{ ᙖᒪIᘜᕼT } ᴬᶰ ᵒʳᶤᵍᶤᶰᵃˡ ᶠᵒʳᵘᵐ ᶰᵒᵛᵉˡ -- [ 2 ] need some names

“Avery, c’mon, you’re going to be late.” I try to muster up the strength to get up, I really do try. “Avery.” The lights go on and I groan, burying my eyes in my pillow. The motion makes my stomach flip and I fight the urge to throw up then and there. My heartbeat pounds in my temples. I try to focus on counting the time, something to keep me grounded and relaxed. I can’t take another Jump, not now. Not now.

“Avery, bun, you not feeling good?” I sense my brother’s feet more than hear him as he crosses the room. The world shakes as he sits on the edge of my bed, and my nausea comes back in full force. Panic shoots through me and I grab onto the edge of my bed, feeling as if I was about to fall off it -- or this Reality -- at any second. Alec rubs between my shoulderblades for a few seconds, and it helps ground me again. I breathe, fighting down the panic.

I can’t Jump. Not now, not now. Not so soon after.

I don’t know how long it was, but felt Alec get up and hear the muffled snick of the door closing, plunging me back into darkness.

-    -    -

Note to self: Jumping unprepared causes extreme headaches. I chase down two pain pills with some water. The taste almost makes me gag.

All I can do is hope that they’ll take effect sooner than later. I snag my laptop from the kitchen counter and drag myself over to the den. Each step makes my head throb, but at least the nausea had left after my three hour nap. It’s almost ten now, which means Alec wouldn’t be on lunch break for another hour at least. One hour for me to get my things together.

I drop my laptop onto the couch and take an extra moment to grab one of the musty quilts hanging over Ma’s chair. I sneeze as I unfurl it; the thing must be over a hundred years old by now. This one was an ugly mix of purple and green, patterns so worn they are only scratches in the thick fabric. It says something about how bad off I am when I wrap it tight around me despite the serious fashion infringements I must be violating by not having it burned then and there.

I pull my laptop onto the quilt, flicking it open and punching in the password: sparklequeen2102.

It’s. . . it’s a long story.

I browse through my e-mail, tossing the massive loads of spam to the trash. It’s as I’m checking through the school’s newspaper -- chess club still makes the front page these days? -- when the laptop vibrates. I nearly jump out of my skin when I see the flashing yellow on the bottom of the screen. I exit the browser and open skype, my heart pounding in my chest as I read:

Zach: Was hunting Garir in the Shadow. Just got dumped back here.

Zach, the only other person that knows my secret life, and only because he shares it with me. I met him in the Shadow, the second time I Jumped to that reality. He was the one that saved me from the Garir, gave me a place to rest, showed me around. I knew he had seen me Jump in -- how couldn’t he, I just appeared out of seemingly thin air. Bad timing too, right in the middle of a Garir frenzy party. He kept quiet for a few hours, but told me that he could do it too, the Jumping. We’ve found ways of keeping in touch within the realities.

It isn’t every day that one meets another Jumper, you know.

So I scramble to push in a reply.

Avery: Same here. Well, not the Garir. I’m not insane enough to try that.

Zach: Why’d we get dumped? You have a forced Jump before?

Avery: No.

I bite my lip. Technically I had, but that was different altogether. I mean, who controlled their first Jump? Who was crazy enough to try to Jump through the realities in the first place. I can’t help but laugh as I realize that crazy was practically my entire life.
I sit back on the couch, staring at the screen. It isn’t as though chess club is of any significance to me anymore. Finally I can’t take the silence -- well, computer silence -- a second longer. I type in:

Avery: You?

I’m mesmerized by the three winking dots at the bottom of the page. It takes over a minute for him to respond.

Zach: Me neither.

Headache now forgotten, I pull the ugly quilt tighter around me. Zach fell through the same time I did, and a forced Jump. The first time we’ve been thrown out forcefully. That can’t have been coincidence. It just can’t be. I’ve been Jumping for ten earth years, centuries if you count the time spent in the other realities. This has never happened before. Ever.

And it just happened to both of us.

You see, Jumping through realities is actually a complicated process, even if you have experience. It takes hours, days even, to prepare for a Jump. It doesn’t just happen instantly. Opening a safe path through, preparing your mind and body for travel through time and space, basically.

I’ve learned some tricks to help out, like it’s easiest to Jump when you’re not quite awake, yet not quite asleep. That middle time when everything is dreams and reality all at once, with enough imagination to make the Jump easy, but enough consciousness to keep a destination in sight. There’s a plant in Afterlife that helps clear the mind, and making a tea of that the night before makes the Jump easier too.

Actually Jumping is a more difficult matter than getting a good sleep or drinking tea though. You have to focus on what you want. You can Jump someplace you don’t want to be, or even worse, change during the shift. Lose bits of yourself along the way.

But above all, you have to want to move. The will to Jump is most important, if you don’t want it enough it won’t work.

Which is why being forced into a Jump was so startling. I didn’t want to Jump, so I shouldn’t even have been able to.

But I had Jumped, and it scares me. If it changed once, it could change again. The rules I have been playing by for so many years, gone. I shiver under the thick quilt, close out skype, and pull up files for my vlog.

I have less than an hour to document weeks of time in the Borderlands after all.

-    -    -

I hear the dull thud of a car door closing moments before the squeak of the gate hinges and the clatter of the door being unlocked and opened. I hardly have time to mute the microphone and set the files saving to my folder before Alec pops into sight down the hall. I can’t help but yawn and stretch as I move for the first time since starting the recording. The back of my throat is scratchy from having talked so long without a break.

“Hey, bun, feeling better?” Alec has to duck to come into the den. The hallway is higher than the den with a wooden step in between, and for some reason the construction workers decided to arch the entryway level with the den floor and not the taller hallway. It’s good enough for me or Ma, but Alec is pushing six feet and his sandy hair brushes the frame if he has his boots on.

Alec always has his boots on. He gives me a smile as he disappears into the kitchen, probably going to make his pb&j and scrounge up some doritos. Twenty years old and still making a grade-schooler’s pack lunch. I can’t help but smile at his back.

He looks back, eyebrow raised, and suddenly I remember that he had asked me a question. “Loads,” I say, and it’s true. The meds certainly worked wonders over the hour I’d been working on my vlog. I still feel a bit. . . wrong, but I don’t feel as if I’m going to fall right out of Earth anymore.

And trust me, that alone is a blessing.

When Alec turns again, he brandishes a plate stacked full of sandwiches. He offers one off the top to me, and I take it. The taste reminds me of my own elementary school days; there was a whole year -- fourth grade? Maybe third? -- when I had refused anything other than a pb&j and doritos for my lunch. I relax into the couch, munching on the sandwich, wrapped up tighter than a burrito in Ma’s ugly quilt. The fear of this morning slowly fades as memories of before take over.

“Shoot, there was an accident going out on Mauve. I’m going to have to go around.” I nod drowsily, watching in the background as my brother slips the rest of the sandwiches into a paper bag. He’s almost out the door when he dashes back into the kitchen, grabbing the rest of the doritos off the kitchen counter. “Cya, bun. Feel better.”

I’m asleep before I even hear Alec start up his car.