space adventures and invisible girls.

chapter four.(final)

I blinked, watching the blank-faced people stand before me. I wished so desperately that I could be as separated from the situation as I felt.

"What? Don't you think that's a little harsh? To burn down the guy's house? Do you want to get arrested?" I shouted frantically.

This whole week must have been a dream. This was just my mind's reaction to all the stress I've been under, or something like that.

Celine looked at me. I desperately hoped that she agreed with me. I needed her to. Her sleek, thin hair covered half of her face, as though her face was the moon.

"Victor, that really doesn't matter at this point. We just need to do this so we can safely go home. It's time now. We finally have everyone gathered." She sounded almost solemn. Almost.

"Wait, home? Where's that? Space? Weirdo land?"

Frankie quickly snapped: "that moon thing was just an expression. We aren't creatures, we just don't belong here. We belong somewhere else."

I scoffed and sighed at the same time, my head feeling incredibly light, as though there were toxic gasses bubbling through the blood in my brain. Everything was fuzzy. I began rubbing my sore eyes with the backs of my hands, trying to think of something to do. I had to stop them.

I had to stop them. They were insane. Not me.

When I looked up, the group was settling into a circle on the floor of Parker's living room. Their assembly reminded me of a séance, except for the fact that they weren't holding hands. And they had their phones out in front of them, pushed together in a mini circle within the circle.

My heart raced.

Celine and Frankie were sitting together, but scooted apart so that I could squeeze in. I've known Frankie for nearly four years, and never has she ever looked so mysteriously nefarious and grim. But at the same time, she was surprisingly calm. Her face wasn't creased with worry. Just focused, and very, very grim.

I didn't sit down; I just watched in panicked anger. I paced the floor, the shiny hardwood floors. Parker's floors.

There was a sudden flicker of light, and I was afraid that they had turned the lights on. Or that someone else was in the house. I looked down at them. They were still sitting there. Watching their phones in a circle, silent.

A strange, glowing light flickered across Frankie's light. It was bright and quick, almost like a lightening flash. I watched it flash intensely, then zoom away.

It appeared again on Celine's phone, then Robby's.

The light went around the circle in a glitching, zigzagged pattern for a few seconds. I watched, my face illuminated by the white glow. Then it picked up speed, soon zipping around on each phone, until it was a continual circle of blinding white.

"Guys," I asked, feeling weakness in my voice, "what's happening?"

No one moved, and for a moment I thought that they were too immersed in the light. For a moment I thought that they were all hypnotized.

Frankie broke her focus and looked back at me, although she didn't seem very concerned about me. "We're going home now, Victor. Sit down, and you'll come too."

"And Parker's house?" I squeaked.

"It'll be gone," she said emotionlessly, and turned her focus back to the light, which had grown even more so in intensity.

It was as though all of the lights in the house were on, and flickering furiously. It circled around Parker's living room, spinning faster and faster. I felt like I was on a circling roller-coaster that never stopped.