Chaos Theorem

Chapter 5: The Threshold

(Will add drawing soon)

The roof of the mall was cold, with biting winds that made me wish I still had an arm in Nate's jacket. The sky was dark, an inky void dotted with distant, white stars. I had friends who had told me once that when people died, they became really bright stars in the sky, which watch over you. Except now there weren't any brighter stars, and that made me feel very, very alone.
  I knew, deep down, that like the others I should've been sleeping. But I couldn't. The blood. There was so much blood, I couldn't forget it. And when I looked at the unconscious figures of my friends, I was acutely aware that the calm they felt (apart from Will) wasn't how a normal person reacted to death. They were like me. They'd experienced it many times before.
  I sighed. All I was doing was destroying myself mentally. There was nothing I could've done - I had to let it go. I pulled my earbuds from my pocket and put them in, putting on Chandelier, a song by Sia. It was a happy song; maybe it would be infectious?
  I then lied down, and closed my eyes as Sia sang me to sleep.
  But I was pretending. This wasn't working.
  Giving up and accepting that my sleep schedule would be wrecked, I got up and looked at the stars again. There were still no brighter stars. Still nobody watching over me.
  Maybe the people down there would be the brighter stars? I decided that it was worth leaning over the edge, to say goodbye to these stars.
  And I don't know what I expected. Did I expect them to be gone?
  Well, I should've expected that, because they were in fact all gone.
  No. That couldn't be possible! Where had they gone? And where was the blood? Even the structures were all fixed! My mind ran all over the surrounding area, and yet my legs stayed rooted to the spot. It didn't make sense!
  It was... impossible. And my brain ached as I tried to comprehend it.
  To make sure that I wasn't just hallucinating, I shouted, "Guys! Guys, get up!"
  I yanked out my earbuds and was greeted by the annoyed groaning of Nate, Penny and Tricky. Will stayed asleep.
  "Ugh, piss off, Kat." Nate spat.
  I glared at him.
  "Be nice," Tricky tutted, "But anyway, my catnap's over, so was there something important you needed to say?"
  "If I had a pillow right now, I'd throw it at you." Nate mumbled, and shut his eyes again.
  "Oh my god, shut up, Nate." I snapped. My brain reminded me that I didn't really know him, and that the excessive closeness I felt to everyone didn't necessarily mean that they felt the same way.
  "Whatever." Nate trailed off, and then was unconscious again.
  I turned back to Tricky, and the now awake Penny, "So, anyway, nothing that special happened, except all of the bodies are gone, and the world has magically fixed itself! Woohoo! Yippee!"
  Nate shot up, "I'M UP, I'M UP!"
  "What do you mean they're gone?" Penny frowned, before leaping up and running to the edge, "What?! But, like, that can't- what?"
  Suddenly, everyone was up, including Will, and was looking at all of the nothing.
  Nobody said anything.
  Nobody knew what to even say.

***

  The sky was slightly brighter by the time we had scaled down the building. Maybe the front was a smooth wall and the side with the door was the same, but the wall at the back had ivy growing on it. We'd sent Penny down first, assuming that she was the lightest as she was also the smallest, and then we'd sent down Tricky, Nate and then myself in turn, because we were sure that they would hold our weight.
  Will gripped onto the leaves with his gloves, but he started to slip and landed on his butt towards the end. I reached out to help him up, but he just waved me away. He wasn't going to say it, but he was limping, in pain, and undoubtedly more annoyed than before.
  Searching around down below, we had our suspicions confirmed; there were literally no bodies. No damage. No anything. There weren't even other people, and that made me worry that we were the last five left alive. We were a solid team, but how long would we last by ourselves?
  We got around the front of the mall and looked around there too. It was strange what had been fixed and what hadn't - the stalls had all been recoloured and put back up, but the covering from the mall was still broken and shattered where Nate and I were stood before.
  "You know, we were lucky to get away from that," Nate noted. He yawned, before adding, "Hopefully our luck doesn't run out."
  "Yeah, I guess." I shrugged, but I didn't like his comment about the fact that our luck could run out.
  There was a short moment where there was just me, Nate and the biting wind.
  "You don't think that our luck will run out... do you?"
  Nate looked at me before looking back at the cover, "I don't know what I think. But I know that we need to be careful, because Fate isn't nice to people who break her rules."
  I looked at him running a hand through his hair, "Is this about your multiverse theory?"
  "Do you believe it?"
  "Do you?"
  "Well, I do. I think."
  I finished, "Well, then I do as well."
  We stared at the glass covering again.
  I took a moment to take in all of its angles, each fracture. I imagined each shard as a separate universe. I imagined the ones on the floor as being ours, all gone wrong and convoluting in one place. The glass, like the multiverse, was broken. Everything I had ever known suddenly felt wrong - this was reality now. And we had to fix the glass before the world turned on us.
  Me and Nate both jumped when Penny yelled, "GUYS! WE FOUND SOMETHING!"
  I looked at Nate, and then we both ran towards her. I immediately recognised the spot where Nate had heckled me for liking Taylor Swift, except it was different now. Beside a beaming Penny (and Tricky and Will standing and staring) was a neon arrow, which appeared to have come out of the ground. It pointed, directing us to follow the path back along the carnival stalls.
  The sign was a chaotic mess. It was pink and blue and yellow and green at the top - the actual, neon glowing arrow - but the staff was more of a crimson colour that was peeling and looked rusty. It didn't feel nice to look at, but it did hold information. All we needed to know was what that information was.
  "So... are we supposed to follow it?" Tricky worriedly glanced at me and Nate.
  "Sure, it'll be fun." Nate grinned.
  "It could be a trap, though." I stopped him.
  "But you want to go, right?"
  I winced, "Yeah."
  "Cool, it's settled, then! We follow the mysterious arrow to possible doom!" Nate patted me on the back roughly.
  Penny laughed giddily, and Tricky smiled weakly as well. Will made no reaction, or maybe he did and we just couldn't see it under his mask.
  And so we followed the arrow down the path of the stalls, following each twist and turn until we reached a fork in the road.
  The ground suddenly erupted as another arrow appeared.
  "AH!" Penny screamed, "Oh, wait, never mind."
  The arrow pointed left. It looked identical to the last one, as if the previous arrow had followed us. I almost wanted to go back and check, but it would've been a waste of time. And so we continued left.
  "Have you noticed yet?" Nate whispered to me as we followed along from the back.
  "Noticed what?"
  "The stalls are layed out differently. This is the way we came, but the organisation is all messed up, and there are definitely more stalls. Does it work like the hedge maze from Harry Potter?" Nate asked quietly, "Will we ever know?"
  "Quit acting all mysterious," was my immediate response, "But I must admit that it's weird. And no, I didn't notice."
  Nate smirked at me, and then walked on ahead. And he walked just ahead of me for three more arrows.
  But the last arrow was very different. It was a lot larger, with a purely red, glowing neon arrow and a gold staff at the bottom. It was a lot more uniform and a lot less chaotic. This arrow was also pointing at something, rather than just pointing into the distance.
  The pirate ship ride was brown, as if it was made of wood but it shone as if it were made of plastic. The controls down beside it looked as if they had been left in the acidified state they were placed into, and the queue line was long and winding. But it was empty.
  My phone dinged, as did everyone else's, and I got mine out. A red arrow on my phone pointed towards the ship.
  Was this one of the games, like with the acid in the mall?
  I didn't think that any of us would ever have said it, but we were all definitely compelled to play the games. There was a reason to collecting points. There had to be.
  "This is a nice change of pace," Nate joked, "Do we get points for literally riding the ride?"
  And, for the first time in ages, Will talked. He objected, "This is certainly a trap. Kat was right, we shouldn't go in there."
  We all stared at him as he looked around us. He then became more reserved.
  "Why are you so boring?" Nate rolled his eyes, "Come on, let's ride the murder machine!"
   I stood in front of Will defensively, "No, Nate, maybe he's right. Look, the controls are-"
  "So, are you just going to stand there talking all day?"
  All five of us turned away from the ride and towards the voice.
  The boy who had said it was like Tricky, in the sense that he was an anthropomorphic animal, but this time a deer. He seemed young, and the sneer that resided rent free on his face screamed arrogance and narcissism. His fur was a shady brown mingled with a lighter brown, the colour of the bark of a recently deceased tree. His antlers were sharp, but not as sharp as his gaze as he looked down on all of us.
  He wore a midnight blue blazer atop a luminescent blue sweater. His black jeans were pristine, and the black and gold shoes he wore shone like the pavement on a rainy day. I gathered that he had probably come from a rich background, and he thought that gave him the right to be rude. I hated people like that.
  He was also stood with a woman - a human woman with vibrant auburn hair, and skin which was so pale that it looked as if any strong sunlight would burn her horribly. The terrified look in her cool blue eyes implied that she was afraid of this deer boy, but was trying to hide it. She wasn't doing a very good job.
  But this fear contrasted with her clothing - armour, made of shining scarlet diamonds on top of a baby blue underlayer. Her black gloves were made of pristine leather, as were her boots, except that her boots were scuffed.
  "Technically," I started, in response to what the deer had just said, "It's not day, it's..."
  However, when I looked up, I saw that dawn was breaking.
  "...day." I finished, smiling awkwardly.
  "Well done." Nate hissed in my ear.
  I turned to shoot back, but I was interrupted by the deer boy pushing through us, followed by the diamonds woman.
  When he entered the queue line, his phone dinged and said, "Welcome, player Null."
  The woman's phone also dinged and said, "Welcome, player Elise."
  Something I noticed was that Elise had the phone with the red diamond on it, and Null did not, meaning that she was in the same situation as Will - she did not have a phone beforehand.
  "What? Not coming?" Null teased, showing his teeth in a snide grin, "Guess I'll just have all the points, then."
  "I'm coming, I'm coming." Nate fell for the taunt.
  "No, wait-" I reached out, but it was too late.
  "Welcome, player Nathaniel." signified that he had crossed the threshold.
  "I can't believe it full named me." Nate grinned at us.
  Penny beat me to what I wanted to say, "Nate, why did you do that?! You just put yourself in huge danger!" she then turned to me and added, "Is he normally like this?"
  "Dude, I met him this morning. He could literally eat a potato salad and I'd be suprised." I shrugged exhaustedly.
  "But I can't believe he's ever done anything like... like this." Penny waved her arms towards Nate as he stood on his tip toes and looked down at Null.
  "Is he always this strange?" Null squinted distastefully at me.
  "Yes," I confirmed, "Nate, get back here now!"
  "He can't." Elise interrupted, her strong British accent drawing me in.
  We all stared at her for a moment. She swished her ponytail to the side and sighed solemnly.
  "Once you cross the threshold there's no going back." Elise added, looking at the ground gravely.
  I stared at Nate. He looked at me as if he knew, and I mean knew, that I wanted to join him across the threshold. He knew that I wanted to help him. His eyes said a thousand words, all of which resulted in me following him.
  "Welcome, player Kat." that annoying male voice on my phone sang.
  "Yeah, whatever." I mumbled.
  "Thirty seconds left for registration." all four of our phones added.
  I quickly added to the others, "You don't have to come, wait here. If anything happens to us, run, get out of here, ok?"
  Penny, Tricky and Will stared blankly back at me. Penny's eyes were wide and tried-looking behind her glasses, and she shook her head as her lower lip trembled.
  She walked through the threshold. Tricky and Will were soon to follow.
  I had no idea that they would have done that. Maybe we were closer than I thought.
  "Well, I hope you're proud of yourselves. It's about to get real." Null grinned, as a teacher would grin at a successful student. He was playing with us, I knew it.
  "Game." my phone interrupted, "Attribute: Strength and Agility. Objective: Stay on the ride. Points: 7."
  We all stared at each other silently, and then all seven of us got into a seat, all on the same side. My heart was in my throat; this couldn't be all that there was to it. There had to be a catch. There had to be something that wasn't obvious on the surface. I looked back at the controls and saw them spark. Something was broken; that had to be it.
  I waited patiently for the safety bar to go down, my eyes still locked on the controls.
  It took me a moment to realise we were moving without the safety bar in its place. Oh. Well... there was my catch.

To be continued...