COBALT: The Red Phantom (Book One)

Chapter 3: How to get Kidnapped by a Russian Exchange Student (Part 1/2)

          The Telly hummed loudly, slipping out of Káel's hands and slamming into the floor. White lines crawled across the sphere as it cracked open, leaking a blinding white light that engulfed the floor. He tried to flee, but the liquid light grabbed his feet, preventing him from moving. Cobalt was all he heard before the light sucked him down into the floor and felt like he was riding a short circuiting roller coaster, spinning out of control through a rainbow tube of light and losing all sense of direction.

          He managed to get a clear view as the tunnel ended, floating into a gravity-free clearing filled with hundreds of swirling rainbow tubes. The scene was breathtaking, but also extremely worrisome to Káel, who was still trying to process what was happening.

          Ray slid out of the same tunnel, carrying Jeremiah and Ragdoll with him. Káel tried to speak to him, but nothing came out of his mouth as he strained to talk in the numbing silence. Ray dropped the two cats, pointing to a large hole filled with the same blinding light that sucked Káel into the floor. He shielded his eyes from its intensity, feeling gravity return as he rested on solid ground once more.

          Káel shook the nausea from his head, his entire body tingling as he moved. The ground beneath his feet was soft, like grass. He waited until he could process his thoughts once again. There wasn't any grass in his house, and it wasn't so awfully bright.

          The smell of fresh rain lingered in the air, and he opened his eyes. They were at the bottom of a hill, in a valley of tall wild grass. Jeremiah trotted over to Káel, rubbing against his leg, but he was too frozen to stroke his companion.

          Ray kicked a widget of grass into the air. "Great! Stupid Telly! Why did it put us here?!"

          Káel slowly drew his phone and turned it on, no bars. He shoved it back in his pocket and shakily turned to Ray. "Wh-what was that?"

          "Just a dimension between realities, times, places... I dunno, it doesn't really have a name." Ray replied, trudging up the steep hill. "Also, I get tired of questions real fast. So don't ask too many."

          "Oh..." Káel whimpered, following Ray up the hill as he watched the tall grass dance in the wind, all the while pondering the mess he'd found himself in. 

          An avalanche of possibilities swarmed his head. That ball could have been filled with weird hallucinogenic knock-out gas, Ray could be a key player in an elaborate kidnapping, and those Chirops could have been his dressed up lackeys. Now he was in a field, and Ray was leading him to his secret base to send ransom notes to his rich uncle. The thought of his uncle being a violent gang leader had crossed his mind more than once, but it still didn't add up. Káel couldn't figure out how Ray had instantly fixed his overcoat, or how the creatures were able to transform before their very eyes. And he hadn't eaten something weird lately. He stroked the red gouge on his arm, maybe he'd been seriously drugged, but the syringe was after the ludicrous events.

          His heart sank to the pit of his stomach, there was another explanation, but it needed some serious confirmation. Ray looked human, the grass and air was... Earthly. He continued to scour his surroundings, freezing when he discovered the giant ball in the sky, a planet. It was a beautiful variety of blues and greys colouring it in a pattern of long brush strokes. 

          That wasn't right. 

          He cranked his head up to look further, spotting not one, but two, burning balls of fire. Stars. One was a stunning white with light blue edges, while the other was pure red and way bigger than its partner. The final touch to the sky was a long streak of soft colours like green and yellow, stretching from one end of the horizon to the other.