Stranger Than Fiction

chapter 19

You know that feeling when you get goose bumps even though its not cold, that's how I felt the moment I heard the voice behind me. Now any of you that know Plan and I, you know how I like to tease him that he's afraid of ghosts, actually it's the other way around. I'm scared not him, but he plays along.

And right now Plan wasn't moving or speaking and someone was clearly behind me. Was I shitting myself? Of course I was but I had no choice but to turn around. I knew who I didn't want to see. But the voice didn't sound like it belonged to an old man. I took a deep breath and looked back without taking my hand off Plans shoulder.

"I told you he can't hear you and I know I didn't stutter."

"Earth! What the hell are you doing here?" Honestly I didn't expect to see him and my brain clearly wasn't running at top speed because if it was I wouldn't have been so calm.

"What am I doing here? Oh come on Mean, I thought you were the smart one." Earth teased. The smile on his face should have been another warning, but I didn't take the hint.
"Sorry were you expecting an old man or a creepy little girl?" He started to laugh.

"Earth, what's going on? What did you do to Plan?" I was smart enough to take a step back at this point because he was still smiling but there was a look in his eyes which did not match the smile.

"I'm here to make you an offer" he said, then he paused and shook his head, "actually it's not an offer because you have no choice. So I'm just going to tell you what to do." He turned and walked out of the kitchen.
I know that this is the part where I'm supposed to follow him but my feet felt like concrete, I didn't want to leave Plan and I sure as hell didn't want to know what Earth had in mind.

I looked at Plan, he looked ok. If Earth or who ever that was wanted to hurt him I'm sure they would be able to do it regardless of where I was.
I took a deep breath and followed after Earth. He was sitting on the stairs just looking at me.

"Who are you?" I asked

"Earth." He replied.

"No, who are you really? You're not Earth." I said

"Would you rather I look like a little girl?" He asked "would you feel braver if I did? Little girls aren't very scary, which is why I like that disguise but honestly it gets boring, I prefer to look like myself" he said and smiled.

At that moment he looked like the Earth I knew, he has such an innocent face when he smiles, although anyone that knows him knows he has a temper. Was this really him? Was he really the one behind all of this? I felt like my head was exploding with a thousand questions.

"Stop trying to figure this out Mean, you're clearly not smart enough. Maybe I should have played this game with you instead. Imagine how much fun it would have been."
He said.

"So you are Earth!" I said

"Yep" he said with a nod "I just use other disguises now and then to make things more interesting. Tukata and Puk are my favourites though."

"Wait a minute, Puk? You're Puk as well?" I asked.

"Yep" he nodded again, " fun isn't it."

I felt sick. Everything Plan had said was true, but he didn't know that Puk wasn't there to help him. Puk was just another character to trick him and keep him where he wanted him.
This was too much information to process. Hearing Plan talk it seemed abstract but this was real and there was nothing I could do but stand there and listen.

"I still can't work out why Plan couldn't keep his mouth shut." He said. "He knows that there are consequences for breaking the rules and I get very creative with the punishments." He smiled.