Sophia Jackson
Stories
11
Chapters
5,834
Words
1.6 M
Comments
0
Reading
5 d, 14 h
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Alden kept waiting for something to go wrong. But for the first time in months, nothing did. The car climbed in and out of larger depressions, and it spun its wheels in patches of loose soil a couple of times, but it made it all the way back to the lab. When it arrived, the ramp to the underground entrance even opened for it. Kibby was waiting for him. “It works,” she said, sounding stunned as he climbed from the vehicle. “I “You were gone a long time.” He hadn’t been. It had been…-
128 •
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Alden and Kibby had decided that Plan 2 wouldn’t commence until Moon Thegund’s current night was almost at an end. They had about eleven days. It was too long to wait, and at the same time, they had so much to do to prepare that it felt like no time at all “Take me with you!” Kibby demanded as Alden put the last few pieces of equipment into a backpack he’d found in one of the closets. “I told you why I’m not going to do that.” He hefted the backpack. It weighed about one and a half…
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128 •
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“Kibby, I’m so sorry,” Alden said, staring down into her wide brown eyes. “I told you it might not work. Don’t worry. I have a lot of other plans.” She was frozen in place, waiting for a magic Alden apparently couldn’t produce. “Kibby—” “Your Artonan is vastly improved.” It was Alden’s turn to freeze. It definitely wasn’t Kibby. She was still sitting on the floor by his chair, unblinking. And that high, strange speech with the undertone of breaking glass… He slowly…
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128 •
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“Kibby, I’m so sorry,” Alden said, staring down into her wide brown eyes. “I told you it might not work. Don’t worry. I have a lot of other plans.” She was frozen in place, waiting for a magic Alden apparently couldn’t produce. “Kibby—” “Your Artonan is vastly improved.” It was Alden’s turn to freeze. It definitely wasn’t Kibby. She was still sitting on the floor by his chair, unblinking. And that high, strange speech with the undertone of breaking glass… He slowly…
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128 •
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Alden had asked about the demons because he’d been wondering if the big one that had made the trails in the grass, or others like it, might work differently than the bug-types. The grasshopper demons didn’t respond to stimuli and they didn’t seem to eat. If other types were attracted to loud noises or they were more intelligent and capable of seeking prey, that was something Alden needed to know for Plans 2 and 3. Plan 1 had just become Plan 1 thanks to Kibby’s explanation of chaos potential.…
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128 •
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On Day 152, Kibby woke Alden up with a shriek. It was one of those days when their sleep cycles were way out of synch, so she’d just awakened as he went to sleep. He rolled off his mattress, heart pounding, and saw her sitting on the floor in front of their current television staring at the chaos map. Expecting the worst, even though he wasn’t sure what the worst would look like, he raced over and stared at it with her. “Someone’s come,” she said, waving her arms at the tv wildly and looking…
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128 •
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Dawn came. The red blob continued to spread across the map of Moon Thegund. Alden and Kibby stayed alive. Instructor Gwen-lor taught the class full of wizard tots magic, and Alden and Kibby studied with them. In the beginning, the first thing you had to learn was how to move your authority deliberately and with control. To do that, you had to feel it. That was the point of the beginner exercise, and it was why you were supposed to have a partner to poke at you. It came naturally to the Artonan wizard…
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128 •
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On his hundredth day on Moon Thegund, Alden crossed the compound, rubbing his arms to ward off the cold even though he was wearing two turtlenecks on top of each other. The lab was enduring its second long night since he’d arrived, and though he was getting used to it, it was still hard to resist staring up at the sky. There were never any stars, and he couldn’t see the clouds through the glare of the facility’s powerful lights. The buzz was long-since gone, and Moon Thegund was still and quiet…
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128 •
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“What is this ugly thing?” Kibby asked, wrinkling her nose at the results of an entire morning’s work in the kitchen. “Kibby stinks. She’s mean-mean,” Alden said brightly, jabbing a few of the sacred burning chopsticks into the top of his concoction. “You stink! Humans stink the most. Go climb in the launderer and wash yourself!” Alden laughed. Insults were coming along nicely. Kibby really liked being friendly-mean. “———-! ———- ——! ————.” Sometimes she got…
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128 •
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Staying alive in a place that didn’t want you to was an endless string of chores. For the first several days at the lab, Alden spent every waking moment trying to organize and figure out how to do completely basic things. Like eat and bathe and sleep without having his brain run-through by a demon bug. On Day 10, he woke up inside the bedroom he’d made for himself. He checked the clock he’d stolen from the wall in the rec room and marked the time. It rolled over about every twenty-six hours, keeping…
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