Sitting on the couch, Amity let the rest of them crawl around the house for any sign of the adults. When she leaned over to the nightstand and grabbed the TV remote, the news was first to come up.
But, the stories weren’t quite what she expected.
First, a panel about the various technological advancements. The recent requirement for Apple devices to switch away from Lightning cables.
Then, they covered a few of the earthquakes around the coasts of California and Japan that… seemed to be occurring right now. Odd, but nothing was particularly amiss.
Around Hawaii, a lot of the boats around it were now seeing the most severe sea conditions in ages, as well as a new landmass that wasn’t at all recognized.
She grabbed the remote, switching to another news channel.
This time, they were talking over the recent cases closed or halted by the police.
One murder case, a few comparatively smaller criminal cases, and the headline cases, a string of related missing persons cases.
“And, on a somber ending note, the police have opted to stop investigating these missing children. They went missing on the same day, and all have not been seen since. If you have any knowledge on their whereabouts, call the number on the screen, but the police have opted to no longer proactively investigate.”
On the screen, a banner across the top of the screen with a short phone number, and 4 familiar faces in a grid at the bottom.
Amity quickly turned off the TV, before anyone else saw that they’d given up on them.
Walking back into the room, Himiko shook her head, “No dice.”
“Do you want to ah… come tell the rest of our parents?”
“… Sure. If my parents aren’t here, we could be doing more important things.”
They rounded up the rest of the group, and began the walk to Amity’s house.
***
The door opened to the house seeming empty, and untouched from the last time they were here. They crept forwards, and shut the door behind.
When they were already all up the stairs - all but Amity - they heard a voice cough behind them.
“Who are you?”
Turning around, Amity saw her mom’s face turn from shock at a possible intruder, to shock at the fact that her kid was back.
She ran onto the stairs, each step sending shock-waves through the house. At the top, she dove for her, squeezing her tightly with no intent to let her go. But she did, to ask what had happened?
“I… we, we discovered magic.”
“What-?”
To prove it, just as she planned, a tiny burst of flame rose from her hand.
“We found magic while you were on vacation, and while we were experimenting, a portal formed…”
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She presented all of the rocks, and Himiko was in the background demonstrating more proof of magic.
“When it opened, we went in, and before we knew it, (or could get back,) it had already closed.”
“…”
“We got back by finding somewhere where we could actually make a portal again, because where the first one was, was destroyed. It was a long trek, and time went by a lot faster than I thought, so that’s why it took so long for us to get back.”
Amity’s mom pulled away, and looked at her.
“I… don’t want to believe that. My daughter, finding magic and going missing for a month, seems too… fictional, for lack of a better word. But how would your friend back there be making ice appear out of thin air? Or be blowing around your hair with her mouth closed?”
She stepped back, leaning on the wall, and Amity went backwards towards Himiko, too.
“Psst, hey, wanna help me do something? To really prove to her it’s magic?”
“What are you thinking?”
The plan was exchanged, and they stepped forward. “Mom, watch this.”
They both held their own section of red rock, while holding each other’s hands. A small line on the floor was lined with ice, which began to grow, forming a solid block. Himiko separated, going to the far right of the block, the other to the left, and began etching the map of Samdaz into the ice with their own respective link on the block.
After a solid minute, they pulled back from the ice, and showed it off.
“This is where we started,” Amity showed around where they were.
“And this is where we ended up,” Himiko traced the path around all three islands to show their final portal entrance. “So you can see why we couldn’t get back very quickly.”
“Why didn’t you just go across the area up top?”
“There was no way across when we first got there,” a half truth. They hadn’t thought about using the water bridge technique yet, but it was an option. “so we were forced to take the long way around.” She opted, for the sake of permanence, to engrave their path around in the ice.
Amity’s mom sat down on the floor, and took it in. After a few moments, she finally spoke again.
“Are you all… okay? After all that, did any of you get hurt?”
It was a quick choice to not say anything about the fatality, more for lack of will to explain it than fear of any reaction, but they did show a few of their wounds.
The one on Kaiya’s gut, scarred over. The many miscellaneous slices and scrapes, and finally, they had Katie go over to her, the bottom two thirds of her arm torn off.
“Oh my god! Are you okay? How did you get this healed so well..?” She grabbed the nub, expressing shock.
“We have some magic that helped with that, and also, it only happened like half an hour ago.”
“Half an hour?! Katie, do you have your arm? That’s a really weird question, but like, do you still have it anywhere?”
“We… left it in Himiko’s room. It was pretty ravaged when it happened though, and we couldn’t reattach it.”
“… Come on, we’re going to her house, then yours to grab your parents, and go to the hospital.”
She ran down to grab her keys, and the rest of the group went to the car, besides Amity. The ice wall had to be removed so the melting water didn’t ruin anything, and she also ran to her room and grabbed her phone. The door quickly shut as she ran back down the stairs, and met up with the group at the car.
“Do you think they’ll actually be able to reattach my arm?” Katie talked with Himiko.
“It was really nasty, and literal magic couldn’t do anything about it.”
She responded, “If they even manage to put it back on, would you be able to use it?”
Amity overheard their discussion, and butted in.
“Your arm was cut off really high up, so even if they fix it, your hand and most of the forearm would be entirely numb.”
“So, there’s basically no hope for it.” Opening the door after Amity’s mom used the key fob to unlock it from the living room, she sat down dejectedly.
“How are all of you going to get in there?”
She looked at the car, seeing the seating, and knowing there would be even more people piling in shortly, had to figure out a solution. Raleigh thought of one sooner though.
“We don’t all need to go. Most of our wounds are healed, or we can mend them ourselves.”
“Hmm… Katie, are you okay with some of your friends staying here?”
“It’s alright. Can Raleigh still come with, though?”
“Yeah, we have the room for him, just not three more… Three? Hang on, who are you?”
“Oh, I’m Kaiya,” she introduced herself. “I was classmates with a few of them, and ended up swept into that place a few months ago, so when they found me, I tagged along.”
She didn’t reply, just nodding in blind acceptance, and getting into the car. Through the passenger window, Himiko remembered something, and tossed her house keys to the parent who would surely be needing them.
Checking that everyone was ready to go, she peeled out of the driveway like a racer and sped onto the road.
Now, just the magic users at home, they headed back into the house and sat back on the couch, flipping through TV channels as Amity finally turned back on her phone.
The notifications that had built up clogged the system like plaque in an artery, and had her waiting for minutes as she waited for the ‘clear all’ option to even show up, so she began pondering the flickering video feeds Kaiya was looking at.
One was a cartoon channel, the next a Spanish rom-com. After that, the news again.
She skipped the news. Had she stayed on it, something would’ve revealed itself, but it didn’t matter to them right now.
The only thing that mattered was that he wasn’t here.
