Chapter Four----
Somewhere in China, because this story doesn't occur in realtime
Morfowt opened his eyes slowly, trying but failing to ignore the sunlight streaming through his window and the noise of the city.
Ugh. What time is it?
He dragged himself out of bed and worked his way over to the computer, switching it on. He yawned widely, rubbed his eyes, and froze mid-step as he realised that this was no ordinary city-noise.
SKREEETSKREEETSKREE ET!!!
WooopWooopWoopWoopW OOOP!
NnneeeerrrrrrrrrrDE ETDEETDEET!
Hundreds of car alarms... what's going on?
Morfowt tossed on some street clothes and rushed outdoors to get a better look at the situation.
As far as the eye could see in both directions of his street, there were nothing but piled up cars, trucks, and bicycles... and absolutely no people.
Morfowt raced back indoors and searched the house, calling for his family. Nobody answered. The only evidence anybody else had been in the building the night before was the moderately rumpled state of their bedsheets.
No. This is wrong. I can't be the only one left. No.
He leaned with his back to the nearest wall, eyes closed tightly for a few minutes.
RAF. There's gotta' be somebody online someplace.
Morf walked as calmly as he could back to the computer and opened the RAF login page.
300 members active in the last 24 hours? What the heck?
As he had many times before, Morfowt wished that he could access the RAFchat.
Okay, well, obviously I'm not the only person left alive. So I just have to find somebody else who is. Let's go.
He took his time, carefully packing a bag with comfortable clothes and anything he couldn't find in an abandoned store.
There's no reason I can't just come back here if I need to, but just in case, I'm not leaving anything I'm going to want later.
When he was as ready as he could be, Morfowt stepped back outside.
HisssssssssCRACKhis sssss...
What?
Three things happened then in very rapid sequence:
1. a small car fire finally reached the gasoline tank of a nearby sedan.
2. Morfowt turned around to see what was the source of the unusually loud hissing, which really should have been covered by the sound of car alarms. He raised his hands to protect his face, palms out.
3. the car exploded, sending flames and shards of shrapnel flying at Morfowt... and then flying through Morfowt.
Morf opened his eyes, blinking rapidly to clear them of debris which...wasn't even there?
What?!?
Wait a minute... why can I see through myself? GAAAH I'm dead?!?!
Morfowt lowered his hands and looked at them carefully. Gradually they resumed their former opaque state.
Not dead. Intangible. Somebody please tell me this isn't happening....
POOF!
"Hey, Morfowt! Are you okay?"
"Gaaahhh?!?!"
"Shh, hey, take it easy. It's just me, Anna. Ash is here with me, too. She has premonitions of the immediate future, and she saw you getting shredded by a car exploding, so I came to get you outta' the way. Looks like you've managed to take care of yourself. See, Ash? I told you there was nothing to worry about."
"Yes, I see that. I'm glad you're okay, Morfowt. So you can do the walking-through-walls thing, it seems."
What are they talking about? Oh, jeeze, this can't be happening.
Anna stepped forward and placed a comforting hand on Morf's shoulder.
"Hey, take it easy, okay? We're going to Georgia to join the rest of the group."
"We're wh-"
POOF!
"-at?"
"Okay. We're in Georgia. Ken says you can stay at his place if you want." Anna shrugged, smiled, and POOFed! again.
"T-thanks?"
Ash stepped up and patted Morf on the arm.
"I know it's a shock. It has been for all of us. You're taking it really well, all things considered."
"Where did she go?"
Ash closed her eyes a moment, focusing hard.
"I see her reappearing someplace in Australia. She's probably retrieving the rest of the Aussies, now that we've already got Claire. We're gathering up as many of the eastern hemisphere RAFians as we can, and there are still some from the southern U.S. driving here to meet up with us. The empty cars piled up have made it difficult to get around, but some of us have powers that make travel easier, like Anna, and others have ways of relocating the cars. We're just doing the best we can to get everybody together."
"So... why are the RAFians not vanished?"
"We don't know. Okay, I know it was morning for you, but it's almost nighttime here. Are you okay to eat dinner instead of breakfast? Remember that you're not the only person with jet lag."
"Do I have much choice?"
"No, not really. Ken and Anna have sort of become our unofficial hosts or leaders or whatever in this, at least for right now, even though they're hardly the oldest in the group. They've insisted that everybody eats at all the group-attended meals. It's logical; after all, a lot of the food available to us is going to expire sooner than later. Better to use it now and save the non-perishables for later. It also makes it easy to keep track of everybody. If everybody is together at dinnertime, we know nobody else poofed."
"Yeah, that makes sense."
"Good. C'mon, let's go eat."
The two teens walked tiredly to the pavillion that had been set up in an abandoned yard.
----
Somewhere on the road in Florida...
It is your fault. They all are gone, and it's your fault.
"Shut up, Jayne. You're not even real. Leave me alone."
My gawd, Jax, you're starting to sound like Gollum. Nasssty Hobbitses... Go away and never come back!
"Y'know, for a figment of my imagination, you do a really good impersonation of a ficitonal character."
Thanks. For a mentally-fragmented mass murderer, you do a really good impersonation of a sane human being.
"Please just shut up. We both know that whatever that was, even if I had a hand in it, I couldn't have done it entirely by myself."
Hah! You say 'we' and 'both'! So you admit I'm real?!
"NO! No. It's not like that. Stop it. You're making me confuse myself."
If you had just stayed away from the meteor, you would never have found it, and none of this would be happening. Now we have to drive all the way up to everlovingGEORGIA to meet up with the kids whose lives you have probably ruined forever. On top of that, your precious invasion is pretty much bungled for good now.
"It wasn't a meteor, so stop calling it that."
Fine. If you had just stayed away from the thing in the crater...
"Oh, please, for the love of all that is right in this world, be silent!!!"
Get it through your funny little head, Jax: nothing is right in this world, and it's your fault. Still, if you want silence? You got it, kid.
"..."
"Jayne?"
Jaxon 2314 of the Sket-Rishar pool, Sub-Visser Seventeen, rubbed his eyes slowly.
"I need to stop talking to my intellectual properties. The last thing I need is for them to start talking back. Why, for pity's sake WHY did I have to get stuck with a voluntary host who is a writer? Didn't they know that writers are insane? Ugh."
Jax pulled out his handheld dracon weapon and cleared a path in the road ahead for the next quarter mile, put his pickup truck into drive, and pulled forward.
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