The fact that this wasn’t a dream had slowly seeped into the back of Maria’s mind. The kid looked in need of help, and Maria always went out of her way to help someone.
“Oriceran.”
Maria’s stomach flipped. She grabbed the railing with two hands. Oriceran? Gramps’s Oriceran?
“I know, I know, it must be a shock,” the boy said. He swiped his long curls from his brow.
Maria saw the extent of the wound on his face. It didn’t look like a bullet wound or a knife wound, or like the boy had taken a nasty fall—none of that. His wound looked beyond any form of Earth weaponry. She didn’t know why she felt that way, but she did.
“Yes, Maria, it is the Oriceran your grandfather speaks of. I’ve been watching you.”
“Well that’s the creepiest thing about this whole conversation so far, and I’m talking to a dead boy, for God’s sake.”
“I knew your grandfather as well,” the boy continued, ignoring Maria’s remark. “Ignatius is a good man; you are very lucky to call him family. He lives up to his namesake.”
“How? How did you know him?”
“It’s a long story, and our time is short. We will brush upon it soon.”
Maria stepped forward. “No, tell me. I won’t help unless I know.”
The boy stood there solemnly.
“Better yet, I’ll call him up here. It might take him thirty minutes to get up the stairs, but I’ll do it.”
The boy smiled. “Threats are not like the Maria Apple I’ve come to know.”
“You don’t know me! And you’re in my house, creepily close to my room where I keep all my undergarments. Are you one of those creepazoids? Should I call the police?”
That smile again. “You can call the police. I won’t go anywhere. Go ahead, call them.”
“I get it,” Maria said after a moment. “They can’t see you.”
The boy nodded. “You’re quite bright, Maria. They cannot see me, and neither can Ignatius.”
“Only I can see you, for some reason. Just like only I can make the kettle blow, and the ice cream melt, and the clown’s head explode.”
The boy laughed. It was a nice sound. Maria didn’t think he got to laugh often.
“The clown’s head was a good one,” he said. “The look on Kaylee’s face was hilarious. I haven’t laughed that hard since training. Hotes once shot his arrow the wrong way, and hit the straw man with the butt of it—”
“Reminiscing is nice and all, but I’d really like to know what the hell is going on.”
“It’s better if I show you,” the boy said.
“What does that mean? You have a camera or something? You don’t look like the type of person who would have a camera on them. Maybe a pocketful of toads or something, but definitely not any electronic devices.”
“The way I will show you is the same way you’ve done those things today. The kettle, the ice cream, the put-put.”
“Putt-putt,” Maria corrected.
“Yes. Language arts were never my strong suit. Anyhow, that is the way I will show you.”
“By way of hallucination? Because that’s exactly what I’m doing here.”
The boy shook his head.
He brought his right arm up. The baby blue sleeve of his uniform was soaked through in red. He waved his hand, creating a hazy blur. Maria realized it was a screen.
“Whoa. What the fu—”
But the sounds of battle stopped her.
Huge, dark mountains loomed in a hazy purple sky full of odd constellations and two moons. Fire raged all around. Maria’s heart pounded. An army of robed men stormed the barricaded gates that the boy stood behind.
“Duke!” someone shouted near the boy.
The boy turned around. The sword in his hand shook violently.
“Duke, retreat! Retreat! There’s too many of them!”
The boy wasn’t fast enough.
The gates blew open in a blast of black…fire? That’s fire. I’ve never seen black fire.
Duke cried out. He was too late. A burning splinter of wood struck his face, stripping away the skin.
Maria was sitting down on the carpet of her bedroom floor, looking up at the blurry screen where the battle played out, murmuring, “No. God, no…”
The explosion shook the entire world, it seemed. The boy lost his footing and tumbled onto the rocky ground, his sword sent out somewhere among the scattered dead bodies, which were impaled with blood-red arrows.
A shadow came over him; a shadow came over all of the land.
“C’mon, Duke,” a gruff man’s voice said. He bent down and picked Duke up. There was fresh blood on the man’s hand.
Then, like in a movie, the camera shifted perspective. The man who picked up Duke wasn’t a man at all.
Maria jumped. She noticed, out of the corner of her eye, that her version of Duke was smiling slightly.
The thing that picked Duke up was out of a science fiction movie; horrific science fiction, at that.
“An Arachnid,” Duke said at Maria’s side. “I know you’re wondering, and I know it’s quite a shock to you. I’d been around them for fifteen years and I never got used to how they looked.”
“Arachnid? That’s what we call a spider here…”
“They had to come from somewhere, right?” Duke said.
Maria grimaced. “I hate spiders.” The truth was, spiders were so creepy, they had to be aliens.
“We do, too,” Duke said. There was a slight lilt in his voice.
“What?” Maria said, catching the change in his tone.
“Keep watching.”
Maria did, but she wished she hadn’t.
Once the gates were blown down, and Maria saw the looming forest in all of its dark glory, she also saw what came through the rubble. Large creatures with faces like the thing that had helped Duke. They wore dark robes, but underneath the dark robes, Maria could see the lumps.
“What are those?”
“Two legs and six arms,” Duke said.
“Ugh,” Maria said.
Their eyes glowed dark red. Spit frothed and foamed from their mouths.
“Geez,” Maria said. “That’s nightmare-inducing.”
One of the Arachnids raised its exposed arm. Purple and green lightning shot out. Duke stumbled, but the one who had helped him didn’t let him fall. They moved across the
