I fell asleep on a bench outside while waiting for Derek. I felt like someone was shaking me so I woke up with a start. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. Derek was standing in front of me. “What?” I groaned and realized where I was. “Did you get it?!” I asked more awake. In his hands was the case with the pearl inside it. “Oh, thank god,” I said relived.


Then I realized that it wasn’t Derek standing in front of me it was Brad. My eyes got wide and he grabbed my arm. “Let go of me!” I yelled trying to loosen his grip. He turned into an orb and flew up into the sky, still holding on to me. I didn’t know how he did it since he didn’t even have arms. “Let go of me!” I yelled again. Then, everything went black.


I woke up to the sound of a siren. I didn’t know where I was or how I had gotten here. I tried to sit up, but I was strapped to a bed. I saw the pearl on the table across from me. No one else was in here, so I tried to escape. I shook around a bit, but I wasn’t very successful. I even bit the straps, but that didn’t work very well. On the floor beside the bed was a knife, but there was no way I was going to be able to reach that. A curtain was up on one side of me. I was nervous about what could be behind it, so I finally managed to get something to hit the curtain. I heard a groan. It sounded like Derek. “Derek?!” I yelled. “Is that you?!”


“Maddie?” he replied.


“Oh, thank God,” I said relived.


He came out from behind the curtain, which surprised me. “How’d you get out?” I asked.


“Easy,” was all he said and I believed him once he unstrapped me. I flung into his arms, but something felt strange. He didn’t feel like he used to. All of a sudden he clutched me tight and ran. I didn’t know what was going on. He grabbed the orb and we went into this bleach white room. He put the orb in the middle of the floor and set me down. He then instructed me to go to a screen on the wall. On the wall was the earth’s picture.


I was confused. Why would they have a picture of the earth and why did he tell me to look at it? Derek put his hand up against the orb and it turned red. I said something under his breath, which I couldn’t understand. On the screen the earth started shake violently and fire started to spout from it. My eyes got big. What did he do? This wasn’t my Derek, he wouldn’t do this!


“Goodbye, sweetie,” was the last thing I heard from him, the last thing…, I ever heard.