Young Writers Society

"Hali, there's nothing around your neck!" Maahes shouted, worried by the way the man had been clawing at his throat. James and Kratzer's reactions had seemed right - it fit them. But if Hali was lunging at someone, and was reacting the way he was, then whatever he saw had to be really, really bad. "You're just seeing things, like James and Kratzer were!"

Hali took in a shuddering breath as Maahes shouted, tears springing unbidden to his eyes. At that moment, his hurtling body passed through the Collector's and he stopped. What?

Suddenly, the sensation of raw skin on his throat hit him, and he touched his neck gingerly. "There's nothing," he whispered, even though he thought his fingers met stiff material. He turned around, breathing shakily.

The Collector was still there, his face unchanged, but beyond him were Hali's new companions. They had been there the whole time.

Hali let out a small, bitter laugh and he wiped his eyes. He looked at both the Collector and the others. "Just a hallucination. It's--It's so real." He covered his mouth to suppress a sob. Why am I so weak all of a sudden?

He spun around as Hali flipped out, then fell down flat on his back in surprise as he saw the face of the green-eyed woman right in front of him. It wasn't real, it couldn't be, and yet...

The bright light blinded him as he opened his eyes. He couldn't see much of anything aside from the silhouettes of a few masked individuals. They were talking, but their voices were dim, and slurred; it was impossible to make out words. The surface he was bound to was cold and he jerked forward as he became oriented enough for the fear to hit him, only to find himself held down by some kind of straps or chains around his ankles and wrists and neck...

"James," he said, frantically tugging on the bottom of the man's shirt. "Hali's having an emotional breakdown and Kratzer's freaking out and I don't know how to help them."

He wanted to say something else, but he bit his lip just as the words started to come out. Nope, he wasn't going to admit that. It was far too embarrassing, and James didn't need to know-

But he didn't want to seem incompetent.

He puffed out his cheeks, thought over what he could say, and then finally decided that he would just go out and say it. He folded his arms and looked away from James, blowing out the air he had built up in his cheeks. "I'm-I'm just a kid, so Odris hasn't had enough time to teach me how to deal with this yet."

He looked down at Maahes with a look of serious intensity and sincerity at Maahes's pleading and put a hand on the boy's shoulder. "It's okay. Don't worry about it," he said softly, before looking to the two other men who were panicking at their own visions.

Now that he knew they weren't real, it was only a game of just ignoring them. So when he saw the image of an old friend starting to walk through the trees, he ignored it. Don't engage the visions, he told himself. You have to help everyone else now.

First, he went to Kratzer, who had fallen, and he put his hands under Kratzer's arms and pulled him up to his feet.

"Kratzer. Hali. Let's get back to the cottage. I'm sorry for leading you out here in my own fear," he said, looking over to Hali, who was crying. "It's alarmingly real. But you just have to-"

The face of his old friend Carter was beside him, holding a knife to his throat. It's not there, it's not there.

"-Ignore it. Don't give it your ear."

"That's bullsh*t and you know it," Carter's deep voice growled into his ear.

James's lip curled, but he looked down at Maahes instead. He had to keep it together for the kid.

"Walk with me?" he asked the three real people present.

Just as Maahes went to nod in agreement and join James at his side, he saw someone coming out from the trees out of the corner of his eye. He eagerly turned to see who the person was, only to freeze when he began to make out the newcomer's features.

The newcomer was a teenage Alteran boy, his dark brown hair thrown back into a somewhat neat ponytail and a pair of incredibly light (so light that they were almost white) blue eyes peeking out from behind a set of goggles. The area underneath his eyes was dark from lack of sleep, and his clothing looked fairly professional by Alteran standards. He wasn't normally that tall, but Maahes was stuck in a smaller guise - so the boy looked absolutely gigantic by comparison.

He looked around the clearing.

And then he noticed Maahes.

It was then that Maahes came to the conclusion that he was just imagining the all too familiar Alteran, and confidently said, "You're not really here! You're just a figment of my imagination!" Saying it made him feel far better; if he really had been here, he would have been about to get scolded.

Again.

"Maahes, what are you talking about?" he asked. "I'm right here."

"That's what my imagination would make you say if I figured that out-"

He had crossed the clearing and was now crouching in front of Maahes, a confused look briefly flickering across his face as he studied the child in front of him. He raised a finger up and carefully poked Maahes. And Maahes felt it - he felt the finger touching his shoulder, could feel his breath on this guise's skin, and could feel him touching his shoulder, again, as he probably was trying to prove a point.

Maahes gave a startled cry and dove behind the legs of the person closest to him. That person happened to be James. "You're really here!" he said, his voice high with terror. "I-I'm not imagining you!"

For a moment, James thought they were having a collective, shared hallucination. But then the teenager poked Maahes, and it seemed to prove a point that he was actually there. It was still odd, seeing as the hallucinations were so real, and the teenager before them was just so, but if he were to call the teenager's existence into question, that mean he'd have to question the others as well. He didn't know the others before they met in the cabin, but he knew the people he hallucinated. For him, that was his distinction - that his mind couldn't come up with people he didn't know and had never seen. So they had to be really there.

"Who are you?" James asked, looking back at Maahes with Kratzer at his side. "How do you know Maahes?"

Kratzer's hand was on his gun the moment Maahes' fear became evident and he stepped protectively between the boy and Odris. He didn't make a hostile move but his posture was clearly guarded. The apparition of Boomslang had disappeared when Odris came; evidently, the hallucinations weren't regular or constant.

"I'm-" the boy started to say, but Maahes cut him off before he could even say his name.

"I'm not Maahes!" he said, ducking further behind the leg. If he stayed just out of sight, then he wouldn't be able to confirm that it was him. He wished he could change his guise - then he could run away and never be found. But now he was stuck like this, and he definitely couldn't run as fast as he could have if he was in another guise.

The teenager calmly walked past Kratzer peeked around James' leg.

"Maahes, I know it's you," he said, a tired tone to his voice. Maahes froze when he heard it. Uh oh. He was definitely going to get scolded this time! "I'm wearing my lenses, and this man just called you by your name."

"Are you suuuure I'm Maahes, though?" Maahes asked.

The teenager just gave him a look.

Shoulders slumping in defeat, he walked out from behind James and went over to where the teen was now beginning to stand. Thankfully, it didn't seem like he was going to get scolded just yet - he still needed to talk to the other people present.

He pushed up his goggles so they were now nestled in my hair. "My name's Odris," he said, "and I'm sorry for whatever trouble Maahes might have caused you."

James looked down critically at the teenager. That was the Odris Maahes was talking about? The way Maahes spoke of him, it sounded like he would've been older to be a teacher and a guardian. He sighed.

"No need to apologize. He's a good kid."

Hali breathed in and out as deeply as he could to calm himself, swiping a bit resentfully at his eyes for being so weak. His heart was still pounding rapidly. He studied Odris and agreed with James that 'youthful' was not the word he would have used to describe his idea of what the guy was like.

He glanced at the translator again, remembering his self-consciousness about not understanding what everyone was saying automatically because of the newcomer, but he pushed it down. He glanced around and shuddered at the image of the Collector still near. "We should get back to the cottage."

Odris met James' gaze for a good minute before Hali spoke, turning to the man when he heard two sets of voices speak: one came straight out of his mouth, while the other came out of a translator. He had been through a wormhole recently enough to understand the other person's language, but he guessed none of the other people present - save for Maahes, who he still needed to talk to about running away - were travelers in the sense that his people were.

Which was bizarre, considering that all life like theirs seemed to stem from the Alterans.

"Cottage?" he asked, making a point of using the language that the other people present seemed to be using. The translator would take care of it, and he didn't want to confuse the other people present.

"There's one this way," James answered, starting to walk in its direction. He looked back at Maahes to make sure the boy would follow, and subtly offered his hand to hold if Maahes wanted.

Maahes eagerly grabbed onto the hand that the man extended. Odris let out a quiet, frustrated groan when he saw how quickly Maahes darted away from him. The spirit definitely knew he was going to be scolded, and was trying his best to avoid it - only the cost of such an action made it seem like Odris was some horrible person, even when he was just trying to be the responsible adult everyone wanted him to be.

Altera, he loved Maahes, but it just wasn't fair that he had to deal with him on his own just because he was such a good student-

He took a deep breath.

Now wasn't the time to be bemoaning the things he could never change. He needed to figure out what this place was, who these three men were and how he could get himself and Maahes back to Vuphia.

He followed the man and Maahes.

Kratzer took up the rear, hand still on his gun. He still felt like he was being watched but couldn't put his finger on it. He tried his best to ignore it, dismiss it; after all, there were many things here that weren't real. But even as he pushed the thought away his instinct clawed at him. He was being watched.

He glanced around the forest nervously. It had to be another hallucination...didn't it? He didn't smell anyone...