Nowhere Boys Fanfiction - Failed Return

Chapter 1

He opened his eyes, only to squeeze them shut straight again straight after, as the bright sunlight made his eyes burn. Sam sat up, adjusting his cap on his head as he squinted through his eyelids. He peered around and found his friends lying on the ground unconscious. Sam scrambled up, ignoring the pain is his ribs and padded sluggishly over to them.
"Dudes, are we home?" Sam asked as he gently nudged Jake with his foot, then made his way over to the other two to do the same. Jake groaned, his dirty hands reaching up groggily to rub his eyes. He suddenly remembered what had happened and shot up, noticing for the first time the throbbing pain in his right shoulder and left wrist. Jake grasped his right shoulder and managed to lift himself off the ground and stumbled over to Sam, who was shaking Andy with one arm; the other clasped tightly around his stomach.
"Andy, you need to wake up." Sam told him gently. Jake twisted his head around and realised that Felix was scrambling around; looking for something.
"Hey Felix, what are you doing?" Jake shouted. Felix stood, his shoulders slumped in defeat.
"The talisman. It's gone." Felix replied bluntly.
"But what does it matter? If we're home now we don't need it." Andy pointed whilst sitting himself up.
"Lets just hope that we made it home." Felix mumbled quietly.

The boys managed to make their way back into town without collapsing. Felix was the only one who'd managed to come out of it all unscathed. Even though they weren't entirely sure what had happened. Sam kept his hands clasped around his stomach, and leant on a wall every now and then for support. Jake felt his shoulder throbbing and it hurt when he moved his arm, while his left wrist was slightly bruised. Andy was fairly unharmed except for the scratch on his forearm that was oozing with blood. As they were walking Jake noticed his dad on the other side of the road, he was on the phone and seemed to be in a very intense argument with whoever was on the other end. However, he noticed that his dad was wearing a police uniform. Realisation suddenly washed over Jake, they hadn't made it home...
"Guys it's my dad, my cop dad" Jake whispered hurriedly to his friends. The others turned their heads and saw, then they dived to the ground behind a car.
"We didn't make it home." Sam stated, more to himself than anyone else.
"We need to go see Phoebe." Felix told the others. He peered around the edge of the dazzling dark blue car that they were hidden behind to see if Jake's dad was still there. When the coast was clear the four boys then trekked to Phoebe's shop.

As the four of them made it to the shop, they saw Phoebe outside, loading boxes into her van.
"Phoebe!" Felix shouted, jogging over to her, the others walking over behind him. Phoebe twisted her head around, and upon seeing the four boys she raised an eyebrow.
"I thought you boys made it home." She stated, tilting her head slightly.
"It didn't work." Felix said. "We defeated the restoring demon, then we woke up in the middle of the forest and the talisman was gone." He carried on.
"What do you mean gone?!" Phoebe replied, a sharp tone entering her voice. When Felix just shrugged, she asked "What spell did you do exactly?"
Felix went through the spell that he'd used on the demon, saying that it should have defeated it and taken them home. As he explained, Phoebe sighed, she knew what had happened.
"Magic always comes with a price." She cut in. They all looked over at her confused by her sudden statement. The boys carried on staring in a silent gesture for her to explain.
"All magic has a price, the price for defeating the restoring demon, must be that you can't go home." She explained to them, then turned to finish loading the boxes into the van.
"But that doesn't explain what happened to the talisman." Andy said, speaking for the first time.
"The talisman was an ingredient in the spell, now the spell has been cast it's no longer around." She told them while finishing up putting the last of the boxes inside the van.
"What are you even doing?" Jake asked.
"I'm leaving." She replied simply.
"What? You can't leave!" Sam screeched, bounding his way over to her.
"We still need your help to get home!" He added, desperation creeping into his voice.
"There is no going home." Phoebe stated, as she walked to the front of her van and started to climb into the drivers seat.
"But there has to be a way." Felix tried to reason. Phoebe just sighed.
"Look, all magic has a price to it, and you have to pay that price. The price for defeating the restoring demon is that you can't go back to your world, and even if you could, there is no talisman, so you couldn't go home anyway. I'm sorry boys, but you're stuck here. For good."
"So that's it? We're stuck here and can never go home?" Jake asked, his voice becoming slightly distressed.
"At least you don't have a demon trying to kill you anymore." Phoebe added as she closed the door on her van and put the window down.
"Where are you even going?" Andy asked quietly.
"Look boys, I'm sorry, but I can't be around all this magic nonsense anymore. After everything that has happened, I need to leave and have a fresh start somewhere." Phoebe explained.
"So that's it then?" Jake asked.
"I'm afraid so." Phoebe replied as she pulled a piece of paper and a pen out of her pocket. She wrote down a number and passed it through the window to Felix.
"If you boys get into anymore trouble, I'm just a call away." She said kindly, trying to ease their worries. "But I don't mean your normal trouble, when you call that number it better be a life or death emergency. Got it?" She added, ferocity coming into her voice.
"Got it." The boys replied in unison.
"So I guess this is goodbye then." Phoebe said solemnly.
"I guess it is." Felix said, looking down at his feet.
"You boys take care, okay?" Phoebe told them.
"We will." Jake answered. Phoebe started up her van and drove away. The boys were left watching as she left.

"We can never go home." Sam mumbled to himself. Then he turned on Felix.
"This is all your fault!" The other boys turned to face Sam; shocked by his outburst. "Because of you we are all stuck here; where our families have no idea who we are; where we're sleeping in a shed and eating food out of the rubbish! We can never return home, all because of you and your gothed up magic!" Sam screamed, then ran. He ignored the flaring pain in his stomach and carried on running until he was deep into the forest, and the others were no longer in sight. Sam sat down on the floor and propped himself up against a tree. He was panting from all the running and had his had clasped tightly around his stomach once again as the pain got worse. After his breathing evened out his lifted his t-shirt carefully, noticing his stomach was covered with an array of colourful bruises.
"Shit." He mumbled and pulled his t-shirt back down. Sam curled up in a ball and sat his head on his knees, and let the tears fall. He was never going home, he could never see his family again. Sure he saw their doppelgängers hanging around but they weren't his family; they weren't the same. This was how the other three boys found him, curled up in a ball crying. They approached him carefully, the sat down on the floor gently next to him.
"You alright Sam?" Jake asked. Sam quickly wiped the tears from his face with his hand and turned to face Jake.
"Yeah I'm okay." Sam replied. He then turned to Felix and said "I'm sorry for shouting at you."
"Its fine, I deserved it." Felix said staring down at his feet.
"No, you didn't." Sam said, "I know you didn't mean for any of this to happen, I was angry and I missed my family and I just snapped. I'm sorry." He apologised. "We're all as good as orphans now. I just don't like being without a family." Sam mumbled as the tears started to well up in his eyes once again.
"We're your family now Sam." Andy said, placing a comforting hand on Sam's back.
"Yeah, and we look out for each other." Jake added.
"I'm going to make sure that you three are all okay in this world." Felix spoke up. The other three turned to face him. "Sam's right. It's my fault that you are all here, and that makes you my responsibility." Felix stood up and added, "Besides, I am the oldest, it's my job to look out for you younger ones." A teasing tone entered his voice. He then bent down to ruffle Sam's hair jokingly.
"We should probably go back to the shed and get some sleep. We have school tomorrow." Jake said, while standing up as well. Andy pushed himself up off of the ground, then held his hand out to Sam. He clasped Andy's hand and he pulled himself up.
"You okay now Sam?" Andy asked.
"Yeah" Sam replied. He turned to the others and said, "Thanks guys", with a small smile tugging at his lips. The others just patted him on the back gently, and made their way back to the shed, as the sweeping shadows of darkness started to loom over.