Children of Time: The Complete Book

By G. J. Winters

From the Publisher that brought you popular short story series Song of Teeth, Chains of Darkness, The Magaram Legends, Requiem For a Dream, The Night Sculptor, and now, Children of Time...

Two unlikely heroes on a quest to save the world

WHAT CENTURY ARE HEROES BORN IN?

Kenny and Savannah are just two average teenagers-in-training, until they are whisked away by Unquill Hester; whisked away to the 73rd century. Their objective? To save the future of the human race from extinction.

During their adventures on 73rd century Earth, they learn a lot about themselves and the world around them. They see the future of the computer; an entity in itself, which keeps the entire world running. They see the change in human evolution, and meet aliens from another planet. They visit countries that had only ever existed in their dreams and school textbooks, and they get chased by the government.

They are two small beings in a world of giants; will they be able to achieve their goal, or will they die in a time that is beyond their own future?

If you wish to read more, download and find out what happens!
FREE BONUS AT THE END OF THE BOOK!!!
EXCERPT

“The 73rd century? You haven't gone, I don't know, crazy or something? This isn't a dream, right? If it is, it's not a very good one. I'm very sore, and I don't want to be here with this smelly head.”

Kenneth waved a hand in the air dismissively. “It's not my fault if your sense of smell doesn't appreciate me. I can't do anything about that.”

Savannah put her hands on her hips. “Well of course I can't appreciate anyone who smells as much as you do. Smelly head.”

“Now, now, please don't argue,” Unquill said. “You two have to work together on this. One of you alone won't suffice. Both your minds are needed for this task.”

Savannah turned away from Kenneth. “How hard can it be to find one man when you can see through all of space and time? I'll do it myself.”

Kenneth turned from Savannah and said, “If you apologize for calling me smelly, I'll work with you, Savannah. Not before.”

“Why should I apologize for something that's true?”

Unquill wrung his hands together. “But, but, but, this isn't the way married couples behave. At least, not in—”

Savannah suddenly whirled to face Unquill. “Married? Are you kidding? You really are crazy! This really is a dream!” Her face clouded and her words tumbled forth in a staccato burst of annoyance mixed with anger. “I’m a kid. I mean, he and I are kids. Married? There's no way. Absolutely not. Forget it. I mean, it's out of the question—totally out of the question! Never in a million years!”

“Then I shall take you both to the year 1,000,001 and you can be married.”

“I’m thirteen years old! Thirteen-year-olds don’t get married! And what makes you think I’d want to even be with old Smelly Belly here, anyway?” She paused long enough to cast a baleful stare at Kenneth.

Download and discover why readers are raving about G.J. Winters.

Scroll up and get the book now!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sandra Ross
• Release date: Sep 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301324316

G. J. Winters

G.J. Winters “fell into” writing when a well-meaning teacher of his submitted his Creative Writing assignment for publication in the school paper. The local paper picked up the article and asked G.J. for publishing rights, to which the young G.J. agreed with some hesitation, as he felt “that wasn’t one of my best writings at the time.” The reality was that this article was written when G.J. was a junior in high school.The article, which was a fictionalized version of a local myth surrounding a famous abandoned house near a swamp, was an assignment turned in as part of a mid-term exam. The teacher, Miss Mendez, thought G.J.’s writing was “exemplary” and showed “natural, raw writing talent for a person his age." The assignment called for “providing details to a local urban myth – provide background, using a local resident’s POV, and close with a vague hint of authenticity and realism."The story, entitled “The Old Mansion by the Swamp,” appeared in the high school paper as a short story, but was later serialized in the local paper in 6 parts. G.J. added more characters and even a sub-story (which later became a story of its own, “I Was Shirley Massey” – a story which centered on a member of the fictional family who resided in the Massey Mansion in the late 70s and disappeared without a trace).With the success of both of his original series, G.J. thought to venture into writing longer stories, this time with futuristic themes, as he has always been fascinated with travelling through time, future crimes, apocalyptic themes, and stories set in civilizations from the future.G.J. identifies with sci-fi writers such as Isaac Asimov (“Kept me awake through most evenings in college.”) and Margaret Peterson Haddix (“My girlfriend at the time had fits of jealousy over my fanatical tendencies towards this author.”).G.J. holds a degree in Chemistry, is an intern at the R&D division of a pharmaceutical manufacturing company, and lives with girlfriend Deidre, a magazine editor.

Book preview

Chapter One

Day Zero

WHEN CAROL WREN woke up at five in the morning for her two-mile run, she hadn't expected that the day would be any different from the others she normally experienced.

As a gym teacher in Bristol Area Middle School in Bristol, Pennsylvania, she knew all about school shootings, Amber Alerts and anything else that ensured children received a good education. Of all the teachers at the school, she had received the most training in what was euphemistically called assault management.

This, Carol thought as she slid her shoes on, was just a clever way for petty politicians to describe the unnatural fixation some people seemed to have with ruining the lives of children who had never done anyone harm.

Well, Carol thought to herself with a grin, mostly never.

Kenneth Yardrow, a child in one of her morning gym classes, might be the exception to the rule.

Yesterday, he had been caught writing colorful monosyllabic words on the school lockers prior to homeroom. Even after he'd been scolded by the school's vice-principal, John Hoover, Kenneth had just sat in the chair smiling as though he didn't have a care in the world.

Kenneth always chose to sit out gym class, declaring it a waste of time. Rather than provoke an argument, which usually inspired him to commit yet another prank, Carol let Kenneth have his way. She knew that wouldn't go on much longer, yet she couldn't think of a thing that would resolve the solution.

No matter how much the school tried to reform him, Kenneth always did what he wanted.

That, she thought as she tied her brown hair back into a ponytail, might be the whole problem with the school system, not just in Bristol but everywhere.

She couldn't think of a way to solve it, much less explain the necessary changes that wouldn't cause the administrators to frown at her and shake their heads as if to say, she's only a woman. They didn't dare say that these days, at least not since Wanda Tanner, the school nurse, had filed suit against the district after a seventh-grade history teacher had harassed her.

There were some days that Carol wanted to be rid of the entire bloody system that didn't seem to care about anything other than test scores and corporate profits.

This, she decided, was one of those days.

Stepping out her front door, she observed that the rain had come and gone the previous night.

The pre-dawn air had a cool, moist taste to it. It reminded Carol of the days she had spent as a child in rural North Carolina. The sky overhead remained dark, with a bare hint of light that would soon creep over the horizon. A silver crescent moon hung in the sky, obscured at times by gray clouds. The stars shone particularly bright that morning, the light from millions of years ago from another part of the galaxy only now just arriving.

All of it provided illumination to light Carol's way.

THE FIRST STEP'S both the easiest and the hardest.

She had been told this by her personal trainer after spending seven months rehabbing a knee injury. Her commitment to take the first step-figuratively and literally-always proved to be half the battle required for physical exertion. Once taken, the first step invariably led to another, and then countless more, all originating from that initial single step.

While this morning felt no different than any other, in the back of her mind remained the sheer agony that had come with twisting her knee out of place.

All it had taken was one errant misstep straight down into an abandoned groundhog's hole. Caught in mid-stride, her leg suddenly wrenched, tearing tendon inside her knee.

She hadn't screamed, at least not until she pulled her leg out.

There, grotesquely attached to her hip, protruded a limb that she didn't recognize.

Never before had she seen anything as twisted to the side as her leg had been.

She had always wondered in the back of her mind if this would happen, despite the precautions taken. She had always stretched appropriately during her pre-run warm-ups and knew the route she ran by heart. She even made sure to stay on the road's concrete shoulder.

THE FEAR THAT came with the recollection of her injury dissipated when she took the first stride leading out of her driveway and onto the country back road that lay parallel to her property.

Before long, she found herself running along the road, her sneakers pounding the ground in a soft, steady cadence that was reassuring.

Both knees felt the same that morning, and for this, Carol felt grateful. Her knee ached most of the time. Other times, it throbbed just enough to be a bother. Her doctor had told her that her running days might have to end soon, but she didn't believe him.

One step, and then another.

A short time passed before her breathing became heavy.

She remembered the lesson she'd learned in the Air Force, taught to her by a mean-spirited man with wide, thin metal glasses. Mind over matter, he'd said. A person could force themselves to breathe normally if they focused. Oxygen would reach the muscles, staving off cramps.

She only had to focus upon it.

She concentrated now, running down the side of the road.

One breath in, one breath out.

Her feet moved without her thinking about it.

Before long, the running came easier.

After her eyes adjusted to the dark, she saw the usual sights along the road.

The painted white line marking off where the shoulder began diverted in a half-circle around some obstacle the road-painting machine had encountered where it had last painted. Water dripped from the leaves of trees on either side of the road. Birds called out their warbling songs here and there. A few of them flew across the road.

A brown squirrel ran across the gray asphalt, stopping at the double yellow line. He stood on his hind legs, intently watching Carol approaching. In his small hands he clutched an acorn that looked far too large to eat. Carol smiled.

FURTHER UP THE road, a grungy-looking Frank Charles plodded out to his mailbox on the side of the street in a blue bathrobe, his tangled hair appearing as if someone had held a magnet over his head. He ambled along in sopping-wet blue slippers, oblivious to his surroundings.

Opening the mailbox and sticking an arm inside, he came away with a hunk of mail that he held to his chest as he plodded back towards the house.

Carol didn't speak to Frank, nor Frank to Carol. She could count on one hand the number of times either of them had so much as even looked at one another. It had been that way as far back as she could recall. They ignored each other, for that was how things were in Bristol. Neighbors rarely bothered each other, except to utter a brief hello or to ask a favor.

Since Frank had never asked Carol for anything, Carol often had the sense that she ought to move somewhere different, back to North Carolina, perhaps.

The awkward silence that passed between them as Carol ran past only reinforced this idea.

Before she knew it, she reached the halfway point of her run. A pothole in the shoulder marked off exactly one mile away from her house. A puddle of dark water had pooled up in it, rendering it deceptively shallow. Carol knew better.

She turned around, running back the way she came. By this time, she felt as though she could run for a good long while.

Nothing in her body hurt.

Her breathing came free and easy.

Her opinion of the day gradually changed.

She felt it might be a good day after all.

If anyone had told her just then that two students would be kidnapped in the most bizarre way possible, she wouldn't have believed them.

So occupied was she with her morning run that she didn't notice the man sitting on the front porch of the abandoned property across from her own, staring at her.

Chapter Two

WORMS CRAWLED ABOUT on the paved recreational area behind Bristol Area Middle School. The chilly April rain had come around four in the morning, but had tapered off around seven, leaving a dense fog in its wake. As the sun rose, the fog dissipated. The ground, still wet, brought all the writhing pink crawlers forth, fresh from the loam that protected them from the usual predators. Some had been eaten by birds braving the weather. Some would perish on the pavement, separated from their place of sustenance by what, to them, proved to be a considerable distance.

As the morning's gym class assembled to listen to their teacher's instructions, one particular worm caught the notice of Kenneth Yardrow, known to his friends as Kenny, and known to his enemies by a variety of unpleasant nicknames.

The worm didn't look any different than the others wriggling about at the edge of the grass. In fact, its similarity to the others was what had caught Kenneth's attention. He had earnestly expected to see some of varying length, perhaps of varying color, yet when he glanced about, they all seemed the same to him.

He knelt before the worm, extending one thin finger to poke at it. The worm felt slimy to his touch and curled up into a ball when he made contact.

From past experience, he knew the worm would stay that way for some time, at least until it thought a perceived danger had passed.

Kenneth thought about putting the worm in his pocket-he had done so before-yet the day had only just begun.

He didn't want a repeat of last time when he'd forgotten about the worm he'd collected. He'd discovered that one squashed to juicy bits in his pocket when he'd put a hand in there.

He could think of only one thing to do.

He picked up the worm with two fingers and threw it, under-handed, back into the grass. He didn't know if a worm could survive such a throw, yet he hoped it did.

Mr. Yardrow, care to join us this morning?

The gym teacher had asked this question amidst silence, which to Kenneth meant that he'd been asked a previous question, one he hadn't heard.

Three girls standing together giggled at him.

The gym teacher, a thin, wispy woman known to Kenneth as Mrs. Wren, scowled at him. In her wrinkled right hand, she held an old wooden tennis racket with white tape about the neck. She'd judged the morning weather warm enough for all the students to go outside in their tight white t-shirts and loose green shorts, yet she herself had opted to wear a white windbreaker jacket with gray sweat pants and green sneakers. Her salt-and-pepper graying hair swayed in the morning breeze. Beside her sat a plastic barrel full of plastic tennis rackets. Another barrel, unopened, contained frayed white shuttlecocks.

The class was set to play badminton, as they had done the previous day.

Kenneth turned away from his study of the worms. He glanced at his teacher before looking down at the ground. All right. He sighed.

Good. Then let's start. You all remember the rules, right? We're short one net today, so you'll have to split into teams of three. Let's see, there are thirteen of you, so one person will have to be a substitute.

Kenneth, already knowing where this was going, sat down on the damp ground. The rest of the class, understanding all too well, pulled out rackets and shuttlecocks. Before long, the sounds of children playing badminton could be heard throughout the courtyard.

Kenneth noticed that one team only had two players. A tall girl with thick glasses had paired up with a boy who had yellow sweat stains decorating his armpits. The boy's left shoe was untied. The girl's hair appeared not to have been washed recently.

The student who was supposed to be their partner, a thin girl with a hole in the top of her sneaker, sat down next to Kenneth. Kenneth huffed.

I don't want to do this either, the girl said.

Mrs. Wren, occupied with demonstrating the finer points of serving to a group of three, hadn't noticed her. The girl swiveled her head towards Kenneth. I'm Savannah. You're Kenneth, right?

Only when I'm awake, Kenneth said.

Savannah pulled at one of her two pigtails, frowning. I don't get it, she said.

It'supposed to be a joke. You know, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? They both transform when they sleep by the dark of a new moon.

What, both of them? Savannah studied Kenneth's face intently, trying to discover if he was lying. Who do they transform into?

They change into each other. They're like, what do you call it, alter egos. They're two people sharing the same body. You know what I mean? When I sleep, I turn into somebody else.

I don't believe you. You're not a werewolf, Savannah said.

A short girl whose ponytail had come halfway undone took a clumsy swat at a shuttlecock. So close was she to the net that the object struck it, bounced off and dinked her on the forehead. She dropped her racket, falling to her knees, tears coming to her eyes as she began wailing. Mrs. Wren, having seen such episodes before, did not hurry to remedy the situation. The game continued in spite of the girl's crying.

Like that, see? Like how Sarah there can turn on a dime into a weepy mess, Kenneth said, pointing.

You don't turn on a dime. That's too small to turn anything on. Anyway, she's always like that. One time, in sewing class, she dropped her needle onto her shoe. She didn't even cut herself, but there she went. Stupid Sue, we all call her. Always crying about everything. That's not like sleeping in the presence of a new moon.

"Meh, you don't understand anyway. Why am I even talking to you?"

Savannah grumbled, I'm the one who started talking to you.

Why'd you do that?

Oh, I don't know. Maybe I thought I could stop you from being such a smelly face. I can see that I was wrong about that.

If I have a smelly face, then you have a smelly butt.

If I have a smelly butt, then you have a smelly belly button.

How would you know that?

Savannah said, "It's obvious, isn't it? Everything about you is smelly, even your belly button."

"What would you know? You're just a girl."

Savannah, who had heard this statement many times before, got up and joined the team she had left. By this time, Sue's crying, with the teacher's consolation, had subsided into sniffling sobs. Kenneth crossed his arms over his chest.

Play all you want. See if I care, he said.

AFTERNOON CAME THE same way it always did for Kenneth. The day drew to a close while he sat at his homeroom desk, waiting to hear his bus announced as being ready for departure.

He was only one of two students in his class who rode the number seventy-four bus, along with Savannah. The thought of sharing a bus with her made Kenneth remember everything she'd said during gym class.

They hadn't spoken to each other all day, even during lunch when they stood next to each other in line to get french fries. He decided that when his bus number was called, he'd be the first one to board so he could sit as far back as he wanted. Savannah always sat in the front seat next to the door.

Kenneth found himself doodling on a piece of scrap paper when bus number fourteen was called over the PA system.

Fourteen had always been called after seventy-four. He probably missed hearing his number, but if he had, Savannah, sitting on the other side of the room, also missed it as well. Kenneth had never known her to be absent-minded about anything, particularly when it came to leaving school for the day. She never hesitated to leave, unlike Sue, who sniffled every time it was time to go home.

Kenneth glanced over at his homeroom teacher to see if anything might be amiss.

Mr. Dunkelson sat behind his desk, grading papers as he always did at the end of the day. If he had observed anything unusual, he hadn't thought it significant enough to look up from the motion of his red pen upon white paper. By this time of day, stubble had started growing on his face so that his normally open, smiling mug looked older than usual.

He reached with an index finger to push his glasses further up his nose. He seemed not in the least perturbed, not from where Kenneth sat.

Bus number thirty-three was called.

Kenneth's foot tapped against the floor.

He resisted the urge to bite his fingernails, a habit which had drawn the ire of his mother one too many times for his liking.

Only two more buses to go.

Seventy-four might be late, but surely not this late.

Eighty-three and forty-one were called.

Kenneth found himself sitting alone in the classroom with Mr. Dunkelson and Savannah.

To Kenneth's surprise, his teacher appeared drowsy.

Dunkelson's head drooped while his eyes, half-closed, failed to observe that he had scribbled red marks on the surface of his desk instead of on a test. Shortly thereafter, he fell asleep.

That was when everything changed.

Chapter Three

A COLUMN OF air shimmered in front of Mr. Dunkelson's desk and bent in upon itself, as though from a nearby source of heat.

Kenneth had no other way to describe the phenomenon he observed.

It split vertically down the middle, like he'd seen on that Charlton Heston movie they put on television every Easter. In the movie, Heston had raised up his staff, and the sea had split apart so the Israelites could escape the pharaoh's chariots.

Now, the very air in front of Kenneth was doing the same thing.

A vertical blackness opened up, a blackness so complete that Kenneth thought no light could ever penetrate it.

A faint whirring sound echoed throughout the room.

Kenneth saw Savannah put her hands over her ears.

He wondered where the sound was coming from.

Then, he noticed a pencil suspended in mid-air next to his leg.

He'd knocked his pencil off his desk, yet it hadn't completed its fall. The pencil pointed upward, stuck in mid-air as though encased in glass.

Kenneth reached out a hand to grab it. The closer his hand got to the pencil, the more resistance he felt.

It reminded him of the time in science class when the teacher had him work with magnets. He had tried to nudge both north poles together, but no matter how hard he tried, they would slide away from each other of their own accord.

He thought of this as his hand slid off to the side, as though an invisible force prevented him from grabbing his pencil.

He tried standing up.

Before his knees could strike the underside of the desk, the resistance made itself felt again.

His whole body slid off abruptly to the left.

He struck the carpet, backside-first.

Kenneth blinked in surprise.

He hadn't expected that to happen.

He stood up, trying to get his bearings.

His feet felt unusually heavy.

The yawning chasm in front of Mr. Dunkelson's desk had grown wider.

Kenneth saw Savannah laying on the floor, curled into a ball.

All thoughts of the names she'd called him during gym class vanished from his head.

Trying not to touch anything, Kenneth staggered along slowly, awkwardly in front of the row of desks, struggling to maintain his balance, grunting mightily as he fought to walk across the room, something he had done countless times before, no more than ten, maybe twelve steps at most, but had never given much thought to until now.

What the hell's happening?

He passed the chasm.

He thought he heard a voice, though whatever sound registered in his ears had been so faint that he couldn't make out what had been said.

Had Mr. Dunkelson said something?

No, he remained sleeping at his desk, even as the whirring noise frantically increased in pitch.

Kenneth reached Savannah.

An angry purple bruise lay on her arm.

Kenneth looked down and saw that similar blotches had developed on his knees.

He hadn't noticed the pain until he looked down.

The throbbing suddenly made itself known.

Pain pulsated in his knees, nearly causing him to collapse.

He wondered if this was how magnets felt when they were forced towards together.

If so, he regretted all the time he'd spent in the classroom pushing metal objects with the same magnetic charge together.

Savannah, still curled in a fetal position, seemed not to notice him. Yet when Kenneth's fingers touched the bruise on her arm, he didn't feel the same force repelling him away.

Amidst the increasing chaos of the classroom, Kenneth had time to consider that he must not be repelled from Savannah because they must have opposite magnetic charges.

Why that should matter now when it never mattered before, he didn't know.

The black space widened until Kenneth saw it for what it was-a doorway.

He had seen such things on television before, though he hadn't ever expected a man to walk through.

Yet a man did walk through.

The man wore a spacesuit so cumbersome that he had to lift one foot up to the height of his shin before he planted it back down. The spacesuit, made completely out of metal, bore markings Kenneth didn't recognize.

By now, the whirring sound had increased so much that the desks were vibrating. Kenneth felt the sensations in his feet. Even so, each step Spacesuit took rang loud above the din. Every plodding footstep made produced a crash which left an indentation upon the tile floor. Debris sprang up in the air, slowed, then stopped before they could touch the ground. As a result, by the time the man reached Kenneth, he'd left a trail behind in midair to mark his passage.

Kenneth tried to speak.

He heard the words inside his head, yet all the noise around him drowned out all sound.

Spacesuit touched Kenneth on the shoulder with one hand.

Kenneth felt something puncture his skin.

Without warning, he felt his consciousness drifting away from him.

He struggled to stay awake even while his head drooped.

He had time enough to register Spacesuit touching Savannah on the back.

He wanted to shout a protest.

Instead, he crumpled to the ground.

THE AFTERNOON had become unseasonably hot.

Carol Wren had sweat her way through the afternoon gym classes, thankful at least that she didn't have to be reminded of Kenneth Yardrow for the rest of the day.

As she changed out of her sweaty, sticky workout clothes in the faculty restroom, she felt a twinge in her knee.

She held her shirt above her head, stopping to consider what that might mean. Other than her morning run, she hadn't exerted herself too strenuously. Her day had consisted of walking around to make sure each student was able to play badminton or volleyball without injuring themselves.

Now, of all times, when she finally had a moment to herself, her knee had twinged.

That meant something, but she did not know what.

She heard from a distance a sound she wouldn't have expected to hear in a middle school.

A great roaring noise erupted from somewhere.

She had time enough to think that someone had torn a hole in the universe, except that idea surely had to be the product of a feverish, overworked mind that had seen too many science fiction movies.

She slid her t-shirt over her torso and bolted out of the restroom, heedless of the duffel bag she left beside the toilet.

Behind the roaring, she heard a crunching noise.

It sounded as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to a classroom floor.

She brushed shoulders with Iris Oulette, the eighth-grade science teacher, hardly noticing the other woman's astonished expression, nor her insistent pleas to do something for God's sake.

Carol herself didn't know what to do other than push open the door of Leonard Dunkelson's homeroom class.

She was suddenly in the presence of a figure in a heavy metallic suit walking forward towards a gaping, black nothingness.

The figure carried two children under each arm.

Upon seeing both children Carol's knee gave such a painful complaint that she wondered if the injury had finally come back with all its unrelenting ferocity.

She struggled to step forward.

Taking the first step wasn't as easy as she expected. She moved as though mired in molasses while reaching her hand to the girl dangling like a rag doll underneath a powerful silver arm.

If he even noticed Carol at all, the silver-clad phantom paid her no mind. Each step he took left a four-inch-deep indentation in the floor, pulverizing blue and white patterned tiles.

He stepped into the black space.

Harold Dunkelson slumped over sideways, crashing to the ground.

The figure passed through the portal just the black space closed in upon itself.

Carol toppled forward just as she had been about to reach it.

Her knee had given out on her.

At that moment, her brain spinning and her stomach churning up bile, she didn't feel that pain that would haunt her for weeks to come.

She didn't even feel her head strike the floor, or see the blood that was leaking out from somewhere.

She blinked her eyes once, twice, three times.

She knew enough to say she was awake and alive, but more than that, she could not have explained anything that had just happened.

Chapter Four

Day One

KENNETH AWOKE WITH a metallic taste in his mouth.

Upon opening his eyes, he saw five bright lights above him.

He squinted his eyes shut, putting an arm over them.

He groaned.

Someone had set him on a hard-packed bed similar in feel to stone that Kenneth felt sore all over. His mind whirled about, trying to recall what had happened to him.

He felt as though he'd been thrown around in so many ways that he had lost all sense of direction.

The number seventy-four stuck in his mind, though at first he couldn't remember why this should be significant.

Then he recalled that this had been his bus number.

My bus hadn't arrived, and...

Kenneth sat up.

Doing so set off alarms of pain throughout his body. He blinked open his eyes, trying to acclimate himself to the light. Bright red stars danced along his vision.

Kenneth saw that he still wore his school clothes, which had been a pair of jean shorts and a t-shirt with a superhero symbol on it. Two twin bruises decorated his knees. He remembered banging into the desk, though some part of him wanted to believe that all of it had been a dream. He did remember falling asleep in study hall, then being woken up by a teacher.

Through parched lips, he called out in a hoarse whisper, Savannah.

Someone must have heard him, for directly behind him a door opened.

He didn't