The Race Against Time

The Final Stage

When we finally made it back to the place where the meteor was going to hit, there was a minute left for impact.
I know what you're thinking. You know that I just said the events of the past two chapters happened in five minutes. That would mean it took even less than that to finish everything off once we returned to Earth, so we should have 25 minutes left.
Well, guess what?
Ever heard of an evacuation?
The traffic on the way back was mad.
We had to wait several minutes to be able to walk to town without getting hit at every stop sign.
When we were chasing Mr. Ominous, there wasn't any traffic because the evacuation hadn't started, and nobody would be traveling anywhere else right before a meteor was going to hit.
You're also probably wondering about how come there was a huge crowd standing right next to the meteor earlier in the story if it would probably kill them.
There are idiots in this world.
Surely you've seen movies where a dangerous thing is about to happen but several people go right near it to take pictures of it or do some other nonsense, right?
I'm sure you have.
Lastly, you're probably wondering how a day can be so long.
You remember that I said we had been gone for four hours while we were retrieving the sword and that ten Earth hours had passed since we had gotten to the new dimension.
That makes 14 hours, meaning we should have been asleep at this point.
Well, let me ask you this.
If a meteor was going to hit your very town one day, would you follow a regular sleeping schedule on that day?
You don't expect people to sleep soundly once night arrives when a meteor is about to hit, now, do you?
Exactly. You don't.
That also means that it is nighttime now.
Like I said earlier, this story is a real-life depiction of real possible events, including what are normally fantasy elements in other stories. Don't judge. I saw what I saw and I did what I did.
So please don't correct me next time.
I know how to tie up loose ends, because I've read enough books to know that sometimes authors do things in books that aren't possible thanks to physics and gravity and all that stuff without even knowing.
I fixed all of that.
So please, let me continue with the story.
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We were alarmed that there was only one minute left.
We hurriedly rushed back to where the meteor was about to hit.
We could see the meteor in the distance, and although it had several cracks and was on the verge of being destroyed, it looked more monstrous than before. This time I was even more nervous and frightened than before.
In fact, I was so scared that I felt like my bladder would start crying any minute (you know what I mean).
Nonetheless, we lifted up the sacred sword in preparation for the meteor.
I thought of everything that had happened today (well, in Earth time).
We had discovered the hole in my sister's walk-in closet, been transported to a magical place, gotten in a cave-in, fought a man for a sword, tried to use the sword to destroy a meteor, been transported to an alternate dimension, met Mr. Ominous, journeyed to heal the sword, fought Mr. Ominous, healed the sword, returned to Earth, fought him once more, retrieved the sword and finally, we had returned to destroy the meteor.
In one day I had changed from a normal boy to a hero.
I was surprised that this had happened.
I was more scared than proud, though. Being a hero was not something "cool". It required bravery, which I had very little of, but mostly, it required heart, which I figured I had plenty of because if I didn't, I wouldn't have made it this far.
And right now I was possibly sentencing myself to death for the sake of my town.
The last Sword of Atlantis vs. Meteor battle was a tie.
This time, I hoped we'd win. Luckily, we had an advantage because the meteor was partly destroyed and the sword didn't even have so much as a scratch anymore.
"You ready to end this?" My sister asked.
"Yeah. Let's save our home."
The meteor was a few feet away.
We thrusted the sword straight into the meteor.
There was a huge amount of power.
The sword was glowing brighter than ever before, but this time, I forced myself to keep my eyes open.
I could see some darkness courtesy of the meteor, however.
Even though the meteor was on the verge of destruction, it was still extremely powerful.
Again the sword's light started to fade.
But this time we wouldn't give up.
We pushed even harder, attempting to overpower the meteor.
At this point, it was getting pretty much useless.
We weren't faring any better than we had been before. But something fueled me this time.
I pushed the sword as hard as I could, and I could see the meteor begin to disintegrate.
The cracks in it were becoming even bigger. Unfortunately, the sword was in the same condition at this point.
"Come on! Push harder!" I shouted.
We grunted loudly as we continued to push.
The meteor was almost destroyed.
There were cracks galore and I figured it would be destroyed in a few seconds.
We kept pushing and suddenly we felt something hard.
Was it the core? Had we touched the core of the meteor with the sword?
Before I could comprehend what was going on, there was a loud explosion, and I was sent flying.
Fortunately, I hadn't passed out yet. I could still see what was going on.
Unfortunately, that was when a large brown chunk came flying at me and it bonked my head.
**********************************
When I came to, my sister was awake too.
Debris from the meteor was everywhere.
The sword was in my hand.
It hadn't been completely destroyed, but it was in somewhat of a bad condition.
Apparently, the meteor had blew up into several pieces and one had hit my head and made me pass out.
But that was when I realized something.
The events of my first vision hadn't happened till now.
Before, we had been pushed underground. This time, there was an actual explosion, reminiscent to my vision. That meant that the whole time, my vision was predicting our victory.
I just hadn't known it.
I looked at the sword.
I couldn't believe it had all this power. It had the ability to do so many amazing things.
"That sword is awesome," my sister said.
"Yeah," I agreed.
That was when the sword vanished.
"What the- where did it go?" I asked.
My sister shrugged her shoulders in a state of surprise.
*****************************
Back in the cave where it had originally been, the Sword of Atlantis reappeared in mid-air.
Slowly, it planted itself back into the stone that it had once been in, waiting for its next wielder.
******************************
"Where do you think it went?" I asked.
"Who knows?" my sister replied.
"Maybe it returned to its original spot. It transported us to several places after all. It would only make sense that it teleported itself back to its home," I pointed out.
"It probably did."
"Now, come on, let's go home."
So we started to walk home.
We eventually started to run, realizing we had to get back to our house before our parents figured out we were gone.
My sister's phone suddenly started to play an upbeat tune.
We skidded to a stop and looked at it.
Several texts had been sent from our parents.
There were several worried messages, such as, "You kids okay?", "Make sure you have extra pillows", "Don't leave the walk-in closet. If you need anything just text us.", etc.
The latest message had just been sent.
It was a link.
The link mentioned news in it.
"They probably wanted us to know what was happening around us, since we were supposed to be in the walk-in closet," my sister reasoned.
"Most likely."
So we entered the link.
When the page loaded, and we could see it, our jaws dropped. Sure, there was loads of text about how two kids had destroyed the meteor and cleanup was going on, but that wasn't what caught our attention.
What caught our attention was the featured picture.
The two of us were extremely visible, in a brave pose thrusting the sword in the air.
We looked cool but we didn't care.
We looked at each other with worried looks.
We were silent for several seconds.
Finally breaking the silence, I said, "We are so grounded."