I was looking straight at my mother. She was a bit shorter than Ken’s and had long blonde hair, that was a bit longer than my own. Oh, and we both get our green eyes from her. I could tell she was panicking. I figured she didn’t really know the details and only heard that her son went missing. Honestly, I didn’t even know what I should say to her. How would I even explain what happened?

“I… don’t know.” I said.

“You saw him disappear didn’t you?” she asked.

“Uh…” I responded.

“Tell me.” responded my mother.

“H-how would you even know what happened?” I asked.

“Our neighbors saw it.” she answered, “They say they saw him get sucked into some kind of portal.”

“Do you even believe that?” I responded.

“Did you see it or not?” my mother said.

“I… I saw.” I replied.

My mother looked like she was about to cry.

“I’m… sorry.” I said.

The rest of the night was awkward. Nobody said anything at dinner and I just quietly went to my room afterwards. I didn’t really keep much in here, so there’s rarely ever a mess. I’ve just got a bed and a desk. That’s pretty much it. I sat at my desk, thinking about everything that had happened. Ken had disappeared. Would it even be possible to go after him? We didn’t know where the portal even took him. As I thought about it, my cell phone went off. I answered without paying attention to who was calling.

“Hello?” I said.

“M-Mona?” responded the person who called.

“What is it, Vera?” I asked.

“Y-you remember that portal thing?” she said.

“Yeah, what about it?” I said.

“Well, it’s just…” she started.

“Just what?” I said, “Spit it out.”

“Um… I… I…” she went on.

She was having trouble getting the words out and I knew I was going to have to be patient with her, or she’d likely forget what she wanted to say.

“There’s a weird guy.” continued Vera.

“Weird guy?” I asked.

“Yeah.” responded Vera, “He suddenly appeared after the portal disappeared.”

“So, you think he might have something to do with this?” I asked, “H-how do you even know this?”

“M-Matt told me.” she answered.

“I see.” I replied, “Well, I guess tomorrow we should look for that guy.”

“Y-yeah.” said Vera.

“But Justin will probably get in our way.” I added.

Our conversation went on for a bit longer. Eventually, we both hung up.

“Some weird guy, huh?” I said, “I’m going to need more details.”

I tried calling Matt, but he didn’t pick up.

“Weird.” I responded, trying again.

He still didn’t pick up. I really hoped that nothing had happened to him.

“Guess I’ll go to bed.” I said.

The next morning is extremely quiet. Nobody wanted to say anything. It was very obvious that everyone was still feeling down about what happened with Ken. Nobody even wanted to talk about it. I hesitantly got myself ready for school and headed out the door. I found Matt and Vera outside.

“Oh, so you’re not dead.” I commented.

“What makes you think I was dead?” responded Matt.

“You didn’t respond to any of my calls.” I said.

“Oh.” he said, “Yeah, my phone’s battery ran out last night.”

“Geez,” I replied, “don’t make me worry about you like that.”

“S-sorry.” he said.

“A-about the w-weird guy.” said Vera.

“Oh, right.” said Matt, “You want to know more about him, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah.” I said.

“Well, he’s a guy… and he’s weird.” said Matt.

“That’s it?” I replied.

“I-Isn’t there more?” asked Vera.

“I never got a detailed description of him.” he said, “I just heard there was a guy with a weird appearance going around.”

“Wow, you’re useless.” I replied.

“How rude.” responded Matt.

So far we hadn’t learned much, but that was to be expected as it hadn’t been that long since my brother disappeared. All we could do was hope we would learn more. As luck would have it, when at school, we saw something we never expected to see.

“Hello.” said a guy at the front of my class, “My name is Sheldon Bender and I will be a part of your class from now on.”

His hair stood out to me. It was long, going just past his shoulders a bit. Not only that, but it was silver! Looking at his face, he was wearing a pair of glasses with square frames over his purple eyes. It was clear to me that this was the “weird guy” I had heard about. I had to wonder what he was even doing in our class.