Because The Sky Is Falling

A PLOT PAINTED PINK (6)

It didn't make sense. The things I was hearing did not make sense. I refused to believe any of it.

"D, I know you don't want to believe it, but it's the truth, and nothing will change if we don't stop it!"

My mother, on the other hand, calmly stood looking into the street as she answered the question we were all wondering

Many may not know what's happening still—it may only be my mom.

the wind picked up, the sky grew darker, and we stared at each other in fear of what would happen next.

"Oh my God, would you just listen? Something was preventing the ship from going up, you Richard Cranium!"

maybe there was a part of me wanting to give up. Wanting to not care.

The sky became lighter slowly, but once it was bright again, it presented itself in a pastel yellow.

"Is it just me, or is the air getting a little bit thinner? Poor, Nicole has had to use her inhaler three times today."

But instead, I woke up to a pastel, yellow tinted sky shinning through my window.

talking about how things should be, would most certainly not make them come true.

nothing is wrong with the sky.

Your mom is the one in control of the hologram as well as the one who put it there.

"It doesn't make sense!" I screamed at him. "But the air was getting thinner!"

"No, D, just listen to—" but I cut him off with my yelling.

"It can't be true!" However, a part of me knew it was. Some of it didn't piece together right—but nothing ever really did anymore. "The air was getting thin—"

"No it wasn't! It's like the placebo effect—you were told something would happen and your brain made you think it did! Your mom made that Facebook status so that everyone who read it would think the air was getting thinner because their brains would convince them it was."

That was when Shinn spoke up to try and persuade me but also to calm me. "D, just calm down and think for a second. Maybe Darian was right about something stopping the rocket from going higher. That's why it looked like it stopped in the air for the minute."

"You're going to just agree with him?" I shouted at her. "My mom couldn't do that!"

"But everyone in the USOE has seen her acting strange—something has been up her sleeve."

"She's a part of you?" I asked in disbelief.

"Yes! She—"

"Stop! No, it can't be!" I stood, turning to stomp away.

"D!" Shinn scolded me, grabbing both my arms and pinning them to my sides. "I know this is hard for you, but please just stop being so close-minded. Take some time to just think."

And I did. I wriggled free of Shinn's grasp and plopped down in the dirt of the field on my butt. Huffing as I tried to think, I decided to trust the explanation Brandon had given me, but still had a lot of questions.

"Okay," I started "but how do you know this?"

"She's in the USOE with me. Myself and a lot of the other sorcerers have suspected her of having some weird plan going on for awhile now. She started missing meetings—to learn how to cast a spell creating this allusion we could only assume. But she also started talking weird about some things."

"Like...?" I asked, waiting for him to elaborate.

"She talks less about the USOE and more about herself. She's recently put herself on a metaphorical pedestal, been less humble. She doesn't say the USOE's pledge at the end of meetings anymore. Not only that, but you were the only person to come up with the conclusion of "the sky falling" and you also just happened to be the son of one of the most powerful sorceresses in this dimension."

"So—just to be clear—this place is Europhia? And it's some different dimension than Earth?"

"Yes."

"Okay, now why would my mom have any reason to trick the entire world into thinking that the sky was falling and the end of the world was now? Why would she want to place a giant dome projecting images over the world?"

"That's what no one knows. That's what we need to figure out. That's up to you to figure out."

But before anyone could say anything else, the universe went white, and not one of us could see anything.