Charlie’s alarm went off at 7:20 a.m. the next morning. He was still asleep.
His sister had entered his room to get him up. “Charlie, wake up,” she said.
Charlie woke up when Tara turned his light on. It blinded him. “Ugh, what time is it?” he asked, yawning.
He checked his cell phone to see how many text messages he had missed. He missed six messages and a voicemail from Will.
He called his voicemail. Will’s message sounded like this: “Hey man, get your butt over here. We got school. I’m gonna need a ride.”
“Crap,” responded Charlie aloud. He immediately got up out of bed, grabbed a change of clothes, took a quick glance at the Book of the
Underground before shoving it in his bag, ran to the bathroom, and after he was finished getting ready he went out to his car.
He then realized his car wasn’t starting, so he checked under the hood only to discover that his transmission fluid was out. “You piece of junk,” he said out loud to his car.
He quickly sent a text message to Will. ‘Car is out of fluid’.
Charlie was going to have to ride the school bus with Tara.
The bus arrived shortly and Charlie got on after his sister. He went to the very back of the bus, but there were no open spots… he soon found an open spot in the center of the bus though and sat down.
“You’re tall,” said a seventh grader.
“Yeah, aren’t you a little too old to be riding the school bus?” asked a snotty kid with freckles, who turned his head around to face Charlie.
Charlie rolled his eyes, ignoring the kid. It sucked to be on a bus full of elementary kids, and as sleepy as Charlie was, he couldn’t help but to rest his head against the window, falling into a deep dreamlike sleep….
A flash of an evil-looking room with dark brown walls made of bricks with a gray stone platform, a throne-like chair in the center, and what seemed to be a lake of lava surrounding the platform woke Charlie from his daydream.
Charlie looked around the bus and noticed
something was wrong. The bus was driving down a rock-like road, lava on both sides of the road-like platform.
Slowly Charlie got up and noticed he was the only one on the bus. But who was driving?? He began walking towards the front of the bus and something strange became clearer to him. He looked out the windshield to see what was a throne-like chair in front of him.
The bus came to a stop and the doors opened. Charlie slowly exited the bus and began to walk towards the throne.
An evil voice then spoke to him from the other side of the throne. “Who goes there?” asked the unknown person.
“Hi…my name’s Charlie,” he answered, trembling in fear. “What do you want from me?”
“The book,” the voice replied. “What you have done has given us the power to find you.”
“I-I don’t understand.”
“We need the Book of the Underground. Without it, we can no longer finish what we’ve started. Because you have read from the book, we will be able to find it. We have our ways. And once we have the book in our hands, our worlds will come to battle.”
Charlie cleared his throat then asked, “But what do we have that you don’t?”
“The human race. Soon humanity will become slave to our world, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
Charlie awoke suddenly from the daydream without warning. The bus came to a complete stop at what appeared to be the elementary school.
“Hey, it’s your stop,” said the snotty kid sitting in front of him.
He waited for all of the kids to depart the bus, then decided he better get out and head to the library to return the book.
So he departed the bus at the elementary school, hurrying past the crowd of elementary kids. Along the way he bumped into some kid, who fell over. “Sorry,” apologized Charlie as the kid just stared up at him with a red face.
Once at the library, Charlie headed straight to the shelf where he had discovered the book. He thought to himself…what happens when the next person finds it, and the same thing happens? The loss of mankind would be due to my actions.
Many thoughts were on Charlie’s mind. He was unsure on how to go about the situation. He stood there at the book shelf, thinking about what he was going to do, whether he should place the book back on the shelf or keep it and find out what will happen next.
The aisle of books he found himself in was completely quiet. He was the only one in that section of books.
A moment later, he turned his head to discover his dead father again, standing about ten feet away at the end of the aisle.
“Charlie, it’s no use.”
He just stared at his father in cold silence then closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, and his father was gone.
It made no sense. How will any of this just come to an end? And why would his father want him to keep the book?
Charlie decided to take the book out of his bag and try and find something in it that would put an end to all the nonsense. But as he reached into his bag to pull it out, he discovered that the book was missing.
Charlie arrived to his 1st hour class late.
As he entered the classroom, Mrs. Guanty looked up at him from where she stood teaching the class, writing something up on the board. “You’re late for class,” she said.
Really? thought Charlie to himself sarcastically, finding his seat.
Faces stared up at him.
“Sup man,” greeted one student.
“Hey man, you’re late,” whispered another, mimicking the teacher.
People laughed at the joke.
“Yeah, I realize that,” responded Charlie, sitting down.
After he sat down, he noticed something that caught his eye. Lauren was glancing back at him from her seat. She smiled.
Charlie smiled back.
The teacher then spoke again. “Now does everyone have their book? If not, raise a hand so I can get a count, please.”
Charlie and a couple of others raised their hands.
Lauren saw Charlie’s facial expression as his hand went up and looked away in disappointment. She then looked back at him and whispered, “Where’s your book?”
Charlie shrugged his shoulders. He wasn’t sure what to think.
Mrs. Guanty began to speak out loud again. “For those of you who don’t have a book, you can choose one from the back of the classroom,” she said.
Charlie went to grab a random book off of the back shelf.
Across the room, Will sat in his desk. “Psst, hey,” he whispered to Charlie from across the room.
“What?” whispered Charlie. “Are you okay?”
“There will be no talking in my class while I am teaching,” interrupted Mrs. Guanty angrily.
Everyone looked.
“Sorry,” apologized Will aloud.
Charlie went back to his seat. He kept thinking to himself about what was going to happen now that he had lost the Book of the Underground.
He quickly sent a text message to Will saying ‘meet me at my locker at 8:30’ then got up without permission and walked out of the classroom.
About five minutes later, Will met up with Charlie in the hall by his locker.
“Charlie, what’s going on?” Will asked.
“Okay,” he began. “This may sound a little strange, but the book I picked out at the library yesterday--”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, man. Please don’t tell me you’re going crazy.”
“NO. Listen. I need you to understand. Something’s not right about it.”
Will laughed.
“Dude, shut up. I read a few pages of it, and really weird stuff has been happening.”
Will couldn’t help but to make fun of him. “What, did you go on some magical quest, ride a fluffy dragon with little magical creatures --”
“No!” snapped Charlie. “I’m not crazy!’
Will went silent then said, “You need to seek help.”
“Oh, tell a psychiatrist or something? No. I’ll tell you more after school.” Charlie then walked away.
“Bro, I don’t need to see you like this,” said Will. “It’s kind of messed up in a way.”
After school, the two discussed about the book as they were walking through town.
“Okay, so what all happened?” asked Will.
Charlie took a big breath of air then continued the story. “I saw my father,” he answered. “He told me to read from the book. There was a page called the Awakening, I read it. And now someone is using me to get access to the book. They took me to this place while I was riding the bus--The Underground. But nothing really happened.”
“Whoa man, really…what kind of drugs are you taking that I’m not aware of?” he joked.
“Alright, how about we just drop the subject now, okay? I told you what happened, I asked for your help, and you just tell me I’m crazy.”
“Well, I’d have to see it to believe it.”
Out of nowhere, a car pulled up to the curb where the two were walking through town. It was Lauren. She rolled her window down and looked out at them. “You guys need a ride?” she asked.
“Sure,” replied Charlie and Will in unison.
A moment later, Charlie and Will were in Lauren’s car as she drove them through town to their destinations, dropping Will off first.
When they arrived at Charlie’s house, the two found themselves deep in conversation.
“So what do you say we go do something later this week?” Charlie asked her.
“Like what?” she replied.
“Well, I was thinking maybe a movie or something.”
“Are you asking me out on a date?”
“Uh yeah I am.”
“I’d love too.” She giggled.
“Really?”
“Charlie, I’ve had my eye on you from my first year of school here back in 7th grade,” she told him.
“Oh, wow, that’s a long time.”
“Yup.”
Then it happened. She threw up…on herself.
Charlie completely changed his mind after that, disgusted.
“I have a vomiting problem…”
Charlie was speechless.
“Well, we’re at your house,” said Lauren.
“Alright, well thanks, I’ll see you in school,” replied Charlie.
“See you in school,” said Lauren as Charlie got out of the car, embarrassed.
“See ya.” She then waved and quickly drove off as Charlie began to walk up to his house.
Ugh, why do I always have problems finding the right girl? He thought as he opened the front door to his house.
Once inside, he headed straight for his room, tired, lied down and fell asleep….
Chapter 4