Writing Challenge Winner: Neutral Zone by Olivia Kasych

Olivia is a 15 year old writer who has participated in many of the library’s writing challenges, including last summer’s Voyager Writing Challenge and this spring’s Bad Guy Writing Challenge. Neutral Zone is a science fiction story that leads the main character through multiple universes to battle against his alternate self!

Check it out below!

Derick slouched in his chair. The seemingly endless babble of his History teacher discouraged any interest he had in the Industrial Revolution, which was none in the first place. He just wanted the class to be over and the weekend to start. He stared blankly at his History book, trying to make sense of it. His teacher was not even talking about the Industrial Revolution at this point, instead about a bet that he made with one of Derick’s classmates. It was something about a race around the school with Derick’s fastest classmate.

Derick shrugged and tried to fill out notes for the section. He hurried through them, barely reading the section, so he could finish before the bell, which was supposed to go off in five minutes.

When the clock was in the last minute, Derick could hear the sea of eager children quickly stacking all the stuff they had in messy piles on their desks. He was doing it too, so he had no room to judge.

The bell rang and Derick almost had to run out of the classroom to get to his locker before the hallway became too crowded. He shoved his stuff in his backpack, closed his locker, and was out the door before someone could count to ten.

“Hey, dude!” called someone from behind him. Derick looked over his shoulder to find his friend Chris running after him. “You’re taking me home today, remember? And what’s got you hurrying?”

“Sorry, I forgot,” Derick answered as he slowed down a bit for Chris to catch up. “And Mom’s got to go for her yearly check up today. I didn’t want to miss my chance.”

“You knew I was coming you dumb nut, and okay.” They both continued to run to Derick’s mom’s car. The red minivan was not hard to miss. Sprinting across the parking lot was not their best idea, Derick admitted, but they did get there faster than they would have any other way.

“Boys!” Derick’s mom exclaimed once they got in the car.

“Sorry for Sprinting,” Derick apologized. “But the car was over the Verizon.” He added gun fingers.

“Derick no!” Chris said, threatening to get out of his seat and leave.

“Derick yes!” Derick retorted. He loved to mess with Chris like that.

His mom sighed. “Can we not have one moment of peace?” she asked wishfully.

“Nope,” Derick and Chris said at the same time.

The drive home was a quick three minutes. Derick’s mom dropped them at the front door and drove off. Derick walked up to the door and rummaged around in his pocket to find the key to the house…

Of which he accidentally left in the long gone red minivan that belongs to his mom. He face palmed.

“You left the key in the car, didn’t you?” Chris asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yep,” Derick said.

“Dude, you have a problem. That’s the third time this week.”

“I know.”

“And your mom’s going to kill you next time you do it.”

“I know.”

“Just saying.” Chris sat down on the front step. “You know, that cloud looks like a dragon.”

Derick joined him. “No, it looks like a Star Destroyer from Star Wars.”

“You and your Star Wars.” Chris said, shaking his head.

Derick heard something that sounded like a bomb went off in his backyard. He noticed Chris was not put off by it. Derick wondered if he was hearing things, but he figured it would be safe to check anyway.

“Hey, I’m gonna go check on something,” he told Chris while trying to strain his neck around to see his backyard.

“Sure dude,” Chris shrugged and went back to stabbing the ground with sticks he found laying in the grass. Derick rolled his eyes.

Derick quickly climbed over his fence to see what was going on. He could not believe what he saw. There was a huge crater in the middle of his backyard. In the center was a short person, about a head shorter than Derick. He wore a tan short-sleeve shirt with one light green triangle in the center of the sleeve. The tan color matched the color of his skin pretty well, but his skin was a tad bit lighter. Under it was an orange shirt with sleeves that reached his elbows. It was matched with dark brown cargo shorts. He had light blue shoes on and a sash that contained little containers full of paint that was pretty much every color of the rainbow. He had dark brown hair, the color matched Derick’s, and different colored eyes which seemed to change every few seconds. Some black paint was splatted near where his nose was, but he did not seem to notice.

Derick only had about a thousand questions for him, but another person was hovering in the air. Derick looked again and realized that he was not hovering, but sitting on a swing made of blood red strings. The strings seemed to be coming from markings on his arms. He wore a black t-shirt with grey sweats. He had on black shoes. His skin was a dark brown and his hair pitch black. His crazed grin sent a shiver down Derick’s spine. He had a bad feeling about this.

“It’s all your fault, Terrace,” the person on the swing said. “If you let me do my job, we wouldn’t be here, would we?”

“If I let you do your ‘job,’ Vick,” Terrace said. Derick assumed that was his name because the other person said so. “There wouldn’t be anything left!”

Derick was glad both of them had not noticed him yet. They both looked piping mad at each other and he wanted no part in that. He tried sneaking back over the fence. It was going well, he almost made it over.

Almost.

Another chill went down his spine. He felt like he was being watched. He froze, not daring to move.

“Well, what do we have here?” sneered Vick. Derick could tell it was him because his voice was a lot harsher than Terrace’s.

“Gosh darn it,” Derick mumbled to himself. He turned his head back around. He saw both of them now staring at him.

Terrace had a terrified look on his face while Vick continued to smile. Vick pointed his hand at Derick and his markings started to glow.

“Don’t do it Vick!” Terrace yelled. “You can’t kill him! This is the original AW, don’t you know that?” He pronounced ‘AW’ as two individual letters.

Derick was confused. He had no idea what was going on.

Vick lowered his hand and his markings stopped glowing. “What makes you think I was gonna kill him?” he asked Terrace. “You brought us here anyway.”

“No I didn’t!” Terrace yelled back. “You did!”

Derick noticed that, at this point, their battle had been forgotten and they now resorted to bickering with each other. Derick used this time to finish making his way over the fence. He could not leave them like that in his backyard, so he used a crack in the fence to watch them.

“Hi!” someone exclaimed next to Derick. He jumped back and turned to look at the person. He was wearing a light grey t-shirt and dark blue basketball shorts. He had on light blue shoes, which matched the color of the scarf he had around his neck. His skin tone was the same as Derick’s, a tan color, light brown hair, and, to Derick’s surprise, green eyes. He had on a big smile.

“What are you doing here?” Derick asked. He had no idea who this person was. “It isn’t safe!”

“You mean them?” The person pointed at the fence, but Derick knew what he meant. “They always do that! That’ll be over soon!” He giggled. “I’m Cerulean by the way!”

Derick shook Cerulean’s outstretched hand.

“You know them?”

“Of course I do! Terrace is my friend! He helped create the multiverse and the AWs! Vick destroys the AWs.”

“Hold up, what multiverse? That’s just a dumb theory. It’s not real!”

“You better believe it! Where you live is called an Alternate World, or AW for short! Your AW is the first one and mine’s the second!”

“You’re bluffing!”

“Nope! Derick, everything I said was true!”

“How do you know my name?” Cerulean did not answer. “I don’t remember telling you.”

Cerulean took a deep breath in and out. “Derick, I-”

Something blasted the fence gate and destroyed it. Cerulean and Derick ducked for cover. When he looked up, Derick saw Terrace run over towards them. “Cerulean!?” he called frantically.

“I’m here!” Cerulean called back from behind a bush. Terrace looked relieved. “So is Derick!” Cerulean added.

“I’m over here!” Derick called. He and Cerulean got up from behind the bushes. Derick quickly looked at the damage to the fence gate. He could not even recognize that there was a fence there. He further looked around the wreckage into his backyard to check for Vick.

“What happened?” He heard Cerulean ask Terrace behind him.

“Well, Vick and I were arguing for a bit and, well, you know how unstable he is,

he…uh…” Terrace stumbled around for words to describe it. “Kinda wrapped his strings around part of the porch and threw it at me. I dodged and it hit the gate. Then I laughed at him for missing me and he tried to hit me with a fence post. He stormed off to who-knows-where.”

“Man! How am I going to explain this!” Derick exclaimed. “I’m home for ten minutes and my backyard looks like I was experimenting with nukes and accidentally exploded one!” Derick was freaking out.

“Derick!” Terrace yelled. Derick stopped. “I can fix this, just give me a sec!”

“Really?” Derick scoffed. “This is not a one man jo—” Terrace generated two paint brushes out of thin air and, with a determined look in his eyes, proceeded to draw Derick’s backyard back to its original state.

“How?” Derick gaped. He was in shock.

“Terrace is the god of Creativity,” Cerulean added.

“Oh.” Derick recalled Cerulean saying something like that earlier.

“Oh yeah! I was going to tell you how I knew your name!”

“I would still like to know.”

“Well, so, basically, I’M YOU IN MY AW!”

Derick was surprised. He did not see the connection until then. “So are Terrace and Vick?”

“Yes,” Cerulean said, with less enthusiasm.

“What’s with the nicknames then?”

“Derick, you are more important than you realize!”

Terrace started laughing, much to both of their surprise. They both looked at him weirdly. “What?” Terrace asked.

“Does he always do that?” Derick asked Cerulean quietly.

“Yes, but sometimes it’s a bit different. The other day, he got really mad at me for no reason. A second later, he apologized to me for it and claimed he didn’t know what got over him. I think he’s keeping something from me.” Cerulean whispered back.

“ ‘I got a bad feeling about this,’ ” Derick said in his best impersonation of Han Solo. Cerulean laughed.

“You want to see something cool?” Cerulean asked Derick excitedly.

“Sure,” Derick said, winking one eye and smiling.

Cerulean bounded over to Terrace. “Terrace!! Can we show him the place??” he asked.

“Which place?” Terrace asked playfully. Derick could tell Terrace knew which place Cerulean was talking about.

“You know what place, silly!” Cerulean smiled.

“Okay,” Terrace said. “I guess I can do that.”

“Yay!” Cerulean cheered. “Come on, Derick!” Terrace drew a big portal-like thing with his paint brushes, stepped in, and disappeared. Cerulean did the same.

Derick did not know if he wanted to go with some strangers to some place. Scratch that, he wanted to go, he just did not know if he should. He figured a few moments could not hurt, so he walked through the portal. ​Gotta trust myself at some point​he sighed. ~~~~~~

Derick had to take a step back. The teleportation made him a bit queasy, but Terrace reassured him that it was only because it was his first time.

“Derick, welcome to AW 10,” Terrace said. “Or, specifically, to Upmost, Earth satellite and a hospitable place for humans.”

At the moment, Derick realized…

He was in space.

Derick had to step back to take in the breathtaking view of the Earth from space. He could see the sun peaking out from just over the horizon the Earth made.

“Wait, how can we breathe up here?” Derick asked.

“This place is covered by a sort of force field,” Cerulean explained. “I’m not sure exactly how it works, but in the building over there is a generator that generates oxygen.” Cerulean gestured toward a whitish-grey covered building in the distance. The building seemed to be laid out in sections and each section was connected by some sort of above-ground tunnel.

“Here comes the head man,” Terrace announced. Derick saw someone emerge from the building. He was taller than all of them and wore a white lab coat over a dark gray shirt. “Derick, this is Astro. He’s a future you that’s a scientist. He also runs things around here.”

“Hello,” Astro said. Derick gave him a small wave. Astro turned his attention towards Terrace. “Terrace, I don’t mind that you come here, but you have to tell me beforehand, got it?”

“Sorry,” Terrace apologized. “But I had to show Derick around, Cerulean begged me.”

“This is your one pass,” Astro said.

“Hey Derick!” Cerulean pulled on Derick’s shirt. “How about I show you around?”

“Okay.” Derick followed Cerulean inside the building.

Derick barely paid attention to Cerulean giving him a tour. He really was fascinated by the structure, but he was not feeling well. Shortly after entering the building, he heard a ringing sound in his ears. After a while, he also felt incredibly hot.

“Hey, Cerulean?” Derick started to ask. “Is it hot in here or what?”

“Derick, are you okay?” Cerulean asked. “This room is practically a big freezer for all the food here.”

“Nah, I’m fine,” Derick lied. His vision started to blur. His knees buckled and he fell forward.

“Derick!” Cerulean screamed, but Derick did not hear him. He had blacked out.

Derick opened his eyes. He seemed to still be in the building. The air was musty with the smell of blood. A strange fog covered the area, giving it an eerie feel. Derick started walking around. He saw a shadowy outline in the fog. After getting a bit closer, he identified the outline as Cerulean.

Cerulean was really beat up. He had generated some sort of weapon that hung loosely in his right hand. Derick made a mental note to ask about it later.

Cerulean noticed Derick. “What are you doing here? It’s not safe!” Derick heard laughter behind him. “Watch out!” Cerulean yelled. Derick turned around to try and identify what the threat was. He tried to move, but he was not fast enough.

He could feel the terrible pain of a knife piercing his side. His hands flew to the place where the knife was. He could feel his blood on it. In front of him, he saw another outline in the fog.

“Who—” Derick started to say but was interrupted by a coughing fit. He could feel blood trickling down from his mouth. “Who are you?” he rasped.

“Who am I?” The person stepped out of the fog. He was wearing a black hoodie and black sweatpants. His hood was pulled over his eye line and he held another knife. “I’m you, but everyone calls me Blood.”

Blood walked closer to Derick. “It’s so nice to haunt your dreams. Too bad you’re not actually here. This would have been so much more fun if so.” Derick only stared. He knew he did not have the strength to run.

Blood stood in front of Derick. He smiled. “You must have thought Vick was the only one.” Blood pulled out the knife that was wedged in Derick. The ripping motion reopened the wound and blood flowed out of it. Derick desperately tried to stop the blood flow with his hands and, while doing so, sank to his knees. He felt a hand grip his hair, forcing his head to tilt upward. He saw Blood’s merciless eyes staring back.

“Silly,” he laughed. “There are a lot of us.” Blood stabbed Derick again. “Goodbye, for now.”

Derick jolted awake. He saw Terrace and Cerulean staring at him. He grew a little uncomfortable. He seemed to be in some sort of infirmary. “Welcome back, Derick,” he heard Astro say. Derick got up from what resembled a hospital bed. He felt a weird pain from his side.

The pain was close to nothing, but it was enough to remind Derick about his dream, if it could even be called that. He could still perfectly picture the knife in his side and Blood laughing at him. He all of a sudden wanted to get out of the building.

Derick walked out of the room before anyone could say anything. Somehow, his feet remembered which way he entered from. He could hear Cerulean following him; Derick knew it was him because he was calling Derick’s name. He continued on.

He finally found his way to the exit. He was going to open the door, but his side started hurting more. He figured it was because he had been running, so he casted it aside. He tried to open the door again, but Cerulean caught up with him.

“Derick!” Cerulean yelled. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Derick said. “I just need some fresh air.” He reached again for the handle.

“That’s not a good reason why you bolted off!” At this point, Derick’s side was throbbing

with pain. Derick opened the door.

~~~~~~

Derick was planning on going through the door, but he did not. He took a step back and stared forward. ​Speak of the devil​Derick thought.

“What’s wrong?” Cerulean asked. He also looked forward and flinched.

“Aww, this is so cute,” Blood said. “I actually get to kill someone.”

“When you said ‘for now,’ I didn’t think you meant in five minutes,” Derick said, trying to be funny for his own sake.

Blood was obviously not amused. “Your humor is stupid,” he said. He took a step forward. Out of the corner of his eye Derick saw Cerulean generate a slingshot. ​That’s what that was​Derick realized.

“Don’t come any closer!” Cerulean warned.

“Or what? You’re going to hit me with that?” Blood laughed. “You can’t aim!”

“Yes I can!” To prove his point, Cerulean flung a rock like object at Blood. It hit him in the face. It did not seem to hurt him, but it did surprise him.

Blood was furious. He generated a knife. “This has your name on it Cerulean.”

“Get behind me, Derick,” Cerulean ordered “So he can’t hit you.” Derick did what he was told.

“I already did,” Blood smiled. He snapped his fingers. Derick’s side started hurting as much as it did in his dream. Again, he imagined a knife in his side. He grabbed onto Cerulean’s shirt to try to stay standing.

“Derick!” Cerulean shrieked. He put his arms around Derick to steady him. Cerulean looked back at Blood “What did you do?!”

“No, Cerulean,” Blood shook his head “It’s ‘what did you do?’” Cerulean flinched. “You’ve kept the truth long enough. Heck, you’ve lied to keep the truth. Now what kind of friend is that?”

“Cerulean, what is he talking about?” Derick asked. He was skeptical about what Blood was saying but Cerulean’s reaction made it seem like it was true. “What truth?”

“It’s nothing,” Cerulean said. Cerulean did not make eye contact with Derick.

“‘Nothing’? I’ve been living ‘nothing’ my whole life?!” Blood spat. “I’m only here because of you! Do you know what it’s like to be made of someone’s insecurities? Huh?”

“I didn’t know it would turn out like this!” Cerulean said.

“Oh, so you ‘didn’t know’ you were lying about Terrace? Is that how this is going? And now you’re pulling not just another person, but the original into this?”

Derick was completely lost. The pain in his side subsided, finally, but Cerulean would not let go of him. Somehow, he felt like he needed to be strong for Cerulean. “I don’t get it,” Derick asked. “Who are you?” He directed the question at Blood.

Cerulean answered. “He’s me, Derick.” Derick just stared at him. “In my… our AW, people are born with the natural ability to do magic. Some are better than others. And you can be whatever you want to be!”

“But that’s true for everyone…?” Derick half asked.

“Well, I took it more literal than everyone else. I wanted to be the best me I could be by locking away almost all of my negative traits. It took almost all of my magic to do, but I was a better person. I loved it!

“Over time, all those negative feelings grew a literal mind of their own. First, it was just nightmares. Those nightmares gave me back my regret. And then, after a while, they had a body that followed me around like a ghost. He was stable at first. He gave me criticism, but I mostly ignored it.

“You actually heard me?” Blood looked surprised.

“Yes,” Cerulean answered. “Anyway, I met at Terrace one day. I showed Terrace around my home, and we became friends. When he asked if I wanted to go with him, I immediately said yes. He showed me his favorite places in the AWs, and we had fun. During this, I didn’t realize my negative ghost was gone. When I finally did, I was concerned, actually.

“Yeah right,” Blood scoffed.

”I’m not kidding. I was so used to the constant commentary that I felt weird without it. Well, the days went on and I met Blood, he was calling himself that, truly on accident. I recognized him instantly.”

“So you’ve lied about this instead of telling the truth?” Derick pieced together. “I know the truth is very important. While you were telling the story, did you realize Blood lost the insane look he had before?” Cerulean was stunned. So was Blood. “The more you lied, the more piled on Blood, the more crazy he seemed, and the more positive you were.” As a joke, he added. “Come on, you guys do magic. You’re, like, ten times more powerful than me.” Cerulean laughed. Blood chuckled a bit too.

“You are going to explain to him this one,” Cerulean said to Blood.

“Fine,” Blood took a deep breath. “Derick, you know you are the original, right?”

“Yes?” Derick said. He did not know why that mattered.

“You get certain powers because of that. The most important one is that if you die outside your AW, all other yous die and all AWs collapse and there goes the multiverse. You can traverse the multiverse without help and…um…”

“We don’t know all of those powers,” Cerulean finished.

“Wow,” Derick said. “That’s awesome! I have one question though.”

“Shoot for it,” Cerulean said.

“Are you ready to tell Terrace?”

“I don’t know. I’ll need time. I’ve known him longer and I don’t know if he’ll take it well.”

“We’ll tell him together, all three of us,” Derick assured Cerulean. “In about five seconds.”

“What?!” Cerulean and Blood said at the same time.

The door slammed open. “Oh my gosh! Did someone die?” Terrace demanded. Derick saw that he had his paintbrushes out.

“Everyone is alive!” Derick yelled back.

“Not while he’s here!” Terrace started at Blood. Cerulean stepped in between them.

“We have something to tell you,” Cerulean said.

~~~

It took a while, but the three of them told Terrace the whole story. Terrace took it surprisingly well.

“Do we have to tell Astro that Terrace broke the door?” Derick asked.

“Nah, Terrace will fix it,” Cerulean assured Derick.

“He was you the whole time?!” Terrace asked. Cerulean nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want to think less of me,” Cerulean admitted. “And I was ashamed of it.” “Cerulean, you’re my friend. I would never.” Terrace gave Cerulean a reassuring smile.

Derick was happy for the two. He could not help but glance in Blood’s direction. “So,” Derick started. “What will you do now? I mean, you have things sorted out with Cerulean, and you’re done with that knife trick of yours.”

“Who said I was?” Blood smirked. Derick felt a bit of pain from his side. He elbowed Blood. “Hey, I was kidding.”

“How do you do that anyway?” Derick asked.

“Magic.” Blood grinned. Derick glared at him. “Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do now.”

“This may seem stupid, but what if you helped the multiverse?”

“Me?” Blood laughed. “I’m the literal opposite of the hero type.”

“Cerulean just admitted to being ashamed. Maybe you two share some emotions instead of trade them off.”

“Derick, I’ve killed a lot of people. How am I going to come back from that?”

“One step at a time. You’ll have to give yourself some sort of chance at redemption.”

“You are very hopeful.” Blood stared up at the stars. “I’ll consider it.”

Derick smiled. He noticed that Astro was coming out of the building. “Terrace! The door!” Derick shouted.

“Shoot!” Terrace exclaimed. He quickly repainted the door. It reminded Derick about his yard. For the first time during the trip, Derick felt homesick.

He chuckled to himself. “Man, my life will never be the same after this,” he said.

“Welcome to the club,” Blood said. “If Cerulean doesn’t throw off any more negativity, I can finally act sane for once. It’ll be nice.” He smiled.

“Derick! Are you ready to go home?” Terrace called.

“Not yet!” Derick called back. He looked at Blood. “After all you put me through, I’m going to miss you.”

“Heh, me too,” Blood said. “I might just have to invade your dreams again.”

“If you do, pick somewhere less creepy, okay?” Derick and Blood both laughed. Derick had a feeling that, deep down, something sparked in Blood.

“In that case, see you on the flip side,” Blood said. “Make sure you talk to Cerulean, it looks like he has something for you.”

“Okay,” Derick waved back at Blood before walking over to Cerulean.

“Oh, Derick!” Cerulean said. “Thank you for giving me another chance! I did a terrible thing and I told big lies to cover it up and I just went about it the wrong way and I really should have known better and—” Cerulean was almost in tears.

“Cerulean,” Derick said, cutting Cerulean off. He looked Cerulean in the eyes. “It’s okay. Making mistakes is what makes us human. It’s not healthy to beat yourself up about it. You have to accept that you did something wrong so you can move on.”

“I don’t think Blood will let me.”

“Yes he will. He’s as done with the lies as you are.”

Cerulean grinned. “Thank you, again, Derick.”

“Anytime.”

“That reminds me!” Cerulean held out a piece of paper. “It’s my number. If you need anything, just ask!”

Derick pocketed the paper. “Thanks Cerulean.” Derick turned toward Terrace. “I’m ready now.”

“Okay, give me a quick second,” Terrace created a portal. “See you, Derick.”

“Come by anytime, Terrace!” Derick smiled. He went through the portal and ended up back in his backyard. He waved at his new friends through the portal before it closed. He climbed back over his fence.

“Hey dude,” Chris said. “Did you see something?”

“Well,” Derick looked back at his backyard. “I guess you could say that.”

“Cool.”

~~~

Derick’s mom was disappointed with Derick. After she dropped Chris back at his house, she talked to Derick about being responsible with things that were not his. Derick promised to do better.

After dinner, when Derick had enough time to himself, he whipped out his phone. He took out the slip of paper in his pocket. He entered in Cerulean’s phone number. He was about to close the contact when he saw the words “dial (-) first” scribbled on the back of the slip. He completed the contact. He took a deep breath. He hoped it worked and he would not accidentally text some random person instead. He texted “Heya, it’s Derick.”

The response was almost instant. “Hi Derick! It’s Cerulean!” Derick smiled. He had a feeling he would see him again soon. Above everything, he was really tired. He had had too much excitement for one day. He said good night to his parents and went to bed.

It did not last long. Derick woke up to a crashing sound. He reached over to his light switch and flicked it on. He saw Cerulean tangled up in a cord. Derick was not sure what it was to. “Why are you here, Cerulean?” he said groggily. “It’s probably midnight.”

“It’s eleven,” Cerulean said. “And we need your help!”

“Why didn’t you call me?” Derick was not fully awake. He was not thinking straight.

“This calls for drastic measures!” Cerulean gave someone behind Derick a thumbs up.

In an instant, Derick felt a cold liquid poor down his shirt. That woke him up.

“What the—” Derick started to say. He looked behind him. He saw Blood laughing his head off. “Guys, my parents!”

“They’re fine,” Blood said. “Extra sleep won’t hurt.” Derick got the idea.

“So what is it?” Derick asked.

“It’s Vick,” Cerulean said. “He’s at it again.”

“Where are we meeting?”

“Upmost.”

“Okay, I’ll meet you there.” Derick took a deep breath. “I’m going to try it.”

“Be careful,” Blood said. He and Cerulean disappeared.

Derick had no idea how to teleport. Well, he had one. He cleared his mind and closed his eyes. He thought about the spectacular view of Earth from Upmost.

A second later, he opened his eyes. He found himself in the same spot he thought about. He pumped his fist in the air.

“Oh good! You made it!” Cerulean said.

“Cerulean was worried sick,” Blood said. “He wanted to go back to help you, but I told him you’d be fine.”

“How were you so sure?” Derick asked. Blood pointed to Derick’s side.

“We have a small link now,” he said. “Don’t worry, it can only do dreams and really good hunches.”

“How long will it be there?” Blood shrugged. All three of them laughed.

“We should probably get going,” Cerulean said. “Terrace is waiting inside the building.”

They walked towards the door. Derick felt ready. He knew that whatever Vick was doing would be stopped by the four of them.

He felt truly invincible.

Look out for Olivia’s sequel called Red Strings coming soon to the blog!