“Dude, remind me why we’re going out like this again?” Morty grumbled up in the front seat of the car, banging his head against the headrest, knocking the entire chair into my knees. It stings a little bit, but I’m a big boy, I can handle it. Honestly, too big a boy to be sitting in the backseat like this, but I don’t really want to be a complainer about it. 

“Do I have to go over it again?” Frank barely lifts his eyes from the road, but still loosens his shoulders in a ‘come on, really?’ gesture. “My sis needs the car. She forgot the transports don’t run this late and she’s got too much to haul home from work tonight on her own.”

“No, I mean why do we have to be here for this? I was perfectly happy sitting at that bonfire getting drunk.” 

Frank goes ahead and flicks him on his temple, Morty giving the biggest crybaby whine I’ve ever heard over it. “That’s exactly why Mort. You already showed up high and you drank basically nonstop since you got here. I don’t trust you with a bonfire going like this. And it’s not like I’m going to make poor little Brainy sit all alone on his little stump  in silent mode all night.” This time he does turn his head over to me. “No offense man.”

I wave him off. “None taken. You’re cool.” I don’t mind that they would tease me a bit for being kinda shy and quiet. After all, I was shy and quiet. But Frank and Morty were the only two that let me be that around them. Everyone else was expecting Mr. Center of Attention to keep things lively. I can put up with some teasing about how out of character it all was.

Frank pulls his head back onto the road; we’re starting to exit the woods and enter into the city proper now. “Besides, it’s late enough to wrap this up anyways. We would have been dropping you two drunkards off at your places anyways in a few minutes.” 

Morty crosses his arms a little clumsily. “Whatever dude. I’m not tha… that drunk! You’re just jealous you pulled the short straw and ended up driving tonight.” Morty was always that drunk. One of those types that would typically go months on end without a drop, and then get absolutely destroyed at every party. On or off, no inbetween with him. It’s more of a coin flip between me and Frank who stays sober for the night.

I lean over to try and talk past the gap in the two front chairs. “If you can manage to say that without hitching next time we might actually believe you. Maybe I won’t even have to babysit you then.” He puts a flustered little face on  and grumbles at my comment, so I just lean back in victory. “Hey, at least we get to finally meet your sister, right Frank? That’s worth putting out the bonfire early.”

“I know, I know,” Frank apologized. “I keep inviting her to our hangouts but she says she’s always busy. Honestly, she’s just shy, gets really nervous around new people. Speaking of, don’t be stupid and spook her, right?”

Morty, still looking frustrated, glances out the window. “Yeah man, I’m not gonna tease someone I just met, I don’t care how drunk I am.” He bops the top of his head to lean against the glass. “And honestly Frankie, shy’s one word for it. I mean, dude, I didn’t even know you had a sister until, what? A couple years ago?”

Frank just chuckles and mutters quietly to himself under his breath. Something either? “You know, I meant Brian. What with the whole…” He trails off, but I get the gist of it. 

“No no, I know. Trust me, I’m not some kind of luddite bigot. I’d just rather not be involved with it myself, you know? The people who do, they’re totally fine.”

Morty glances back, a smug look on his face. “Ha, hate the sin not the sinner, right dude?” I kick his chair hard as he laughs at me, clearly enjoying his revenge for earlier.

“Come on, it’s not like that and you know it. I’m not like those crazies, I’m back in polite society. It’s just a pretty reasonable concern, right? I mean, in the wrong hands, it’s pretty terrifying.” I feel like it’s a reasonable concern to have. They know what happened to my parents, getting the house broken into by a couple of rogue mages who didn’t think they were home. Dad trying to defend his newly pregnant wife from invaders and getting a hole blown in him as a reward. There’s a reason why Ma’s sister got info on a no-magic restricted town, she decided to move out for our protection. How were they supposed to know that over the next decade it would start radicalizing under her nose? It’s not like every single restricted area becomes a cult like that.

“Well,” Frank replies, “you can ask her yourself if she’s the wrong hands then. We’re here guys.” He pulls into a pretty nondescript looking building, most of the lights off save for a few above the main entry doorway. “Brainy, you come help carry the shit she’s got in there. Mort, try not to piss yourself.” 

“Dude, fuck off, I am not that drunk! I’m coming in too. My legs feel dead, I need to stretch them.” Morty is already up and out of the car, sauntering over to the door. He turns around as I get outta the car, walking backwards to the building. “See! Straight line. Need me to say the alphabet backwards too?”

I roll my eyes as I make it into the building with him, Frank calling out into the open air. “Hey sis, we’re here. The guys are with me too.”

“Good!” a squeaky voice yells out from a few halls down. “They can help with the equipment, it’s pretty heavy.” I follow the sounds of struggling and grunting towards the voice into some kind of break room, and am greeted with an absolutely tiny girl trying with all her might to lift this giant metal orb and place it into a cardboard box with a bunch of other junk in it. “There!” she sighs, using both hands to toss her long, frizzy black hair out of her face behind her shoulders. She looks kinda cute now that I can see the whole picture. Soft little face, bright blue eyes. Wearing what I think is a black skater dress with a big white lab coat open over it. Little bit gothy. 

“Dude, that’s your older sister?” Morty very tactfully shouts from behind me. “She looks half your size! Like she could still be a Junior or something.” I can see her blush pretty hard, and shrink into herself a bit. 

I reach out my hand to her for a handshake. “Ignore him, Morty’s a moron. Hey, I’m Brian. Nice to finally meet you.” 

She shrinks into herself a little more, but gives a little half wave half peace sign motion. “Bianca.” She runs over to Frank, tapping him on the shoulder. “Hey, little bro. You mind if I talk to you in private for a minute? By the car?” She turns back over to me with an apologetic look on her face. “We just have to talk for a minute and then I gotta make a phone call. It’ll be, like, twenty minutes at most, I promise. Just please stay right here and it’ll be fine.” 

I just shrug, pulling my phone out and sitting down on a chair next to the stack of boxes full of her take home materials. “No problem here, we’ll be fine. Go do your thing.” She nods and then basically drags Frank out of the room, hushedly chatting about something or other on the way out. I start thumbing my way through social media, giving a bit of a yawn as I do.

I look up to show Morty some meme or whatever that had just come across my feed, only. He’s not there. Not in another of the seats at the table here, nowhere in the room at all. “Morty?” I shout out. “Where the hell did you go?” I creep out into the hallway. “This ain’t funny!”

“Down here man!” I hear him a bit faintly, down the rest of the hallway that hasn’t been lit. The building’s got one of those fluorescent light fixtures set ups, ones that can go on or off in partial amounts for when they’re needed. There’s really only a few reserve lights left on the half of the building that we’re clearly even supposed to be in right now. Instead of fumbling for a light switch somewhere, I just pull up the flashlight on my phone. Most of the doors seem pretty solid, I jiggle one and it seems to be locked. When I get to the end of the hallway though, the last door, it’s not even just unlocked but open slightly. 

Creaking it open, I find a room that’s still entirely dark, save for another beam of light coming from another phone. Where the first room was obviously a break room, this one couldn’t be anything other than a lab. Tiny twinkling lights coming from all over, the faint sounds of databases clicking and clacking through the walls. “Morty, what the hell are you doing? She said to stay put. I really don’t think you’re supposed to be in here.” I shout from just behind the door. I really do not want to be in here if I can help it.

“Dude, were you really just going to sit there the whole time?” He’s fiddling with something pretty deep into the room, lifting up some tarp over this big machine console at the back. “There’s a lot of interesting shit in here.” He starts tinkering and fidgeting with the buttons on it.

“Yeah, I was going to sit there this whole time, and you should be too. Honestly, get back here man! You really shouldn’t be touching things you have no idea of what they are. Especially magical stuff.”

“How is any of this shit magical? It looks like a bunch of computers and presses and shit. I thought she was supposed to be a witch, this looks more like frankenstine’s lab.” He ignores me and pushes this big red button on the console, which causes this loud noise to go off under another tarp connected by a thick cable. “Whoa!”

“Oh my god, Morty, these things are on? Get over here right now man, stop touching everything!” I debate running in to pull him out, but I can’t get my feet to cross over into such an obviously dangerous area.

He just ignores me and wanders over to the tarp, pulling it off of this massive machine, bigger than either of us, with tons of little antennas and knobs coming off of it. “Ahhhh! That’s more like it! Look at this fuckin’ thing!” He absentmindedly starts mushing on the keypad on the front, when it starts unexpectedly whirring to life, humming lightly. I immediately jump out of my skin when the front opens up before him to… some kind of inner chamber? It looks like some kind of open pod-room. “Whoa! You see this shit Brainy?”

Oh screw this, he is actually going to kill himself. I nearly drop my phone trying to put it back into my pocket with my hands shaking, rushing over to pull him away from the machine. “For the love of Christ, Morty, get away from that thing! You don’t even know what it does!”

The asshole laughs and sticks his head through the threshold of the machine. “Ooooohh, so scaaaaary!” I pull him out of the machine as hard as I can, but he just puts himself back into it. “Oh, be afraid, be veeeeeery afraid! Oh noooo, it’s going to eaaaat me, what am I goi–” Energy crackles with a loud bang out of the top of the machine, and it startles me enough that I lose my grip on him, both of us falling into the chamber of the device hard. He groans and scootches out from under me, sitting up between me and the outside. “Ah, fuck, ok man. That hurt! Watch what you’re doing, you klutz!”

Suddenly a blaring noise starts coming from the top of the machine, energy crackling all over, lights turning on inside the pod. There’s a hissing noise and then… oh no. “Morty! Morty, the door! The door!” 

“What?” He stands around stupidly rubbing his head, still looking at me, as the bay door starts closing slowly behind him. Damn it, he’s not even going to notice it! I make an executive decision and push him with all my might, knocking him back on his ass outside of the chamber just before the doors close too much for him to fit. He grunts, and looks up at the doors sliding shut. “Oh shit! Shit, dude! Get out of there!”

“I can’t! There’s not enough space, the doors would crush me!” God damn it! I see him scrambling up in terror in the slit of the door before it seals up entirely.

I can’t see anything out there anymore, but I can hear him scratching, trying to pull the doors open with his bare hands. “Fuck! I’m sorry, I’m sorry dude. I didn’t mean to! I mean, I’m sorry!” 

I pound on the doors from the back with my open palm. The lights are bright enough for me to see inside of here clearly now, but it’s not much help at all. Entirely smooth all around, no console or anything inside. “Don’t be sorry Morty, that’s not going to help me! Just get me out of here!” I hear the cracking of the energy up top getting worse, the lights inside are getting brighter and brighter. I slam into the door with my entire body over and over again, praying that I’m going to break through and land on the other side. 

“Hold on, I’m going to go get the others. Bianca probably knows what’s happening!” I hear him clamoring away from the machine, running out of the room.

I yell out in frustration, desperation. “Wait! Don’t go! Help me!” The lights are getting even brighter, I can see sparks starting to head in from the top of the chamber too. God, I’m going to die aren’t I? Christ, I knew I should have never came to this stupid magic lab, I knew how dangerous all this was. Everything’s getting so bright, so loud, I just sink to the floor, hands on my ears, squeezing my eyes as tight as they can be. I’m going to die, and I’m going to be alone. 

I’m shaking. It’s so bright that I can see my veins through my eyelids, so loud that I can’t hear anything but my ears ringing. I can feel the energy licking at me from the top of the machine. I squeeze down tighter so it won’t touch me as much. It’s sharp, and painful. The pressure in the room grows thicker and heavier, I feel like I’m going to be popped like a zit. I scream a loud, primal rage of anxiety, pounding the heels of my wrists into my temples repeatedly. I hear a klaxon go off, feel an extremely painful popping throughout my entire body, like every single joint has released all the gas all at once. The lights practically explode out, and then… 

Silence. Everything is pitch black. I don’t see or hear anything. I definitely feel something though; my entire body is screaming in pain.  I… I don’t think I’m dead. I’m entirely too sore to be anything but alive. I flop down onto the floor of the chamber, spread out completely, energy leaving me quickly. Oh my god, I have got to be the luckiest person in existence.

Suddenly, the door starts to slide open on its own again. Mist pools out from the chamber with me onto the dirty floor. It must have collected when the machine was running. I tried to stand to run as fast as I could out of the machine, out of the building. Out of this city? I don’t know. I get about a step out of the chamber when I realize none of those things are happening; my entire body feels like it’s made out of jelly, like it’s brand new and I have no control over my faculties anymore. I only make it a little bit out before I completely collapse onto the floor, wheezing and barely getting air into my lungs. Before I pass out, I squint, looking back up at the machine. I can see the other side of it is open too, with a secondary identical door on the back. With it open, yet still pitch black, I can just barely see something moving around in the mist.

The last thing I thought before the nausea became too great and I passed out entirely: There’s someone else in here with me.

CassieSandwich

You know that I've worried, you know that I've tried. Don't you know I'm not strong? Don't you know I'm not kind?

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