Who's Laughing Now?

6

     "How do you think Ainsley will feel about this?" Layla asked Tori as they and Lewis walked down the broken streets through the darkness.

    The streets of Camden were in the process of being wrecked completely. But none of the three knew why or who was causing destruction. Every corner they turned, there would be lamp posts that fell stuck on top of cars, and houses divided in half.

     "About the chaos or you being traded?" Tori questioned in response. "It's probably chaos down in the forest as well. I hope they're all okay."

     "No, the trade," Layla clarified.

      "They're just gonna have to deal with that because I saw an opportunity to get you back and I took it." Tori stopped the corner of the block and sat on top of the trunk of someone's jeep. Each window of the vehicle was shattered, and there was nothing inside the car but glass sitting on the seats.

      "But what if that ended up being the wrong choice? You said that Ari can create multiple versions of us! So shouldn't she be the main person tamed?" Lewis chuckled at Layla's confusion.

     "I think the person we should be worried about is the person who's breaking apart the earth at the moment." Layla looked around at her surroundings. Tori wasn't being dramatic when she said the earth was crumbling. Streets were snapped apart, houses were in the air and trees were rotated in random directions.

      "So which duplicate would that be? Seth?"

     "Layla...Seth was the one who almost caught us at the museum. He has the bow and arrow," Tori explained. "I'm talking about the main antagonist, Ainsley."

     "Oh..."

     "All of them have stopped responding to their messages. It's been almost an hour." Lewis opened his phone to check the time and then shut it back off. No one spoke for the next minute until Tori opened her mouth to say something.

     "I think we're doing this all wrong. Splitting up was a terrible decision," she said.

     "Too late to go back, Tori." Lewis reminded her. "Besides, even with everyone together, how would we stop them? We're regular human beings going against villains with powers and real deadly weapons."

     That made a light bulb turn on in Tori's head.

     "That's it!! Lewis you're a genius!!" Tori stood up on the vehicle she sat on. "We can create our own characters and our own story that comes to life!!" Lewis laughed aloud, baffled at such an idea.

     "Tori. No one here is an artist, and no one here is a writer. In fact, our author and illustrator is probably somewhere between the street cracks dead right now." Layla backed away, squeamish from hearing those words. "Also, no one knows how the book came to life, and if we even tried to write a story, we'd be dead before it's even fin-" Tori stopped him by placing a hand in front of his face.

     "Lewis, you are being too realistic."

     "...And that's a bad thing?" Tori brushed Lewis' words off and directed her attention to Layla who was still shaken by everything.

     "Why don't we just all walk back to my car to see if it still works. I'm pretty sure Seth's duplicate is gone and the car is still right in front of the museum," Tori planned.

     "What do we need from your car?" asked Layla. Tori hopped off the jeep and began walking the direction of the museum, not so far away from them.  Layla and Lewis followed behind.

     "We need something to ride around in. We can't be seen out in the open like this."

      "No one is going to see us Tori! It's late, dark and hot," Lewis reminded her. "Also, I'm tired. Say, you never know! If we go to sleep, everything will be normal again and we can go on off about our days."