Chapter 22: What caused it.

Oct. 1st, 2015

Rick sat there on the floor in the dark, listening to Cadi’s soft breathing as she lay in his lap. He had cried it all out, and now he was sitting there thinking of what to do now. As he sat there, he suddenly heard something. Confused, he slowly lifted Cadi out of his lap so he could move around, and then crawled towards the bathroom, where he heard the sound.

He paused for only a moment, and then flicked on the light in the bathroom. This is when he realized that the sound was coming from a vent underneath the sink.

“I don’t know Harry… some of these materials we need are going to be hard to get simply for the fact that we are well known fugitives. Didn’t you see the news? We’re all over the country! We can’t go anywhere!”

“But I think a break is needed. At least-.”

“It’s a bad idea Harry. We need to stay in and get this done as soon as possible.”

It was a conversation between Harry and Emille. Did this vent connect to their bedroom? Rick got closer so he could hear better.

“Well, what would you want to do if we wanted to… you know… get… married?”

“What?”

“I know we’ve been together a long time, and… I would like to eventually get to the next step.”

“Wait-are you-are you-.”

“Well, I guess if we can’t go anywhere, I might as well stop waiting and do it now. Emille-will you marry me?”

Rick flinched as there was a squeal that erupted out of the vent as Emille said yes. At this point, he decided that it was pointless to listen in anymore. They didn’t have any useful information at the moment, and he didn’t like to think of them as normal people.

He began to wonder if something like marriage would be something he would ever get to consider.

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The next several days, there was a lot of arguing between Harry and West. Emille simply seemed to be in la la land, having just been proposed to, but that did not do anything to help with the gruelling “training” that Rick and Cadi were being put through.

Rick could still only barely pause time, and every time it would still put him out of commission for the rest of the day. Not to mention that whenever they would put Cadi through any type of hard training, Rick would feel some of those connection pains. West highly disagreed with the tactics being used, and every time Harry would mention that if they didn’t hurry that people (like him) could die. At that point, Mr. Johnston would always mumble in defeat and help with whatever was needed next.

At some point, Cadi stopped talking and fighting back as much, and Rick could feel his blood slowly coming to a boil as the days continued on. Every day, he fought the urge to swear or fight simply because he didn’t want anything bad to happen again.

Then, one day, Cadi became extremely quiet. Her older brother regarded her with concern as they sat at the table with a couple of sandwiches.

“What’s wrong Cadi?” he asked quietly, eyeing the weird circular machine that was slowly coming together in the living room.

“I’m just feeling homesick…” she mumbled, poking her sandwich. “I miss Mommy and Daddy.”

Rick gave her a good long look and then looked up at the scientists and teacher who were also eating their sandwiches. He swallowed and coughed, wondering how to bring this up.

“Um… Hey… uh…” he started nervously. The three adults looked up at him. He took a deep breath.

“Can- can we please just-maybe talk to to our parents? Call them? Let them know we’re ok? They’re probably really… worried about us…”

Cadi hardly dared to get her hopes up at this, but she couldn’t help but feel her stomach churn and her heart jump up into her throat. The thought of possibly talking to her parents was almost too much to bear. She bit her lip and wrung her hands underneath the table, waiting to hear what the response would be.

West looked at the two kids and then looked over to his friends.

“Maybe-.”

“No.”

“But Harry-.”

“No.”

Cadi felt her eyes fill with tears.

“What’s your freaking problem?!” Rick growled. “Can’t you tell she’s homesick?”

Harry set down his sandwich and glared at him.

“You think I’m stupid Rick? If we let you two call your parents they could somehow track us here.”

“Well maybe I could call them from my phone and at least tell them-.” West began.

“I said NO.”

A tense silence followed, and Rick felt his hands clench into fists.

“Now finish your sandwiches. We need to start to run some tests with the parts we have.”

“No.” Rick said, standing up.

Harry turned to the teenager, looking aggravated.

“You don’t have any say in this. Now sit down and do as I say.”

“You’re a horrible person. You know that right?”

“Rick-shut up and sit down!” Emille seethed.

“It’s not like you really have any say in anything anyways-all you do is follow your girlfriend’s orders!”

“That’s enough!” Harry yelled, standing up and glaring at him from across the table.

“I’m sick of this!!” Rick screamed, overturning the table. Unfortunately, this caused Emille’s laptop to fall to the ground, cracking the screen and breaking open the keyboard. Harry’s drink also spilled all over his shirt. Cadi shrank back as the adult seemed about ready to pop a vein.

“Now Harry, Rick, please calm down…” West said in an attempt to diffuse the situation.

“You’re not helping!” Rick yelled at him, shaking with fury.

“Harry-it’s ok-we’ll just have the girl fix it.” Emille said softly.

“Cadi’s not fixing anything for you two-you-you-.”

Rick was trying to decide what swear word to use when he lost it. He looked around and grabbed a part of machinery. He had no idea what it was used for, but he knew it was perfect for throwing at people he hated. With an angry yell, he threw it at Harry, who was only able to barely dodge it before it hit him in the head. He went to pick up something else, but Harry was soon on top of him. Rick struggled, and then grabbed a bottle and smashed it over the man’s head.

“Stop it you little-.” Harry seethed, slapping the boy across the face. Rick kneed him in the stomach and rolled away, looking for anything else to grab. He could see another piece of machinery in the middle of being assembled, and he reached for it…

Suddenly, he halted as a sharp pain lodged itself into his head. He gasped and fell to his hands and knees, wincing. He put a hand to his head and looked up to see that Emille was standing there with the remote to the little powers that he had.

“I think you need to be punished.” she scowled. Then she pointed the remote at a little plant they had on the counter.

Rick screamed and clutched his head, hunching over as she tried to make him fast forward time on the plant.

“Emille! Stop!!” West yelled, lurching forward. Harry held him back.

Amidst all the tests, they had found that Cadi had extreme difficulty with any type of living things, while Rick could barely pause time. And now here they were, getting Rick to do it. The teenager could feel blood dripping out of his nose, and his vision started to go fuzzy. He tried to look up again, and instantly, Cadi screamed.

“YOU’RE KILLING HIM!!! STOP!!” she yelled, running to her brother.

Blood was starting to drip from his eyes, which were becoming unfocused.

“EMILLE! STOP!!!” West begged.

“RIIICK!!!” Cadi screamed, sobbing and clutching his arm.

The lights started to flicker.

Rick finally collapsed to the ground with a groan, a pool of blood starting to form around his face from his nosebleed.

“NOOO!!!”

The lights flickered again, and the three adults looked around uneasily as Cadi hugged her older brother. Wind blew open the windows, causing papers to fly everywhere.

“C-Cadi…” Rick gurgled, coughing up a little blood and trying to reach out his hand to her. Then, his arm went limp and his eyes closed.

The lights flickered even more, causing some of them to pop as things started to go crazy. The wind rushed around them, and Emille dropped the remote in fear.

It was all coming from Cadi.

“What’s happening?!” Emille asked over the roar of the wind.

“I don’t know!!”

“Cadi! Emille stopped! You need to calm down!!” West yelled.

Cadi had her head buried in her brother’s side. Rick was not moving.

The three adults watched in horror as the sandwiches they had been eating moments before fast forwarded through time, turning green with mold and shriveling up like old prunes. But they weren’t the only things.

In fact, several things around the room seemed to be fast forwarding through time.

“CADI!!”

The wind picked up even more, and the adults struggled to hold their ground. West put his arms up in front of his face as protection as things flew around the room. He struggled forward until he was standing close enough to reach out to her.

“CADI--.”

He put a hand on her shoulder, and immediately the wind died down and everything that was flying through the air dropped to the ground. Cadi looked up at him with tears in her eyes.

“M-Mr. Johnston-is-is Rick-is-my brother-.”

West held his breath and picked up the boy’s wrist to feel for a pulse. Then he bent down to listen for a heartbeat.

“He’s alive Cadi. But we need to get him to a hospital. He’s faint.”

He looked up at Harry and Emille, who looked very disheveled at the moment. The lights had all gone out now, and even with flicking the switch on and off, they were still in darkness, only illuminated by the soft glow of the moon from the open windows. Emille wiped her finger across the counter, making a clean trail in a thick layer of dust.

“What-just happened?” she asked as Harry bent down to pick up his laptop. Amazingly, it turned on, and when it did, he simply stared at the screen.

“This-this can’t be right.” he whispered.

“What is it?”

“The-the date on my laptop changed.”

Emille and West had to take a moment for this to sink in.

“Harry-what’s the date?” his fiance asked slowly.

“March 12th.”

“Did-did Cadi just-send us a few months into the future?” West squeaked. Harry slowly shook his head, turning his computer around to show them the date.

“It’s March 12th, 2017. It hasn’t just been a few months…

...It’s been a year and a half.”