Down the Rabbit Hole - Book Four

21. I Never Dreamed of This

I am consumed in blinding white light; the sound of the ocean dies somewhere behind me. I blink rapidly in alarm as everything goes dark suddenly. Briefly, nothing feels real, as if I'm not on the ground, in mid-air, or anywhere else, it's like I'm just in a void without gravity.

It's an out of body experience that lasts maybe two seconds before I'm suddenly snatched off my feet, being dragged by an invisible force as if I'm falling in reverse.

I scream as I'm wrenched through the air, I break through different skies of light and crash through different textures of realities until I suddenly crash painfully into the ceiling of some sort of a building. I crumple to the floor with a groan of pain.

Now though I startle as I hear glass breaking.

I frantically roll over and crawl out of a closet. As I scramble up to my feet I instantly realize where I am.

I'm in my old house in Daresbury, Indiana. Yeah, that's right.

Earth.

I've made it back!

Before I can marvel at this incredible, surreal moment though, my focus is dragged away by the sounds of a scuffle coming from the front room. I bolt out of my bedroom and race into the living room just as a blazing wave of yellow Tarsa erupts in front of me.

I shriek as I'm flung off my feet and crash onto my couch hard enough to knock it over. I hear another explosion and pieces of wall and debris shower down over me. I'm coughing as I frantically throw pieces of shattered dry wall off as I sit up.

I instantly see Vyndren groggily stagger up to his feet.

"Don't move!" I command, hobbling up. "Don't...make another move!"

"But they gettin' away!" He points at where my front door used to be.

"Oh yeah right," I roll my eyes. "You were just 'trying to capture the Shamans!' Ha!" I scoff. "You're just trying to escape!" He snorts and rakes a hand through his long, wild hair. Dry-wall clings to us both as if a bag of flour just exploded over us. "Hell, I bet if it wasn't for Naima and Sejal than you would've escaped," I huff as I look over the damage the Shamans inflicted while leaving my house.

"So what? Ya wanna send 'em a thank you card?" The Dark Rider scoffs. "Where the hell are we an'way?" He looks around cagily, but now his eyes widen with disbelief as he catches a glimpse of the photos hanging from the walls. They're all of me and my mom. "Whoa..."

Before I can answer, another crash from my bedroom startles us.

"That's the rest of the squad!" I exclaim anxiously. "Don't try to run!" I warn. He glares at me. "Guys! We're out here!" I call.

A few moments later, the rest of our team files into the living room in a daze. Mom's eyes are brimming with tears as she looks around.

"I can't believe we're back..."

"Yeah," I look around too with new eyes. "Hey, despite the Shamans blowing our front door up, why does the house still remarkably look perfect? I mean, when the Phantoms hunted us down, they kinda destroyed the whole house trying to get to me, remember?"

"Oh," Mom blushes faintly as she smiles. "That's because I made our house out of magic way back when, I charmed it to be self-aware. It repairs itself whenever anything happens," she beams affectionately as she gazes around the room.

"So like, that one bad thunderstorm we had and the roof leaked, you didn't actually replace the shingles?" She smiles and shakes her head. "Or when the kitchen sink overflowed, you didn't repair that either?" She nods. "And like...after the Phantoms busted in, our house mended itself after that? Whoa," I smile in awe as I look around. "Aw, I've always loved this house." It's more a member of my small family than I even realized.