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“-ould… do some..thing… else.” Taylor’s speech slowed as she found herself back on her bed. At home. Again. Confused, she checked her phone. Maybe it was a dream or something.
December 13th. She’d been gone for at one day. Her phone was bombarded with text messages.
Charie <3: tay
Charie <3: tay what happened
Charie <3: arw you okay
Charie <3: TAY
Charie <3 called you
Charie <3: TAYLOE
Taylor’s face contorted with guilt. She knew it wasn’t her fault some weird crazy guy took her to some planet with a bunch of people and a baby, but she couldn’t help feeling bad for worrying everyone. She hastily called Charise, who picked up immediately.
“TAYLOR! Where’ve you been? You weren’t at school, I was worried!”
“Um…” Taylor realized that this would not be easy to explain. Like, at all. “Promise you’ll believe me when I tell you what happened?”
“Of course I’ll believe you, just tell me!”
“...Okay. So I kinda got kidnapped. I think.” Taylor fumbled with her phone, trying to make sure she didn’t drop it from her trembling hands. “Some guy.. he called himself ‘Airy’... Teleported? Us to his weird plane thing and made us do a competition called one. He said he’d give us anything we wanted if we won.” Charise stayed silent for a second.
“Did you win?”
“No, but I saw a baby die.”
“What? No way.”
“I’m serious. He got crushed by a stake!”
“Gross!”
“I know, right? Weirdest part is, he just came back, like, two seconds later!”
“How’d you get back here?”
“The viewers voted me off.”
“L’qui?” Taylor forgot what that meant, but she recognized it as a question.
“There were viewers. It was like… a gameshow. I think.”
“Wait. If it was publicly broadcasted… maybe we could find out more about it?” Taylor inhaled sharply through gritted teeth.
“...Yeah, you do that on your own. I don’t want to put any more of my time into that whole thing.”
“Fair.” There was a pause. Charise was bouncing her leg and it bled into the call audio. It was a nervous habit of hers.
“...Wanna come over to my place? We could rent Mean Girls.”
“Oh, hell yeah! I’ll be over soon, Chou!” Beep.
Taylor made her way down the stairs. Her mother glanced at her, then glanced at her again.
“Taylor? Where were you yesterday, you had me worried sick!” Taylor wrung her hands and came up with a lie.
“Oh you know… the sand worm. Just everyday Ohio things.” Taylor’s mom clicked her tongue.
“I get it. One of my old friends got taken by the sand worm. Least, that’s what we’re all sure happened. Max was his name.”
“Oh, yeah, you told me about him before!”
“Yeah.. Be careful, wouldn’t want you disappearing like he did..” She shook her head. “Poor guy.”
“Oh, by the way, I invited Charise over. Is that alright?”
“Sure, as long as you’re not up to trouble or anything.”
“We were just gonna watch a movie.”
“Right.”
About 10 minutes later, Taylor’s doorbell went off. She skuttered down to the door.
“Charise, Hi!”
“Hey, Chou.” Charise gave her a quick peck on the cheek, instantly turning her face from pink to.. like… a redder shade of pink. They made their way upstairs to Taylor’s room. “Sorry it took me a while, I went to the store to get us some snacks.”
“Oh, it’s fine! Thanks!” They settled in silently. Taylor grabbed her laptop and began the movie. Charise rested her head in the space between Taylor’s head and her shoulder. And for that moment, Taylor thought that maybe this was better than any kind of wish she could have made.
She snickered lightly at the thought. What a cheesy idea. Cheesy, but not exactly wrong.