Chapter 1: Discovery

The full moon illuminated the cloudless black sky. It was close to dawn, and everything in the neighborhood was still and silent. The only movement was the occasional night breeze that brushed past the trees and shrubs planted around the area, their foliage shadowy green and nearly invisible against the darkness of the background. And in the midst of everything, two figures rustled under bushes, brushed past trees, and crept down the glowing sidewalks as they headed for the park located in the center of the neighborhood. They both stopped for breath under a stoplight, which shined a bright circle of light beneath it and revealed the identities of the lurkers: a pair of young adults, possibly two students who attended the nearby community college.

“Diana, this isn’t a good idea,” the young man whispered harshly to his female accomplice, his green eyes darting around uneasily as if he expected to be caught. Removing the dark gray headband that was making his forehead itch, he brushed a loose strand of ebony black hair behind his ear and tugged at the collar of his black sweatshirt with an exasperated groan. “Come on,” he urged her. “Let’s get out of here.”

“No!” Diana Benson hissed back softly. Her brown eyes shone with determination and she willfully proclaimed, “We must do this—that was my sister’s favorite necklace! If I can’t return it by tomorrow morning, then I’m dead.” She threw herself against the streetlight with a despondent sigh and shook her head, accidentally shaking off her black ski cap in the process. Her black waist-length hair flowed out from under its cover and ripped like a waterfall under the moonlight.

“Couldn’t we go home and come back in the morning?” Krono Joseph whined persistently, not ready to give up on his complaint. “I mean, sneaking around like this, in the dark, it makes me feel like we’re doing something illegal.” He paused momentarily before adding in a stern voice, “We aren’t doing anything illegal, are we?”

“For goodness sakes, no!” Diana rolled her eyes scornfully. “We’re going into the playground at night just so we can retrieve something that I lost. How is that illegal?”

In response to her question, Krono sarcastically assumed a thoughtful pose. “Well, for starters, we aren’t even supposed to be at this park!” he snapped at her, annoyance written clearly on his face. “You know as well as I do that the police shut this place down because of all the disappearances that had happened here within the past year. Everyone knows that! It’s been shut down for months! Why’d you even come here anyway?”

“Don’t blame me! Vanessa and Jessica made me do it!” Diana shot back at him, straightening her posture indignantly and baring her teeth. But she calmed down soon after, smoothening her black knee-length skirt, and continued, “You don’t want to cross those two. Fioré did once, and you know what happened.”

Krono stared at her in disbelief for a moment, unable to grasp the concept of Diana letting two mean-spirited popular girls get under her skin. He then simply sighed and shook his head. “Let’s just get the necklace and get out of here,” he finally said.

His partner agreed without an argument. The two college students quietly approached their destination, wanting to get what they came for and leave without causing any problems. They ducked under the yellow police tape, which ordered them not to cross, and unhinged the rusty latch that kept the playground locked during the night.

Once they were safely inside the park, Krono and Diana sighed deeply in relief. They had yet to attract any unwanted attention. But now the two were faced with another problem: Diana had lost her sister’s necklace at the sandy area, which was on the opposite side of the playground from where they were. It would be a chore to get all the way across inconspicuously, without garnering the interest of any light sleepers in the surrounding houses.

Not wanting to give up when they had gotten so far and deciding to take the risk, Diana and Krono hurried to their destination as silently as they could. When Krono stumbled over a rock and fell to the stone pathway with a loud thump, one of the windows of a nearby house lit up and the curious house owner glanced around wearily, wanting to make sure that a burglar wasn’t on the prowl. About a minute later, the light went out again. Krono and Diana exhaled in relief, then they decided to take a break in the middle area of the playground, a grassy area with trees, wooden benches, and a stone path that cut through the center.

“Man, this is harder than I thought it would be!” Krono stated as he seated himself on one of the benches. He rested his elbows on the wooden table, placed his chin on his elbows, and groaned. “Well, at least I don’t have to worry about having a future that involves lawlessness! It’s too much work for me.”

“Yeah, I’m with you,” Diana agreed, sliding into the bench opposite of her friend so that they were facing each other. “And I don’t think Megan will have to worry about me taking her stuff again. If this happens again … ugh! I think I’d rather take the heat next time!”

“Well, if you decide to do something like this again, leave me out of it!” her partner-in-crime grumbled to her.

“No problem, Krono, you complain too much,” she replied crossly, straightening her posture and folding her arms across her chest.

He returned her remark by rolling his eyes and he told her, “Of course I’m complaining! We might as well be breaking the law! Who wouldn’t complain about that?”

Diana wasn’t listening to him at that point, though. Instead, her eyes were glued to something behind them—something in the sandy area of the playground. She pointed to it and queried to her friend, “Hey … turn around. Look at that! Doesn’t it seem strange to you?”

“Strange? What?” Krono spun around in his seat and squinted his eyes in the direction that Diana was pointing in. His gaze immediately caught a large mound of sand heaped in one part of the sandy area. There were no other mounds like it around. “Hmm … that is strange.”

“How could that have happened?” Diana muttered to herself questioningly, cocking her head to the side. “Nobody’s been in here for months!”

“Maybe they were sneaking around for no reason like we are now,” Krono suggested flatly.

For a few seconds, the two were too captivated by their wondering about the sand mound to continue their discussion. Then, Diana jumped to her feet and exclaimed, “Let’s dig it up!”

Krono nodded in concurrence, agreeing with Diana for the first time that morning. His curiosity had overpowered his wariness. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

Forgetting their plan to be stealthy, silent, and unnoticeable, they hurried over to the sandy area and screeched to a stop in front of the sand mound, accidentally kicking up sand into the air. The young adults fell to their knees and started digging up the mound with their hands, unwilling to stop until they found what was hidden under it, if anything were there at all.

About a minute later, Krono noticed something strange about the mound that he was digging up. He stopped, sat back on his knees, and stared dumbfounded at the sand hill, which was rapidly decreasing in size. “Eh?”

“Krono, why’d you stop?” Diana asked her friend when she noticed that he was just sitting there. She stopped digging and sat back on her knees as well, tilting her head to the side questioningly and her gaze firmly fixed on Krono.

“Take a look at this, Diana.” Krono pointed to something in the middle of the nearly flat mound. “I’ve been digging in that same spot for a while, and that little lump right there doesn’t seem to move.”

“Lump?” Diana peered down at what remained of the sand pile and her eye caught the lump that had Krono concerned. “Is that so?” Without waiting for her friend to say anything, she glowered at the lump in the mound and grumbled to it, “All right, lump. I don’t know why you don’t move, but I’m going to dig you out!”

That said, she began to dig twice as furiously as before. Krono watched her, slightly shocked by her reaction, but sighed soon after and started digging too. About a minute later, they had dug out the mound and had started digging into the sand as well. Now, they were digging a hole.

Diana brushed away the final layer of sand that covered the lump. But once she saw the strange object that had managed to stay in place amidst hers and Krono’s digging, she stared at it, baffled. “What’s this, a pebble?”

“Let me see that.” Krono reached over to grab the pebble out of the sand, but for some reason, it wouldn’t budge. “Okay, this is bordering on weird,” Krono muttered to himself as he tried to pry the pebble from its place. When he finally yanked it out, he and Diana observed it—just an ordinary piece of broken white rock, nothing special. Krono sighed and shook his head. “It’s just a rock!”

Just that moment, however, a flash of bright blue light shot up from directly under where the rock had been before it was removed. Diana threw her arm over her eyes to shield herself from the blinding light, which seemed to last forever. Finally, a few seconds later, the blue light died down and disappeared. Diana slowly lowered her arm to see if Krono were all right.

Much to her astonishment, however, he was gone. But how could that be? He had been standing directly on top of where the blue light had come from. And now he was gone.

“K-Krono?” Diana called to him, her voice wavering fearfully. “A-are you there? Is this some sort of joke?” she cried out indignantly.

He didn’t answer. Nothing answered. Aside from Diana, everything was still. There was nothing else there.

For a few seconds, Diana stood wordlessly in shock—her muddled brain was unable to understand what had just happened.

Then, it hit her. She ran out of the playground, screaming. Panic clouding her mind, Diana sprinted across the sand and jumped over the chain-link fence with no other thoughts other than to get away from the park.

The silent atmosphere of the night shattered immediately as Diana ran down the neighborhood streets, waving her arms in the air like a madwoman and hollering at the top of her lungs. Her long black hair flowed freely against the morning breeze; the ski cap that had concealed it now lay somewhere on the road behind Diana, forgotten in her fit of terror.

What exactly had just happened? Had a flash of blinding blue light really come out of the ground? Had Krono really vanished into thin air? Was he playing a prank on her? Or was it all a product of Diana’s imagination?

Or was it all a dream?

Diana screeched to an immediate halt and doubled over, panting frantically to catch her breath. As she gasped for air, her mind silently analyzed the thoughts that were going through her head. Was she absolutely certain that there had been a blue light? Yes, she was. There was no way that she could have ever imagined that.

Well, what about Krono? Did he truly vanish, or was it all a joke? And was the blue light a part of the joke for that matter? Diana didn’t think so. Her friend was not one for jokes, and even if he were, Krono would never go into an off-limits playground just for the sake of playing a hoax. It had been hard enough to convince him to accompany her in the first place! It was too out of character for him.

Then maybe she was dreaming. The situation that she had found herself in was suspiciously similar to something out of a science fiction movie. And the last time she had watched a science fiction movie before going to bed, oh!—what a nightmare she had! Diana slowly reached for her upper arm and pinched herself as hard as she could.

“Ouch!” she protested, gritting her teeth together so hard that her head hurt. “Okay, so I’m not dreaming.” Diana muttered to herself in confirmation. “But then, what just happened?”

The young woman was so lost in her thoughts that she started to lose awareness of her surroundings. She slowly trudged off the road and seated herself on the curb of the sidewalk. Diana sank her chin into her palms and continued thinking about all the possible explanations for the happening at the playground. So lost in her thoughts was she that Diana didn’t even notice the two young adults who approached her and stood in front of her.

One of the two strangers, a young woman with wavy red hair that flowed to her waist, tilted her head to the side and stared at her friend confusedly. She snapped her fingers in front of Diana’s face, the numerous silver bracelets on her wrist jangling loudly, but failed to get a response. The redhead sighed angrily and shook her head.

Her companion chuckled amusedly and shook his head, making his short dyed black hair whip in front of his face. “Allow me, Alyson,” he said to his friend. The young man bent down so he was at eye level with Diana, then he took a deep breath and shouted in her ear, “Hey, Diana! Anybody home?”

“Huh? Aie!” Diana screeched in alarm as she bolted up from her place on the curb and jumped back. Once she saw the faces of the two annoyers, however, she scowled impatiently and snapped at them, “Mitchell! Alyson! I should have known! Can’t I have a moment of peace without you guys screaming in my ear?”

“Hey, that wasn’t me,” Alyson Lewis defended herself, raising her hands in front of her body and stepping backwards. “It was Mitchell who screamed in your ear, not me!”

“Oh, sure, so that’s your game. Blame it all on me?” Mitchell Kali groaned loudly and rolled his green eyes at the sky. He tugged at the wrist-length sleeves of his black sweater to hide the exposed skin, then he turned to his friend with a suspicious look. “Hey, what are you doing here anyway?” he demanded of Diana.

“Yeah!” Alyson exclaimed in agreement as she got in Diana’s face. “It’s nearly five o’ clock in the morning! You hate getting up early! What are you up to? Huh? Huh? Huh?”

“Argh! Get out of my face, darn you!” Diana gave Alyson an abrupt but forceful shove, making her stumble backwards over her flowing white ankle-length skirt. She met the hard asphalt road painfully, but managed to cushion the impact by landing on her bottom.

Mitchell raised his eyebrow, caught off guard by his friend’s unexpected act. “Whoa … Diana.”

Alyson growled angrily and got back on her feet as fast as she could. “Diana!” she shouted at her. “Just what is your problem?”

“You seem really stressed right now,” Mitchell said to his friend observantly.

“Oh, you have no idea what I’ve just been through!” Diana snapped back at Alyson, choosing to ignore Mitchell. The younger teenager stomped her foot on the ground and placed her hands on her hips. “I’m sure that you’ve never witnessed something that should have come straight out of a sci-fi movie!”

“What … what?” Mitchell inquired, dumbfounded. He tilted his head to the side as if he were asking a question.

Diana sighed glumly, her anger quickly deflating like air leaking out of a balloon. “I lost Megan’s necklace in the park, the one that’s off-limits, so Krono and I went there to find it. Then there was this flash of blue light and Krono disappeared! And—and—I don’t know what’s going on …” Diana sighed once again.

Once their friend finished her explanation, Alyson and Mitchell could do nothing but gape openmouthed and speechlessly at their friend, disbelief clearly written on their faces. Both of them stayed like that for a few seconds until Alyson broke the silence by snorting loudly and dismissing Diana’s story with a wave of her hand. “Wow. Just wow. I never knew that you had such a wild imagination, Diana!”

“It’s not my imagination!” Diana cried out in reply, stomping her foot angrily. “I’m serious! That really did happen!”

“Well … I don’t know …” Mitchell muttered thoughtfully to himself. He lowered his chin into his palms and lowered his head to think. “It just doesn’t sound possible …”

“Of course it’s not possible!” Alyson grumbled to him, sending a condescending glare in his direction for good measure. “She’s just been watching too many sci-fi movies again. And she just snuck out of home to get a necklace!”

“But that’s not the whole story!” Diana protested indignantly, frustrated by Alyson’s inability to understand. “Krono really did disappear! I’ll show you the exact spot where he disappeared! I can prove it!”

But Alyson was not interested in her friend’s offer. “No, thanks,” she dismissed with a wave of her hand. “There’s nothing to know. It’s not possible for that to happen. Besides, the park is off-limits.”

“Yeah, we’re not supposed to be there,” Mitchell added.

“Fine, be that way!” Diana huffed crossly turned her back on her friends. “Cowards.”

That word struck a sour nerve with Alyson. She snapped her head to Diana and growled at her, “Did you just call me a coward?”

“Alyson …” Mitchell called to her warningly.

“Sure did, so what are you going to do about it?” Diana cut off Mitchell’s sentence, too exhausted to argue with Alyson. All she wanted to do was get Megan’s necklace, find Krono, and sleep.

“Well, I’ll tell you, I’m no coward!” Alyson inhaled sharply and straightened her posture. She threw her head back. “I say that we’re going to that park, and that’s that! Let’s go, Mitchell! You too.”

“Ugh …” Mitchell shook his head and asked himself, “Just why do I put up with you?”

“Because I said so,” Alyson snapped at him, then she spun on her heel to face Diana and said to her, “All right, let’s just get this over with.”

Diana nodded in agreement, then she whirled around and led her two friends to the park where she and Krono had been at only a few minutes earlier. Alyson, still holding her head up high, boldly followed the younger teenager. Mitchell was reluctant to go with the two women, but he knew that both were too rash for their own goods and he was at the moment the only levelheaded person around, so he ran after them.

When they were halfway to the park, Diana happened to look down at her feet by chance and she spotted something familiar lying there in the middle of the road. “Hey!” she exclaimed. “My ski cap! All right!”

Mitchell stared at her strangely. “Why would you have a ski cap with you?”

“Oh!” Diana giggled nervously and scratched the back of her head. “Well—you see—the funny thing is—it’s a long story!”

“Right, sure it is,” Alyson grumbled to her, unimpressed by her friend’s odd behavior. “Come on. Get moving. I just want to get this over with.”

“All right, all right!”

The three walked the last several feet to the park in silence, none of them bothering to look at each other. About five minutes later, they had finally reached their destination. Diana found everything the way it had been when she had run out of it, even the rusty gate that had come unhinged once she had thrown it open. The blue light hadn’t returned either, so Diana took it as a sign that everything was safe.

“Well,” Mitchell finally spoke up, breaking the silence that had descended upon him and his friends, “why don’t we get this over with?”

“Yeah, good idea,” Diana mumbled in agreement as she silently slipped into the playground. She turned to glare at her friends, who were still on the other side of the fence and yelled to them, “What are you two waiting for? Come on!”

Neither Alyson nor Mitchell seemed too eager to join Diana and her mischief anymore. But they both knew that going after her was the only way to save face, so they did so. Mitchell walked through the front gates first, and Alyson followed him soon after.

“Come on!” Diana repeated the moment Alyson had slipped inside the park. “I’ll show you!” She gestured to her friends to follow her and she made a beeline for the sandy area of the playground.

“This is insane,” Alyson complained to Mitchell.

About a minute later, the three had gone to the other side of the playground to where Krono had been last before he had disappeared. Diana dug her heels in the sand and screeched to a stop once she spotted the hole that she and Krono had dug up. Mitchell hadn’t been expecting her to halt so suddenly, but he was able to keep himself from bumping into her. Alyson wasn’t so lucky. She plowed right into Mitchell and knocked them both to the ground.

“Mitchell! Don’t do that!” Alyson shouted at her friend as she drove her fist into the back of his head.

“Don’t hit me!” Mitchell shot back, an annoyed expression on his face. “Diana stopped suddenly!”

“That’s because we’re here!” Diana justified her actions. “Now quit laying around! We have work to do!” Without waiting for either of her companions to get up, she motioned to the hole in the ground. “Look! That was where the blue light came from!”

Alyson pushed herself off Mitchell and peered into the hole. “Hmm …” she mused out loud. “Sorry, Diana, but I don’t see anything special about this hole.”

“Aaahhh … Alyson …” Diana grabbed a fistful of her hair and started yanking at it as hard as she could. “There was a blue light! And I’ll prove it, too!” She fell to her knees and started pawing at the sand like a wild animal.

“Diana, watch it! You’re getting sand in my face!” Mitchell brought his hands in front of his face to shield it from the flying sand.

“She’s gone crazy!” Alyson muttered to herself as she watched her frantic friend amusedly.

Minutes passed by quickly and loudly and Diana hadn’t looked up even once from her task. Mitchell finally decided that if he helped her dig, then she would be able to find what she was looking for sooner, so he knelt down beside her and moved mounds of sand aside to assist her. Alyson simply watched them work instead of offering to help them.

The two diggers had almost reached the bottom of the place that they were searching and they had found nothing yet. But Diana refused to give up. She kept on going until her fingernails hit the concrete under the sand. She cried out angrily.

“What?” Mitchell asked her urgently, pausing in his own duty to see if his friend was okay.

“I chipped my nail!” Diana screeched indignantly, holding her hand out for him and Alyson to see. “That hurt!”

“Oh, get over it!” Alyson groaned and rolled her eyes, annoyed by Diana’s complaining about unimportant issues.

“It doesn’t matter, because we hit the bottom,” Mitchell informed both of his female cohorts as he looked down into the hole that he and Diana had made. He reached down and brushed a final layer of sand away.

Just then, without warning, the same beam of blue light that had shot up from the ground before reappeared and blinded the three. Alyson screamed and crossed her arms in front of her face, trying to hold her ground and not get blown away. For the first few seconds, the light was too bright to look at. But it eventually died down and dimmed. When Alyson lowered her arms, the first thing that she saw was a dim beam of blue light that went straight up into the sky. She looked down at her hands and arms and saw that they were glowing a soft blue, the same color as the beam of light!

“Hey … Diana, what just happened?” Alyson called to her friend frightfully.

She didn’t answer. And neither did Mitchell. When Alyson glanced around at her surroundings, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of Mitchell and Diana, she saw nothing. She was the only person there.

Alyson’s legs gave out. She slid down to the sand and sat on her knees. For a few seconds, she could do nothing but stare at the blue light in amazement and wonder, her mind blank and uncomprehending. Soon enough, though, she understood.

“Oh my goodness,” she whispered to herself, spellbound by the unnatural turn of events that she had just witnessed. “Diana was right!”

And with that horrifying revelation came the even more shocking conclusion that nothing made sense anymore. So when reason gave out, there was only one thing left to do: run away screaming.

So that was exactly what she did. The redhead shrieked and ran out of the playground, tearing down the streets as fast as she could.

Alyson was not one to freak out easily, and it was something that she prided herself on. But every rule came with its exceptions, and she was not ashamed to consider her current loss of control as an exception. No sane person would, after all, be able to stay calm after witnessing what she had just seen.

By that time, the sun was already starting to rise in the distance and the first rays of light gleamed against the reflective surfaces of cars, windows, streetlights, and mailboxes. Some early risers had ventured out into their front yards to collect the morning paper or to admire the beauty of the rising sun. None of them had expected to see Alyson run past them, screaming her lungs out. They sent strange glances her way, none of which she noticed.

So caught up in her panicking was she that Alyson didn’t even realize there were people standing blocking her path—people whom she would have run into had they not moved out of her way first. But every near miss was just a hint of the luck that she had on her side at the moment, and it was only a matter of time before that luck ran out. Before she even knew what had even happened, Alyson bumped into an obstacle on the sidewalk with full force and she toppled backwards on the pavement.

“Ow!” The person that she had run into had been knocked down as well. He rubbed his sore bottom and whined at her, “Alyson … that hurt!”

“What? Who are you?” A bit disoriented from her fall, Alyson rubbed at her eyes and blinked until her vision cleared. When she identified the young man that she had sent crashing to the sidewalk, though, she blinked once more in confusion. “T.K.? What are you doing here? You’re not a morning person!” she shouted at him defensively.

“Hey, don’t yell at me! You’re the one who wasn’t watching where you were going!” T.K. Iverson snapped back. He brushed a strand of neck-length brown hair behind his ear and glared at Alyson with his livid brown eyes, an annoyed scowl on his face.

The young woman who had been accompanying T.K. scoffed. “Not a good way to start the morning, wouldn’t you say, Alyson?” she taunted.

“You better shut your mouth, Kyleigh, or else I’ll show you what it means to start off a morning badly!” Alyson threatened her.

“I’m so scared,” Kyleigh Owens replied to her friend’s warning sarcastically, rolling her ice blue eyes at the sky. She then closed her eyes and started to braid her dyed waist-length black hair. “You’re always in a bad mood, Alyson.”

“Do you start all your mornings by running around the neighborhood, screaming like an idiot and bumping into people?” T.K., still a little angry about getting slammed into and knocked down, queried rudely.

“No!” Alyson growled, getting right in his face. But she soon calmed down and said to both of her friends in her usual haughty tone, “Besides, I have a reason for screaming and running around like an idiot.”

“Really, is that so? Then I’d like to hear it!” Kyleigh responded exasperatedly. “What are you waiting for? Spill the details!”

“Fine, then!” Alyson took a deep breath to calm her nerves and said to her friends, “Okay, Mitchell and I ran into Diana a little while ago, and she was running down the street, freaking out.”

“Kind of like how you were?” Kyleigh queried slyly, a mischievous grin finding its way on her face.

T.K. snickered behind his hand as Alyson’s face contorted with anger. She smacked Kyleigh upside the head and snarled at her, “Shut up and let me finish! Now where was I?” she silently mused to herself. “Oh, right! So anyway, Diana was freaking out and stuff. She was yelling about how Krono had disappeared—and pebbles and beams of light—so Mitchell and I followed her to the park—”

“The park?” T.K. interrupted incredulously, stunned by the revelation. “You mean the one that’s been off-limits for a while?”

“Yes! Now stop doing that! I’m trying to tell you guys what happened!” Huffing indignantly at being cut off twice, Alyson fluffed her hair to purposely stall before she picked up on where she had left off. “And after we got to the park, there was this flash of blue light that made Diana and Mitchell disappear. And that’s why I was tearing down the street, shrieking at the top of my lungs.”

Her story was complete, but Kyleigh and T.K. had nothing more to say. The two stood motionless, unable to believe a word Alyson had just said. They exchanged glances with each other, and then they stared at the friend disbelievingly. Neither of them could bring themselves to speak.

Alyson sighed and twirled a strand of her wavy red hair around her right index finger. “Don’t tell me, you two think I’m insane. Well, you guys should know me better than that to know that I’m the skeptic of the group!”

Kyleigh, who was able to find her voice first, snapped out of her shocked trance and snapped back, “You’re surprised that we don’t believe you? Of course we don’t believe you! Even if you are the skeptic of this group, this is just … ugh!”

“Yeah, this is—this is way too out of this world,” T.K. agreed with a nod of his head. He sighed and ran his fingers through his russet strands. “Alyson, are you sure that you weren’t having a bad dream?”

“I don’t know what fantasy world you’re living in, but I can differentiate between reality and dreams, thank you very much!” Alyson shot at him.

“Well, maybe you just need some sleep?” Kyleigh suggested, bringing up her point before T.K. could start screaming at Alyson. “When I’m tired, I fabricate all sorts of stuff and I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

“I’m telling you, this actually happened!” Alyson insisted persistently, an impatient groan escaping her lips. “You guys don’t believe me? Then let’s go to the park, shall we? I’ll show you that I’m not losing my mind!”

“How about no?” Kyleigh retorted as she put her hands on her hips. “I’m not going to risk a run-in with the law!”

“Uh-huh, same with me,” T.K. agreed with her. “My parents will kill me! And if they don’t, then a certain rookie cop will!”

“Oh, forget about your brother, how’s he going to know?” Alyson dismissed his worries with a wave of her hand. Not even the threat of a brush with the law would deter her.

“Let’s see, it’s broad daylight and people will most certainly see us if we’re sneaking under yellow police tape,” Kyleigh replied sarcastically. Sometimes, the redhead was too bold for her own good.

When it became clear that neither of her friends were willing to let her prove her point, Alyson crossed her arms arrogantly and stated, “Fine, then, I guess you’ll have to believe me.”

“What? You want us to believe that crazy story?” Kyleigh snorted amusedly and responded, “Not a chance!”

“Then I guess we’re going to the park!”

“No, we’re not!” T.K. protested, wondering why Alyson always felt as if she needed to be right all the time.

“Well, you two better make up your minds because you’re either going to believe me or we’re going to the park!” Alyson finally said to them decisively.

T.K. and Kyleigh exchanged glances with each other and groaned. It was so typical of Alyson to back her opponents into a corner during a debate. Anyone who dared to argue with her found him or herself facing a no-win situation, in which the only two possible choices that they had were to either agree with Alyson indefinitely or allow her to spit out details and evidence supporting whatever she was in favor of. Exactly why did they even bother arguing with her when they knew that they would lose?

Alyson folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot impatiently. When it became clear that no answer was coming on its own, she exhaled angrily and questioned, “So? What’s it going to be? Are we going to the park or not?”

With a heavy, irritated sign and his brown eyes narrowed in exasperation, T.K. turned to his antagonistic friend and nodded slowly in response.

“Oh, you …!” Kyleigh gritted her teeth in frustration and mulled over the options that she had. She wanted to neither go to an off-limits park nor to believe Alyson’s story, but she couldn’t have it both ways. The easiest decision that she could make was to simply lie and tell Alyson what she wanted to hear, but Kyleigh had too much pride to even let those words slip out of her mouth. But if they were caught on park grounds, then she could get in trouble with the law. That would lead to even worse consequences. Why did Alyson always have to make things so difficult? But Kyleigh finally made up her mind. She scowled at the redhead and snapped, “Fine. You want to do this the hard way? Then I accept your challenge! Let’s just go to the stupid playground and get out before anyone sees us!”

“I knew you’d see it my way,” Alyson replied arrogantly, smirking and letting her arms fall to her side. After a moment’s hesitation, she urged her two reluctant partners-in-crime, “Let’s go,” and hurried off in the direction of the park.

Kyleigh rolled her eyes at the sky and slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand. “That Alyson!” she snarled. “Just why am I even friends with—argh! Sometimes, I really, really can’t stand her!”

“And you think I can?” T.K. grumbled in response. He took a step forward and called over his shoulder, “Come on! The sooner we get this over with, the sooner Alyson can leave us alone and we can get on with our lives.”

“Yeah … I guess so,” the young woman agreed unwillingly. Kyleigh sighed crossly once more before following T.K. and Alyson to the site in question.

The return trip to the park was not as breezy as it had been the first time Alyson had gone to the fenced-off playground. There were greater risks involved the second time around. Because it was now early morning, there were more people around to watch their every move and more light to catch the three if they were to do anything suspicious. But somehow, the three young adults had managed to reach the playground without attracting any attention and enter through the rusty gate unnoticed.

Once she and her friends were on park grounds, Alyson looked up and laughed victoriously. “There!” she declared as she pointed at the beam of light, which was still going in the same direction that it had been when she had left it but was now faded and barely visible against the light blue cloudless sky. “You see that? There’s your proof!”

“See what? I can’t see anything.” Kyleigh shielded her eyes from the bright glare of the sun’s rays and peered around the park grounds. Never the one with perfect eyesight, she often had a hard time spotting features that were blended against the scenery.

“Right over there!” T.K., who had also caught sight of the mysterious blue beam, pointed out the correct direction to his nearsighted friend.

“Oh!” Kyleigh giggled sheepishly. “I knew that.”

“Sure, you did,” her redheaded friend replied sarcastically. Without waiting for an angry reply, Alyson grabbed Kyleigh and T.K. by the arms and dragged them farther into the park. “Hurry it up! We’re going to get a closer look!”

As she ran towards the light with both of her friends close behind her, Alyson could think of nothing more than finding an answer to the strangeness that she had found herself caught up in. It wasn’t enough for her to see the blue light that was making people disappear; she had to know more about it. If she didn’t know why people kept on disappearing and how light could make people vanish, then she would go insane.

T.K. jogged alongside Alyson so that he wouldn’t fall behind her. He stared at the blue light in astonishment, unable to find any words to describe it. So maybe Alyson was telling the truth, somewhat, but at that moment, the brunette didn’t really care whether he was right or not; he was too awestruck to think of anything logical.

Although Kyleigh, too, was mesmerized by the sight of something out of the ordinary, she was a bit miffed about losing her argument with Alyson. Both young women were very competitive, especially with each other, and neither of the two liked to admit defeat. It was more often than not Kyleigh who was giving in to Alyson’s stubbornness, however, and the fact that Alyson had gotten the better of her in yet another debate was enough to make the ebony-haired young woman sour.

Alyson was quickly nearing the exact location of the blue light, but the closer she got to it, the more she could make out some figures scattered around it. At first, she dismissed the moving objects as leaves or maybe some animals, but when she was about ten yards away from the light’s location, she could tell for sure that the entities around it were most definitely not greenery or animals. She slowed down at first, just in case that police officers had been called to the scene, but once Alyson was able to identify them, she relaxed and picked up her pace.

One of the people gathered around the beam of light heard Alyson’s sneakers slapping against the concrete path. He looked over his shoulder and when he caught sight of her, he waved. “Hey, guys! Look! It’s Alyson!” he said to the rest of his group.

The young woman standing beside him squinted her brown eyes in that direction to confirm his statement. “Yeah, you’re right, Lee! Hey, isn’t that Kyleigh and T.K. behind her?” she queried to no one in particular, brushing away a strand of black hair that fell in front of her eyes.

“Hmm … looks like the gang’s all here,” the brunette standing behind her remarked amusedly. “Well, everyone except for Diana, Krono, and Mitchell,” he added as an afterthought. “But I guess it just shows that you can’t keep the most of us away from something like this!”

“What’s up, Alyson?” the fourth and final member of the troupe greeted. “Busy morning?”

“Yeah, very busy,” she muttered back in response, not in the mood to answer anyone’s questions. “I see that you four all made your way here …”

The brown-haired young man threw a fleeting glance over Alyson’s shoulder. When he saw his two other friends standing behind her, looking very annoyed and worn out, he glared at Alyson with exasperated pale green eyes and asked her, “You didn’t happen to drag T.K. and Kyleigh out of bed just so they could accompany you, right?”

“No, Sukio,” T.K. answered him as he snatched his arm out of Alyson’s hold. “We just happened to run into her and she made us come with her.”

Sukio Henderson cringed sympathetically and scratched the back of his neck. “Oh … I see.”

The raven-haired female nodded her head understandingly. Then, she crossed her arms and glared down at her shoes before snapping her head up at Alyson and accusing, “Dragging your friends around? Now that’s just not okay! Change that attitude of yours or else you’ll be forced to deal with the great Fioré!” She also struck a dramatic pose for good measure.

The other young woman in the group groaned and rolled her eyes contemptuously. “Why don’t you just shut up instead? You’re more annoying than she is, Miss ‘Great’ Fioré Choe,” she retorted, coming to the defense of her friend.

“Don’t tell me to shut up, Natalie Petrovna!” Fioré shot back at her. “We all know how you’re buddy-buddy with Alyson, so of course you’re going to take her side! The point of this fight is objectivity!”

“Hey … come on, now, why can’t we all just get along?” Lee Hina requested of his friends, stepping away from his friends nervously and holding his arms in front of his body.

“Nice to see that you’re channeling Krono today, Lee,” Kyleigh told him sarcastically.

Lee shrugged and responded, “Hey, he’s not here right now, so someone’s got to do it! Otherwise, we’d all kill each other.” He paused to tuck a lock of hazel hair behind his ear. “So, uh, why do you guys think that Krono isn’t here? I thought he’d be the first one to come.”

Alyson cleared her throat importantly and waited for the others to give her their attention. As soon as they were focused on her, she took a step forward and proclaimed, “I know where he went. And I know where Mitchell and Diana are, too. They were sucked into deep space by that blue light you see there, and I was there to witness it!” She crossed her arms smugly and nodded, proud of being the only person in the group to have witnessed such an event.

The initial response that she had received was stunned silence, her friends staring at her as if she had grown a second head. But several seconds later, Fioré cracked up and burst into hysterics. “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!” she exclaimed.

T.K. was the next person in the group to find his voice. “I thought you said that you weren’t there when Mitchell disappeared!” he pointed.

Even Natalie, who was the closest to the redhead, had a doubtful look on her face. “Are you sure about this, Alyson?” she queried skeptically. “It sounds a bit … fantastic.”

“I’m positive!” Alyson argued in defense of her story.

“Really? Well, I’m having a hard time believing it,” Sukio responded, raising one of his eyebrows in incredulity. Of all the people in his group to argue in favor of the unbelievable, Alyson was the last person he had expected to make such an argument.

“Ah! What’ll it take for you guys to believe me?” Alyson bellowed at him and the rest of her friends, an impatient scowl twitching at her lips.

“I can think of a solution for that problem,” Lee answered. When everyone turned to him expectantly for a reply, Lee simply pointed to the beam of blue light that was glowing in front of the group.

Being the witty wisecracker that she was, Alyson quickly got the hint. “If that’s what it takes, let’s do this!” she called to the others.

“W-wait! I was just kidding!” Lee protested, jumping in front of her to keep the hotheaded young woman from jumping into the light.

“Yeah, Aly, you can’t go in there,” Natalie agreed with him. She placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder and went on, “Who knows what’ll happen to you?”

“Well, she could disintegrate upon contact,” T.K., leaning against a swing set with his arms crossed, suggested flatly.

“Not helping, T.K.,” Kyleigh grumbled.

Sukio hid an amused smirk behind his hand, trying hard not to burst into laughter. “Well—” he started.

“Hey, you there! What do you kids think you’re doing?”

The seven young adults shouted out in surprise and whirled around. Two police officers were rushing towards them, looking none too pleased with their presence.

“Cops!” Fioré shrieked, throwing her arms in the air. “Run, guys, run! The coppers are on our tail!” she cackled.

“Let’s get out of here!” Lee hollered in agreement, backing away from the approaching officers. He and his friends quickly took off running, but in their distracted state they had forgotten about the blue light. Accidentally throwing themselves at it, they disappeared instantly.

The two officers came to a halt and stared at the beam of light, their mouths wide open in disbelief. One of the cops, upon finding his voice, turned to his partner and remarked, “We’re going to need to call backup …”