Heaven Gilded Zarcroft Hybrid

Twenty Seven

The sun shone through the windows.

I felt so... empty. Not in a bad way, but in a refreshed way, like all of the bewilderment and sadness before arriving on Exo vanished. I was lighter, and not tired at all despite just waking up. It felt like I was awake all along.

Jamie sat on the end of his bed in a black T-shirt, writing something in a notepad. "How are you not tired when you get up?"

"I'm just not," I said. "Maybe it's the environment."

Dorothy peaked from under the covers. "What time is it? I don't want to go today."

"Go where?" he asked.

"The Youth Club."

I laughed. "Dori, we're on Exo, remember? In an alien hotel?"

"Oh yeah..." she said, and closed her eyes again. "Let me know when we're eating breakfast."

Jamie's eyes widened. "Damn. When is breakfast?"

"Whenever Cynaline wakes up."

The room went quiet. Jamie bit his lip, and tapped his pen on his notebook.

"You fainted last night," I said. "Once we teleported back here."

"I figured."

"Shouldn't we get that checked out? We don't want anything bad to happen."

His smile was slight. "I'm fine, Jackson."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure."

Then I remembered: Cynaline checked out two books from the Mind library after I told him about my dream, but I didn't know if he brought them with him. I slid out of bed and looked around for his bookbag.

"Looking for something?"

Cynaline leaned over the bed, looking down at me. His wings hugged his arms.

"You're awake?" I stammered.

"I just woke up a minute ago," he said.

"I was looking for those books you checked out from the library. Weren't they about dreams?"

"Oh... Sorry. I was going to, but I only found one book about visions."

"Visions? What's the other book?"

He smiled nervously. "It's about a movie. Here, hand me my bag. I'll find the one you're looking for."

⚝⚝⚝

While Cynaline was in the bathroom, the rest of us looked through the huge, blue book. The cover felt like it was made of wood, with engraved, golden letters. It looked too expensive to be from a library, even a government one. Or maybe it was actually super cheap, like my pendant. Only problem was that I couldn't read it.

Dorothy sat beside me, with Cynaline's bookbag in her lap. She found a velvet box of four contact lenses.

"The scribers!" I asked. "Maybe I can read the book with them."

Jamie put a pair on, and touched the frames all over, searching for controls. "I think they're just regular contacts... "

"Don't touch them too much," Dori said. "You'll hurt your eyes."

He took them out and placed them back in the box.

She grabbed the book and opened to the very first page.

A big paper pocket stuck to the back of the cover, with a symbol of a mouth printed on. Tucked inside the pocket was a card. There was a list of names in various alphabets. I had no idea what else we were supposed to do. Dori touched one of the names. Like a computer or a phone, a new list appeared in its place.

"It's magic!" I exclaimed.

Cynaline walked out of the bathroom, brushing his hair.

"Need help with that?" he asked.

He showed us what we were looking at. The list of names were categories of languages. Each one took us to a wide list of languages with the same alphabet. It even had most Earth languages.

Another way to translate the book was to write a word or phrase in your written language. Dorothy wrote "hello, I'm the scarecrow" in red pen. The ink dissolved. Then I noticed the copyright information on the next page: the ink slithered from its place, morphing from Zarcrotian to English.

I flipped through the pages in awe. It was just regular paper. No hidden wires. Even up close, you'd never guess it was in any other language.

"If you don't have a pen, you can talk into it and it'll figure out what you're speaking," he said. "And there's some settings in the back if you want to listen to it instead."

"Cool..."

"And it's not magic."

Cynaline opened the drawer of his nightstand and pulled out a square tablet.

"Did you guys want breakfast delivered?" he asked us. "I kinda wanted to see the dining area. I've never been to such a nice hotel."