her teeth.
They were close, she could feel it.
Delilah shrugged. “… Then get something else?”
“No,” Petra said, biting into her slice. “God, I can't believe Mr. Cwej. He shows up to replace Mr. York and just acts like he’s been running the theater program for years. And now this movie project. God. And what did he think he was doing, showing us a print of a movie where the ending is screwed up and jams the projector?”
Eating her own pizza, Delilah replied: “What else would he do?”
“You don't think it’s suspicious?”
“Oh, he’s suspicious, I just don't think that is.”
“Don't get pedantic with me. Oh hey, new nails?”
Delilah showed them off, they were sparkly blue. “Like them? I was wondering how long it'd take you to notice.”
“You’re lucky, the Luminary was pretty clear I needed to keep things low key.”
“Not so lucky. But I'll take the perks where I can get them,” she said as she flicked her fingers and watched them sparkle.
“Anyway, you think he's onto us?”
“He's absolutely onto us. He played the damn movie, or at least tried to. And I think that girl who showed up the same time as him, Sarah—”
Delilah coughed into her hand, and Petra looked up.
Sarah was walking towards them. “Hey, mind if I sit with you? Since you're sitting alone I thought…”
Petra and Delilah exchanged looks. “I'm not sitting alone, Delilah is right there.”
Sarah blinked, and squinted. “Oh. Right. I don't know how I didn't see you there. Well… can I join the two of you?”
Delilah's eyes screamed, “It would be weird if you said no.”
“Yeah, go for it,” Petra demurred.
Sarah sat down next to her. “This pizza is weird, it’s nothing like the stuff at my old school.”
“Oh, where was that?” Petra asked.
Sarah froze like a deer in headlights for a second before pivoting with all the grace of the devil. “Psh, oh, you know. New Mexico.”
“Really? What part of New Mexico?”
“Albuquerque,” she said a little too quickly. “I figure since we're both on the track team we should get to know each other a little—you kicked ass in that race yesterday. I tried to get ya at the end, but you really have a kick.”
“Thanks,” Petra said. There was something weird about this girl. Her accent was weird, but not in a way that made sense. It was mostly American Midwest, but with other layers in there that threw off her words every so often.
“I hear you both work at a coffee shop? Is it any good?”
Petra shrugged. “It’s okay.” She was feeling her out. These questions were a little too pointed.
“Hey, do you know if there is a film club here?”
“There isn't one,” Petra said. And this time she was the one who said it too quickly. Shit.
“Ah, too bad. I really like silent film.”
Bullshit, no one liked silent film. “Oh yeah, what are some of your favorites?”
“Well, I'm a little basic in that I love The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari and basically anything Fritz Lang touched, but I really love The Man Who Laughed, Nosferatu,” she mimicked the titular vampire, “and—”
“Okay so you actually do like it?” Petra said.
“... Yeah? I literally just said that?”
“I love silent film. So some people come at me just to tease me about it, or they try to suck up to me with it. But usually they just, like, have seen Chaplin and Metropolis.”
Sarah nodded. “Oh yeah. I get that. At my old school there was this boy who was always trying to pretend he knew about the things I liked,” she laughed. “It was so funny, one time he forgot what he’d looked up about it, and pulled out his phone trying to pretend he wasn't looking it up right in front of me.”
Petra laughed. “Okay, that is pretty—”
“We need to go to our club,” Delilah said.
Petra was about to reply with “What club?” when she looked over and saw her friend’s face. Ah. Right. She was getting into the conversation. That wasn't good.
“Sorry, Delilah is right, we gotta go. Members only, I’ll see you at practice.”
Sarah waved them goodbye and they threw out the remains of their lunches and walked off together.
“You're getting sloppy,” Delilah said.
“Sorry,” she mumbled. “Everything set for tonight?”
Delilah nodded. “We're good to go.”
“Good.” She gritted her teeth.
They were close, she could feel it.
8. The Mission
“This is a weird car,” Sang Mi said, fiddling with the dashboard.
“I’m trying to focus on the targets,” Cwej replied coolly.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, and pulled the blanket up around herself tighter.
“Why are you wearing a thick hoodie and shorts when it’s chilly anyway?”
“I don’t know, it’s what people wear at school.”
“I never struck you as one who cared what other people think.”
She shrugged. “It’s easier if people think you don’t care. They don’t try to push you on it.”
That made an unfortunate amount of sense. He pulled the binoculars back up. Petra and Delilah were lying in wait themselves, sitting on a park bench in what could only be loosely be called a park by the city’s welcome center that lay just off the toll road exit. They were doing normal stuff: scrolling on their phones, showing each other memes and laughing together—it was boring.
Or it would have been boring if it weren’t for three things.
One, no one in their right mind would hang out in front of the city’s welcome center on a weeknight. Or ever. The park was by a noisy exhaust-filled stretch of road and mostly existed to give visitors a sense that this city had nice parks, see? There’s one right there. It was there to perform, not provide.
Two, both of them were still in their work uniforms. Sure, he could understand not changing out of your work uniform if you were crunched for time before going to a social event—but they’d both gotten off work hours ago. Why would you want to stay in your work uniform to sit on a park bench in an unpleasant park?
Three, the two girls were trying to look inconspicuous, but he could tell that one of them was always watching the toll road exit at any time. They were waiting for something.
“How are they going to jump the car?” Sang Mi asked suddenly.
“Sorry?”
“They're watching the toll road right? They're waiting for someone—someone driving into town off the toll road—so how are they going to deal with a car when they're on foot from this far away? Just shoot it? You'd think they’d have set up somewhere to aim if they were doing that.”
He glanced over. “That's pretty astute.”
She smiled. “See, I try to be useful.”
“You are—wait,” he put one hand on the car keys. “They're getting up.”
A car was driving off the tollway, and the pair of girls got to their feet, and stretched out.
Then they reached into their bags, and each pulled out what looked like a breath mask attached by a tube to an air supply they clipped to their belts, and each raised their wrists, which had matching watches. Petra counted down from three with her fingers, and then each tapped their watches.
And they vanished.
“What the hell?” Chris turned the car on, and sped out of the parking lot, towards the black SUV that was coming off the tollway.
The tires blew on it.
The driver’s side window shattered, the driver slumped forward, and the car veered off the road.
At each step, Chris could swear he saw a person standing by the SUV, for just a moment, only to vanish again in a flicker. He pressed on the accelerator as Sang Mi scrambled to put her seatbelt on, pulling the car across the intersection and fishtailing onto the shoulder in front of where the SUV had wrecked. He vaulted out the door, followed by Sang Mi, and rushed to the passenger side door and pulling it open—there were two uniformed officers, not police but government, sitting there limp. He checked their vitals—both alive, the driver probably had a concussion and had a red spot on their forehead but wasn't dead. He grabbed one of their identification badges and rolled his eyes. Of course. Of course it was these assholes. Sang Mi had opened the back seat while he did so, and she looked over at him in a ‘you’ve got to see this’ sort of way, so he obliged the look.
The backseat was caged inside, so whoever had been in there was truly trapped. There was no way to open the doors from the inside, and bars behind the tinted glass windows.
“It’s like a jail cell in a car?” she said, finally surprised by something.
He seethed. “These guys are E.D.E.M. agents. I can't stand E.D.E.M..”
“… Who?” Sang Mi asked.
“They’re a government organization that tries to control who is allowed on this planet. Scumbags, the lot of them. They claim it’s about safety and security, but mostly they break up families.”
He expected Sang Mi to ask, “Why?” or say “That's barbaric!” or something, but instead she just sighed and said: “Yeah, that tracks. Back home they’re always stopping my friend Geraldine at checkpoints and hassling her, looking for excuses to cart her off. I guess some things never change.”
“They should,” Chris said.
Sang Mi crawled in, moving across the seats, “Don’t you dare close the door on me!”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don't know! But I'm in a strange scary place and you’re the only person I know so just like, reassure me or something!”
“I won’t close the door,” he said.
“See, wasn't that easy?”
She crawled back, and held up the fruits of her search. It was a child’s shoe, pink with a princess on it. “They took a kid?”
“See why I hate E.D.E.M.?”
She slid out of the SUV. “Yeah, gotta say I do. What do you think Petra and Delilah did with the child? Is she still in danger?”
Chris leaned against the car. “I don't think so. I think I know what's going on here. I heard about them before, from an… old friend of mine.”
“Heard about who?”
“The Flickers.”
“So if she's not in danger, maybe they can help us? If it’s this E.D.E.M. who is making people disappear?”
Chris gestured for her to follow him back into the car.
She glanced over, and reached in the open passenger side door to take the unconscious man's sunglasses. “Are you going to answer my question, or just be moody about it?”
He turned the car on. “We're going to go check on the kid. I know where she is.”
“I’m trying to focus on the targets,” Cwej replied coolly.
“Sorry,” she mumbled, and pulled the blanket up around herself tighter.
“Why are you wearing a thick hoodie and shorts when it’s chilly anyway?”
“I don’t know, it’s what people wear at school.”
“I never struck you as one who cared what other people think.”
She shrugged. “It’s easier if people think you don’t care. They don’t try to push you on it.”
That made an unfortunate amount of sense. He pulled the binoculars back up. Petra and Delilah were lying in wait themselves, sitting on a park bench in what could only be loosely be called a park by the city’s welcome center that lay just off the toll road exit. They were doing normal stuff: scrolling on their phones, showing each other memes and laughing together—it was boring.
Or it would have been boring if it weren’t for three things.
One, no one in their right mind would hang out in front of the city’s welcome center on a weeknight. Or ever. The park was by a noisy exhaust-filled stretch of road and mostly existed to give visitors a sense that this city had nice parks, see? There’s one right there. It was there to perform, not provide.
Two, both of them were still in their work uniforms. Sure, he could understand not changing out of your work uniform if you were crunched for time before going to a social event—but they’d both gotten off work hours ago. Why would you want to stay in your work uniform to sit on a park bench in an unpleasant park?
Three, the two girls were trying to look inconspicuous, but he could tell that one of them was always watching the toll road exit at any time. They were waiting for something.
“How are they going to jump the car?” Sang Mi asked suddenly.
“Sorry?”
“They're watching the toll road right? They're waiting for someone—someone driving into town off the toll road—so how are they going to deal with a car when they're on foot from this far away? Just shoot it? You'd think they’d have set up somewhere to aim if they were doing that.”
He glanced over. “That's pretty astute.”
She smiled. “See, I try to be useful.”
“You are—wait,” he put one hand on the car keys. “They're getting up.”
A car was driving off the tollway, and the pair of girls got to their feet, and stretched out.
Then they reached into their bags, and each pulled out what looked like a breath mask attached by a tube to an air supply they clipped to their belts, and each raised their wrists, which had matching watches. Petra counted down from three with her fingers, and then each tapped their watches.
And they vanished.
“What the hell?” Chris turned the car on, and sped out of the parking lot, towards the black SUV that was coming off the tollway.
The tires blew on it.
The driver’s side window shattered, the driver slumped forward, and the car veered off the road.
At each step, Chris could swear he saw a person standing by the SUV, for just a moment, only to vanish again in a flicker. He pressed on the accelerator as Sang Mi scrambled to put her seatbelt on, pulling the car across the intersection and fishtailing onto the shoulder in front of where the SUV had wrecked. He vaulted out the door, followed by Sang Mi, and rushed to the passenger side door and pulling it open—there were two uniformed officers, not police but government, sitting there limp. He checked their vitals—both alive, the driver probably had a concussion and had a red spot on their forehead but wasn't dead. He grabbed one of their identification badges and rolled his eyes. Of course. Of course it was these assholes. Sang Mi had opened the back seat while he did so, and she looked over at him in a ‘you’ve got to see this’ sort of way, so he obliged the look.
The backseat was caged inside, so whoever had been in there was truly trapped. There was no way to open the doors from the inside, and bars behind the tinted glass windows.
“It’s like a jail cell in a car?” she said, finally surprised by something.
He seethed. “These guys are E.D.E.M. agents. I can't stand E.D.E.M..”
“… Who?” Sang Mi asked.
“They’re a government organization that tries to control who is allowed on this planet. Scumbags, the lot of them. They claim it’s about safety and security, but mostly they break up families.”
He expected Sang Mi to ask, “Why?” or say “That's barbaric!” or something, but instead she just sighed and said: “Yeah, that tracks. Back home they’re always stopping my friend Geraldine at checkpoints and hassling her, looking for excuses to cart her off. I guess some things never change.”
“They should,” Chris said.
Sang Mi crawled in, moving across the seats, “Don’t you dare close the door on me!”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don't know! But I'm in a strange scary place and you’re the only person I know so just like, reassure me or something!”
“I won’t close the door,” he said.
“See, wasn't that easy?”
She crawled back, and held up the fruits of her search. It was a child’s shoe, pink with a princess on it. “They took a kid?”
“See why I hate E.D.E.M.?”
She slid out of the SUV. “Yeah, gotta say I do. What do you think Petra and Delilah did with the child? Is she still in danger?”
Chris leaned against the car. “I don't think so. I think I know what's going on here. I heard about them before, from an… old friend of mine.”
“Heard about who?”
“The Flickers.”
“So if she's not in danger, maybe they can help us? If it’s this E.D.E.M. who is making people disappear?”
Chris gestured for her to follow him back into the car.
She glanced over, and reached in the open passenger side door to take the unconscious man's sunglasses. “Are you going to answer my question, or just be moody about it?”
He turned the car on. “We're going to go check on the kid. I know where she is.”
* * *
The Violethill, Illinois branch of the Blue Candle Coffee Company was a nice standalone building in a big shopping area that had a bunch of other stores and casual dining chains. It was a rectangular box, with a concrete patio next to it complete with tables and little canvas canopies. The distinctive logo of the company, a blue circle with a stylized lit candle rising up from the bottom, marked the sign by it wordlessly as though to say ‘You know who we are, we don’t need to tell you’.
The café was closed, but the lights were on, and as Chris pulled in, there was movement inside. He parked lazily in front of it, blocking the path in the parking lot, and he and Sang Mi popped out. She'd insisted on putting on the sunglasses she'd taken from the officer, even though it was night. They sauntered up to the door, where a teenage boy in the coffee shop's uniform walked up to the glass and shook his head.
“We're closed!” he said, pointing at the sign.
Chris held up the child's shoe.
The boy’s eyes went wide, and he ran back through the store into the staff area.
He came back, followed by a woman in her 30s wearing a jacket like the employees, but red instead of blue. She opened the door, and smiled at Chris.
“Can I help you?”
“I need to make sure the child is safe.”
“I don’t know what you're talking about, I'm afraid.”
He didn't blink. “From the way the shoe was worn on the inside I’d guess… half-Gretelen?”
The woman didn't change her expression, but clearly sensed the conversation had shifted. “Can I see some ID?”
“No,” he replied. “I'm Chris Cwej. Run that through your database.”
She squinted, examining him closely. “Huh.” What followed was her making a sound that was something like a bird trill, and the teenage boy and another girl coming from the back escorting a small girl who had clearly been crying, hugging a stuffed animal she'd no doubt been given by the staff here since it was modeled to look like a Blue Candle employee.
“Is… is he taking me away?”
Chris squatted down. “No, no, you're safe. I'm just someone here to check up on you. Are they treating you okay here?”
The girl nodded, hiding behind the boy's apron.
Sang Mi raised her sunglasses. “We uh, actually came with your shoe! You lost it, right?”
The girl nodded, and looked up nervously at the boy.
“I'll give her the shoe,” the woman said.
Chris rose, and handed it over to her.
“As you can see, the girl is in good care. If you're worried about her safety, I can guarantee it. That's what we do.”
“You're Flickers, aren’t you? I know about how you operate. That girl, she's going to have to work for you now to keep her freedom.” Chris’ fists tightened. “It’s extortion.”
The woman grimaced. “You have a lot of nerve, coming here, trying to blame us for how things are. You're out there seeing the cosmos, but we have to deal with problems here on Earth, and deal with them as best we can. I was taken in by the Flickers just like her as a child, and they protected me. And we’ll protect the next generation as best we can.”
“And get a lot of free labor along the way,” he countered.
“That’s an interesting sentiment coming from someone who works for such exploitative Superiors.”
Sang Mi glanced between them. “It, uh, sounds like we aren't exactly working at cross purposes here, maybe we can—”
“The disappearing students at the school. Is that you?” Chris asked.
“I won’t confirm or deny anything,” she said coolly. “Especially when you’re so high and mighty about this. So what are you going to do, are you going to fight us?”
Sang Mi noticed that the two teenage employees were reaching into their back pockets, slowly, like they were waiting to see if they needed to draw something out. “Hey, Chris, maybe cool it a little?”
He closed his eyes, and let out a breath. “Sorry,” he said to Sang Mi, and looked back at the woman. “No, I’m not going to fight you. I know you’ll make sure the girl is safe. And you’re right, I’ll leave here in time and won’t be able to protect her the way your organization will.” He leaned in. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it. So watch your back."
He stormed back towards the car, and Sang Mi awkwardly waved goodbye to the group, gave them finger guns, then waved again, and then scampered back into the car.
“What the hell was that?” she asked, as Chris pulled out.
“They’re vultures. They protect kids from people like E.D.E.M..”
“That’s… good, right?”
“That girl will have to work for them. Doing missions. Being put in danger. Hell, making coffee.”
Sang Mi frowned. “But they're rescuing people, right? So she'll help rescue more people in the future?”
“Maybe,” he said. “But notice she didn’t deny they were involved in the disappearances. The Flickers aren’t a rescue organization. They’re interested in gaining power and money. Rescuing more kids to work for them is just part of their business model. Vultures, like I said.”
Looking out the window, the dark road seemed to blend into the bleak horizon. “So you're saying no one is the good guy here.”
“Yeah,” Chris said. “But now we know who we’re dealing with. Petra and Delilah are Flickers. Whatever is happening here it has to be tied up in this somehow.”
“Actually, I’m wrong,” Sang Mi said.
“Hmn?”
“There are good guys here. Team You and Me.”
He looked at her for a moment too long before looking back at the road. “You should stop saying stuff like that, sooner or later I’ll start believing you.”
* * *
Martha stepped into the classroom and looked around. Where was everyone? It was dark, and she was late, and unless the rest of her group was even later it looks like she'd been ditched. She let out the kind of sigh that only being abandoned by your classmates in high school can inspire and was about to head back out when she looked at the whiteboard.
MARTHA, WE’RE IN ROOM 302
Oh, well, that’s okay then. She felt silly for doubting her friends. Petra and Delilah wouldn't have abandoned her. She pulled her phone out and texted them: “Saw your message, on my way!”
Then she paused. Wait. She had forgotten about Sarah, the new transfer student. They'd all exchanged numbers for the project… she searched her contacts and pulled up Sarah Jhe.
“Hey! Did you get the message we changed meeting rooms?”
The reply was really quick. “We're meeting?”
“Yeah for the project. Did Petra not text you?”
“No?”
“How long would it take you to get over to the school?”
“Not long?”
“Cool. Room 302.”
“K”
Great, now that she'd sorted that out.
Wait. Did Petra not tell Sarah because she didn't want her here? She knew they'd been a little testy in class… well, too late, she’d take the heat later if it came to it. She made her way up the stairs, to room 302.
She opened the door to the room. It was technically a lecture hall, but the theater department used it to practice because it had a small stage, and sometimes they would screen movies in it because it had a big pull down screen. Which was technically supposed to be for presentations, but it was also called the Little Theater. And that big pull down screen was pulled down, and on it was playing a movie that Martha had never seen before. There was something familiar about it, but it also looked… weird. That was when she realized.
The person on the screen was her friend George.
George, who had disappeared.
He was dressed in clothes like he was from biblical times, and in black and white, and... silent. The music was playing behind him, but while it looked like he was yelling there were no words coming from his mouth. His fists pounded, like he was trying to break though the screen.
Then a title card appeared like they did in those old Charlie Chaplin films her dad had tried to show her:
Martha! Run! RUN!
“What… George? Are you… are you in here somewhere?”
She looked around, but the projector seemed to be the only thing in the room.
“… Petra? Delilah?”
George reappeared, and he looked even more panicked.
Then another Title Card appeared:
She looked around, but the projector seemed to be the only thing in the room.
“… Petra? Delilah?”
George reappeared, and he looked even more panicked.
Then another Title Card appeared:
You need to LEAVE. It’s a TRAP!
A trap? What did he… she turned around. Delilah was there, blocking the door. When did she get there?
“Delilah? Is this some sort of… thing for the class project? What's going on?”
Delilah shrugged. “It’s just what we gotta do.”
She felt a hand on her shoulder. “No hard feelings,” Petra whispered in her ear.
9. The Reckoning
Sang Mi was in the shower when she got the text. She didn’t like the phone she had to use here—but Chris had told her the one she brought with her would bring too much attention on her so she could only use it in the house. Still, this one had all her contacts at Hughes High. It buzzed—and she had to awkwardly reach out the shower to grab it, and dry her hand sloppily so it would work on the touch screen. It was from Martha, one of her classmates and track teammates.
“Hey! Did you get the message we changed meeting rooms?”
What the heck was she talking about? “We’re meeting?” she wrote back.
“Yeah for the project. Did Petra not text you?”
“No?” Sang Mi replied, and then thought about it. Petra? Petra asked her? But Petra had been out taking down that car?
“How long would it take you to get over to the school?”
Petra had been taking down the car.
But she hadn’t been back at the Blue Candle Coffee Company when they’d visited.
She had gone back to the school.
Sang Mi scrambled out of the shower, drying herself off and grasping for clothes. "Not long?" she wrote back.
“Cool. Room 302.”
“K”
She looked up from her phone after throwing a T-Shirt on, and called out loudly. “CHRIS!? We have a big big problem!”
* * *
They hadn’t wasted any time. They’d thrown on clothes, grabbed their equipment, and started pulling out before they’d even closed the car doors.
They parked in the reserved teacher’s spots close to the door, and stepped out of the car. They'd been wearing clothes to fit in through their whole trip here so far.
But now they were dressed for action.
Chris had put on blue armor, with a silver triangle with another triangle chopped out of the bottom of it over the breast bone. He had a large gun, which for the moment he carried in a duffle bag.
Sang Mi wore black leggings with purple running shorts over them, running shoes, a black shirt with a purple hoodie over it, and a wraparound cloth facemask that was currently pulled down so it resembled a scarf. In one hand she held a sheathed sword, that looked very out of place here.
They walked up to the door, and Sang Mi tapped Chris' teacher ID against the door he took point walking in.
Once they were inside though, they didn't wait. They broke into a run, storming up the stairs, through the halls, and sliding to a halt in front of room 302.
They looked at each other, and Sang Mi pulled her mask up onto her face, which covered it over with a new one made of jagged purple lines forming rough eyes and a mouth.
“Ready?” he asked, and she nodded.
He swung the door open.
There was only the sound of a projector.
They stepped in carefully, Chris and Sang Mi sweeping the room for any occupants. But they didn't see anyone.
All there was was the projector, which was displaying a ridiculous scene—a soldier in US Army fatigues dueling a Germans soldier whose outfit appeared to be confused between World War I and II from whatever the costume team could pull out of the box. The backdrop to their fight was clearly the tomb Jesus had been buried in, with a huge stone in front, ready to be dramatically rolled away. The US soldier had a Roman gladius, the German soldier what they had presumably been pretty confident was a rapier, as it was certainly being held like one.
“No one is here,” Sang Mi said, the lines on her mask moving with her words.
“Which is worrisome. We didn’t see anyone on the way up here, so the best thing we can do right now is look for clues.”
Sang Mi nodded, and walked over to the projector. “This… am I wrong to say that this projector looks out of place?”
Chris walked over, and as he got close enough startled. “You’re… not wrong.” He examined it closely, his face growing more and more concerned. “… This isn’t a normal projector.”
“Well spotted,” a voice called, and both turned to see that Delilah was sitting there, just a few feet away from them, eating popcorn from a bag she had between her knees with one hand, and holding a pistol with the other.
“… When did she get there?” Chris asked himself.
“Shit. I haven’t noticed her when—”
“When I’m right in front of you? It’s been several times now. Actually more than you think. Look, all I have to do is sit still for a second.”
Chris and Sang Mi blinked. “… We were just talking to someone, right?” Sang Mi asked.
“… Yeah, Delilah, I think?” Chris answered.
“See? This is my life,” Delilah sighed, startling the other two. “My father was a Strid, if that means anything to you. My mother actually forgot she gave birth to me. Can you believe that? Just walked right out of the hospital and went on with her life.” She sighed a second time as she kept the pistol leveled. “I’m going to need you to move towards the screen there. No funny movements.”
Chris and Sang Mi both tried a funny movement, only to find that wasn't going to work out. “Yeah, I disarmed you. Sorry. You didn't notice.” She raised her voice. “You can come out now, Petra.” The redheaded girl came into the room, wearing a blue skirt and blue jacket with the Blue Candle Coffee Company logo on the left breast. She was also carrying a pistol.
“Honestly, I was sort of hoping you two would be more of a challenge,” Petra raised her pistol. “But you really did just rush into our trap.”
“Where’s Martha?” Sang Mi asked.
“None of your business.”
“You shouldn’t have brought us here by yourself,” Chris said, and then squinted. “No—no, that’s not right.”
“You’re doing a better job than most remembering Delilah! Not bad!” Her face soured. “But you’re not going to stop me, or us.”
“I don't even know what we're stopping!” Sang Mi yelled.
“Well, you’re not stopping it, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“This can’t all just be about a movie? People have vanished!”
Petra's eyes lit on fire. “This isn’t just a movie. And what you don’t get is that I’m the hero here.”
Chris whispered to Sang Mi, “We break for the door.”
She nodded, but before they could move, Petra tapped her watch, and took a deep breath. Just like they'd seen her do before the two Flickers had raided the SUV.
And in the next moment she was in front of them, landing a flying kick right into Chris' chest, causing him to stagger back. Sang Mi tried to grab her, but she vanished again just as quickly, and Sang Mi found herself shoved by Delilah, who had appeared in front of her. She stumbled back, nearly running into the screen.
But she did touch it, for just a moment, and it felt… weird. It didn’t feel like she’d run into canvas. It was like she’d run into jelly.
Chris was in a similar position.
He tried to say something.
But then the Flickers flickered into existence again, and with a final shove, she found herself falling through the curtain of the world, and shifting into something else entirely.
They parked in the reserved teacher’s spots close to the door, and stepped out of the car. They'd been wearing clothes to fit in through their whole trip here so far.
But now they were dressed for action.
Chris had put on blue armor, with a silver triangle with another triangle chopped out of the bottom of it over the breast bone. He had a large gun, which for the moment he carried in a duffle bag.
Sang Mi wore black leggings with purple running shorts over them, running shoes, a black shirt with a purple hoodie over it, and a wraparound cloth facemask that was currently pulled down so it resembled a scarf. In one hand she held a sheathed sword, that looked very out of place here.
They walked up to the door, and Sang Mi tapped Chris' teacher ID against the door he took point walking in.
Once they were inside though, they didn't wait. They broke into a run, storming up the stairs, through the halls, and sliding to a halt in front of room 302.
They looked at each other, and Sang Mi pulled her mask up onto her face, which covered it over with a new one made of jagged purple lines forming rough eyes and a mouth.
“Ready?” he asked, and she nodded.
He swung the door open.
There was only the sound of a projector.
They stepped in carefully, Chris and Sang Mi sweeping the room for any occupants. But they didn't see anyone.
All there was was the projector, which was displaying a ridiculous scene—a soldier in US Army fatigues dueling a Germans soldier whose outfit appeared to be confused between World War I and II from whatever the costume team could pull out of the box. The backdrop to their fight was clearly the tomb Jesus had been buried in, with a huge stone in front, ready to be dramatically rolled away. The US soldier had a Roman gladius, the German soldier what they had presumably been pretty confident was a rapier, as it was certainly being held like one.
“No one is here,” Sang Mi said, the lines on her mask moving with her words.
“Which is worrisome. We didn’t see anyone on the way up here, so the best thing we can do right now is look for clues.”
Sang Mi nodded, and walked over to the projector. “This… am I wrong to say that this projector looks out of place?”
Chris walked over, and as he got close enough startled. “You’re… not wrong.” He examined it closely, his face growing more and more concerned. “… This isn’t a normal projector.”
“Well spotted,” a voice called, and both turned to see that Delilah was sitting there, just a few feet away from them, eating popcorn from a bag she had between her knees with one hand, and holding a pistol with the other.
“… When did she get there?” Chris asked himself.
“Shit. I haven’t noticed her when—”
“When I’m right in front of you? It’s been several times now. Actually more than you think. Look, all I have to do is sit still for a second.”
Chris and Sang Mi blinked. “… We were just talking to someone, right?” Sang Mi asked.
“… Yeah, Delilah, I think?” Chris answered.
“See? This is my life,” Delilah sighed, startling the other two. “My father was a Strid, if that means anything to you. My mother actually forgot she gave birth to me. Can you believe that? Just walked right out of the hospital and went on with her life.” She sighed a second time as she kept the pistol leveled. “I’m going to need you to move towards the screen there. No funny movements.”
Chris and Sang Mi both tried a funny movement, only to find that wasn't going to work out. “Yeah, I disarmed you. Sorry. You didn't notice.” She raised her voice. “You can come out now, Petra.” The redheaded girl came into the room, wearing a blue skirt and blue jacket with the Blue Candle Coffee Company logo on the left breast. She was also carrying a pistol.
“Honestly, I was sort of hoping you two would be more of a challenge,” Petra raised her pistol. “But you really did just rush into our trap.”
“Where’s Martha?” Sang Mi asked.
“None of your business.”
“You shouldn’t have brought us here by yourself,” Chris said, and then squinted. “No—no, that’s not right.”
“You’re doing a better job than most remembering Delilah! Not bad!” Her face soured. “But you’re not going to stop me, or us.”
“I don't even know what we're stopping!” Sang Mi yelled.
“Well, you’re not stopping it, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“This can’t all just be about a movie? People have vanished!”
Petra's eyes lit on fire. “This isn’t just a movie. And what you don’t get is that I’m the hero here.”
Chris whispered to Sang Mi, “We break for the door.”
She nodded, but before they could move, Petra tapped her watch, and took a deep breath. Just like they'd seen her do before the two Flickers had raided the SUV.
And in the next moment she was in front of them, landing a flying kick right into Chris' chest, causing him to stagger back. Sang Mi tried to grab her, but she vanished again just as quickly, and Sang Mi found herself shoved by Delilah, who had appeared in front of her. She stumbled back, nearly running into the screen.
But she did touch it, for just a moment, and it felt… weird. It didn’t feel like she’d run into canvas. It was like she’d run into jelly.
Chris was in a similar position.
He tried to say something.
But then the Flickers flickered into existence again, and with a final shove, she found herself falling through the curtain of the world, and shifting into something else entirely.
10. The Soldiers of the Stone
Battle on the Easter Front
a film by SERGEI JOHNSON
screenplay by by JOHAN MARS
EXT: The Tomb of Christ
We see a teenage girl, JHE SANG MI (Korean, wearing period clothes from the Goguryeo kingdom, and carrying a straight-edged hwandudaeo sword), next to her mentor CHRISTOPHER RODONANTÉ CWEJ (Caucasian, wearing a pulp sci-fi outfit, complete with jumpsuit and outlandish ray-gun), both picking themselves up from the ground. The colors are off; it’s like the world is a 90s TV movie.
SANG MI
Are we… in the projector?
CWEJ
Unfortunately, yes. This must be what happened to the missing students.
SANG MI goes over to the tomb of Christ; she touches the stone gently.
SANG MI
… What would happen if we rolled this open? We wouldn’t mess with history, would we?"
CWEJ
No, this is just a movie. We wouldn't change history.
A noise catches their attention, and they turn to see Roman chariots approaching. They both stare and squint for a moment before the chariots come into focus better—on the chariots are PETRA KRYUK and DELILAH GIBBONS. Both are holding shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. SANG MI turns to CWEJ.
SANG MI
Uhhhh!?!?!?
CWEJ
It’s just a movie.
SANG MI
So we can’t die?
CWEJ
It’s just a movie we can die in.
SANG MI doesn’t wait; she grabs CWEJ's hand and starts pulling him away, behind a large pile of boulders that look like painted Styrofoam but somehow have the weight of real boulders. She places her hands on her ears and closes her eyes. We hear two muffled booms, and the world around her shakes.
CWEJ
Get up—I know what to do. This is a movie.
SANG MI
More explaining!
CWEJ
Watch.
CWEJ steps out in front of the chariots and,holstering the ray gun while putting his feet wide. This is unnecessary, but cool, as he quickly draws the raygun again, spinning it around his finger and leveling it at the chariots.
CWEJ
(putting on a persona)
I never thought I’d be facing Roman soldiers, but that's the life of a uh, spaceman, I guess!
He FIRES the ray gun, and blasts the rocket launcher out of PETRA’s hand. SANG MI catches on.
SANG MI
Uh, right. And having travelled all the way here from Korea--
A loud buzzer sounds and a red flash appears.
SANG MI
Sorry, um… it’s 33 AD so… uh… right, the Goguryeo kingdom?
There is a ding of approval.
SANG MI
I won’t let my friend Spaceman Cwej be, um… I won’t let the Romans be bad to him!
She holds her sword in a completely period inappropriate way, but she did take a lot of kendo classes and she's good at it. She starts running, and jumps into the air—and finds she is able to jump exactly the amount she needs to do something cool, slashing DELILAH's missile launcher in half. She lands, skidding to a halt.
SANG MI
Cwej—oh my god, Cwej did you see that!?!
CWEJ
I saw it!
PETRA
Perfect!
CWEJ and SANG MI
… What?
PETRA
I think we finally got it; this is way better than before!
SCENE 2
The color is gone. The sounds are mostly gone. There is now an organ playing, underlying the action. But no words are spoken. SANG MI and CWEJ find themselves in a Middle astern home, with dinner being set out on earthenware plates. SANG MI looks around at the various dinner guests and recognizes the missing students: GEORGE, MEGAN, KATHERINE, TASHA, and MARTHA.
SANG MI begins to speak, but the words don't come out. Instead they appear as TITLE CARDS.
a film by SERGEI JOHNSON
screenplay by by JOHAN MARS
EXT: The Tomb of Christ
We see a teenage girl, JHE SANG MI (Korean, wearing period clothes from the Goguryeo kingdom, and carrying a straight-edged hwandudaeo sword), next to her mentor CHRISTOPHER RODONANTÉ CWEJ (Caucasian, wearing a pulp sci-fi outfit, complete with jumpsuit and outlandish ray-gun), both picking themselves up from the ground. The colors are off; it’s like the world is a 90s TV movie.
SANG MI
Are we… in the projector?
CWEJ
Unfortunately, yes. This must be what happened to the missing students.
SANG MI goes over to the tomb of Christ; she touches the stone gently.
SANG MI
… What would happen if we rolled this open? We wouldn’t mess with history, would we?"
CWEJ
No, this is just a movie. We wouldn't change history.
A noise catches their attention, and they turn to see Roman chariots approaching. They both stare and squint for a moment before the chariots come into focus better—on the chariots are PETRA KRYUK and DELILAH GIBBONS. Both are holding shoulder-mounted rocket launchers. SANG MI turns to CWEJ.
SANG MI
Uhhhh!?!?!?
CWEJ
It’s just a movie.
SANG MI
So we can’t die?
CWEJ
It’s just a movie we can die in.
SANG MI doesn’t wait; she grabs CWEJ's hand and starts pulling him away, behind a large pile of boulders that look like painted Styrofoam but somehow have the weight of real boulders. She places her hands on her ears and closes her eyes. We hear two muffled booms, and the world around her shakes.
CWEJ
Get up—I know what to do. This is a movie.
SANG MI
More explaining!
CWEJ
Watch.
CWEJ steps out in front of the chariots and,holstering the ray gun while putting his feet wide. This is unnecessary, but cool, as he quickly draws the raygun again, spinning it around his finger and leveling it at the chariots.
CWEJ
(putting on a persona)
I never thought I’d be facing Roman soldiers, but that's the life of a uh, spaceman, I guess!
He FIRES the ray gun, and blasts the rocket launcher out of PETRA’s hand. SANG MI catches on.
SANG MI
Uh, right. And having travelled all the way here from Korea--
A loud buzzer sounds and a red flash appears.
SANG MI
Sorry, um… it’s 33 AD so… uh… right, the Goguryeo kingdom?
There is a ding of approval.
SANG MI
I won’t let my friend Spaceman Cwej be, um… I won’t let the Romans be bad to him!
She holds her sword in a completely period inappropriate way, but she did take a lot of kendo classes and she's good at it. She starts running, and jumps into the air—and finds she is able to jump exactly the amount she needs to do something cool, slashing DELILAH's missile launcher in half. She lands, skidding to a halt.
SANG MI
Cwej—oh my god, Cwej did you see that!?!
CWEJ
I saw it!
PETRA
Perfect!
CWEJ and SANG MI
… What?
PETRA
I think we finally got it; this is way better than before!
SCENE 2
The color is gone. The sounds are mostly gone. There is now an organ playing, underlying the action. But no words are spoken. SANG MI and CWEJ find themselves in a Middle astern home, with dinner being set out on earthenware plates. SANG MI looks around at the various dinner guests and recognizes the missing students: GEORGE, MEGAN, KATHERINE, TASHA, and MARTHA.
SANG MI begins to speak, but the words don't come out. Instead they appear as TITLE CARDS.
“Are all of you the missing students? We're going to get you out of here!”
We see a shot of MEGAN who shakes her head in close up, with washed out lighting.
“Try to speak carefully. They don't like us cutting to Title Cards too much.”
CWEJ and SANG MI frown at each other. They start speaking, but find now there are no words. They are just speaking with the hope the audience will understand their intention from their body acting—that is, that they are annoyed that they aren't allowed to speak.
A man walks in, wearing period clothes and with a thick beard. He is JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA.
A man walks in, wearing period clothes and with a thick beard. He is JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA.
“We managed to get the body from the Romans; we will make sure it is given a proper burial, in a proper tomb.”
CWEJ looks at SANG MI and starts to gesture—miming rolling an old film camera, and then doing an imitation of PETRA's mannerisms, then touching his heart. SANG MI slaps her forehead. She turns to the old man.
“Take us to the tomb.”
SCENE 3
They are now back at the tomb, and the color has returned. The MISSING STUDENTS look down at their now color bodies. MEGAN starts sobbing.
MEGAN
We can speak again!
CWEJ
Well, that worked.
SANG MI
Thankfully.
GEORGE
But we’re just… here still, in the movie. It’s just a different scene. They’ve moved us between scenes before.
SANG MI
Wait—but have you ever opened the tomb?
MARTHA
No?
SANG MI
Why not?
MEGAN
Petra kept saying it wasn’t good enough. That we had to redo it. Over and over. I’ve done these scenes over and over. Please, please just get us out of here.
CWEJ
We’ll get you out, I promise.
SANG MI
Okay, I think I know what we need to do.
CWEJ
What do you mean?
SANG MI
The short story doesn’t end. The silent film is lost. And the print at the school is damaged. Petra wants to see the ending.
CWEJ
You mean opening the tomb?
SANG MI
All of this is about Petra seeing this movie, that's what the projector does, right? Is it recreating the movie? She wants to see the ending? But it's never good enough. It never meets her standards—she needs something from this.
CWEJ
Does she really need to kidnap people to do that?
SANG MI
There has to be some reasons she has to.
CWEJ looks into the camera.
CWEJ
… You’re right. Of course you’re right. The puzzle pieces have been here. I think I get it. Or something like it. And I know how we end this. We end the movie. We roll back the stone. All of us, right now.
They all rush to the stone—the students, SANG MI, and CWEJ. They push together.
SANG MI
Heave!
CWEJ
Ho!
They push, with all their might. The sound of a thousand chariots starts to edge toward them. There is a strange panic in the noise that shouldn’t be able to come from horse hooves and wheels.
SANG MI
It’s moving!
As the stone rolls away, light billows out of it, a light that glows brighter, and brighter, and BRIGHTER until the camera is overwhelmed, and all there is, is light.
The light fades and…
They are now back at the tomb, and the color has returned. The MISSING STUDENTS look down at their now color bodies. MEGAN starts sobbing.
MEGAN
We can speak again!
CWEJ
Well, that worked.
SANG MI
Thankfully.
GEORGE
But we’re just… here still, in the movie. It’s just a different scene. They’ve moved us between scenes before.
SANG MI
Wait—but have you ever opened the tomb?
MARTHA
No?
SANG MI
Why not?
MEGAN
Petra kept saying it wasn’t good enough. That we had to redo it. Over and over. I’ve done these scenes over and over. Please, please just get us out of here.
CWEJ
We’ll get you out, I promise.
SANG MI
Okay, I think I know what we need to do.
CWEJ
What do you mean?
SANG MI
The short story doesn’t end. The silent film is lost. And the print at the school is damaged. Petra wants to see the ending.
CWEJ
You mean opening the tomb?
SANG MI
All of this is about Petra seeing this movie, that's what the projector does, right? Is it recreating the movie? She wants to see the ending? But it's never good enough. It never meets her standards—she needs something from this.
CWEJ
Does she really need to kidnap people to do that?
SANG MI
There has to be some reasons she has to.
CWEJ looks into the camera.
CWEJ
… You’re right. Of course you’re right. The puzzle pieces have been here. I think I get it. Or something like it. And I know how we end this. We end the movie. We roll back the stone. All of us, right now.
They all rush to the stone—the students, SANG MI, and CWEJ. They push together.
SANG MI
Heave!
CWEJ
Ho!
They push, with all their might. The sound of a thousand chariots starts to edge toward them. There is a strange panic in the noise that shouldn’t be able to come from horse hooves and wheels.
SANG MI
It’s moving!
As the stone rolls away, light billows out of it, a light that glows brighter, and brighter, and BRIGHTER until the camera is overwhelmed, and all there is, is light.
The light fades and…
The light faded and...
It was a different kind of film. A shoddy recording. Like a home movie, poorly lit, and poorly framed. There was a mother and child on the couch, watching a projection on the wall. A VCR was hooked up to it. The walls were old, stain ridden wood paneling and faded dreary floral wallpaper. The mother and child laughed together, cuddling. It is a warm scene, even if its setting is squalid.
Then there was a bang—like something being slammed into a door. Then again.
The mother’s eyes went wide, she picked her daughter up—trying to shush her as she carried her to a cabinet, shoving her inside, next to the cans of tomato sauce. She looked back, and ran for the projector. The projector, of all things—tearing it free and shoving it into her daughter’s hands.
“Mom, what’s going on?”
“Petra, you need to be quiet. No matter what you hear, no matter what happens, you stay quiet, and you don't leave this cabinet. No matter what. Promise?”
“But, Mom—”
“Promise.” It was the firmest she’d ever heard her mom speak. So she nodded in reply.
She slammed the cabinet shut on her, and all there was was darkness and the noise outside it. She held onto what her mother said.
Stay quiet. Don't leave.
The door shattered, and the sound of boots came rushing in.
“E.D.E.M.! Don't move!” a man yelled.
“I need to see your warrant,” her mother said.
“Where’s the girl? Your daughter?”
“She’s not here, I needed a night in.”
“Bullshit. Where is she?”
“I need to call my lawyer, and I need to see your warrant.”
The man laughed. “No one is coming to save you!”
“You need to show me your warrant—”
“She’s resisting arrest,” one of the agents said.
“I'm handcuffed!” she yelled.
And there was a loud smack, and a crack, and a thud. And then a loud painful moan.
“She’s threatening us, you see it too, right Mike?”
“Oh, yeah, absolutely. Damn extraterrestrial breeders.”
Petra tried to cover her ears, but she had to cover her mouth to stop from screaming. She jammed her hand into her mouth, and bit down as the tears fell. She tried to keep from breathing too loud. Her heart raced.
And the sounds continued. As they kept beating her mother. The moans. The screams. The sobs. The sounds of breaking bones.
And then the moans and the screams and the sobs all stopped, and after a little the sounds of thuds and cracks stopped too.
“Damn, we were supposed to question her, find out where the dad is.”
Petra shook. Something built inside her. Her stomach was churning. Her chest burned. She tried to stay quiet, but she was running out of patience. Rage was absorbing her, and it would have overtaken her, if something else hadn’t happened.
There was the smash of something—someone flying through a window, and a skidding landing.
“What the—” one of the E.D.E.M agents cried. And then there was a gunshot. And a scream. And the sound of a second set of running feet. A hit to a man's gut, and the breath leaving his chest. Bones cracking. Air sizzling, Another man’s scream. And anothers. And then whimpering, and the sound of someone approaching the cabinet.
The footsteps got closer.
The rage began to be overtaken by fear. The fear began to be mixed with confusion. She clutched the projector closer. Her heart beat hard, in a different way than before. Her mind raced. What would she do? What could she do?
“It’s okay, well, no it’s not but… you're safe. We're here to protect you,” a teenage girl’s voice from just beyond the cabinet said.
“We were too late,” a teenage boy’s voice said, and he kicked something in sullen fury.
“The kid is still alive, I can see her through the wood here,” she replied to him, and then spoke to Petra again. “I’m going to open the door, okay—wait, Bryce, put a blanket over um, the body.”
There was a pause, and the doors to the cabinet opened.
Looking at her was another girl, in a blue uniform almost like the ones at those coffee shops but with a jacket, with a red splatter on it. Her skin was brown, but her eyes were a molten orange, and it felt like her eyes were looking through her— and maybe even through the wall behind her.
Behind her was a boy in a similar uniform, but with pants instead of a skirt. His fingers were long claws, dripping in blood, which suddenly retracted and looked like normal human fingers as though he suddenly realized what was what.
“Hey, it’s okay, my name is Jenny. What’s yours?”
“P-Petra,” she said breathlessly. She glanced around. The room was splattered with blood, and bodies. Men in black armor and uniforms, in various levels of death. And then one body, covered in a blue blanket.
She knew what was under that.
She knew.
She started hyperventilating.
“Where’s Mom?” she screamed, even though she knew the answer. She didn’t want to know the answer. But she had to ask. Desperately and crucially.
Jenny and Bryce looked at each other. Bryce came closer. “You’re safe. The bastards got your mom. I'm sorry. I know what you're feeling… look, a long time ago, they got my mom too. Not that that… helps or anything.”
Petra shook her head. “No. NO! You're lying!” But she knew they weren’t.
They calmed her down while she panicked, and then pulled her out of the cabinet as the yelling turned to sobs.
Jenny held her, until she stopped crying.
She gave her a tissue, and she blew her nose, and then Jenny held something out to her.
It was a gun. A Stivela 9mm, not that Petra knew that at the time. “We killed most of them. But there’s one that hasn't stopped breathing yet. We’re going to get you out of here, and keep you safe. But if you want to, you can finish him off. You have the right. We’ve been there.”
Petra looked at the gun.
She hesitated.
She picked it up.
And Bryce led her over to a man, bleeding from the forehead, eyes glassy. He didn’t seem to understand what he was looking at as Petra leveled the gun.
She pulled the trigger.
This isn’t yours!
The world flickered. The world pulled, and burnt, and blacked out.
And they were there, back in the classroom, back in room 302. The kidnapped students were there, and they each started touching their faces, their chests. And tears started. “We're free!” George cried.
Petra stumbled up. “No… no, it… I have to finish…”
Sang Mi sprung up from where she'd awoken, sword in hand. “Don’t get near them.”
“How could you do this to us!?” Martha yelled. “We were your friends.”
“I don’t need friends!’ Petra yelled back. “I need to finish the ending! I need to know what happened—” She cut herself off when she saw Delilah’s face as she said she didn’t need friends.
Chris rose up. And at that moment, he was truly the adult in the room. There was an aura of command about him, so when he said, “Megan, George, Katherine, Tasha, Martha? Go. Get out of here. Don’t call the cops, you know you can’t explain what you just saw. I promise you, I'm about to deal with it.”
“But—” Megan began.
“Go. You’re free. Now get out of here. GO.”
They followed his command, and ran out of the room.
He looked to Sang Mi. “I’m going to have a word alone with Petra. Go in the hall and guard Delilah. Don't take your eyes off her, and if she tries to stop moving, nudge her.”
Sang Mi nodded. “… I can do that. What are you going to do…?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then trust me.”
She nodded, and turned the sword towards Delilah. “You heard the man. Out in the hall.”
She complied, and Cwej turned his eyes to Petra, who stood, well, petrified. He waited till he heard the door shut behind Sang Mi.
“We’re going to talk,” Cwej said.
“Are you going to kill me?” she asked.
“We’re going to talk.”
“I kidnapped my classmates. This isn’t something you’re going to let go, I'm not stupid.”
“It wasn’t an evil plan, it wasn't even really a plan,” Chris said softly. “You just wanted to see the ending of that movie, the one you couldn’t finish with your mom.”
“SHUT UP!” Petra yelled.
“Did you think if you used the projector, if you got them to reenact it, it would bring back what you lost?”
“It can make things real! I could… I don’t know, I could do things right this time!”
“Only in a dream,” Chris said. “Dreams are nice, but everyone wakes up. It wouldn't be real. You can’t craft your own Heaven.”
“Heaven? Heaven is out of reach for someone like me. But if I can’t climb to Heaven I’ll claw at the sky till you crawl on the ground just like me,” she spat.
He just held his gaze on her, till she looked away. “You’ve been through Hell. And you’ve hurt people trying to heal your scab-ridden heart. But you haven’t done anything permanent here at this school. Everyone walked away today. I just want to know if you should walk away. Do you want to walk away?”
“You don't understand! When we’re there, in the projector, we’re safe! We have a haven. Things used to be better! If we could just go back.”
“There was never a safe haven for you to run away to. You're running to a shadow of a memory. But I know you wanted it to be real. It felt real.”
“It was real!”
He smiled sadly. “Wouldn’t it be nice if you thought that was true? You can’t build Heaven out of nostalgia.”
She slumped. “I can try.”
“You did try. And it’s time for you to stop running down this empty hole you call paradise.”
Petra sat down, hands clasped on her lap. A tear hit the back of her hands. “Everyone keeps looking away. They just… it doesn’t stop. It never stops.”
He came over, and knelt down, then with a gentleness she hadn’t felt since her mother, took her hands in his own. They were large, calloused, but softer than she expected considering their scars and wear.
“You might not believe me, but I don’t blame you. You’re just a child, and you’ve been wronged by too many people to count. You’ve been failed by malice, and hatred, and by indifference.”
The tears kept coming. “No, I… You’re right, I didn’t care what happened to them. I just… I just wanted to make the movie real. I wanted to… I wanted to go back to how everything was. You’re right about everything.”
“Then I'm also right that you’re not an evil person. You did a good thing, saving that child from E.D.E.M the other day.” He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. “I once… made a deal. I agreed to work for some people I shouldn’t have. And I did a lot of things, a lot of which I regretted. Someone should have told me no. And, now, I’m telling you no. Don’t be me. Be the Petra who saved that little girl, not the… Flicker who kidnapped her classmates to try to fix her past. Be the Petra who Delilah wants to stand by. Be the you your mom hoped you would be.”
She didn’t really say anything he could understand, just nodded and sobbed. He stayed that way with her for a long while, till eventually he walked her out of the classroom, and into the hall where Sang Mi stood watching Delilah, who was sitting by the wall with her legs curled up to her chest.
Delilah moved to stand up, and Sang Mi blocked her with her sword, before Cwej nodded, and she pulled back.
Delilah jumped up, and wrapped her arms around her friend. “I thought you'd be dead.”
“We're not killing either of you,” Cwej said. “But you’re leaving town. Tonight. The Flickers can send replacements, but your mission here is done. You don’t come back.”
Delilah glanced over. “And the projector?”
“I'm keeping it. Non-negotiable.”
“That’s fair,” Petra said. She looked up at Delilah. “You can throw me under the bus here, for the failure—”
“Oh, shut up, we’re a team. I’ll be with you on the next job.”
Petra, who had finally stopped crying just a bit ago, started again, and nodded, covering her face.
Sang Mi looked over at Cwej, and as their eyes met, they both knew that their mission was indeed accomplished.
It was a different kind of film. A shoddy recording. Like a home movie, poorly lit, and poorly framed. There was a mother and child on the couch, watching a projection on the wall. A VCR was hooked up to it. The walls were old, stain ridden wood paneling and faded dreary floral wallpaper. The mother and child laughed together, cuddling. It is a warm scene, even if its setting is squalid.
Then there was a bang—like something being slammed into a door. Then again.
The mother’s eyes went wide, she picked her daughter up—trying to shush her as she carried her to a cabinet, shoving her inside, next to the cans of tomato sauce. She looked back, and ran for the projector. The projector, of all things—tearing it free and shoving it into her daughter’s hands.
“Mom, what’s going on?”
“Petra, you need to be quiet. No matter what you hear, no matter what happens, you stay quiet, and you don't leave this cabinet. No matter what. Promise?”
“But, Mom—”
“Promise.” It was the firmest she’d ever heard her mom speak. So she nodded in reply.
She slammed the cabinet shut on her, and all there was was darkness and the noise outside it. She held onto what her mother said.
Stay quiet. Don't leave.
The door shattered, and the sound of boots came rushing in.
“E.D.E.M.! Don't move!” a man yelled.
“I need to see your warrant,” her mother said.
“Where’s the girl? Your daughter?”
“She’s not here, I needed a night in.”
“Bullshit. Where is she?”
“I need to call my lawyer, and I need to see your warrant.”
The man laughed. “No one is coming to save you!”
“You need to show me your warrant—”
“She’s resisting arrest,” one of the agents said.
“I'm handcuffed!” she yelled.
And there was a loud smack, and a crack, and a thud. And then a loud painful moan.
“She’s threatening us, you see it too, right Mike?”
“Oh, yeah, absolutely. Damn extraterrestrial breeders.”
Petra tried to cover her ears, but she had to cover her mouth to stop from screaming. She jammed her hand into her mouth, and bit down as the tears fell. She tried to keep from breathing too loud. Her heart raced.
And the sounds continued. As they kept beating her mother. The moans. The screams. The sobs. The sounds of breaking bones.
And then the moans and the screams and the sobs all stopped, and after a little the sounds of thuds and cracks stopped too.
“Damn, we were supposed to question her, find out where the dad is.”
Petra shook. Something built inside her. Her stomach was churning. Her chest burned. She tried to stay quiet, but she was running out of patience. Rage was absorbing her, and it would have overtaken her, if something else hadn’t happened.
There was the smash of something—someone flying through a window, and a skidding landing.
“What the—” one of the E.D.E.M agents cried. And then there was a gunshot. And a scream. And the sound of a second set of running feet. A hit to a man's gut, and the breath leaving his chest. Bones cracking. Air sizzling, Another man’s scream. And anothers. And then whimpering, and the sound of someone approaching the cabinet.
The footsteps got closer.
The rage began to be overtaken by fear. The fear began to be mixed with confusion. She clutched the projector closer. Her heart beat hard, in a different way than before. Her mind raced. What would she do? What could she do?
“It’s okay, well, no it’s not but… you're safe. We're here to protect you,” a teenage girl’s voice from just beyond the cabinet said.
“We were too late,” a teenage boy’s voice said, and he kicked something in sullen fury.
“The kid is still alive, I can see her through the wood here,” she replied to him, and then spoke to Petra again. “I’m going to open the door, okay—wait, Bryce, put a blanket over um, the body.”
There was a pause, and the doors to the cabinet opened.
Looking at her was another girl, in a blue uniform almost like the ones at those coffee shops but with a jacket, with a red splatter on it. Her skin was brown, but her eyes were a molten orange, and it felt like her eyes were looking through her— and maybe even through the wall behind her.
Behind her was a boy in a similar uniform, but with pants instead of a skirt. His fingers were long claws, dripping in blood, which suddenly retracted and looked like normal human fingers as though he suddenly realized what was what.
“Hey, it’s okay, my name is Jenny. What’s yours?”
“P-Petra,” she said breathlessly. She glanced around. The room was splattered with blood, and bodies. Men in black armor and uniforms, in various levels of death. And then one body, covered in a blue blanket.
She knew what was under that.
She knew.
She started hyperventilating.
“Where’s Mom?” she screamed, even though she knew the answer. She didn’t want to know the answer. But she had to ask. Desperately and crucially.
Jenny and Bryce looked at each other. Bryce came closer. “You’re safe. The bastards got your mom. I'm sorry. I know what you're feeling… look, a long time ago, they got my mom too. Not that that… helps or anything.”
Petra shook her head. “No. NO! You're lying!” But she knew they weren’t.
They calmed her down while she panicked, and then pulled her out of the cabinet as the yelling turned to sobs.
Jenny held her, until she stopped crying.
She gave her a tissue, and she blew her nose, and then Jenny held something out to her.
It was a gun. A Stivela 9mm, not that Petra knew that at the time. “We killed most of them. But there’s one that hasn't stopped breathing yet. We’re going to get you out of here, and keep you safe. But if you want to, you can finish him off. You have the right. We’ve been there.”
Petra looked at the gun.
She hesitated.
She picked it up.
And Bryce led her over to a man, bleeding from the forehead, eyes glassy. He didn’t seem to understand what he was looking at as Petra leveled the gun.
She pulled the trigger.
This isn’t yours!
The world flickered. The world pulled, and burnt, and blacked out.
And they were there, back in the classroom, back in room 302. The kidnapped students were there, and they each started touching their faces, their chests. And tears started. “We're free!” George cried.
Petra stumbled up. “No… no, it… I have to finish…”
Sang Mi sprung up from where she'd awoken, sword in hand. “Don’t get near them.”
“How could you do this to us!?” Martha yelled. “We were your friends.”
“I don’t need friends!’ Petra yelled back. “I need to finish the ending! I need to know what happened—” She cut herself off when she saw Delilah’s face as she said she didn’t need friends.
Chris rose up. And at that moment, he was truly the adult in the room. There was an aura of command about him, so when he said, “Megan, George, Katherine, Tasha, Martha? Go. Get out of here. Don’t call the cops, you know you can’t explain what you just saw. I promise you, I'm about to deal with it.”
“But—” Megan began.
“Go. You’re free. Now get out of here. GO.”
They followed his command, and ran out of the room.
He looked to Sang Mi. “I’m going to have a word alone with Petra. Go in the hall and guard Delilah. Don't take your eyes off her, and if she tries to stop moving, nudge her.”
Sang Mi nodded. “… I can do that. What are you going to do…?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then trust me.”
She nodded, and turned the sword towards Delilah. “You heard the man. Out in the hall.”
She complied, and Cwej turned his eyes to Petra, who stood, well, petrified. He waited till he heard the door shut behind Sang Mi.
“We’re going to talk,” Cwej said.
“Are you going to kill me?” she asked.
“We’re going to talk.”
“I kidnapped my classmates. This isn’t something you’re going to let go, I'm not stupid.”
“It wasn’t an evil plan, it wasn't even really a plan,” Chris said softly. “You just wanted to see the ending of that movie, the one you couldn’t finish with your mom.”
“SHUT UP!” Petra yelled.
“Did you think if you used the projector, if you got them to reenact it, it would bring back what you lost?”
“It can make things real! I could… I don’t know, I could do things right this time!”
“Only in a dream,” Chris said. “Dreams are nice, but everyone wakes up. It wouldn't be real. You can’t craft your own Heaven.”
“Heaven? Heaven is out of reach for someone like me. But if I can’t climb to Heaven I’ll claw at the sky till you crawl on the ground just like me,” she spat.
He just held his gaze on her, till she looked away. “You’ve been through Hell. And you’ve hurt people trying to heal your scab-ridden heart. But you haven’t done anything permanent here at this school. Everyone walked away today. I just want to know if you should walk away. Do you want to walk away?”
“You don't understand! When we’re there, in the projector, we’re safe! We have a haven. Things used to be better! If we could just go back.”
“There was never a safe haven for you to run away to. You're running to a shadow of a memory. But I know you wanted it to be real. It felt real.”
“It was real!”
He smiled sadly. “Wouldn’t it be nice if you thought that was true? You can’t build Heaven out of nostalgia.”
She slumped. “I can try.”
“You did try. And it’s time for you to stop running down this empty hole you call paradise.”
Petra sat down, hands clasped on her lap. A tear hit the back of her hands. “Everyone keeps looking away. They just… it doesn’t stop. It never stops.”
He came over, and knelt down, then with a gentleness she hadn’t felt since her mother, took her hands in his own. They were large, calloused, but softer than she expected considering their scars and wear.
“You might not believe me, but I don’t blame you. You’re just a child, and you’ve been wronged by too many people to count. You’ve been failed by malice, and hatred, and by indifference.”
The tears kept coming. “No, I… You’re right, I didn’t care what happened to them. I just… I just wanted to make the movie real. I wanted to… I wanted to go back to how everything was. You’re right about everything.”
“Then I'm also right that you’re not an evil person. You did a good thing, saving that child from E.D.E.M the other day.” He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. “I once… made a deal. I agreed to work for some people I shouldn’t have. And I did a lot of things, a lot of which I regretted. Someone should have told me no. And, now, I’m telling you no. Don’t be me. Be the Petra who saved that little girl, not the… Flicker who kidnapped her classmates to try to fix her past. Be the Petra who Delilah wants to stand by. Be the you your mom hoped you would be.”
She didn’t really say anything he could understand, just nodded and sobbed. He stayed that way with her for a long while, till eventually he walked her out of the classroom, and into the hall where Sang Mi stood watching Delilah, who was sitting by the wall with her legs curled up to her chest.
Delilah moved to stand up, and Sang Mi blocked her with her sword, before Cwej nodded, and she pulled back.
Delilah jumped up, and wrapped her arms around her friend. “I thought you'd be dead.”
“We're not killing either of you,” Cwej said. “But you’re leaving town. Tonight. The Flickers can send replacements, but your mission here is done. You don’t come back.”
Delilah glanced over. “And the projector?”
“I'm keeping it. Non-negotiable.”
“That’s fair,” Petra said. She looked up at Delilah. “You can throw me under the bus here, for the failure—”
“Oh, shut up, we’re a team. I’ll be with you on the next job.”
Petra, who had finally stopped crying just a bit ago, started again, and nodded, covering her face.
Sang Mi looked over at Cwej, and as their eyes met, they both knew that their mission was indeed accomplished.
* * *
Petra and Delilah withdrew from school suddenly, leaving the track team with a big absence. Sang Mi had the unfortunate job of telling her coach that she would be leaving too, along with her uncle who had taken a new teaching job in Hoboken, a town that she had had to practice saying several times before she could properly pronounce it.
There was a tearful farewell with her short term classmates.
“I’m really going to miss you,” Martha said. “I know I’m not supposed to talk about what happened but… I’ll never forget you.”
Sang Mi patted her on the back as she cried into her shoulder. “I won’t forget you either, promise.”
They packed their stuff up at the house, and got ready for the transport back home.
She’d only been here a few weeks, but she'd grown a little familiar with this strange place. She'd miss it.
“You ready to go?” Chris asked her, knocking on the open door to her room.
“Not really,” she looked back at him. “But also yes. I’m ready to go back. To see my friends. Hug my mom. But… I also don’t want this to stop.”
“I wish you could come with me on another one of these,” he said. “But my Superiors were pretty skeptical of even this one.”
“Because I'm a teenager?”
“No, because They think that They’re above people from other versions of history. Heck, I’m from Theirs and They look down on everyone there enough as it is. But you should go back to school. And… I’ll be by again when I can. I can’t promise it will be soon."
She zipped her bag up. “I get it. There's all sorts of rules everywhere. I got to have another adventure with you; that was special as it is. If you come back again, I’ll be waiting. I’ll keep a bag packed. But I won’t be waiting around. When you see me again, you’ll say to yourself, ‘Gosh, is that really Sang Mi? I thought she was such a tepid little thing. She’s really blossomed.’ And you’ll be really proud.”
“I won’t think that, because I’m already proud. I’d have been proud if all you’d done was get out of that hospital. But here you are.”
She looked out the window. The sun was going down, but the light was still warm. “I was right about you, you know. You travel around and help people. Point, Sang Mi.”
“Oh yeah—you said you’d give me a prize at the diner. You ever think of something.”
She hadn’t, but it suddenly seemed obvious. She reached into her hair, and pulled out her deer-shaped hairclip. Walking over, she placed it in his palm, and closed his fingers around it. “Yesterday, I saw a deer.”
“You know, really, most people compare me to a bear.”
“I’m not most people. Let's get me home. Just think of me, now and then.”
“Of course I will.”
She paused. “Hey, what happened to the cat, anyway?”
“Oh right, I rehomed it. Which reminds me, we'll have one last stop.”
* * *
“We have two new students to introduce to you today, I'm sure you noticed them, please make Petra Kryuk and Delilah Gibbons feel welcome,” Mr. Turandot said. Petra smiled at the rest of the class.
“Look forward to getting to know all of you!” she said, “And my friend Delilah here can be a bit shy, so try not to forget about her.”
Delilah chuckled at that.
“Well,” a girl said, “Tell us about yourselves.”
“Well I run Track,” Petra said.
“Oh, and we both work at the Blue Candle Coffee Company, the one on Harrison street.”
“Do we get a discount?” a boy called from the back, which got an obligatory laugh.
“No,” Petra said, to more laughter. “Oh, and I recently adopted a cat. She’s a black and white kitty.” Her cat was more black and white than the class realized. “And I got to name her, so her name is Cwej.”
The girl who'd started the questions gave a quizzical look. “What kind of a name is that?”
Petra smiled, a real smile. “Name of someone who… put me back on the right track. Real cool guy.”
“Okay but seriously, can we get a discount?” a second boy asked.
* * *
Cwej and Sang Mi stepped out of the car, it was the last leg of their trip, and a final stop for Sang Mi. They'd had dinner together, and even stopped at the local Blue Candle Coffee where Sang Mi had tried to tease the staff a bit too much before Cwej dragged her out by the scruff of her shirt.
“An aircraft hangar?” Sang Mi said.
Cwej shut the door. “Yeah, I heard this would be a good spot for this.”
“With airplanes?”
He smirked. “They stopped putting aircraft here a long time ago. Have you ever seen Indiana Jones?”
She leaned on the car and shook her head. “Have I read Shakespeare and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Please, I am a cultured young lady.”
“Alright, my apologies, well, think of the warehouse at the end.”
She nodded, and they walked up to the front desk.
A woman looked up at them from the fashion magazine she was reading.
“Hello, welcome to SIGNET Headquarters, how can I help you?”
“Hi there, we wanted to drop something off?”
“Oh, who is the package for?”
“Not for anyone in particular… It’s…”" he leaned in, “Something for the archive.”
She nodded very slowly, and then gave a big wink. “Right, yes. A thingy for that. Actually why are you being all secretive, that’s not really a secret thing to ask?”
Sang Mi held out the projector. “Just lock this away somewhere, it’s dangerous.”
“Oh! I know about these. You know, these were actually available for a while in stores when it was built. But they were all recalled. Pity.”
Chris and Sang Mi looked at each other.
“… Were they recalled because of kidnappings?”
“What? Oh no, it just wasn't a very fun toy.”
“Ah,” Sang Mi replied.
“Well, thank you for your help…” Cwej looked for her nametag. “Olivia.”
She waved them goodbye. And Sang Mi whispered. “She didn't ask for our names.”
“Yeah, just keep it that way.”
They drove off together, the sun setting for a second time.
“Well, it’s time to say goodbye,” he said, as they made a turn. “I’ll miss you.”
“I'll miss you too.”
“Any last stops?”
“Yeah, pull over here.”
He did, there wasn't really anything there, just a gravel pull off and the horizon. Sang Mi got out of the car, and sat on the hood; he got out, and looked at her quizzically. She patted the hood next to her, and he sat down too.
“What's this?”
“It’s you watching the sunset with me, you idiot.”
“I’ve seen a lot of sunsets,” he replied.
“You haven't seen this one.”
He looked out at it, and glanced at her, then back at the orange glow of the horizon.
You know, he hated to admit it, but she was right.
It was beautiful to live this moment together for the first and last time.
“An aircraft hangar?” Sang Mi said.
Cwej shut the door. “Yeah, I heard this would be a good spot for this.”
“With airplanes?”
He smirked. “They stopped putting aircraft here a long time ago. Have you ever seen Indiana Jones?”
She leaned on the car and shook her head. “Have I read Shakespeare and the Romance of the Three Kingdoms? Please, I am a cultured young lady.”
“Alright, my apologies, well, think of the warehouse at the end.”
She nodded, and they walked up to the front desk.
A woman looked up at them from the fashion magazine she was reading.
“Hello, welcome to SIGNET Headquarters, how can I help you?”
“Hi there, we wanted to drop something off?”
“Oh, who is the package for?”
“Not for anyone in particular… It’s…”" he leaned in, “Something for the archive.”
She nodded very slowly, and then gave a big wink. “Right, yes. A thingy for that. Actually why are you being all secretive, that’s not really a secret thing to ask?”
Sang Mi held out the projector. “Just lock this away somewhere, it’s dangerous.”
“Oh! I know about these. You know, these were actually available for a while in stores when it was built. But they were all recalled. Pity.”
Chris and Sang Mi looked at each other.
“… Were they recalled because of kidnappings?”
“What? Oh no, it just wasn't a very fun toy.”
“Ah,” Sang Mi replied.
“Well, thank you for your help…” Cwej looked for her nametag. “Olivia.”
She waved them goodbye. And Sang Mi whispered. “She didn't ask for our names.”
“Yeah, just keep it that way.”
They drove off together, the sun setting for a second time.
“Well, it’s time to say goodbye,” he said, as they made a turn. “I’ll miss you.”
“I'll miss you too.”
“Any last stops?”
“Yeah, pull over here.”
He did, there wasn't really anything there, just a gravel pull off and the horizon. Sang Mi got out of the car, and sat on the hood; he got out, and looked at her quizzically. She patted the hood next to her, and he sat down too.
“What's this?”
“It’s you watching the sunset with me, you idiot.”
“I’ve seen a lot of sunsets,” he replied.
“You haven't seen this one.”
He looked out at it, and glanced at her, then back at the orange glow of the horizon.
You know, he hated to admit it, but she was right.
It was beautiful to live this moment together for the first and last time.
If You Enjoyed This Story, Check out the New Full-Length Cwej Adventure "The Midas Touch" by James Hornby!
