Project X

The Next Step: Hell Bent, Heaven Sent

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HELL BENT, HEAVEN SENT

I woke up the next morning feeling like I had slept for a thousand years on a bed made out of feathers and happiness, rather than for about four hours in the bed of a truck with three other people, and I started to get an idea of where Syd got all his energy from. If he was sleeping like that all the time, then I'm honestly almost surprised he needed RockBulls at all, ever. Part of me wondered where and when he had even had the time to smoke while keeping it secret from us, but also knowing that he was completely imperceivable while invisible (meaning he can't be seen, heard, tasted, smelled, or felt unless he willed himself to be) I wouldn't have been surprised if he had been walking up and down the aisles of convenience stores just smoking and stealing to his heart's content. In fact, now that I was actually thinking about it, I was sure that that is exactly what he did.

It felt like good timing, though; it having been the first night sleeping with four people in the bed of the truck again, it was definitely nice that we were all able to sleep like rocks while piled on top of each other instead of tossing and turning, trying to find room to breathe.

We went inside the truck stop for breakfast, and then piled back at the picnic tables to eat and come up with our game plan for the day. As we ate and talked, I couldn't shake the sensation that we were being watched; but no matter how many times I scanned the area around us, we were still the only ones there. I tried to brush it off as me just being paranoid, but I couldn't just explain away that feeling of eyes burning a hole into the back of my neck. I think Syd could tell something was wrong because he kept casting weird glances in my direction. Eventually, he spoke up,

"Jace, is something wrong? You're acting like more of a weirdo than usual."

"No. Well, yes. Well, maybe. I don't know."

"You know you just gave every possible answer, right?" Irwin asked, raising his eyebrows at me,

"I just... I feel like we're being watched. But that's crazy, right? I mean, we're the only ones here."

"No." Blake responded blithely, "I feel it, too. On the back of my neck."

Now, it was even weirder. Blake was sitting across from me, so how did we both feel eyes on our backs? It would have been hard enough for one person to hide and watch us in this wide open space, let alone two.

"Do you think it could be...?"

"No. No, it's definitely not Phil." I answered Kai's question, "It feels different, I can't really explain it."

Just then, we all heard a deafening crash, like the sound of the world's biggest piece of glass shattering into a billion pieces. All around us rained down shards of what looked like blue and white glass, covering us and the table, cutting our arms and hands, and getting caught in our hair.

There was an equally deafening silence for a moment after. I picked up one of the larger shards off the table and inspected it, too stunned to feel much more than curiosity, and saw that it looked as if the sky was reflected in a piece of broken mirror. I looked up, confusion growing as I saw that the blue morning sky was actually gone, replaced by an impossibly giant mirror that stretched further than the eye could see in every direction. We and our surroundings were reflected in it; I could see that we were no longer sitting at a metal picnic table in a truck stop parking lot, but were instead seated at a grand table made completely of pyrite.

It was nearly impossible, but I managed to tear my eyes away from the near chthonic sight of the mirror-sky to actually look at and take in my surroundings.