Chapter Text
The monster on the other side of the door was still yelling.
Michael’s cheek throbbed. He couldn’t hear the words; his ears wouldn’t stop ringing and his head wouldn’t stop buzzing and it felt like all his insides had turned into snakes, crawling out of his skin and up his throat. Every cell in his body screamed. He groaned and dug his fingers into his face, neck, hair, anywhere that would make it stop.
“No, no, Michael, don't hurt your head,” said another voice. It was blurry and far away, but he knew who it belonged to.
“Sam,” he gasped, “I can’t—”
“The blanket, Michael!” The words swam to him like paint in water. “Squeeze the blanket instead. Go ahead and hit it, if you need to. Just not your head, okay?”
The monster pounded into the door again. More yelling. Michael could see his sister across from him in a square of dim moonlight, sitting against the dresser she’d barricaded their room with, arms braced behind her to hold back the danger. The drawers rattled, and she rattled with them; but she looked at him and smiled. “Don’t worry. I won’t let him get you.”
He pressed his palms into his eyes and cried. “We have to cover the clocks; we just have to. The numbers are burning me.”
“I know,” Sam said. Her voice trembled. “I know it’s hard. But there's no numbers in this room right now. No clocks. And no bad people. You’re going to be okay, I promise.”
She reached up, fumbling for something on top of the dresser. The object dropped into her lap. She gathered it up in one hand and threw it to him like a lifeline - her headphones and mp3 player.
“Just listen to the music, Michael. You’ll be okay.”
He reached for the cord of the headphones with shaking fingers and closed his fist around it.
WHAM! Sam drew in a sharp breath as another blow thundered against the door. Michael wailed in pain from the sounds crashing in his head. His hand jerked back, yanking the music player towards him. The tiny screen glowed next to him, a beacon in the dark.
“That’s it,” Sam breathed, encouraging him. “Just listen to the music. Don’t think about anything else right now. Just listen. It’ll help you.”
Michael gritted his teeth, feeling around for the headphones. He shoved them over his ears and hit the play button, his whole body clenched, not moving, not breathing until he heard the first three familiar seconds of the song.
His blanket was in a rumpled heap near his head. He reached and pulled the comforting weight over his shoulders as snug as he could, to press down all the noise in his skin. Then he shut his eyes and let the music flow into him. The piano twinkled softly, silvery tones dancing in soothing patterns, and everything else – the bad man, the scary noises, even Sam's wobbly smile – all of it melted away. Nothing mattered now but the music and the voice singing to him.
Close your tired eyes, relax, and then
Count from one to ten, and open them.
He always liked how nice this version of the song felt. Quiet and calm and cool, just like nighttime. This voice had some wonderfully gentle songs. A lot of fun ones, too. But gentle was so much better right now.
His breathing slowed, the tension loosening in his body. His eyes opened again.
There was a pale ribbon of moonlight close to him on the floor, from a gap in the curtains. It looked like a miniature of the long sidewalk outside his old school, where Sam used to walk with him. Before Dad got in trouble and they had to go away. He traced the light with his eyes and imagined himself very small - small enough to step on the moon-sidewalk and go on and on, up and up, all the way out the window into the sky.
All this gravity will try to pull you down,
But not this time.
The notes sparkled around him like stars, swept him aloft on shimmering wings, and now he was flying. He was so high up that when he looked down, there weren’t any houses or trees. No streetlights, no cars, nothing to remind him of the world below. Only a vast ocean of clouds that stretched out as far as he could see, glowing beneath the giant moon. All the while, the magic voice was with him and the music seemed to spread and fill the night, every moonbeam and cloudy wisp entwining with melody and harmony.
And then, slowly – so slow he barely noticed – it faded into a steady hum at the back of his mind. Michael blinked, and saw the wings that carried him now were made of white feathers. He was straddling something warm and soft. And the owner of the wings was mumbling the lyrics for “Shooting Star” under their breath, woefully out of tune.
He grinned. “Hi, Thomas.”
“Hello, Michael!” said the snowy owl, turning to wink a golden eye at him. “Wasn’t expecting you to randomly appear on my back tonight, but it’s good to have you…well, back.”
“Oh. Oh! I’m back and I’m on your back!”
Thomas laughed. “I wasn’t even trying; that one just slipped out. Anyone ever tell you your reactions to puns are the greatest?”
“Yeah. Sam says that, too.” Michael paused, a heavy feeling growing in his chest. “I wish she could come here. But I don't think she knows how anymore.”
“The Real World’s still putting you two through the wringer, eh?”
“I don’t understand.”
“What I meant was, are you and Sam having hard times again? On the other side?”
“Oh, I see. Yes. The man at this house is really…mean. I want the social worker to take us home, but she won’t. We’ve been away 556 days, but nobody will tell me how many are left until we go back home and it makes my brain upset.”
“That’s rough.”
He shivered and leaned forward on his stomach, laying his head down on Thomas’s feathers. “I feel all squeezed up inside now. I need to stop talking.”
“No worries,” said Thomas, casually weaving back and forth through the clouds. “Just relax and enjoy the flight, my friend. Never know when the Real World will yank us back.”
They flew on in a comfortable silence for a minute. The night was clear and covered with stars – some spread out, some in dazzling clusters that swirled and crisscrossed everywhere, as if a 2-year-old had dipped their fingers in the Milky Way to paint the sky. Michael watched it shine, listened to the fresh, cool air rushing over them, and drank all of it in. Pure and perfect. Not a dirty floor or a whiff of cigarettes anywhere. He wished he could bottle it up and take it back with him, but he knew it was impossible to take imaginary things into his own world. The two universes weren’t designed to mix that way. It made him a little sad.
But he supposed, as others have, that leaving beautiful things behind is what makes them so special when you return to them.
“Oh no,” Thomas muttered.
“What is it?” asked Michael.
“The dark spot’s gotten huge. Look, to the right. See that thing?”
He turned his head and sat up. Sure enough, right where Thomas had said, a great, dark, yawning space hung in the sky. Like a giant hand had reached up and yanked out a handful of stars.
It was jarring, seeing it in the middle of the sparkling glory around them. Michael couldn’t remember ever seeing it before. “When did it come? Is it bad?”
“No one knows exactly when it showed up, but that spot has been growing inch by inch every day and let me tell you, I’ve never seen it this big. It’s twice the size I last saw it.”
“Are the stars disappearing?”
“That’s what other Wanderers are saying, but I’m not so sure.” Thomas made an uneasy loop-around, maneuvering so that they were flying towards it head on. “Look at it. Does it feel empty to you?”
Michael stared. It was too far off to get near it. It looked like emptiness, but the more he watched it, the more he got the sense of something thick spreading out like smoke from a wildfire. Something heavy and stifling, sinking into the universe. He could feel his heart aching under the weight of it.
“It feels…” He struggled for the word. Words had always been hard for him to grasp. “Sad” came to mind, but it didn’t seem to go far enough.
He said so to Thomas, who bobbed his head in agreement. “I know. I feel it, too. It’s definitely a something, not a nothing. See, I don’t think the stars are actually vanishing. I think they’re being swallowed.”
“The dark stuff is eating the stars?”
“I don’t mean literally swallowed, I mean like…they’re being surrounded. Overcome, smothered, trapped. And it’s not just this world; I’ve been seeing it in other places, too. Whatever the stuff is, it’s not good and steadily getting more not-good. Folks are getting nervous. Rumor’s going around that the fireflies are starting to leave, too—ow! Easy on the feathers, buddy!”
Michael had buried his hands in the downy warmth to keep them busy and unknowingly started pulling. “Sorry,” he said, forcing his fingers still again. “I didn’t mean to. I just…”
“Eh, it’s my fault. Here I am, talking about doom and gloom and making us both all wound up, when we should be enjoying ourselves. You didn’t come for morbid conversation, you came here to escape. So.” The owl glanced back at him, mischief glinting in his eyes. “Shall we do the rollercoaster thing?”
“Okay,” said Michael.
Thomas hooted in delight. “Count us off, captain!”
Giggling, Michael shifted where he sat and braced his knees. He wrapped his arms around Thomas’s neck, gripped as tight as he could, and shouted, “3, 2, 1!”
A flurry of wings propelled them up, and then they dived through a gap in the clouds, whooping and screaming. The darkness and the stars fell away in a blur behind them as they rocketed down, down, down, embracing the rush of gravity; and just when Michael thought he couldn’t breathe anymore, they swooped up again. Looped, spun, dived, climbed. Down and up, back and forth, each turn and swoop a little smaller than the last, until gradually their trackless “rollercoaster” came to an end.
Thomas glided in lazy arcs as they caught their breath, both laughing and dizzy with thrill. The air had a salty tang to it now. Michael felt a cool spray on his cheek and heard waves moving beneath them. He could also hear a strain of pulsating, joyous music on the wind, thumping like a heartbeat.
“Ahh,” sighed Thomas happily, “forget every gloomy thing you saw tonight and check out that view.”
Stretched out on the horizon, glowing as bright as the galaxies above it, the skyline of Owl City welcomed them. The bay was so calm that every skyscraper, every twist of architecture and gleam of glass was mirrored in the water, a near-perfect reflection. The shape of it reminded Michael of soundwaves.
And there was certainly plenty of sound now. The thump of the music grew louder and the city sang with life: Cars rushing through highways, beeping to each other in greeting. The murmuring of a million conversations. Laughter. A shriek of excitement. Somewhere, a crowd cheered in a stadium. Somewhere else, a girl whispered, “I love you.” Just a few yards away, an airplane zoomed past and the people inside waved at them. Michael waved back.
Somehow, the clamor of it never devolved into noise or chaos. Every sound had a place to belong. Everything harmonized. Everything fit.
“Beautiful,” said Thomas.
“Yes,” agreed Michael.
“Hey, bud…don’t give up on the idea of your sister getting here. Life has a way of changing when you least expect it.”
“I hope so.”
“I know so!”
Thomas did a brief spin in the air to make Michael laugh again, and the feathery fuzz around his beak lifted in a smile.
“Don’t forget,” he declared, “this is Owl City! Anything can happen here.”