D. MacHale - The Reality Bug

“C’mon, Bobby, breakfast is getting cold!” came a voice from outside my room. It was my father. What was happening? I had faced a lot of scary situations since I became a Traveler, but on the strange scale, this was at the top. It took every ounce of courage I had to get my legs moving. I had to find out what was going on.

I cautiously left my room. The upstairs hallway had all the same pictures, the same rug, the same doors, the same everything. I half walked, half floated down the stairs, through the living room, past the dining room and straight into the kitchen. When I poked my head in, I saw a scene that was totally normal and totally impossible at the same time.

The table was set for breakfast. Mom was scooping scrambled eggs from a pan; Dad was sitting in his normal spot, pouring orange juice for everyone; Shannon sat at her place, politely waiting for everyone to sit so she could begin; and Marley sat on the floor at Shannon’s side, waiting with equal patience for somebody to drop food on the floor.

I stood in the doorway, staring. Part of me wanted to dive into that kitchen, throw my arms around everybody and cry like a baby. Another part of me wanted to turn and run.

Finally Mom saw me and said, “Eat. You can’t be late.”

I didn’t know what else to do, so I drifted over to the table and sat down at my place. It was the place by the window where I had eaten since I was old enough to sit up. It was the place I never thought I’d take again, since my house and family and everything I had ever known had disappeared.

But now they were back.

I must have looked as stunned as I felt, because my father said, “You all right, Bobby?”

I wasn’t sure how to answer him, because I wasn’t. “To be honest. Dad, I’m a little confused.”

“About what, sweetheart?” Mom asked innocently.

I chose my words carefully, knowing just how ridiculous they would sound. “Has anything… odd happened?”

Dad asked, “Like what?”

Shannon chimed in. “We’re having’bacon for breakfast. That’s odd.”

“What are you talking about?” Mom asked while taking her place at the table. I sat looking at my family. The three of them looked back at me over their plates of bacon and eggs, waiting for me to say something. Marley poked her brown rubbery nose up from below the table and looked at me too, though I think she was more interested in sniffing out the bacon. I didn’t say anything. Instead, I picked up a piece of bacon and took a bite. It was as delicious as any bacon I’d ever had. Done just the way I liked it too. Not too crispy. I didn’t know why that surprised me, but it did.

Finally I dropped the bacon on my plate and stood up. “I…I’m not hungry. I better get dressed.” I left the table, headed for the door to the dining room.

“But you have to eat something before the game!” Mom called after me.

“I’ll get something later,” I yelled back.

I was going mental. If my parents had said: “Well, Bobby, you were in a coma for the last year and a half,” I would have understood. That would have meant that everything about the territories had been a dream. But they didn’t. They acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all.

There was only one possible explanation. It must have been a dream. A really long, detailed, incredible dream that happened all in one night. Isn’t that how it worked with Scrooge from A Christmas Carol? I read somewhere that dreams may seem long, but they really only last a few seconds. I figured that must have been what happened to me. As I walked back toward the stairs, I began to accept that possibility. A few moments crept by where I actually started to relax. I was home. The nightmare was over. Everything was going to be normal.

That warm, fuzzy feeling didn’t last long.

I walked by a mirror and saw my reflection. What I saw wasn’t the image of the guy who had kissed Courtney, then got on the back of Uncle Press’s motorcycle bound for the flume. No way. This guy was older. About a year and a half older, to be exact. Everything in this house was the exact same as I remembered it… except for me. In that instant, my dream theory came crashing down. There was no way I could have slept for one night and dreamed up the whole adventure, because I wasn’t the same guy anymore. No, the answer wasn’t as simple as that.

It was then that a single word came to my mind. I didn’t know what it meant at first, but it definitely felt like it was the key to unlocking this mystery.

The word was… Lifelight.

No sooner did I remember that word, than I felt something on my wrist. I looked down and saw I was wearing a wide, silver bracelet with three buttons. It surprised me at first because it wasn’t there a second ago. But still, it seemed familiar. What was I told? If I needed to talk with someone, push the left button. Well, I couldn’t imagine a bigger need to speak with someone than right now, so I pressed the button on the far left. The button glowed white for a moment and gave off a soft, quick hum.

“Not bad, Pendragon,” came a voice from the top of the stairs. “You put it together faster than most.”

I spun around and looked up the stairs to see someone sitting on the top step. It was the one thing that was out of place in this house. Besides me, that is. She was a pretty girl with a blond ponytail, blue eyes, and yellow-tinted glasses. I stared at her for a few seconds, confused. It was like having an answer on the tip of your tongue, but you couldn’t quite get it out.

“Breathe, Pendragon,” she said. “It’ll come back.”

“Aja…,” I said.

Aja smiled and clapped. “Very good. There’s always a little disorientation at first, especially if you’ve never jumped before.”

I looked around the house. My house. It seemed so real, but it wasn’t. It was an illusion. An incredible, wonderful, heart-wrenching illusion. It was all coming back. I wasn’t home. I was lying in a dark tube in a giant pyramid on the territory of Veelox, and this was all happening in my head.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Aja said. “You’ve seen a little of what Lifelight can do and you’re pretty impressed.” She walked down the stairs and came right up to me. “But you’ve just had a taste. The only limits to Lifelight are the limits you put on it yourself.” She touched her finger to my forehead. “It’s all up there, waiting to come out.”

“There’s more?” I asked.

Aja laughed. “Pendragon, you’re just getting started.”

(CONTINUED)

I walked around my living room in a daze. Or should I say, I walked around the illusion of my living room. The dazed part was real, though. No illusion there. I ran my hand along the back of my couch and felt the soft, cotton fabric. I turned the switch on a table lamp, and the light came on. I picked up a frame that held a picture of me holding a newborn Shannon the day she came home from the hospital. Everything looked and felt totally normal, and real.

“You shouldn’t be surprised,” Aja said. “Everything is going to be right because it’s coming out of your head.”

“But I can feel things,” I said. “And I tasted bacon. How is that possible?”

“You know how it should taste, so that’s what it tasted like. Simple as that.”

Simple as that? Who was she kidding? This was the furthest thing from simple I could imagine. I had about ten miles of questions. “What if I hurt myself?” I asked, my mind racing with possibilities. “Do I really get injured?”

“No. You’ll feel the pain if you get injured, and you’ll stay that way until the jump is complete, but you’re not really here.

You’re in the Lifelight pyramid. Nothing physical happens to you; it’s all in your head.”