Another Dimension of Us by Mike Albo

Author:Mike Albo [Albo, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2023-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

2044

Pris

I’m sure Jayde will be fine, Pris thought. She kept throwing the disk around the Black Tree and repeating Jayde was okay, while inside, she grew more and more concerned and regretful that she hadn’t put her foot down with them. Now Jayde was in a hover sedan with a total stranger.

Thunder rumbled again. Pris pulled out the stack of pages—the 3D book she copied—to try and find the poem she wedged in it. The stack loosened in a gust of wind and flew through the field. She madly dashed around the park to capture the flying wad of pages. It fluttered wildly but landed, lodged into the field of dried weeds, as if the dead plants had grasped them. Pris grabbed the book until the wrinkled stack was back in her grasp.

The poem fell out and fluttered across the park. Pris dove through the air and captured it and tumbled to the ground, out of breath. The book was creased and bent backward, exposing its inside. It was dark now, and she couldn’t read the page number.

She heard a screech.

A huge black bird, larger than she had ever seen, landed on the dead tree. Pris was amazed. The only birds she had seen were dirt birds—vultures and pigeons and other scavengers. This bird was grand, terrifyingly big. She suddenly remembered her dream, and how the bird appeared there, too, curling its beak down into the hair of that beautiful boy.

Feathers fell from its body and sprinkled on the ground. It looked sick.

Rain began. Fat pelting drops. Pris hastily wrapped the bundle under her shirt and covered it with her disk for protection and ducked under the tree. It was too stormy for her to run, so she flattened herself against the Black Tree. The smell of the char came off it, pungent as if it had burned yesterday. She felt along its surface and found a deep impression in the tree, not noticeable from far away. It offered shelter. The storm grew closer, the rain coming down in sheets, the thunder cracking overhead. She heard the bird screech again, painfully, and then suddenly it fell and landed in front of her, dead.

Pris pressed herself farther into the shallow cave. She took out the mangled book. She opened it up.

Beware of the Consumer, it said.

Suddenly there was lightning overhead. Pris looked down at the page.

Consumer.

The lightning flashed again. The page was partially obscured in the leaves.

Consumer.

The rain kept coming, and she curled farther into the hollow of the tree. What was the Consumer? Where were they? When would they appear? Pris kept churning it over and over in her mind. She laid her head on the side of the tree. It was surprisingly warm, and she felt herself weighted, like her body had been given a sleep-trigger pill, all that walking and worrying and disk throwing. It was all catching up to her.

She felt drowsy, and she nodded off.

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