And tomorrow, the novel ends. It’s gonna be a big day! Most likely more than 5,000 words will be written ;)… and it’ll become very climaxy. Also, happy birthday to me! I’m a whole year older than I was yesterday – 19 years old! Soon I’ll need a cane.

Word Count: 115,372

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Graham’s head hurt. He couldn’t open his eyes; someone had locked them shut. Eye crust. He rubbed it off; how long had he been asleep for? He didn’t remember being on a bed. He rubbed more crust from his eyes, adjusted his vision. This wasn’t his bed. Nor was it his room, or any room he’d ever seen. Inside the room Ames and Curie also slept, quite soundly, and Graham rushed over to wake them up. Before making it to Ames’s bed, he paused and looked out the window. Autumn leaves fell upon a bright grass field. Through the field a concrete pathway split before rushing up to the entrances of several different brick buildings. I’m home, Graham thought, his misplaced sense of time remembering that it had been autumn on Earth before he’d left.

Ames woke up first, after a good shaking. “Morning, James,” she said, looking at the bright sun flooding through the window. “Where’s this?”

“Earth,” Graham said. “We need to wake up Adam.”

Together, the two happily shook Curie awake – he awoke rather frustrated, shooing them away, begging to let him sleep a little while long. “I mean, honestly, we travel in between worlds and there isn’t even time for a nap. Can’t a man have his rest sometime?”

“Not today,” Graham said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do if we’re going to help out those refugees. I suppose we need to figure out where on Earth we are, and where on Earth refugees are going.”

“This building doesn’t look like anything from a more advanced civilization,” Ames said, scoping out the brick room. On the desks in between each bed were kerosene lamps. The desks were made of a dark cherry-colored wood, the floors equally so. The frames for each bed sparkled golden brass. “It actually looks a lot like Talos. What gives?”

“Not every place on Earth is as advanced as you think,” Graham said. “It’s very diversified. We could be in a second world country or something. Let’s get out of this building and look around.”

The group opened the thick wooden monstrosity that was the door, and entered into a common room. Several men, about twenty years of age each, had gathered around a table in the center of the room and were playing cards. Light shimmered through the crystal-clear windows, and a fireplace burned bright, providing warmth to the room. One of the men looked directly and Graham and smiled, motioning for him to join.

“Ey, James, you finally decided to get your ass up! About time, too, we’re neck deep in our game. Care to join?” He held up a hand of five cards. “These are mine, but feel free to draw your own.”

“James, do you know that guy?” Ames said.

“Not at all, but apparently he knows me. Though I suppose he does seem a little familiar.” James walked up to the group and took a hand of five cards, then sat down, prepared to ask them all questions – but they never came up. Instead he became engrossed in their game of poker, as though he’d known these six people his entire life.

“I say if I win, James has to trade his single for my triple. He’s had it too good for too long in that cozy shack.” This was followed by a round of “Here, here!”, to which the next round of poker commenced. Graham, by the end, had lost his room – thought he wasn’t entirely sure what room it was he’d lost. He looked at the other six players; they must have lived in the other two rooms split off from the common room. But he didn’t live there – why would they call any of those his room? Puzzled and looking for answers, Graham continued to play poker, but once he’d won a single game the rest folded, and the game ceased.

“I have class now, anyway,” said the same man who’d invited Graham over to play with them. They walked into their separate rooms and grabbed bags full of books. Ames, frustrated with Graham’s lack of results, walked straight up to the man and shouted to him: “Where the heck is this place?”

He simply walked straight by her, ignoring her entirely. Within moments he and four others had left the room; only one remained, and he called to Graham to hurry up. “You’re not even dressed, and you have class with me. How can it be our senior year and you still haven’t gotten a grip on getting to class on time?” He laughed. “Put on your uniform and let’s go. Chemistry isn’t going to learn itself.”

Chemistry? Graham already knew chemistry; for what reason would he choose to relearn it? The thought that he had been performing reckless actions in his sleep and had made friends with six fellows several years younger than him frightened his already wary mind. But he knew now where he was: It sounded like the portal had taken him to a university somewhere. The people in the common room had clearly mistaken Graham for a similar classmate. Graham looked at his clothing – he was in his usual clothes, the ones given to him when he’d been placed in the fetch. Nothing was wrong, as far as he could see.

The trio exited the building, running down three flights of stairs and ending up in a large quad filled with grass of the same genus Graham had spotted earlier. It was, in fact, the same location Graham had seen out the window of the bedroom. In the center of a quad was a large sculpture, and students had dispersed themselves about the area to study in solitude. To their left, the brick walls surrounding the university broke open, revealing the outside world – its roads, its buildings, its factories and cars.

It certainly looked like Earth.

All of the students on the quad studying were male, hefting textbooks onto their laps and writing vigorously in notebooks. Each of them wore a stern navy blue uniform with a patch located upon the breast pocket depicting a crimson shield surrounded by a wreath of golden leaves. As Graham processed through the courtyard, the students took immediate notice to his lack of dress. “Going to class without a uniform again, Graham?” said one. “Make sure Professor Salathe doesn’t see you like that, or he’ll have your ass,” said another.

Graham wanted to turn and yell at the students to tell them he was not enrolled in this school, and they were mistaking him for someone else, but Ames held him back and told him to ignore their childish remarks. The statue, now to his left, caught his eye – a piece of abstract art made of shining brass depicting, well, he wasn’t quite sure what. But the base of the sculpture contained the same emblem embossed upon the students’ uniforms. He ran up to the sculpture and examined it – the piece was by Henry Moore, apparently recently donated. The emblem on the base was the same crimson shield surrounded by gold wreath. Within the shield were three syllables – “VE” “RI” “TAS” – each enclosed inside of a small book-like icon. At the bottom of the emblem was the proudly inscribed word, “HARVARD.”

“That’s impossible.”

“What is?” Ames said.

“I know where we are, but this isn’t that place. I mean, this is not what Harvard University looks like. Not the Harvard I’ve seen. Oh, I should explain – Harvard is a prestigious university on Earth. I’m sure you must have similar institutions on Talos, Jess?”

“Yes, we do. But this is much grander than anything I’ve seen. This looks like too much room to learn in; do people site twenty feet apart?” she said jokingly.

“Not at all; it’s got decent enrollment, but it’s hardly the largest school out there. My father was a Harvard graduate, but I was not – I went a different path. He always wanted me to go here; I’ve visited several times, and I probably would have been accepted if I’d applied, but as I said, it wasn’t for me. But this doesn’t look anything like the Harvard University I know.”

“Perhaps we should leave. I see the exit over there. If we’re at Harvard, that’s not too far off from our homes,” Curie said. “We could probably hitch a ride south and unload at your house, rest for a bit, and then get to work.”

Curie led the way to the exit, but their trip didn’t last long. Graham felt his head as they approached the Harvard gates; it was beginning to hurt. Every step closer became a throbbing pain. Only a few feet away from the exit, Graham collapsed, yelping in pain – he could not go further. Outside cars rushed by, along with their chances of leaving. “Take me back!” Graham screamed, not paying attention to his own words. “Take me back now!” Ames and Curie grabbed a hold of him and dragged his kicking body back into the campus. His headache immediately subsided. When all was said and done, the only phrase anybody could utter was, “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” said Graham, “but we’ve got to get through those gates. I don’t care about the headaches, I’m sure it was coincidence.” But when he dashed toward the gates again, the pain returned, and Ames had to once again drag his body back deeper into the Harvard campus. It was impossible for them to leave unless Graham could overcome the pain – which seemed equally impossible on its own. Yet Graham felt fine inside the campus. He stared outside into the roads and watched the cars go by.

Those cars…

He watched them for a second longer. Their curved, open black bodies. The obviously rich men driving them. Their primitive steering wheel, which jutted out from the floor of the vehicle, ending awkwardly in those rich men’s hands as their feet worked odd controls on the floor. Their wheels, thin and unstable, wobbling around on the road, which was only barely paved.

Where am I?

He looked around at the quad – Harvard Yard, it must have been. His head pains were returning, even though he was nowhere near the exit. He demanded at once that the group return to the dormitory. Classes were ending; he expected he would find his dorm mates huddled around their card game once again. Of course, what he expected was very far from the truth; the entire world was a farfetched mystery. Taking a last look at Henry Moore’s sculpture, he began pacing towards the dormitory.

But it was impossible to enter without the proper key. Unconsciously, Graham reached into his left pocket and yanked out a steel key, stuck it in the lock and opened the door. Graham now stood with the key in hand, the door open before him, completely bewildered. Had the key always been in his pocket? Yes, it had. He carried it everywhere he went. Then, was this where he lived? Yes – he was a student at Harvard University; Room 308b was his bedroom; his dorm mates lived in 308a and c. A single. Nobody lived with him.

Except Ames and Curie.

He held his head again – the pulsating pains were returning. He screamed, yet the entire campus was able to ignore his plea for help. Curie and Ames huddled around him, blocking him from public view while frantically attempting to stand him up and help him up the stairs. But soon there were no stairs, and the entire world faded away in a white blur – the world changed.

When the pain subsided, Graham’s eyes opened and took in the scenery of a hallway lit with spheres of light that reminded of Cydia. Graham spun around, looking every which way for signs of Curie and Ames, and found them right behind him, standing in a trace, unsure of what had just occurred. The hallway was lined with doors, and behind them was a door leading to a staircase. Graham looked at Ames worriedly; they were clearly not on Earth. Graham rubbed his head again, hoping the room was a hallucination; it was not. He touched the cold metallic walls. They, too, were real – as real as Harvard University had been minutes ago.

Graham ventured forth through the hallway, looking for nothing but a portal to Earth. Curie and Ames simply looked at him as he maniacally rummaged through every room in the hall, until finding something: a corpus clock. But nothing else. Was this Cydia? The metallic walls spoke of Cydia, as did the lights, but the corpus clock was a technology found only on Talos. Or perhaps it was indeed Earth, but a building constructed by refugees as a home away from home.

Ames ran up to Graham. “I don’t know what’s going on, but panicking isn’t going to help. Our first priority should be to get out of this building, wherever it is, whatever world it’s in. Let’s go.”

Graham nodded and walked back to the other side of the hallways, where Curie stood waiting. Graham looked intently at the man, hoping that he was hiding one last tidbit of information from him – that he knew precisely what was happening and could explain it all in a few simple words. But Curie shook his head no, reading Graham’s thoughts. He didn’t know anything, either. And when Graham’s head began to hurt once again, Ames and Curie began screaming, “It’s happening again!”

Graham knelt down on the ground, clutching his head, holding onto it for dear life, until the world once again phased out of view. When the world returned to his vision, his six dorm mates once more surrounded him. He was back in the dormitory; Ames and Curie were behind him, acting as onlookers. Graham turned his head to Ames, but received a swift reprimanding from the same student that had invited him to play cards that morning – or had it been afternoon? Graham shook his head; that wasn’t important.

“Graham, stop spacing out. We need you here to discuss the plans.” The student hefted a large device onto the table, and the rest of the group let out long sighs of praise and disbelief. “This,” he told the group, “is a mysterious device from another world. About a week ago, I started having strange dreams, and in one of those dreams a bodiless man handed me this weird thing,” he pointed to the odd device sitting on the table, “and told me I could do anything in the world with it.”

“Bullshit,” said another student. “You’re always full of it, Ford.”

Ford laughed. “Perhaps I am usually, but not this time! I promise all of you that this technology is one hundred percent alien. I mean, look at it! I wouldn’t even know how to get inside the thing.” He pounded on it with his fist. “I’ll bet it can do something incredible.”

He hit it again. The fans inside of the device whirred, cooling the machine. Several display lights glowed blue; Graham was reminded of the mu guns, of the lights, of everything on Cydia – the faint blue glow that defined a world. “And how might you use it?” said another student from across the table. “Tell me, I’m curious.”

“Hell if I know. I’m sure there must be a button or lever somewhere, if we look at it enough. We’re nearly graduate students, we should be able to figure this out on our own.”

“You’re probably better off contacting whoever gave that box to you. I suggest the local dump. They might have some information,” the lad said, chuckling and smirking at Ford. “James, why aren’t you laughing at him with me? We should be laughing together!”

Graham snapped back into reality. “I’m sorry, I suppose I didn’t find it very funny.”

“You know, you’re acting odd today, James. You woke up late, you didn’t go to class, and I could have sworn I saw you talking to yourself earlier. Are you alright?”

“Perhaps it’s related to whatever Ford’s got there,” Graham said, and forced out a laugh to please the incessant student.

“Absolutely, it must be. Ford, put that thing away – it’s almost dinnertime anyway. We’re all off to the dining hall, yes? We should get going.”

“I’m going to stay behind tonight, fellows. I’d like to examine my device a bit more. Perhaps I can do what you said, Davy, and contact the man who gave this to me. Although I would have no clue how.” Davy laughed. “Stop laughing! This is a serious endeavor. I will discover the giver of this device, just you wait and see!”

“I’m going to stay behind as well,” Graham said to the rest of the students. “I’d like to keep en eye on Ford and see what he’s going to do. I’m interested.” At this, the other students sent him queer looks. “The lad is so crazy, he might jump out his window. You don’t want a scene going on just outside of our dormitory, do you?” At this, everyone agreed, and Ford was left behind with Graham so the two could skip dinner and investigate the device together.

“Why would you stay behind? You’re a bloody moron, Graham. You don’t even believe anything I said about this box.”

“No, I don’t,” Graham said, “but I believe that something else close to you might have some significance. I felt the need to stick around and confirm my theories. Please, do as you were, I need to go prepare something in my room. Take that thing into your room and I’ll come in a moment.”

Graham walked into his room, beckoning Ames and Curie to come with him. “You know what’s going on?” Ames said, sitting down on one of the beds.

“No, but I have a hunch, and even still it doesn’t explain anything. But I want to see what that kid is going to do with that box. It looks Cydian, doesn’t it? If he’s going to figure out how to use it, and it happens to be a Cydian weapon, he could do some serious damage.”

“I’ve never seen a weapon like that,” Curie said. “Hell, I’ve never seen anything like that on all of Cydia. As far as I can say, it’s a completely foreign device – it’s not from Earth or Cydia.”

“It could be from Talos,” Ames said. “Though I’ve never seen anything like it either, and it doesn’t look Talosian.”

“So it’s a device from nowhere. All the more reason to see what the kid is going to do with it, and how he’ll learn how to use it. I’m going to go over there and see what he’s doing.”

“Graham, wait. Before, when you were talking to those students, you didn’t notice anything odd about them?”

“They seemed like normal undergrads to me.”

“They thought you were an undergraduate as well. And, this is more apparent to Curie and I than it is to you, but they didn’t seem to notice us standing right there in the room. Heck, we were speaking with each other, and nobody heard us. Not a word. Graham, there’s something wrong with this place; I’m worried about you. You’re the only one they seem to be able to hear.”

“Nonsense, I’m sure they just thought you were my friends and were being respectful. They clearly think I’m somebody else, and since I can’t leave this place I’ll have to play the part until I can. Now, let’s go see what Ford over there is doing with his box.”